If he can’t be tried there,
He’ll be tried some old where,
Away from you,
New York, New York!

Obama advisers set to recommend military tribunals for alleged 9/11 plotters – washingtonpost.com

Prosecutors have argued that a criminal investigation into torture undertaken with the direction of the Bush White House would raise complex legal issues, and proof would be difficult. But what about cases in which an instigator openly and notoriously brags about his role in torture? Cheney told Jonathan Karl that he used his position within the National Security Council to advocate for the use of waterboarding and other torture techniques. Former CIA agent John Kiriakou and others have confirmed that when waterboarding was administered, it was only after receiving NSC clearance. Hence, Cheney was not speaking hypothetically but admitting his involvement in the process that led to decisions to waterboard in at least three cases.

What prosecutor can look away when a perpetrator mocks the law itself and revels in his role in violating it? Such cases cry out for prosecution. Dick Cheney wants to be prosecuted. And prosecutors should give him what he wants.

“Does Dick Cheney Want to Be Prosecuted?” — By Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine)

(Note:  Horton makes reference to supposed violations by Cheney of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340A, which seems like an odd authority in this instance, since the law specifically addresses “[w]hoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture.”  Prior to any discussion of the wisdom or constitutionality of prosecuting the former Vice President for his advocacy of waterboarding, or any discussion of whether waterboarding as performed satisfies the statutory definition of “torture,” the law was designed to cover actions by U.S. officials acting “under the color of authority” when abroad.  Any of y’all have a better grasp on what laws Cheney or any other official could theoretically be prosecuted, or how 2340A really could be relevant?)

An occasional ZC feature, the “Hall of Fail” is dedicated to recommendations and proposals that are so confoundingly ridiculous and unrealistic, they permanently put the writer’s political judgment in doubt.  This post is the second installment.

She has continued the streak with her latest effort.  To read it is to enter the monochromatic, weirdly echoing twilight zone the New York Times’ stable of opinion writers seems to now inhabit.  From no other periodical – from no other city – could the sentiments she relates have possibly come.  Who but a NYT opinion writer could come up with this proposition:  That it’s selfishness on the part of Manhattanites, to object to the inconvenience the KSM trial would impose on them?

Now, this isn’t an interpretation on my part.  This is what Collins actually says. There’s a lot of nonsense leading up to it, but here is the money passage:

New York’s sudden resistance certainly wasn’t about safety, even though Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent a whiny letter to the White House saying a trial in Manhattan could “add to the threat.”

The problem was inconvenience. People were fine with having the trial here until the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, started describing his plans for permanently cordoning off a goodly chunk of Lower Manhattan. Businesses and residents hadn’t appreciated what a huge, life-disrupting inconvenience standing up to terror could be.

OK, we do have to agree at the outset here not to squabble over every single throw-away characterization, like the equation of being concerned about safety with being “whiny.”  If we clunk through every such pothole in Collins’ pitted alley of an argument, we’ll be here until the year the Olympics don’t come to Chicago.

It’s a cult of selfishness, you see.  Here’s Collins setting out her overall theme (with specific reference to the impossible Republicans) a few lines above:

It’s all part of a cult of selfishness that decrees it’s fine to throw your body in front of any initiative, no matter how important, if resistance looks more profitable.

Grrrr, grrrr!  Those selfish, lazy people in Manhattan!  You’d think they could suck it up a little, right?

Alert readers will be anxious, of course, to unbury the premise in that ineffable sentence about “life-disrupting inconvenience,” which is that trying KSM in Manhattan is the option we have for standing up to terror, and no other course qualifies.  Somehow it’s not standing up to terror to try KSM in another venue?  Trying him in Guantanamo would be – what?  Lying down in front of terror and taking a nap?  Only if the people of Manhattan, whose lives were grotesquely disrupted in September 2001, and many of whom have lived with irreplaceable loss ever since – only if these people are now further inconvenienced can we be truly said to be standing up to terror?

You have to wonder if you live on the same planet with a writer like Gail Collins.  Her argument wanders through a mishmash of stuff about how, after 9/11, people from all over America wanted to help, wanted to do something.

They wanted a task. A whole nation was hungering to be inconvenienced for the common good.

But then, of course, Bush Did It:

And President Bush’s response was to give them a tax cut.

However, people weren’t just demanding “a task” after 9/11.  Maybe Ms. Collins was, but most people who showed up or asked how they could help had the purpose of helping.  They weren’t looking to be “inconvenienced for the common good,” they were looking to save lives, rebuild lives, give aid and comfort to human beings whom they cared about.  They may have accepted inconvenience in accomplishing this goal, but it wasn’t the inconvenience they were looking for, it was the goal of seeing their fellow men helped and doing better.

It’s a progressivist perspective, to posit that if people really had chops, if people were really worth anything, they’d be out taking no prisoners in their quest to inconvenience themselves for the common good.  Aside from the fact that this perspective has a marvelously elitist idea of “inconvenience” – a whole lot of people who volunteer for aid work don’t think of it as “inconveniencing” themselves at all, but rather as throwing themselves into what they are most highly motivated to do – it gets its adherents into some ridiculous positions.  Seriously:  Berating the people of Manhattan for being “selfish” about yet another round of “inconvenience” imposed by Khalid Sheik Mohammed?

In the world of the sound-minded, a fresh imposition by KSM on his original victims would be seen as adding insult to injury.  Gail Collins apparently sees embracing the insult as a way of really standing up to terror – but of course, in her left-progressivist view, this counterintuitive exercise must be undertaken by others.  Predictably, these others are unenthusiastic, but there you are.  Cult of selfishness.  And there’s Obama, too, failing to correct the atrophy of our cooperation muscles.

One thing we can certainly say about this thesis is that it makes no more sense than proposing to stand up to terror by continuing to shop.

The cost of the trial is the least of the problems New Yorkers and Americans in general have with the decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed, mastermind of 9/11, here rather than in a military tribunal. The bigger issue is the Obama administration’s weak stance on national security, a dramatically candid glimpse of which was provided on by the botched handling on Christmas Day of the underpants bomber. After 50 minutes of interrogation by the FBI, in which Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab freely admitted that other attacks were in the works, the interview was cut short on orders from the Justice Department. The terrorist was promptly read his Miranda rights and then permitted to lawyer up after which he clammed up.

Although the administration has tried lamely to defend this decision — by, for example, having spokesman Robert Gibbs appear on FOX News Sunday to claim that “useful intelligence was gotten” — the incident made it abundantly clear that Obama and his Attorney General, Eric Holder, subscribe to a pre-9/11 mentality. This is a recipe for disaster.

Which is why New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio drafted a letter of his in response to McMahon’s that highlights the sheer lunacy of proceeding as planned with the 9/11 trials. The letter, addressed to Congress, noted the duty of “representatives of the people to stand up not just for our own personal ideology, but for the basic views and values we swore to protect. This decision runs anathema to those basic views and values.” The letter is reprinted in its entirety at Human Events, which has also drafted a petition to Holder that currently has over 118,000 signatures. You can add your own by visiting this link.

With three quarters of the American populace now opposed to giving suspected terrorists the rights of U.S. citizens, which include the right to a “trial by one’s peers,” this misguided decision now becomes the latest in a succession of damned-if-he-does, damned-if-he-doesn’t decisions confronting Obama. As with his benighted health care agenda, if he goes forward with the plans to conduct the 9/11 trials a few blocks from ground zero, he will be viewed as resisting the will of the people. If he relents, he will lose even more political currency with his dwindling far-left base, while telegraphing the message to the entire electorate that he botched a critical decision in the first place.

When I first taught at Hebei University in Baoding, China, in 1984, I never saw a single boy and a single girl walking together on campus, although I often saw mixed groups.  Dancing was illegal when I got there, but it was legalized in May or June.  Two people asked me, independently, what there was about capitalism that led to homosexuality.  I replied that I didn’t think there was any connection between economic systems and sexual preference.  “But there is no homosexuality in China,” I was told.

When I went to China again in 1989, life was much freer–so much so that Beijing Spring occurred between mid-April and June 4th, when it was crushed.  Even so, homosexuality was taboo.  Marxist societies, like all forms of totalitarianism, are afraid of any kind of freedom, which is why dancing had been outlawed until 1984.  But China’s one-child policy had led to a disproportionate number of boys as opposed to girls, and Chinese officials must have thought that allowing homosexuality would ease the pressure on young men in a country where there weren’t enough young women for them to marry.

The gay marriage reported in the China Daily article is not legally binding, at least not yet.  But if a government newspaper publicizes it, it is no accident, Comrade.

Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader and all-around racist

Los Angeles Times

Shortly after the first Tax Day tea party, last April, political scientist, American historian, and noted psychologist Janeane Garofalo appeared on the suitably high-brow news analysis show “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” to give her learned assessment of the protesters and their motivation.

“Let’s be very honest about what this is about,” she intoned with grave studiousness. “This is not about bashing Democrats. It’s not about taxes. They have no idea what the Boston Tea party was about. They don’t know their history at all. It’s about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up.”

And to prove her own intellectual maturity and fair-mindedness, she dismissed the protesters as “nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks”—borrowing a pejorative term for a rather obscene sexual act popular among some homosexuals.

Since that time, Republicans, conservatives, independents, and even, one presumes, moderate Democrats who have expressed reservations about the job Barack Obama has done as president have been branded  racists. Is it possible that those of us who claim to find fault with the Obama presidency (which increasingly is gaining such unlikely adherents as lefty commentator Maureen Dowd, who slammed Obama hard again today in her New York Times column) simply find fault with the Obama presidency? No! shout back the acolytes. You’re a racist for even asking!

How is it that Democrats are so adept at sniffing out the racism in seemingly innocent comments? Could it be that they know the brand so well because at least some of them smoke it themselves?

That theory would seem to explain as well as any the unfortunate portrait Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid painted of Barack Obama, whom Reid praised for being “light-skinned” (for a black man) and for not using a “Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” Negro? I haven’t heard that term since Samuel L. Jackson’s character used it whimsically in addressing his black boss in Pulp Fiction. I’ll bet Joseph Conrad couldn’t have gotten away with using the word Negro.

“I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words,” Reid said when called out. Blah, blah, blah. Afterward, when the cameras were off, he went on to allow as how some of his best friends were black people (although none of them dark-skinned—perish the thought).

Obama subsequently issued a statement absolving Reid of any wrong-doing. Then again, who is Obama to talk. This, you may recall, is a man who described his own grandmother as “a typical white person” and jumped to unfortunate conclusions about the Cambridge, Massachusetts police—immediately after declaring that it was too early to reach any conclusions about the case involving Obama’s friend (and fellow racist) “Skip” Gates.

When you get down to cases, it doesn’t matter whether Obama thinks Reid’s remarks were racist. Any rational observer would have trouble seeing them as anything other than racist—and the ugliest kind of racism at that that: the backhanded compliment. But not to worry. Harry plans on showing his benevolent intentions by inviting the Obamas to dinner. He has even hired for the occasion a cook famous for her fried chicken and has ordered a whole mess of watermelon for dessert.

Cross-posted at Manhattan Conservative Examiner

Presumably, the comment was supposed to make Americans feel all warm and cuddly inside, knowing that their leader is a man of principles—someone who is willing to take his medicine when the system goes down on his watch. That view might not ring quite so hollow if Obama hadn’t spent every day of his administration previous to this one whining about the “mess he inherited” and blaming FOX News Channel or certain pollsters for his falling approval ratings.

But whether Obama’s self-recrimination is credible is really beside the point. The more important issue about the sentiment is what does he mean by it? In the same speech, Obama allowed as how “America’s first line of defense is timely, accurate intelligence that is shared, integrated, analyzed, and acted upon quickly and effectively.” But taking quick and decisive action in the face of accurate intelligence is precisely the opposite of he ordered done when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was seized by authorities. Rather than grill the Nigerian for information on who had trained him, where he had acquired the explosive materials used in the would-be attack, and whether, where, and when other attacks were imminent, Obama’s security team read Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights and allowed him to lawyer up.

Obama also gave assurances in his speech—or at least the impression thereof—that he understood the enemy we as a nation are up against. He described al Qaeda as “a far-reaching network of violence and hatred … that offers nothing except a bankrupt vision of misery and death … while the United States stands with those who seek justice and progress.” As Charles Krauthammer has noted, this views is disingenuous for many reasons. Chief among these is that al Qaeda is not out for justice or progress. On the contrary, they deplore both, which is what they despise the West. When Osama bin Laden or other Islamofascist leaders speak, they wax nostalgic about a worldwide caliphate; they pine for the glory that was Andalusia, the Latinized version of the name Al-Andalus that Muslims gave Spain in the Middle Ages, when the entire Iberian peninsula was under Islamic control.

A second problem with Obama’s statement is his identity of al Qaeda as the enemy. Indeed al Qaeda is an enemy and perhaps a prominent one. But they are not alone in the desire to bring death and destruction to the West. There are countless other sects and splinter groups dedicated to the same fanatic ideology, which is religious in nature. In short, we are at war with worldwide jihadism. Obama’s continuing to go out of his way to excuse Islam, as he did again in this speech, is to dismiss the problem, which is squarely grounded in Islamic doctrine.

Ultimately, this speech, like virtually every other one Obama has given, reveals a man who is more interested in appearances than he is in substance. The problem we as a nation face going forward with Barack Obama as our leader is that when you peel away the layers of fluff and bravado, there may be little inside.

Cross-posted at Manhattan Conservative Examiner

I’ll add that I believe, if a campaign of attacks actually occurs, that percentage would quickly hit the 80% level or higher, even and especially if you worded the question to include techniques to the “right” of waterboarding.

UPDATE:

Part of me thinks the populations of countries that adopt Sharia Law will find it stifles growth and results in them falling further and further behind more tolerant societies. Another part of me thinks our own population, or at least a substantial part of it, is vulnerable to subversion because of the very tolerance that underpins our pluralistic system.

With that in mind I’m not sure whether this fact reported by Daniel Pipes is good news or bad news.

. . . Al-Qaeda’s once-leading theorist has publicly repudiated terrorism and adopted political means. Sayyid Imam al-Sharif (b. 1950, also known by the nom de guerre Dr. Fadl) was accused of helping assassinate Sadat. In 1988 he published a book that argued for perpetual, violent jihad against the West. With time, however, Sharif observed the inutility of violent attacks and instead advocated a strategy of infiltrating the state and influencing society.

In a recent book, he condemned the use of force against Muslims (“Every drop of blood that was shed or is being shed in Afghanistan and Iraq is the responsibility of bin Laden and Zawahiri and their followers”) and even against non-Muslims (9/11 was counterproductive, for “what good is it if you destroy one of your enemy’s buildings, and he destroys one of your countries? What good is it if you kill one of his people, and he kills a thousand of yours?”).

http://www.danielpipes.org/7770/islamism

My brother returned the other day from a short stay down in Florida to remind me of the complete madness of our immigration system. While there he met an English fellow on the golf course who complained that he can’t get permission to legally stay in the U.S. for more than six months at a time even though his only purpose is to buy a house and retire to a better climate. Since he has something to lose and he’s law abiding he doesn’t feel comfortable doing what illegal aliens do, which is simply overstay his visa. Since he’s English and not “oppressed” he doesn’t qualify for any of the strange visa loopholes that seem almost designed to import problems.

In a rational universe we would be laying out a red carpet for old duffers with plenty of resources to buy houses and support themselves. In the real universe we’re all too apt to make the harmless duffers who want to spend their money here wait on line forever while we welcome unskilled fellows like this guy and extend his visa again and again even though he declares bankruptcy, thus proving he’s all about taking advantage of our system; and even though he periodically goes overseas for the avowed purpose of finding a suitably subservient wife whom he can import once he gets his green card, thus proving he has no intention of assimilating. The fact that his real purpose in going overseas was to maintain contacts with Al Qaeda and get training in how to overthrow our system is merely icing on the cake.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Najibullah_Zazi

“Iran has taken weeks now and has not shown its willingness to say yes to this proposal . . . and so as a consequence we have begun discussions with our international partners about the importance of having consequences.“

Do you suppose TOTUS is suffering a little jet lag?

Then there’s Obama helping Holder (responding about to a question regarding those people who are offended taht KSM would be accorded full rights under the Constitution):

“I don’t think it will be offensive at all when he’s convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him,” Obama told NBC’s Chuck Todd.

Whoa… having a flashback… I’m in a funky second-hand store in 73704, in the heart of Austin’s hippiest weirdelicious-est zip code, and I spy a stack of bumperstickers (buck apiece) on the counter that read.: “Take my Civil Rights.  I’m Wasn’t Using Them Anyway.”  I’m sure that the proprietor is happy that they’ve been taken and given to KSM, but only as a tease in a show trial before he gets the Big Hook.

For the record: I am offended and I’m even more offended that this former Con-Law professor is making a mockery of due process and endangering the proper execution of justice, be it civil or military.

Then there’s Jon Kyl, shooting the Holder-fish in the barrel:

You have repeatedly said of your decision to prosecute KSM in Article 3 courts is that is where you have the best chance to prosecte, that your chances of success are enhanced in Article 3 courts and that you have access to all the evidence so you are in a better position to judge than those who are ignorant of that evidence are.  How would you be more likely to get a conviction in Federal Court when KSM has already asked to plead guilty before a military commission and be executed? How can you be more likely to get a conviction in an Article 3 court than that?

I know I feel safer.  Where are the fiscal hawks on this one? I bet we could fund a jillion abortions for what it would cost to bring KSM to trial.  A firing squad is all fixed cost stuff.  And think of the morale boost to the other detainees, “Oh say can you hear the crackle of the rifles?  By the dawn’s early light, Khalid is rising to meet his 72 virgins in Paradise.  I wonder if you get that fabulous Chicken Surprise with Minted Peas and Mashed Potatoes in Paradise? Those stupid Uighurs just got beaches!  They don’t even know how to swim! Bwahahahaha!”

Then there are those pesky sideshows: the economy and the Stimulus that is stimulating phantom economies in phantom places with phantom people.  Let’s call it “Simulus.”  David Obey had this to say about the completely crappy numbers that the Administration put out about how our tax dollars are being put to use:

The inaccuracies on recovery.gov that have come to light are outrageous and the Administration owes itself, the Congress, and every American a commitment to work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes.

Credibility counts in government and stupid mistakes like this undermine it. We’ve got too many serious problems in this country to let that happen.

We designed the Recovery Act to be open and transparent and I expect the the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, who oversees the recovery act web site and data to have information that is accurate, reliable and understandable to the American public.

With all due respect to Rep. Obey: you didn’t really design anything.  You and your colleagues rushed and squandered three-quarters of a trillion dollars, and at least a few billion are completely unaccounted for and probably much more than that has gone to line the pockets of the favored.  And remember: Joe Biden was put in charge.  This is what you can expect.

Barack Obama responds to this by calling it a “side issue,” (@3:45) but only after saying, “I spend every waking hour- when I’m with my economic team- on this issue.”  Follow up: do you spend sleeping hours with your economic team?

I’ve been sitting here waiting for my text message from The One about his Afghanistan decision, but it looks like nuthin’ till after Thanksgiving.  Surprise!

File under “Too Much To Hope For:” Tiny Timmy Geithner resigning.  Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas, natch):

“I don’t think you should be fired. I thought you should have never been hired.”

I’m going to crack a beer and call it a week.  A wee-week.  And put this on your desktop.  And send it to Obama’s crackberry.