Monday, August 20, 2007
Not Just the Loony Left Complain About Padilla's Conviction
The New York Times ran a strangely conflicted, unsigned op-ed a few days ago entitled The Padilla Conviction. Although the NYT has long been in the 'Just Like Criminals' camp regarding how to fight back against the Muslim extremists waging war against us, the Times is reluctant to acknowledge getting, for Padilla, just what it claims to want--criminal convictions in federal court of illegal combatants. Witness the lead paragraph:
It is hard to disagree with the jury’s guilty verdict against Jose Padilla, the accused, but never formally charged, dirty bomber. But it would be a mistake to see it as a vindication for the Bush administration’s serial abuse of the American legal system in the name of fighting terrorism. (Emphasis added).
The abuse, by the way, is that the Administration did not use the federal criminal justice system from the beginning (as if the Judiciary has any roll in fighting a war). Witness: Bush trampled on the Constitution...Even with the guilty verdict, this conviction remains a shining example of how not to prosecute terrorism cases. That's closer to reality, we shouldn't prosecute terrorism cases. The President tried and failed to fight this war in the most effective way possible. For the NYT editors, effective doesn't enter into it.
They really just don't get it. [Padilla] was denied access to a lawyer even when he was being questioned. Imagine, if you will, having to provide a lawyer to each German or Japanese prisoner of war before interrogation can begin. And those guys were obeying the rules of war (at least as far as wearing uniforms was concerned). More rights for those who flaunt the rules of war seems a curious way to handle things. Indeed, it is the opposite of how it should be.
The administration is already claiming victory, but the result in Mr. Padilla’s case is in many ways a mess. He will likely never be brought to trial on the dirty-bomb plot, a much publicized charge that cries out for resolution. (In another move worthy of Alice in Wonderland, the government is holding another prisoner in Guantánamo, Binyam Mohamed, because he was accused of conspiring with Mr. Padilla in the dirty-bomb plot for which Mr. Padilla was never charged.) There is also the danger that Mr. Padilla’s conviction will be reversed on appeal because of his alleged mistreatment before trial. (Emphasis added).
The Alice in Wonderland reference reveals that the NYT thinks it strange that a non-citizen Jihadist is being held without 'charges' in a prisoner of war camp. Holding captured combatants for the duration of the hostilities is the opposite of strange. And that Padilla wasn't charged with the dirty bomb plot doesn't mean the dirty bomb plot didn't exist. The administration obviously doesn't want to burn the source that got Padilla arrested as he got off the plane, and then there's the Miranda problem with his apparent confession to the bomb plot. The NYT doesn't appear to see that and, in the end, it is this op-ed which is through the looking glass.
It is hard to disagree with the jury’s guilty verdict against Jose Padilla, the accused, but never formally charged, dirty bomber. But it would be a mistake to see it as a vindication for the Bush administration’s serial abuse of the American legal system in the name of fighting terrorism. (Emphasis added).
The abuse, by the way, is that the Administration did not use the federal criminal justice system from the beginning (as if the Judiciary has any roll in fighting a war). Witness: Bush trampled on the Constitution...Even with the guilty verdict, this conviction remains a shining example of how not to prosecute terrorism cases. That's closer to reality, we shouldn't prosecute terrorism cases. The President tried and failed to fight this war in the most effective way possible. For the NYT editors, effective doesn't enter into it.
They really just don't get it. [Padilla] was denied access to a lawyer even when he was being questioned. Imagine, if you will, having to provide a lawyer to each German or Japanese prisoner of war before interrogation can begin. And those guys were obeying the rules of war (at least as far as wearing uniforms was concerned). More rights for those who flaunt the rules of war seems a curious way to handle things. Indeed, it is the opposite of how it should be.
The administration is already claiming victory, but the result in Mr. Padilla’s case is in many ways a mess. He will likely never be brought to trial on the dirty-bomb plot, a much publicized charge that cries out for resolution. (In another move worthy of Alice in Wonderland, the government is holding another prisoner in Guantánamo, Binyam Mohamed, because he was accused of conspiring with Mr. Padilla in the dirty-bomb plot for which Mr. Padilla was never charged.) There is also the danger that Mr. Padilla’s conviction will be reversed on appeal because of his alleged mistreatment before trial. (Emphasis added).
The Alice in Wonderland reference reveals that the NYT thinks it strange that a non-citizen Jihadist is being held without 'charges' in a prisoner of war camp. Holding captured combatants for the duration of the hostilities is the opposite of strange. And that Padilla wasn't charged with the dirty bomb plot doesn't mean the dirty bomb plot didn't exist. The administration obviously doesn't want to burn the source that got Padilla arrested as he got off the plane, and then there's the Miranda problem with his apparent confession to the bomb plot. The NYT doesn't appear to see that and, in the end, it is this op-ed which is through the looking glass.
Labels: Jose Padilla trial; anti-terrorism tactics
Friday, August 17, 2007
The Winning Boy's Mojo
Even well spoken, accomplished editors of major papers don't seem to know what it's going to take to win the war Muslim extremists are waging against us. Witness these two editorials today: Jose Padilla's Due Process in the Washington Post and Putting Away Padilla in the New York Daily News. They had this in common.
WaPo: Does the orderly disposition of Mr. Padilla's court case prove that every terrorism prosecution can and should be channeled through U.S. courts? No, although civil libertarians will make that case, there will be genuine enemy combatants who may not belong in civilian courts. But every person held by the government -- U.S. citizen or not -- must have due process to challenge that detention. The presumption must be that U.S. citizens can rely on the federal courts to oversee their prosecutions. And Mr. Padilla's abhorrent disappearance into limbo should come to be remembered as an aberration never to be repeated. (Emphasis added).
NYDN: Given that Padilla is an American citizen, the government was overzealous in denying him for several years the trial to which he was constitutionally entitled. Ultimately, it is good that he had his day in court. He is, it bears saying again, an American citizen. Which assorted other detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere are not. Enemy combatants they are, status-wise. Enemy combatants let them remain. (Emphasis added).
When the al Qaeda terror network sends someone into America to do us harm, the best thing that can happen from our point of view, and the worst thing that can happen from their point of view, is that the operative just disappears (because we secretly captured him). Al Qaeda then has no clue what went wrong. That is a good thing, because we don't want them to have any information with which to learn from their mistakes. For all they know the operative has flipped and is giving our Predator operators the global coordinates of some al Qaeda asset and they have to take steps to abandon or move everything the operative knew about. We help them out to acknowledge his capture. This is just not debatable. Ask anyone who knows what he or she is doing regarding proper anti-terrorism activity.
So if al Qaeda sends another American citizen in to kill us, and there is no reason to think they won't and often, in fact, I hope we have the brass to put him into a solitary cell and mention not a thing about his capture for years and years if not forever. The al Qaeda terrorist is not a criminal--he's a spy and saboteur and should be put before a military tribunal and then executed if convicted (except we don't do that for reasons unknown to me). Grown ups know we are not going to gain a thing by being kinder than we need to be to our enemies. His citizenship, we know from Ex Parte Quirin, doesn't get him into the federal court system if he's a spy and/or saboteur. Sorry to be so harsh, but putting captured spies and saboteurs into secret solitary confinement is what it's going to take to win this thing. Sooner or later, we'll realize this is the way we have to go, and the end of the war will be sooner if we start doing it now.
WaPo: Does the orderly disposition of Mr. Padilla's court case prove that every terrorism prosecution can and should be channeled through U.S. courts? No, although civil libertarians will make that case, there will be genuine enemy combatants who may not belong in civilian courts. But every person held by the government -- U.S. citizen or not -- must have due process to challenge that detention. The presumption must be that U.S. citizens can rely on the federal courts to oversee their prosecutions. And Mr. Padilla's abhorrent disappearance into limbo should come to be remembered as an aberration never to be repeated. (Emphasis added).
NYDN: Given that Padilla is an American citizen, the government was overzealous in denying him for several years the trial to which he was constitutionally entitled. Ultimately, it is good that he had his day in court. He is, it bears saying again, an American citizen. Which assorted other detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere are not. Enemy combatants they are, status-wise. Enemy combatants let them remain. (Emphasis added).
When the al Qaeda terror network sends someone into America to do us harm, the best thing that can happen from our point of view, and the worst thing that can happen from their point of view, is that the operative just disappears (because we secretly captured him). Al Qaeda then has no clue what went wrong. That is a good thing, because we don't want them to have any information with which to learn from their mistakes. For all they know the operative has flipped and is giving our Predator operators the global coordinates of some al Qaeda asset and they have to take steps to abandon or move everything the operative knew about. We help them out to acknowledge his capture. This is just not debatable. Ask anyone who knows what he or she is doing regarding proper anti-terrorism activity.
So if al Qaeda sends another American citizen in to kill us, and there is no reason to think they won't and often, in fact, I hope we have the brass to put him into a solitary cell and mention not a thing about his capture for years and years if not forever. The al Qaeda terrorist is not a criminal--he's a spy and saboteur and should be put before a military tribunal and then executed if convicted (except we don't do that for reasons unknown to me). Grown ups know we are not going to gain a thing by being kinder than we need to be to our enemies. His citizenship, we know from Ex Parte Quirin, doesn't get him into the federal court system if he's a spy and/or saboteur. Sorry to be so harsh, but putting captured spies and saboteurs into secret solitary confinement is what it's going to take to win this thing. Sooner or later, we'll realize this is the way we have to go, and the end of the war will be sooner if we start doing it now.
Labels: Jose Padilla trial; anti-terrorism tactics
