Andrew C. McCarthy explains it about as well as anyone has thus far: It's Not the Prison, It's the Prisoners
Among our illustrious allies in the War on Terror, Yemen ranks right up there with Pakistan, whose government just released nuke-peddler A. Q. Kahn from house arrest. Yemen’s government says it is preparing a major combat operation to drain one of the many swamps where jihad festers. So what preparations is it making? Massing troops? Infiltrating terrorist strongholds to identify top targets? No, Yemen’s approach is a little different: They’re releasing al-Qaeda operatives from prison—more than 170 of them.
It’s a development worth remembering as the Obama administration continues its hand-wringing over the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, where 245 enemy combatants, including 21 charged with war crimes, are being held. . . . .
The moral of the story is reiterated with each new report of released terrorists returning promptly to terror, as they reliably do: If we didn’t already have Gitmo, we’d have to invent it. There really is a war going on out there. President Obama admitted as much in his inaugural address, to the unspoken dismay, no doubt, of his most ardent supporters. We cannot rely very much on other countries to protect our national security.
It has never been possible, nor thought possible, to win a war in court. There are simply too many jihadists, with the vast majority operating outside the jurisdiction of our laws. When we are fortunate enough to nab one, that usually happens under fog-of-war conditions not conducive to Miranda warnings, police evidence-collection protocols, and the like. And it bears keeping in mind that the purpose of an American trial is to force the government to meet a very high burden of proof in a system developed for the benefit of American citizens enjoying the presumption of innocence. That is why we say we would prefer to see the government fail—i.e., prefer to see the guilty go free—than to see an innocent person wrongly convicted.
War is different. A war is fought—meaning that people are killed and prisoners taken—in order to achieve vital national objectives, particularly the protection of American lives. In that context, we cannot prefer to see the government fail. We need the government to prevail, or our lives and the rights we cherish are in jeopardy. That doesn’t mean the enemy doesn’t get due process, particularly if we decide to put some of them on trial for war crimes rather than simply detaining them for the duration of the conflict. There is, however, a reason it is called due process, rather than, say, trial process. We owe only the process that is due in the particular circumstances. War and peace are not the same circumstance. The process due Americans accused of crimes in civilian courts is not the same as the process due foreign combatants and terrorists captured during military operations.
While 245 prisoners remain at Gitmo, we’ve detained tens of thousands in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere at one time or another in the course of this war. Gitmo has never held more than 800 prisoners. And even the gross number of detainees in this conflict pales in comparison to the number held, for example, in World War II, during which millions of prisoners were taken. We couldn’t conceivably conduct full-blown civilian trials for everyone detained under the necessities of war. Even in the Clinton years, when trial in the civilian courts was the favored counterterrorism strategy, we tried fewer than three dozen terrorists—even as Americans were attacked year after year.
It's interesting that, in spite of all the hurry-scurry of the first three weeks of Obama's administration, much of his approach to the war on terror has been to try to buy more time to think about it.
Obama is currently thinking about how quickly or slowly to withdraw from Iraq (and whether to take longer than he implied during the campaign). He's also thinking about what to do in Afghanistan and what the "end game" might be. Meanwhile, he's thinking about what to do with every prisoner at Gitmo.
It's a lot to be thinking about after taking office, especially for a man who seemed to have definite opinions on these subjects during the campaign.
There are no glib, easy answers for a commander in chief. There are also no answers consistent with national security that will fully satisfy the far left.
Try as he might to ignore it, the war on terror will be a continuing headache for Obama. But the stakes for America are far greater than presidential headaches.
Breaking News at Orly's site
Today, my volunteer tried to serve the Pres. Obama the pleadings from Keyes v. Obama. The guard would not grant her entry to the White House, which is fine. But the guard wouldn't sign for the pleadings either. But, it didn't end there either. Either the guard or Secret Service threatened her also.
In the end, we had her serve Obama's copy of the pleadings to the Justice Department. But wanted all to know the type of transparency we have here.
Posted by Defend Our Freedoms Foundation at 2/10/2009 8:40 AM | View Comments (2) | Add Comment
First State Representative Joins Action!
Representative Eric Swafford of Tennessee has agreed to be a Plaintiff in a legal action of Dr. Orly Taitz, ESQ to demand that Barack Obama proves his eligibility.
Download a copy of Representative Swafford's consent form and bring it to your representatives today and insist they join in this action.
Posted by: Bdaman | February 10, 2009 at 12:33 PM