Good Ideas, Bad Ideas
WSJ on Guantanamo’s usefulness, and Kondracke on why Dem/GOP should just get along vs. terrorism. WSJ first:
While Guantanamo is clearly disliked around the world, those who want to close it have yet to offer a suitable alternative. Transferring its detainees to some place further offshore would mean spending billions of more dollars on a new facility, while facing the same criticism from antiwar activists. Gitmo is also territory under U.S. control, which means it avoids the complication of embarrassing allies in Afghanistan, Iraq, or somewhere else (as in the “secret CIA prisons” in Europe where KSM and other 9/11 plotters were allegedly kept before their transfer to Gitmo in 2006).
The legality of Guantanamo has also been upheld by the Supreme Court, which isn’t true of any other foreign outpost. The High Court has agreed to hear another Gitmo-related case in October, and it’s not a bad idea to remind the Justices that Guantanamo harbors terrorists captured on the current battlefield while trying to kill Americans. That fact might give them pause before they supplant their own war judgment for the Commander in Chief’s and make it easier for these killers to return to the war.
The real goal of Guantanamo’s critics is to have these killers treated like common criminals in American courts. That would make it impossible to deny them the full array of U.S. legal protections. In many cases, prosecutors would lack enough evidence to convict them under normal trial rules, especially if much of the evidence were classified. Soldiers don’t build a criminal case like “C.S.I.” sleuths when they’re snagging an enemy on the battlefield while also trying to avoid getting killed.
Because al-Qaeda criminals are not common criminals, contrary to the view that holds this should all be a big law-enforcement action. They are unlawful combatants engaged in a war with the United States.
Kondracke at Roll Call wants Dems, GOP to sing kumbayah with each other and unite vs. Al Qaeda. He makes a several good points, and several bad ones. The Dems do need to realize that defeating AQI would be a blow to AQ worldwide. They do deny undeniable progress against AQI in Iraq, and don’t emphasize anti-terrorism efforts when they pay lip service to it in their abandonment plans. They are so entrenched in these myopic views that it is hard to imagine them abandoning them.
Meanwhile, at this particular moment in history, “greater efforts to create a democratic transition in Pakistan” are unlikely to improve efforts to kill al Qaeda in Waziristan. Kondracke, blaming Bush for the expansion of jihad, apparently doesn’t think it would have expanded into Iraq and elsewhere. He looks at Iraq in a vacuum as a rallying point for jihad that ignore Saddam’s longstanding support for terrorism; his virulent anti-Americanism that created common interest and a strong likelihood of common endeavor, substantiated by reported contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence; universal belief that he had active WMD programs; subsequent evidence he intended to revive those programs upon the imminent collapse of the UN sanctions, etc. Never mind the genocide thing. Kondracke also assails Bush for assailing his critics, a bizarre statement to make when a wartime president is under relentless assault from Congress, and in fact as been assailed for failing to assail his critics.
Perhaps the idea here is for Bush to admit faults of which he is not guilty, to placate the Dems and bring them around. It wouldn’t. A better way to send a message and bring Dems around might be to play to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s vanity, for example, and encourage a freelance diplomacy venture to Waziristan, or to AQI’s leadership in whatever corner of Diyala its fled to. Of course, this is absurd. Even Pelosi would recognize this and forgo such an effort. Because, as Kondracke correctly notes:
There is an opportunity here for unified, bipartisan action. After all, Osama bin Laden wouldn’t ask whether Americans were Republican or Democrat before beheading them.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:53 am on Thursday, July 26, 2007
5 Responses to “Good Ideas, Bad Ideas”
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July 26th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Will get to MORTAHNN, as John McLaughlin use to call him…BUT this is important…Parteeeeeee at Blair’s unti mid August. Going on holiday, he is…
Ummmm, you don’t think a Blog can get banned, do you, Jules?
July 26th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
OH and tell Achmed, Farouk and Ali, we will have Halaal, stuff, too.
July 26th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
I think sending Pelosi off to Waziristan to have a sit down with AQ is the best idea I’ve heard in a very long time.
I suppose one could call what the Dhims are doing “myopic.” That’s being a bit generous, as far as I’m concerned. Those who deny all evidence just so they can play to the voters, choose to evade knowledge necessary to secure the nation against an avowed enemy that has proven what its agenda is over and over. This level of cynical evasion is more than mere myopia, it is criminal.
July 27th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Kondracke’s comment about OBL (and friends) not distinguishing between repubs and demos is…almost unbearably naive.
OBL and friends don’t even distinguish between Muslims in their way or convenient Muslim kills and other Muslims.
They also laugh all the way to the bank as useful “western” idiots dither about rights of Guantanamo guys and adhering to certain “rights” conventions when jacking around with “terrorists”.
Nance P. going to Waziristan is as heartwarming and rewarding a concept as Babsie Boxer leading a “global warming” Congressional trek to Greenland.
(she, reportedly, plans to do that)
Whadda Planet.
July 28th, 2007 at 6:57 am
I think Kondracke is wrong about the jihad. They had no trouble killing Americans, spreading their philosophy and in general being a pain in the ass before Bush became president. They have their own agenda and they will pursue it with or without Iraq, with or without Bush’s policies. This is not all about us, and sometimes pundits forget that.