Bloodthirsty Liberal

Let me put this as succinctly as I can:

To elaborate:

Dick Cheney is not the most popular of politicians, but when he offered a harsh assessment of the Obama Administration’s approach to terrorism last May, his criticism stung—so much that the President gave a speech the same day that was widely seen as a direct response. Though neither man would admit it, eight months later political and security realities are forcing Mr. Obama’s antiterror policies ever-closer to the former Vice President’s.

In fact, the President’s changes in antiterror policy have never been as dramatic as he or his critics have advertised. His supporters on the left have repeatedly howled when the Justice Department quietly went to court and offered the same legal arguments the Bush Administration made, among them that the President has the power to detain enemy combatants indefinitely without charge. He has also ramped up drone strikes against al Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan.

However, the Administration has tried to break from its predecessors on several big antiterror issues, and it is on those that it is suffering the humiliation of having to walk back from its own righteous declarations. This is Dick Cheney’s revenge.

And as he is probably too busy shooting defenseless little furry creatures (deer, not hippies—although now that you mention it…), let me respond in his stead.

Ahem.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Boy, it sure must suck to have to adopt the policies of someone you find the most evil entity to walk the earth since Rasputin last pulled the wings off a fly.

It would be like me having to admit Al Gore was right. As if.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gitmo, KSM’s trial—the administration has thrown its policies into reverse so many times, they’ve stripped the gears.

As long as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were responsible for keeping Americans safe, Democrats could pander to the U.S. and European left’s anti-antiterror views at little political cost. But now that they are responsible, American voters are able to see what the left really has in mind, and they are saying loud and clear that they prefer the Cheney method.

Mr. Holder has nonetheless begun a campaign to defend his decisions on Abdulmutallab and KSM, telling the New Yorker last week that “I don’t apologize for what I’ve done” and that trying KSM in a civilian court will be “the defining event of my time as Attorney General.”

That’s about the only thing he’s said I agree with.

[Channeling my inner Bob Newhart, this is how I see this policy shift having been made.]

So, Mr. President, your plan to bring KSM to the big town flopped. It always was a bit of a long shot, sir, I’m sure even you will agree.

Not that big of a long shot, no sir. It’s just a figure of speech.

But the show must go on. As the song goes, sir:

Nothing’s impossible I have found,
For when my chin is on the ground,
I pick myself up,
Dust myself off,
Start All over again.

Yes sir, no more singing. If I may offer a suggestion, however, sir, perhaps you might look at another venue to stage this little spectacle. No one said you had to open on Broadway.

Well, yes sir, I guess you did. But perhaps you might look a little further south.

Even farther south, sir. The Minetta Lane Theater is a lovely space, to be sure, and I’ll never forget seeing The Fantasticks at the Sullivan—yes sir, I’ll finish my review later.

Let me give you a hint, if you’ll allow me, sir. Think Godfather II, Hymen Roth, Michael Corleone….

Yes sir, Little Italy is a very good guess.

Yes, Orchard Street is another good guess, sir. But I’m thinking even further south. If I may, sir:

I like to be in America,
Okay by me in America…

Sorry about the singing, sir, I was just trying—yes, I know that’s Puerto Rico, sir, but it was just supposed to be a hint. Let me give it away, sir.

You don’t want the truth because deep down in places that you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.

The China Syndrome, sir? Oh I see. Yes, indeed, China does have a wall. I’m sorry, I should just tell—no, not Chinatown, either.

Cuba, sir. A Few Good Men… Guantanamo… ring a bell sir?

The trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed won’t be held in lower Manhattan and could take place in a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, sources said last night.

Administration officials said that no final decision had been made but that officials of the Department of Justice and the White House were working feverishly to find a venue that would be less expensive and less of a security risk than New York City.

The back-to-the-future Gitmo option was reported yesterday by Fox News and was not disputed by White House officials.

Such a move would likely bring howls of protest from liberals already frustrated that President Obama has failed to meet his deadline for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

It would also indicate that after years of attacking the Bush administration for its handling of the war on terror, Obama officials are embracing one of the most controversial aspects of it.

Okay, maybe my little scene wasn’t hysterically funny, but you’ll have to agree this turn of events is.

Even the DoJ is going (Islamic) green!

The Justice Department has announced the release from Gitmo of a terrorist who conspired to bomb Los Angeles International Airport in the 2000 Millennium plot. Hassan Zumiri, who was part of an al-Qaeda affiliated terror cell in Montreal, has been repatriated to his native Algeria — a country so rife with terrorists that it was recently placed on the list of 14 countries whose travelers warrant enhanced screening at airports. Worse, the Justice Department won’t say whether the terrorist, Hassan Zumiri, and another Gitmo detainee who was also sent to Algeria will be in custody there. They may be free and clear.

Hey, maybe we castrated him first. Here’s hoping.

Ahmed Ressam, the main culprit in the Millennium Plot who later cooperated in the investigation, told authorities that Zumiri “knew I was going to America to carry out a job.” Zumiri, the Globe and Mail reports, helped Ressam in the bomb plot, “giving him $3,500 and offering a video camera to carry as ‘camouflage.’ Mr. Ressam also said he asked Mr. Zemiri to find him a pistol, silencer and grenades.”

…

At the Standard’s blog, Tom Joscelyn has more on Zumiri and on the other Gitmo detainee transferred to Algeria, Adil Hadi al Jazairi Bin Hamlili. As Tom shows, relying on disclosures at Hamili’s detention proceedings at Gitmo,

Hamlili is a particularly nasty takfiri, which means he is a hardcore ideologue who believes that not only Christians and Jews, but also most Muslims, are infidels. In fact, Hamlili allegedly killed Osama bin Laden’s personal representative in Pakistan because Hamlili felt he had violated sharia law. Despite this incident, memos produced at Gitmo note that Hamlili worked for the Taliban, al Qaeda and a variety of other terrorist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

…

Sure, why wouldn’t we clear these two guys for release? And to Algeria!

President Bush’s detractors accused him of “creating” terrorists. With his joy-stick crazy drone strikes, maybe President Obama is, too. He and his despicable AG Eric “The Red” Holder sure as heck are recycling them.

You thought this was going to be another Scott Brown post, didn’t you?

Well, not directly…

About 30 residents expressed outrage and disdain at the idea of welcoming a Guantanamo Bay detainee to Newton, and tossed around ideas from rehabilitating the city’s image to recalling the aldermen responsible for the contentious proposal.

But most of all, they wanted a public hearing and vote on the proposal, instead of seeing it dismissed through parliamentary procedure even as the board seeks to dispose of the item without an up-or-down vote.

“I don’t want to see it go away, I want to see people take a position,” said Robert Cera. “Cowards walk away. The city raised the issue, I want to see them deal with it.”

…

To a person, speakers were opposed to bringing in “murderous thugs,” as Nelson Lipshutz said.

“They want to behead and explode our children, grandchildren, friends and parents and us,” Lipshutz said to applause.

“There’s no reason to give him the freedoms of an American,” said Alan Waxman, who thought the whole controversy could lower Newton real estate values.
Sallee Lipshutz, Nelson’s wife, also said the kerfuffle had tainted Newton’s reputation.

“The blogs have equated Newton with Amherst,” she said. “We are painted as moonbats. We have to combat that image.”

And attendees seemed to feel, as one speaker put it, “wronged” because the aldermen would consider such a proposal. Helga Lustig, who said she fled Hitler to come to Newton in 1941, said she voted for local officials on the basis of how they would govern the city, not their stance in national matters.

“I’m particularly upset that you think you can represent us on a matter with no input from the Newton public,” she said. “There should not be resolutions going from Newton to Washington that suppose we’re all on the same page on controversial matters.”

We are Massachusetts because our elected officials feel they can make empty moonbat gestures that put our security at risk and waste everybody’s time.

We might not be much longer because the people… can’t… [bleeping]… stand it.

In other words… GO, SCOTT, GO!!!

Apropos of not much, I looked the new Club Gitmo up on Google Maps.

Check it out:

The squash courts and aromatherapy spa aren’t marked, but they’re probably in there somewhere.

Wouldn’t it make lovely crater?

This story has been simmering on the back burner for a couple of days, but it looks like it’s ready to serve:

A prison complex 150 miles from Chicago will house Gitmo detainees, the Obama administration will announce Tuesday.

A senior administration official tells ABC News that on Tuesday the administration will announce that President Obama “has directed that the federal government proceed with the acquisition of the Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Illinois to house federal inmates and a limited number of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.”

Thomson Correctional Center is a maximum security prison that opened in 2001 but has never been fully utilized because of state budget issues.

Information from the state of Illinois indicates that Thomson Correctional Center is a Level 1 adult male maximum-security facility comprised of 1,600 cells and eight housing units, none of which are currently used. The facility is on 146 acres and is currently surrounded by a 12-foot exterior fence and 15-foot interior fence — which includes a dual sided electric stun fence. The cell houses were constructed with pre-cast, reinforced cement walls. The complex also contains a 200-bed minimum-security unit, which has been operational.

“Closing the detention center at Guantanamo is essential to protecting our national security and helping our troops by removing a deadly recruiting tool from the hands of al Qaeda,” the official said. “Tomorrow’s announcement is an important step forward as we work to achieve our national security objectives.”

Get that? Moving 150 terrorists stateside improves our national security. Just keep repeating that until you believe it (even if Halley’s Comet returns first). But don’t you love the idea that we’re shaping our national security to make Al Qaeda happy? This will be a big day for them. They’ll probably wait a day or two before decrying the imprisonment of Muslims within precast, reinforced cement walls and two fences, one electrified.

But don’t hold your breath for any of this. When the human rights crowd gets word that we’re sending Gitmo detainees to Illinois, in winter, and not some island paradise (Bermuda, Palau) like their Uighur brothers, they’ll mewl and cry without peace.

Of course, not even Palau made them happy:

UPDATE

Oh [bleep]: it just keeps getting worse.

“The public doesn’t really know who these people are,” Hoekstra said in a Monday afternoon interview with The North Star National. “They don’t know what they’ve done. I’ve seen the profiles of many of these people. I know who they are. I know what they’ve done and I know why we haven’t sent them back anywhere else in the world.”

Because the information he has is classified, Hoekstra is not able to go into much detail about what these 200-some detainees have been doing at Guantanamo Bay. But one thing he makes clear is that their efforts to kill Americans did not stop when they arrived at Gitmo, and that’s going to present challenges you don’t face with your typical prisoner – even with a serial killer.

“I can’t give you the profile of someone who is on murderers row and is serving a life sentence versus a jihadist, and how you might hold them differently,” Hoekstra said. “But talking with experts, they said it’s two very, very different problems. In 99 percent of the cases, these radical jihadists will behave differently. They’re still invested in killing Americans. It’s not like they’ve been arrested and convicted and given a life sentence for a fit of rage where they killed their neighbor. These people are still committed to destroying the American system and killing Americans.”

In their faith they have motive; in their training they have the means; Obama just gave them the opportunity. Maybe they don’t celebrate the holiday, but they just got the biggest Christmas present ever.

I’m big enough to admit when I’m wrong.

I’ve been critical of President Obama and AG Holder for their imbecilic idea of trying KSM and a few of his closest friends in civilian courts, thereby offering them the full range of rights and privileges extended to American citizens by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights—or to withhold and subvert those rights, thereby disemboweling the precious and irreplaceable US justice system.

But I’ve been wrong.

Now that I see KSM & Co. intend to use this show trial to put on a show their own—a real barn-burner, too—I’m down with it. Dancing virgins, pyrotechnics, contortionists, and bearded ladies—it’s got box office boffo written all over it!

The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday.

Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but “would explain what happened and why they did it.”

…

Mohammed, Ali and the others will explain “their assessment of American foreign policy,” Fenstermaker said. “Their assessment is negative,” he said.

Really? After all we’ve done for them? Ingrates. Maybe they’d rather do their jail time in the Maine State Prison’s Supermax unit, rather than the cozy Caribbean coast of Guantanamo. Maine is lovely in the summer, all five weeks of it.

But I don’t think they’re going to have to worry about that. I think they’re going to get off. If I were on the jury, I’d hold out for not guilty until they dragged my bullet-ridden corpse out of the jury room.

Three thousand people died because of KSM, and I’ve mourned them in this space, but many times that have died in the defense of liberty. I hate miscarriages of justice, and any government that has behaved so appalingly prejudicial toward those who are now presumed innocent until proved guilty won’t get any help from me.

In fact, I suggest KSM and his merry men read up on the trial of the Chicago 8. You want to know how to turn the courtroom into the big top, Abbie Hoffman, peace be upon him, is your man. He was a Jew, Khalid, but your kind of Jew.

Here’s a taste to whet your appetite, boys.

President Obama must hate Muslims, loathe them.

Else why would he want to dispatch the Guantanamo inmates from their Caribbean island paradise to cold, hardened maximum security prisons around the country?

Judith Miller explains here.

And summarizes here:

In an interview with PJTV’s Bill Whittle on Friday, former New York Times reporter and now Fox News pundit Judith Miller had nothing but praise for the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, and claimed that not only was no one ever subjected waterboarding there, but that any harsh treatment took place only during the first four months of its opening.

Miller has joined the ranks of former Vice-President Dick Cheney and daughter Liz Cheney this week with as she defends Gitmo, and calls for President Obama to keep the facility open to house detainees there rather than bring them into prisons within the United States mainland.

Referring to Gitmo as a “model prison,” that offers a wide variety of food and provides “extraordinary” health care that is “far, far better from what these people would get in a maximum security U.S. prison on American soil,” Miller expressed what she called concern for excess waste during a period of economic strife within the nation.

Asked by Whittle if Gitmo still had a bad reputation overseas, Miller expressed dismay that indeed, Gitmo carried the stigma of many media reports of torture and abuse at the facility, “Even though this hasn’t been true for many, many years now,” she explained. “No one was ever waterboarded at Guantanamo, according to Guantanamo officials,” Miller continued. “Torture as ordinary people would call it took place only during four months when it first opened…like sleep deprivation, being doused with ice cold water…things that don’t meet current standards.”

Millers only ‘gripe’ about the situation at Guantanamo Bay’s detention facility was the “legal limbo” many detainees face as they wait to actually be charged with a crime and granted a trial, the same situation that endured during the previous administration’s 8-year tenure.

Miller also wrote an opinion piece that was published in the Los Angeles Times today titled ‘Keep Gitmo,’ that echoed many of these praises, as well as denials of torture, and calls for continued operations at the facility:

“Although it’s true that a 2005 Pentagon report concluded, after examining 26 complaints from FBI agents involving a small portion of more than 24,000 interrogations at Gitmo, that a few “high-value detainees” had been subjected to treatment that was “degrading and abusive,” it “did not rise to the level of prohibited inhumane treatment” or torture. Furthermore, those techniques — such as loud music, sleep deprivation, temperature manipulation and prolonged shackling — ended long ago at Gitmo, officers say.”

Her only gripe is that the detainees are in a legal limbo. But that is entirely due to the hypocrisy of their home nations and other countries around the globe who scold us for holding them, but don’t want them anywhere near themselves.

But I’d like to address the part I highlighted above because it fuels the whole stupid controversy. What she calls torture—”sleep deprivation, being doused with ice cold water”, also strip searching and “humiliation”—I call college hazing. I’m serious. For a mere four months, immediately after their capture in battle in Afghanistan and elsewhere, we grilled these guys about what they knew. Ground Zero was still a steaming pile of human and construction rubble, dangers and threats still seemed to lurk in every alley, Osama promised more hurt to come. And we played Led Zeppelin.

I’ll even allow that there were abuses. But just as at Abu Ghraib, the abusers were punished. Severely. Miller testifies that no one was waterboarded at Gitmo, which surprises me. I thought we acknowledged waterboarding three times (for KS Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, and another guy), and maybe we did, but maybe just not there. If you listen to the whole interview, she talks about the absurdity of all the improvements going on down there (soccer fields, etc.) even as Obama continues to promise to shutter it.

Much of what Miller reports was reported three and four years ago by Mark Steyn (can’t find the relevant column or columns on line). He actually had the effrontery to go see Gitmo for himself (horror!), and to report first hand. He was derided as a stooge for the military, but mostly he was right. Then, as now, the detainees were treated with excruciating… kindness, respect, and deference.

Good luck finding those qualities in Ft. Leavenworth.

How can President Obama close Guantanamo when he can’t even dispose of 12 Uighurs who want out to an island paradise that is willing to take them?

The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will hear a new case about the rights of Guantanamo detainees, this time involving prisoners who remain in custody even after the Pentagon determines they’re not a threat to the United States.

The high court said it will take a challenge from Chinese Muslims at the U.S. naval base in Cuba who are asking the court to put some teeth into a June 2008 ruling that said federal judges could ultimately order some detainees to be released, depending on security concerns and other circumstances.

The 13 Chinese Muslims, or Uighurs, who remain at Guantanamo have been cleared by the Pentagon for release since 2004, yet have been held roughly eight years.

A federal appeals court overturned a judge’s order to give the Uighurs their freedom, saying judges lacked authority to order detainees released into the United States.

The Obama administration urged the justices to stay out of the case, saying that the appeals court was right and noting that diplomatic efforts to find a place for the Uighurs are ongoing.

Even since the administration’s court filing, four Uighurs have been sent to Bermuda, while six have accepted an invitation to move to Palau. The Pacific nation has offered to take six of the seven other Uighurs at Guantanamo.

The administration has indicated that some departures for Palau are imminent.

One Uighur, Arkin Mahmud, has nowhere to go, his lawyer told the court.

“No nation has offered him refuge,” the lawyer, Sabin Willett, wrote the court.

Aww, the last Uighur. What about his rights?

And even the Palau deal is no dead certainty:

But some of the Uighurs who have been invited to go to Palau have expressed concern the island may be too close to China to be safe. China considers the Uighurs to be separatists.

Too close? It’s over 1,600 miles! That’s about the distance between Boston and Houston. Oh wait, I suppose both cites might consider that too close.

Eric Holder is on the record as saying he still thinks he’s going to move everyone to the mainland. I don’t know about the distance from Palau to China, but the distance from the nearest Guantanamo detainee to me had better be a continent or two.

It just might take him three terms to do it, that’s all:

Two detainees released from the U.S. military’s prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been transferred to Kuwait and Belgium, the Department of Justice announced Friday.

It only identified Khalid Abdullah Mishal al-Mutairi, a Kuwaiti native, who was transferred to his home country. Belgium’s government asked Washington not to reveal the identity of the detainee it has accepted.

Al-Mutairi was released on Thursday after spending nearly eight years in Guantanamo, according to the Kuwaiti Family Committee, an advocacy group for Kuwaiti detainees at Guantanamo. It is unclear when the second detainee was transferred to Belgium.

Al-Mutairi’s release follows a federal court ruling on July 29 as well as pressure from Kuwait’s government, the group said.

Al-Mutairi will be housed in a rehabilitation center in Kuwait, recently built by the government to provide the detainees with “education, medical care, group discussions and physical exercise to help them recover from their long ordeal in Guantanamo,” the Kuwaiti Family Committee said.

The center was modeled after a similar program in Saudi Arabia.

The recently released detainees join more than 550 from Guantanamo who have been transferred to 32 countries. More than 220 detainees remain at Guantanamo.

Other reports note that this release make 20 detainees sprung by the Obama administration. That’s two a month. At that rate, he should have the place emptied out by January, 2019, give or take a Kuwaiti or two. (Who’s going to deny a Nobel Prize winner a third, or even fourth, term?)

But if I do the math right, that also makes 530 detainees released by George Bush. The first of them arrived in Camp X-Ray in January of 2002, so that means in his seven years in charge Bush released 6.3 prisoners a month—three times as many as President Obama. If Obama released prisoners at Bush’s rate, he’d be done by the end of his first (and hopefully only) term.

That’s the terrible thing about being so eloquent. People remember what you say.

PS: The Obama administration has only way out of this, and don’t think they won’t stop trying:

The House of Representatives recently voted overwhelmingly not to allow detainees to be brought to the United States for trials or to be housed as prisoners.

Attorney General Eric Holder has expressed frustration with congressional curbs on bringing the detainees to the United States, but said he thinks he can turn Congress around on the issue.

“I think we ultimately will be in a position to convince a majority of the members of Congress that that restriction should be removed,” Holder said this month.