XDA

Paul Campos, the least impressive University of Colorado professors since Ward Churchill, had an exceptionally silly column this past Tuesday. I was going to let it pass, because, as a good lefty friend points out, criticizing Campos is like shooting fish in a barrel, and it just wasn't worth the virtual ammunition. But then Campos today appeared on a local radio show with my old boss and fellow ex-DA Craig Silverman et al. and was even stupider than normal, so here goes.

His thesis is that the co-ordinated al Qaeda attack on New York and Washington on 9/11/01 " is becoming the most overblown and shamelessly exploited event in American history."

Here is his support for this: 1) Only a few people died and most Americans don't know anyone who died; 2) There hasn't been another attack and all the ones that have been foiled have been just north of Keystone Cop like fantasies; 3) Even if al Qaeda still exists, it is feeble and unable to mount any sort of attack which could really cripple us; and, 4) The Soviets with thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at us for four decades were a real threat, the Islamic extremists are nothing compared to that.

He also believes what have become lefty talking points without any real basis in reality, namely that using the 9/11 attack as an excuse, we have: 1) Attacked Iraq illegally; 2) Shredded the Bill of Rights and "indiscriminately" spied on lots of Americans (Campos uses the word "wholesale"); 3) Held people for years without charges and tortured them; and, 4) Shipped foreign illegal combatants back to their homes for local authorities to deal with (lefties call this extrajudicial rendition--it just sounds more ominous).

OK. More people died on 9/11 than on December 7, and we shamelessly exploited that overblown attack to invade various countries with Germans and Japanese in them, obliterate whole cities in Japan and Germany (whose forces did not attack us) and, with the Russians and our other allies, overthrow the sovereign governments of those nations. which we occupied for years afterwards. Paul, a good government reacts to attacks on its citizens and territories with sufficient force to stop future attacks and destroy the attackers. Doing less merely invites other attacks (witness the Clinton method of response).

Our efforts have paid off with prevention, so far, of further attacks. As Mark Steyn says, the Jihadists in planning stage always look silly, until the bombs go off or the planes crash. Imagine had 9/11 been foiled, the laugh we would have had at the expense of those silly Saudis who thought they, armed only with box cutters, could bring down mighty buildings. What fools.

But Professor, we don't want any attacks on our country and we don't want nuclear attacks a lot. I know the Soviets had a whole bunch of nukes and I am very glad that we successfully negotiated that tense and terrible period of history, but that the Soviets were worse means nothing to the threat here and now. It may be a lesser threat, but it is easier to implement as certain death to the perpetrators doesn't seem to deter the desire to kill us, as it seemed to do with the much deadlier Soviets.

As to your lefty talking points:

The war in Iraq started with Saddam attacking Kuwait and never ended. Our restart when Saddam failed to keep hardly one of the cease fire agreements was sanctioned by the United Nations. Illegal or immoral how?

The Bill of Rights still exists. Let's just examine the 4th. No warrant is required for an otherwise reasonable search and seizure. It is not only reasonable, it is necessary that we attempt to intercept signal intelligence from our enemies and no FISA warrant is required to listen to the communications of foreigners in foreign lands. I assume you don't teach Con Law. Am I right? [I am--Property and Litigation].

Holding captured combatants never requires charges because it's not punishment for crimes, it's preventing the captured from returning to the battlefield and killing our guys. Therefore, the combatants are kept as long as the struggle lasts. This is such basic common legal sense, I think you are near idiotic to think 'charges' are in any way required to hold the captured until the end of hostilities. Andrew Sullivan et al. has done us a great disservice to define torture down to near meaningless. Nothing I've read about, and I've read a lot, by our guys has qualified as real torture. We don't torture as a matter of policy. Cite some examples, if you have any.

Rendition is immoral? In what universe? We return an illegal combatant to his country of origin for them to take care of. What's the problem? According to you, we can't keep them and we can't send em back. What should we do? Can we send them to your house?

Labels: Paul Campos; Cult of 9/11