9/11

9/11, Barack Obama, jihadists, Political wind, World Trade Center

Obama’s America Is September 10th America: Andrew McCarthy

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Barack Obama is obviously running to become America’s Lawyer-in-Chief.

Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy says Senator John McCain should ask Senator Barack Obama this question everyday: How is that strategy of prosecuting him [bin Laden] in the criminal-justice system working out? He points out this naive assertion yesterday by Mr. Obama:

What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks — for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.

And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, “Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.”

So that, I think, is an example of something that was unnecessary. We could have done the exact same thing, but done it in a way that was consistent with our laws.

Mr. Obama has no experience as a prosecutor and only briefly taught Constitutional law. Compare that to Mr. McCarthy’s considerable experience as a federal prosecutor and the lead prosecutor of those who conducted the first attack upon the World Trade Center. Here is, in part, the latter’s response:

The fact is that we used the criminal justice system as our principal enforcement approach, the approach Obama intends to reinstate, for eight years — from the bombing of the World Trade Center until the shocking destruction of that complex on 9/11. During that timeframe, while the enemy was growing stronger and attacking more audaciously, we managed to prosecute successfully less than three dozen terrorists (29 to be precise). And with a handful of exceptions, they were the lowest ranking of players.

I’ll add that 9/11 and all the other successful attacks inside and outside our nation’s borders that previous law enforcement counter-terrorism efforts failed to prevent are what gave a huge boost to Islamic terrorist recruitment. Killing every Islamic terrorist that we identify or (if we unfortunately capture them alive) locking them in a cell until they are dead or too feeble-minded to contribute to the jihad would at least lower their reenlistment rates substantially; feeding detainees a couple times each day is, in my mind, all the process they are due.

9/11, Boumediene v. Bush

After Boumediene v. Bush, Congress must act this year

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Immediately after the Supreme Court’s 5-4 Boumediene v. Bush decision, lawyers began work ultra vires (“beyond the powers” of law) creating the ‘due process’ for those who murdered 2,973 human beings on 9/11. I do not exaggerate. This was in the Washington Post Thursday evening:

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, the chief judge of the federal court in Washington, said he is planning meetings with government and defense lawyers, and then the court’s judges, to decide how to handle the cases. “It remains to be seen exactly how this is going to develop, and what each side is going to do next,” Lamberth said.

The judiciary will create America’s laws if we let them. Congress can and must act this year according to former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy:

The most reprehensible aspect of the Boumediene ruling is thus Justice Kennedy’s diktat that all “questions regarding the legality of the detention [of combatants] are to be resolved in the first instance by the District Court” — as if Congress, the law writing branch of our government, had nothing to say about them.

Congress must ignore that brazen overstatement. Boumediene is a terrible decision, but all it means for the moment is that the jihadists held at Guantanamo Bay have been given the opportunity to press their cases — i.e., to seek their release from custody — in the federal district courts. The combatants have not been ordered released, and the narrow majority did not presume to prescribe a procedure for how the district courts should handle those cases.

THE WAY FORWARD

That is the job of Congress, and it must act now. Bear in mind, even in the civilian-justice system, where the judicial competence is generally undeniable, it is Congress that enacts rules of procedure and evidence. We do not leave judges free to make it up as they go along. How much less should we do so with respect to combatant detention — a war power as to which judges have no institutional competence?

There may not be time now for ambitious, comprehensive projects like sculpting a national-security court. Boumediene has produced a crisis that demands an immediate fix. But Congress could very quickly accomplish the more modest task of enacting rules and procedures for combatant habeas proceedings. In fact, there is already a model of sorts.

Long ago, our lawmakers enacted a statutory scheme to control pretrial detention in federal criminal cases. … READ THE REST