Dutch Idiocy on Piracy

Back in November, the Dutch navy caught five Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. The had hijacked a yacht, and kidnapped a South African couple. The victims are still missing. After they were found guilty of these actions, a Dutch court sentenced them today. So what does piracy and kidnapping get you in the Netherlands? How about "up to 7 years" in prison? Wow, that should serve as a great deterrent to piracy. No doubt Somalia pirates are quaking with fear over the possibility that they might be intercepted by the Dutch navy. They might face up to seven whole years in prison. Oh wait, that was only for two of them. The other three got even shorter sentences.

If you have to travel in the areas where Somalian pirates operate, you'll just have to take your chances, since no state is willing to take the actions necessary to suppress piracy. At least some nations, such as the U.S. and Spain, are willing to hand out harsh sentences to captured pirates.

In similar cases this year, a U.S. court in Virginia sentenced five Somalis to life in prison and a Spanish court in Madrid sentenced two convicted pirates to 439 years each.

But apparently the Dutch are still blindly adhering to some archaic law written during a time when a 7 year prison term was much more like a death sentence.

Prosecution spokesman Wim de Bruin said the sentences were in line with Dutch law, which provides a maximum 9-year term for piracy and 12 years for a pirate captain. The 17th-century law against sea robbery has not been revised since modern pirates began plaguing the sea lanes off Africa’s eastern coast.

Maybe they should have addressed those sentencing rules before they decided to bring Somali pirates back and try them in the Netherlands.

Nashiri Cole Bombing Trial

Abd al Rahim al Nashiri faces a military trial accused of bombing the U.S.S. Cole back in 2008. This case illustrates the difficulty inherent in trying to use normal legal rules -- even military court -- to deal with foreign terrorist enemies. Nashiri was waterboarded, held in a secret prison, and subjected to other harsh interrogation techniques, so naturally his lawyers say the case is "tainted." They know he isn't going free, but they argue to spare him the death penalty. Under normal legal rules the case is definitely tainted, as long as you forget that this man isn't an American citizen or a legal resident, but a foreign enemy that attacked a U.S. warship that wasn't even engaging in any warfare at the time. I give him credit for striking a military target instead of the usual preferred soft targets, but summary execution was still warranted for what he did.

Ideally Nashiri should have been quietly executed years ago, after we extracted all useful information, preferably by using rendition to send him someplace that would do it for us. But now, years later, putting him on trial is a farce.. After three years we are going to charge him with crimes and ask for the death penalty? There's no purpose to this trial. He's been sitting in jail since we captured him, and should continue to sit until he dies. The trial gives a veneer of legalism to our continued confinement of a dangerous Al Qaeda member. But it fools no one. People like me see it as unnecessary, and people who think Nashiri has rights are going to view it as a kangaroo court rubber-stamping a preordained outcome.

A Bizarre Mix of Counterterrorism & Legalism

The strange mixture of counterterrorism and legalism of the Obama administration is what jumped out at me when I read a Washington Post story about a Somali indicted on terrorism charges. Consider whether or not you'd expect these things to go together.

• The secret capture of a "terrorism suspect" in the Gulf of Aden
• Two months of daily or almost daily secret interrogations with no justice department involvement
  
• Suspect eventually advised of Miranda "rights" and "right" to legal representation
  
• Suspect flown secretly flown to New York and indicted by a federal grand jury on conspiracy charges.

Is this man an enemy or a criminal? The Obama administration doesn't know, and like most things, they want to have it both ways. They secretly capture and interrogate someone who has apparently committed no crime against the U.S., and then later go through the ridiculous farce of advising him of rights which he shouldn't even possess as a presumed hostile non-U.S. citizen. According to the article,

The nine-count indictment, ..., does not accuse Warsame of carrying out or plotting attacks against U.S. targets. It charges him with conspiracy and providing material support to two groups the United States considers terrorist organizations: al-Shabab, a militant Islamist group opposed to Somalia’s weak, U.S.-backed government, and Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Warsame is also accused of weapons offenses related to both alleged conspiracies; conspiracy to teach and demonstrate explosive-making; and receiving military training from AQAP.

This case raises many questions. How is a foreigner who assists some terrorist groups outside the U.S. somehow subject to U.S. laws and a reasonable subject of a U.S. indictment? On the one hand the Obama administration acts to neutralize someone they see as an enemy or potential enemy, but on the other it tries to cover the act with a veneer of legalism -- going so far as to manufacture an indictment. How are we able to charge people with crimes for simply being a part of some foreign terrorist group, when the person hasn't actually done anything against the U.S.? Does the existence of groups such as al-Shabab automatically cause anyone having anything to do with them to be engaged in a conspiracy under U.S. law? Why are we wasting time and money hauling some Somali to the U.S. for a trial? What purpose will this accomplish?

International Criminal Court Continues to be a Joke

Moammar Gaddafi has been a brutal dictator for a long time. In addition to his typical repressive actions at home, he's also had extensive ties with terrorists. There are reports that he personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing. But now, after all this time, with Gaddafi fighting for the survival of his regime, the ICC has decided to issue a meaningless arrest warrant for him for supposed "crimes against humanity."

Not only has the ICC waited until his regime is embroiled in a civil war, where his ruthless attempts to crush the rebels are pretty standard tactics, but it waited until NATO was already trying to kill him. What's the point of this ridiculous indictment? The Libyan government responded by saying that the "ICC has no legitimacy whatsoever." Gaddafi isn't right about much, but he's right about that.

The Legality of Targeted Killings

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Illya Somin writes about his response to the current questions regarding the legality of killing Osama bin Laden. Somin notes that most people don't have a problem with such actions when directed at uniformed military officers in wartime.

To my knowledge, hardly any serious commentators claim that the targeted killing of enemy military commanders such as Yamamoto and Heydrich is either illegal or immoral. ... everyone understands that individual military officers are legitimate targets. A capable high-ranking officer is a military asset

Since Somin is using World War Two examples he might also have noted that the British targeted (but failed to kill) General Erwin Rommel, and that allied fighter bombers routinely attacked staff cars in order to kill enemy officers. He then draws the obvious conclusion,

What is true of uniformed officers surely also applies to leaders of terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda. The latter, too, represent enemy military assets that we can legitimately target in wartime. If anything, targeting terrorist leaders is more defensible than targeting individual uniformed officers. Unlike uniformed soldiers, terrorist leaders openly target civilians and don’t even pretend to obey the laws of war.

Somin treats the questions about the legality of killing bin Laden as if they deserve a serious response. In my opinion, those who question whether or not the U.S. could legally kill someone like bin Laden are utter fools whose whining deserves nothing more than derisive laughter.

Torture, Intelligence & Osama bin Laden

In the aftermath of bin Laden's death, there have been all sorts of articles by terrorist rights supporters who continue to pretend that we couldn't possibly have gotten any important intelligence from waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques -- which they generically label torture in an expansive definition that renders the term virtually meaningless. The latest nonsense can be found in an editorial today by the New York Times called, "The Torture Apologists."

The killing of Osama bin Laden provoked a host of reactions from Americans: celebration, triumph, relief, closure and renewed grief. One reaction, however, was both cynical and disturbing: crowing by the apologists and practitioners of torture that Bin Laden’s death vindicated their immoral and illegal behavior after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Their are plenty of people, including myself, who do not agree that their behavior was immoral. Whether or not it was legal is highly debatable. What is cynical and disturbing is the continued effort by the New York Times and others to demonize those who worked to protect the country and extract intelligence from captured enemies.

There is no final answer to whether any of the prisoners tortured in President George W. Bush’s illegal camps gave up information that eventually proved useful in finding Bin Laden. A detailed account in The Times on Wednesday by Scott Shane and Charlie Savage concluded that torture “played a small role at most”

I love the constant, meaningless assertions of illegality. But more importantly, the opinions of a couple of people are hardly definitive. It is also difficult to quantify the value of individual pieces of intelligence, since they are not taken alone but in conjunction with everything else discovered or known. One small bit of information taken alone might not seem that important, but could be a critical link in building the final picture. A common logical error found among most anti-torture extremists, is a failure to understand that torture, or any form of coercive interrogation technique need not stand alone. Information is information no matter how it is extracted. It can be good, bad or indifferent. It can be confirmed, falsified, expanded upon, or linked with information generated by different methods other than the way it was initially obtained.

if it were true that some tidbit was blurted out by a prisoner while being tormented by C.I.A. interrogators, that does not remotely justify Mr. Bush’s decision to violate the law and any acceptable moral standard.

Again, whether or not Bush violated the law is highly debatable. And in my opinion his actions were fully justified, whether any useful information was obtained or not. The idea that they violated "any acceptable moral standard" is simply laughable. People who believe torture can never be justified under any circumstances are a minority, yet these moral absolutists repeatedly put forth their own extreme views as if they were self-evident facts. It's pretty funny that this minority feels entitled to regularly speak in self-righteous terms as if they were the only true arbiters of morality.

There are many arguments against torture. It is immoral and illegal and counterproductive.

Again, we have an assertion backed by nothing but minority opinion. Even if it were a majority opinion, it would still be mere opinion. Most people believe that torture is immoral in a majority of cases, but justifiable under certain circumstances. Just because you believe it is immoral in all cases, does not make it so. Saying it is illegal is irrelevant. Something can be illegal yet still useful or justifiable as an exception to the law, and torture could be legal too if the law allowed for it. Under the expansive definition of torture used by many anti-torture extremists, some of the things done legally in U.S. prisons constitute torture. For example, supporters of traitor Bradley Manning argue that his treatment -- despite being legal -- amounts to torture. And finally, torture can be counterproductive, but it can also produce accurate information. Whether it is counterproductive overall depends on the particular case and is a subject for debate, not something that can be asserted as unchallenged fact.

The battered intelligence community should now be basking in the glory of a successful operation. It should not be dragged back into the muck and murk by political figures whose sole agenda seems to be to rationalize actions

It's been battered by terrorist rights supporters, and those, like the New York Times, who have engaged in a sustained attempt to demonize the people who worked to gain the intelligence needed to protect this country and hunt down its enemies. The success of the operation is in spite of organizations such as the New York Times. The Times attitude is typical on the left. Only people with the correct ideas should be permitted to speak. Those without should shut-up. How dare those evil torturers try to defend themselves and point out that their efforts bore some fruit? Don't they know that that all the right people think their actions were immoral and illegal?

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Should Get No Trial At All

It's been pretty funny watching the whining and sniveling of terrorist rights supporters upset that President Obama is going to use a military tribunal to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Most of those criticizing the decision do so with various false assertions based on false assumptions. Let's take the New York Times editorial today as an example.

How fitting it would have been to put the plot’s architect on trial a few blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, to force him to submit to the justice of a dozen chosen New Yorkers, to demonstrate to the world that we will not allow fear of terrorism to alter our rule of law.

It would demonstrate to the world that we are stupid enough to provide a huge forum for an orgy of anti-Americanism under the guise of the so-called "rule of law." I've found as a general rule, whenever anyone makes serious use of the phrase "rule of law," the odds are that it will be preceded or followed by utter nonsense.

But, apparently, there are many who continue to cower, who view terrorists as much more fearsome than homegrown American mass murderers and the American civilian jury system as too “soft” to impose needed justice.

This assertion, and just about the entire op-ed is a typical strawman. The primary reason people oppose civilian trials for foreign terrorists is that foreign terrorists are not entitled to the protections of U.S. civil law. In my opinion, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed does not require a trial of any kind. KSM is a leader of an enemy terrorist organization with which we are still at war. He was captured back in 2003. The last I checked it is now 2011. He hasn't had a trial, and he still doesn't need one. We can hold him forever if we so choose. Al Qaeda as an organization, and its members are completely outside the law [unless they happen to be U.S. citizens, in which case they should be treated as such]. They follow no rules, haven't signed any international agreements, and there are no clear guidelines for how to deal with captured members. Rather than tying our own hands, and providing our enemies with unearned and undeserved rights, we should retain as wide a latitude as possible in dealing with foreign terrorists.

Even going through the motions of a military trial for KSM is a gigantic waste of time. There's no question about his identity, his leadership role in Al Qaeda, and his involvement in 9/11. Even former administration spokesman Robert Gibbs talked about KSM's conviction and execution as a foregone conclusion. The U.S. isn't going to release him under any circumstances, regardless of what happens at a trial, civilian or military. He is essentially under a suspended death sentence already -- as he should be. Ideally he should already be dead. After we extracted all useful information, he should have faced summary execution. But since we didn't do that, and he's now been sitting in prison for eight years, it might be more appropriate to just let him rot.

As I've argued many times on this blog, the blind legalism of terrorist rights supporters, and their attempt to debase the rights of U.S. citizens by awarding them to foreign enemies, is far more dangerous to the U.S. than any treatment we might meet out to someone like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Rather than extending this post further, I'll just link to my two part post "No Rights for Hostile Aliens."

The Price of Tolerating Piracy

If you haven't heard, Somalia pirates murdered four U.S. captives today in a reminder that there is a price to be paid for the legalistic stupidity preventing the eradication of Somali piracy. Despite having the world's most powerful navy, the U.S. is unwilling to take the basic measures necessary to eliminate a piracy threat that has now claimed American lives. I've written about the piracy issue numerous times, so I'll just quote myself.

The way to eliminate piracy is well known, and has been for a couple thousand years. You kill the pirates, and you destroy their bases. It really isn't much more complicated than that. Yet international naval forces vastly more powerful than historical counterparts can do little more than catch and release the occasional pirate stupid enough to get caught. ... we are just too civilized to use such effective methods against piracy. We are too worried about someone calling our actions illegal, or about possibly killing innocent people -- as if people who permit a pirate operation to take place in their midst shouldn't have to accept the risk of retaliation. Instead we'd rather put merchant seamen at risk of being taken hostage or killed.

According to the NYT link we captured thirteen pirates involved in this killing. If we were serious about combating piracy, we'd summarily execute twelve of them as an example of what happens when pirates kill Americans. We would save the most cooperative pirate to obtain information regarding where this particular group was based, and then use that knowledge to raid and destroy that location. Will we do those things? Of course not. Instead we'll give the pirates lawyers, pretend they have rights, waste time trying them in civilian court, and house them in our prison system. Somalia pirates will continue to expand their range, secure in the knowledge that all the awesome naval power in the world isn't that scary when it's crippled by legalism. There's always a chance that a warship might be in the right place at the right time, but as long as you aren't stupid enough to put up a fight, the worst that could probably happen if you encounter a U.S. warship is that you'll find yourself arrested, put on trial and sent to jail. Given conditions in Somalia, and the huge ransoms available from piracy, most Somali pirates are probably going to view that as an acceptable risk to reward ratio.

Dumbest Short Post I've Seen on the Ghailani Case

Over at the misnamed "Moderate Voice," there is a post up titled, "This Just In: Torture Still Doesn't Work. The System Still Does." Before get to the post itself, the title is an example of why I regularly post examples of torture working to extract accurate information. There are far too many ignoramuses like the author, Shaun Mullen, who not only believe that torture doesn't work but actually pretend that their uninformed belief is an established fact.

Mullen's main point is that the civilian criminal justice system worked just fine for trying a terrorist, because the government managed to get a conviction on a single count -- despite the horrible use of torture that damaged the case. As you might anticipate, this conclusion shows minimal logical reasoning ability.

Much of the crucial evidence against the U.S. embassy bomber had been thrown out because it was coerced through torture, a salient fact lost of Liz Cheney and other Bush Torture Regime apologists

How clueless do you have to be to even write this passage? First of all, there was no such thing as a "Bush Torture Regime," except in the minds of anti-American propagandists, Bush Derangement Syndrome sufferers and their enablers. But more importantly, those opposing the use of civilian courts do so exactly because they oppose giving the rights of American citizens, including applying civilian evidentiary rules, to foreign enemies of the U.S. The fact that a known terrorist might have escaped conviction because evidence had to be excluded, strongly supports the arguments of those who oppose granting civilian trials to those for whom they were never intended, and who do not deserve the rights of American citizens. But Mullen is apparently just too clueless to grasp that concept.

Senator Lindsay Graham spoke for the torch-and-pitchfork brigade in bemoaning the Ghailani trial

“We put our nation at risk by criminalizing the war,” he said without a hint of irony.

That's because what he said wasn't at all ironic unless you choose to deliberately misinterpret his words. Pretending that foreign enemies of the U.S. are the same as common criminals, giving them the rights of U.S. citizens, and trying them in civilian court does indeed put our nation at risk. It creates the very real possibility that we will either have to let a known terrorist walk free, or utilize some sort of extra-legal procedures to keep an acquitted individual confined. For some reason that possibility doesn't seem to bother terrorist rights supporters.

The irony, of course is that the justice system isn’t broken, as the Grahams and Cheneys believe. Rather, the trial is proof that it works.

This is a strawman and a particularly dumb one at that. No one is claiming that the American legal system is broken. The argument is that the civilian legal system is not an appropriate venue for dealing with foreign terrorists. This trial proves nothing one way or the other. But the fact that the government was able to get a conviction on only a single count, is evidence that using the civilian court system might not be such a great idea. Just because we got lucky this time, and didn't have an acquittal based on thrown-out evidence, doesn't mean it couldn't happen.

No Prosecutions for Keeping Secrets Secret

The Justice Department announced today that there will be no criminal prosecutions of CIA officers who destroyed interrogation tapes.

After a closely watched investigation of nearly three years, the decision by a special federal prosecutor is the latest example of Justice Department officials’ declining to seek criminal penalties for some of the controversial episodes in the C.I.A.’s now defunct detention and interrogation program.

Those tapes should have never been made in the first place, and those who destroyed them rightly recognized that they'd be a bonanza for anti-American propaganda should they become public.

Mr. Rodriguez [the key CIA officer involved] had argued that “the heat” agency officials would take over destroying the tapes “is nothing compared to what it would be if the tapes ever got into the public domain.”

Mr. Rodriguez told another top C.I.A. official that if the images were disclosed “out of context, they would make us look terrible; it would be ‘devastating’ to us,” an e-mail said. The tapes showed hours of interrogation of the two detainees, including the infliction of a technique called waterboarding that simulates drowning.

Details of CIA interrogation tactics should have remained secret. It's bad enough that so many details were released to the public as it is. But actual video would be even worse. Rodriguez and his associates should be commended for their actions, not investigated for prosecution. As his attorney says,

Rodriguez is “a hero and a patriot, who simply wanted to protect his people and his country,”

As I've pointed out many times before, intelligence agencies do all sorts of ugly things for national security purposes, many of which would be illegal if done in any other context. That's why we have restrictions on what the CIA can do inside the U.S. The very idea that we would prosecute a CIA officer for making sure that information damaging to America remains secret is crazy, and is typical of a blind legalistic attitude found among those who think nothing of crippling U.S. intelligence gathering capabilities. Fortunately even the Obama Justice Department has enough sense not subscribe to such an idea.

Pointless Trial For Former Gitmo Detainee

There's an article in the New York Times that provides a prime example of blind legalism in action. It's difficult to read it without laughing incredulously that we are actually wasting all this time and effort putting a known terrorist on trial in the civilian court system -- let alone agonizing over various details.

Here's the situation. Back in 2004 we captured Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who was implicated in the 1998 bombing of two U.S. African embassies. It's blatantly obvious that he's guilty. Ghailani was first held in a "secret" CIA prison, and then moved to Guantanamo. His interrogation revealed the name of the person who sold him explosives, Hussein Abebe, who was then tracked down. Abebe admits selling Ghailani the explosives thinking that they'd be used for legitimate mining purposes. So what's the problem?

Naturally, like every terrorist, Ghailani claims he was tortured. Instead of just ignoring his claim, for which there is zero evidence, the judge is worried about how the U.S. government found out about Abele, and why he is cooperating. There's a question of whether or not he will be permitted to testify.

This situation demonstrates yet again the problems with pretending that hostile aliens have U.S. constitutional rights, or that the civilian legal system applies to covert intelligence operations and secret war efforts against terrorist enemies. Once it was confirmed that Ghailani was part of the embassy bombings, he should have received a quick summary execution -- preferably in secret. There's no reason to go through this farce and waste all sorts of time and money, just so the administration can conduct a show trial. It serves no good purpose, is unnecessary and risks further damage to our ongoing intelligence operations and war efforts. Since it appears that Ghailani is clearly guilty, I have little doubt that the administration will be able to secure some sort of conviction. But just by exposing this sort of case in civilian court, there is always the danger of having a judge make a ruling that will impose more restrictions on our covert actions.   

British Terrorist Rights Supporters Even More Insane Than the US Variety

Today's headline in The Guardian: "Two Pakistani students pose 'serious threat' but can stay in UK." What?!

Britain's counter-terrorism strategy was thrown into turmoil today when a judge ruled that two Pakistani students posed a serious threat to national security but could not be deported because of the risk that they would be tortured or killed in their own country.

According to the court, one of the men is actually an "an al-Qaida operative." Yet they can't be deported because something bad might happen to them. Enemies who want to kill British civilians have to be protected. This is what happens when you listen to the blind legalism of morons who like to bleat about the so-called "rule of law."

Rational people might think that foreign students residing in a host country are there as a privilege on the sufferance of the host nation. If those students turn out to be terror supporters, let alone actual members of Al Qaeda, they should be expelled, and have to take their chance with whatever happens in the country they are returned to. Rational laws are designed and used to protect society, not enemies who wish to destroy it. But terrorist rights supporters are much more concerned with protecting foreign enemies than the society they live in. They have a blind, almost religious veneration for "the law," as if it was a mystical force detached from reality.  

Al Qaeda Civil Liberties Union

If you go to the main ACLU website and look under the the section called "Our Work," here's the header:

The ACLU is our nation's guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.

That's what a civil liberties organization should be doing, and in many cases, local branches of the ACLU do exactly that. But the national organization is looking more and more like not just a useful idiot for our enemies, but an actual enemy itself. It has consistently been attempting to promote expansive rights for hostile alien terrorists -- not just suspects, but known, self-proclaimed terrorists. That's bad enough. But with the terrorist rights promotion, you can write it off as foolish but well-intentioned. In the minds of ACLU types, and other civil libertarians, degrading the U.S. Constitution by granting the rights of U.S. citizens to stateless terrorist enemies somehow protects the rights of Americans. But today we have this:

The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit demanding the U.S. government prove its legal basis for targeted drone attacks overseas

Given the situation on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the drone assassination campaign, regardless of its drawbacks, represents the core of our offensive strategy against the Taliban & Al Qaeda in the area. These attacks have absolutely nothing to do with the rights of Americans, and should have nothing to do with the ACLU. By filing this lawsuit, the ACLU is deliberately attempting to undermine a major part of the U.S. war effort.  It is basically acting as a legal front for the Taliban and Al Qaeda against the United States.

That's Why We Have a CIA

Georgetown law professor Gary Solis wrote an article in yesterday's Washington Post called, "CIA drone attacks produce America's own unlawful combatants." The thrust of the column is that since the CIA is not part of the uniformed military, their role in hostilities makes them unlawful civilian combatants.

No less than their insurgent targets, they are fighters without uniforms or insignia, directly participating in hostilities, employing armed force contrary to the laws and customs of war. Even if they are sitting in Langley, the CIA pilots are civilians violating the requirement of distinction, a core concept of armed conflict, as they directly participate in hostilities.

This is true, but it's also completely irrelevant as an argument against the drone campaign. It merely states the obvious, and demonstrates why viewing wars through a legalistic lens is pointless and counterproductive.

As I have noted many times on this blog, the main reason countries have covert intelligence agencies, is to conduct operations which are by definition illegal. Most covert operations blatantly violate the laws of whatever country they occur in, international law, and often domestic law -- that's one major reason why CIA operations within the United States are tightly restricted. Saying that CIA actions in killing enemy targets are the acts of illegal combatants is utterly meaningless. Doing illegal things is its mission. Of course CIA operators will be viewed rightly as illegal combatants by enemies.

If captured, the unlawful acts committed during their direct participation makes them subject to prosecution in civilian courts or military tribunals. They are not entitled to prisoner-of-war status.

I seriously doubt any CIA covert operator has illusions on this score. Spies, saboteurs, assassins, and other types of illegal combatants do not, and should not have legal protection -- and have not traditionally, except for "legal" spies with diplomatic cover. 

By viewing the drone campaign as a military operation involving the CIA as illegal civilian combatants, Solis has it exactly backward. The drone campaign is an assassination program aimed at eliminating specific individuals. The military is assisting the CIA in carrying out assassinations. If he wanted to make a legal argument of some relevance, he might reasonably argue that the military shouldn't be openly supporting assassinations. But overall, his article illustrates yet again just how useless legalism is when applied to warfare. Ivory tower debate over laws and rules when applied to warfare has little impact, except to possibly impose more restrictions on those who actually follow rules -- in this case our side. And legalism applied to the actions of an organization designed to operate outside the law is both stupid and dangerous. It's stupid because it ignores the nature and purpose of the CIA, and it's dangerous because it imposes restrictions that cripple the ability of the CIA to carry out its missions.

Another Terrorist "Rights" Case

This time it's Ahmed Ghailani, long-time Al Qaeda member, aide to Bin Laden, and apparent architect of the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa.  

A judge was set to hear arguments from lawyers Monday before deciding if a terrorist bombing suspect's rights were violated when he was held for five years for questioning at Guantanamo Bay and in secret CIA-run camps abroad instead of being prosecuted promptly in a U.S. court.

Just once it would be nice to hear a judge actually stand up for the Constitution, and slap down the ridiculous and dangerous notion that a member of an alien terrorist organization at war with the U.S. has rights equivalent to a U.S. citizen. But that's unlikely to happen, even if his arguments are denied. Look at the words of Ghailani,

"I have been a victim of the "cruel enhanced interrogation" techniques, never afforded the right to remain silent nor the right to have an attorney," he wrote in a petition seeking freedom.

He and other terrorists have got to be laughing hysterically at the thought that there are actually people in the U.S. foolish enough to believe that he should have such rights, and that such arguments are actually entertained in court instead of being dismissed with the derisive laughter they deserve.

I'm sure the CIA agents who risked their lives to capture this guy are thrilled to know that U.S. lawyers are trying to set him free, by degrading the U.S. constitution and pretending as if he deserves the rights of a U.S. citizen. Hopefully in the future, any terrorists captured by the CIA will be conveniently shot while trying to escape, fall down flights of stairs and break their necks, or suffer other fatal "accidents," after all available intelligence has been extracted. 

Putting Ourselves in a Straightjacket

The have been numerous reports lately concerning Al Qaeda activity in Yemen. The U.S. has stepped up aid to the Yemeni government, and has even been conducting military strikes in the country. We, and the British, just closed our embassy there because of "security threats." The overall situation in Yemen is not good, and apparently worsening daily. Given all that, we clearly have a critical need for intelligence relating to terrorist activities tied to that country.

The failed Christmas bombing left Omar Abdulmutalla in U.S. custody. This terrorist supposedly has ties to Al Qaeda in Yemen, and may even have trained there. We don't know how much he knows. It's possible that he knows very little, and was just a ignorant, fanatical tool. But it is also possible that he could have significant information. Even seemingly minor details might give us useful advantages in our expanding operations against Al Qaeda in Yemen. So what did we do?

We voluntarily chose to treat Abdulmutalla as a criminal, and provided him with completely undeserved rights, and access to legal representation, as if he were a U.S. citizen -- not a terrorist linked to an organization at war with the United States. Now, in order to gain information, we are reduced to trying to make a deal. Here's Obama advisor John Brennan on whether the terrorist will cooperate in return for "incentives,"

"He doesn't have to but he knows there are certain things that are on the table... if he wants to engage with us in a productive manner, there are ways he can do that."

The reason he doesn't have to make a deal, or tell us anything, as Brennan points out, is because the administration stupidly decided to treat him as if he were the same as a U.S. citizen. Maybe he'll make a deal and give us useful information. Or maybe he'll feed us a pack of lies. Or maybe he just doesn't know anything. But he could just choose to say nothing at all. And there's no reason he should have that option in the first place.

This is yet another example of how granting foreign terrorists the rights of a U.S. citizen puts a straightjacket on U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts. And for nothing. We penalize ourselves, degrade U.S. constitutional rights by extending them to those undeserving of them, and we gain nothing. If Abdulmutallah chooses not to talk, and sticks to that decision resolutely, there is nothing we can do. We just have to accept it. Assuming he has any useful information, could we force it out of him? Maybe, maybe not. But we've stupidly denied ourselves even the option to try.

Majority Rejects Terrorist Rights

That's according to the latest Rasmussen poll. A solid majority of 58% support the use of "waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques" to get information out of the underwear bomber. Only 30% oppose. And a full 71% oppose treating the terrorist bombing attempt as a normal civilian crime, as the Obama administration is doing.

It's funny, when you hear the self-righteous moralizing of terrorist rights supporters, and their contemptuous disgust of those who don't share their fanatical belief that U.S. constitutional rights apply even to alien terrorists. You might think think they were in the majority, condemning some fringe extremists -- barbarians who support the use of torture. Whereas in fact, they are actually a minority. Whenever terrorist threats gain the attention of the public, minority support for terrorist rights drops even further. That's what happens when foolish utopian ideas run up against harsh reality. Pretending that foreign terrorists are just common criminals who should have rights and normal access to the legal system is fine with many, as long as they aren't paying too much attention to terrorism, and the threat seems pretty abstract and remote. 

Are the supposed "rights" of a known foreign terrorist more important than gaining information that might prevent future acts of terrorism? When that question is framed against the backdrop of a real terrorist threat, most people will rightly reject terrorist rights.

Silliness about Mines

If you want to see why most human rights advocates shouldn't be taken too seriously, look no further than an LA Times opinion piece by Jody Williams called, "United States' shameful land mine policy." Williams (like Obama) is a nobel peace prize winner and the "founding coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines." As the title indicates, Williams is horrified and upset that President Obama won't sign the International Mine Ban Treaty. The entire article is a pretty funny combination of hysteria, emotionalism and naivete. Here are some amusing excerpts.

Obama's position on land mines calls into question his expressed views on multilateralism, respect for international humanitarian law and disarmament. How can he, with total credibility, lead the world to nuclear disarmament when his own country won't give up even land mines?

Apparently she actually believes that Obama could somehow "lead the world to nuclear disarmament." I guess that's not surprising from someone that thinks a treaty to ban mines is actually going to prevent a country that really needs to use them from doing so.

I voted for Obama. I wanted to believe that his soaring rhetoric might actually be turned into a revival for the U.S. on issues of multilateralism, international humanitarian law and, of course, human rights. But at the moment, I'm quite disillusioned.

If Williams is "disillusioned" with Obama, he must be doing something right. And someone might want to tell her that there is no such thing as international humanitarian "law." Ideas about human rights vary wildly throughout the world.

When will the U.S. join the rest of the world in banning these insidious weapons of terror that have caused so much heartbreak and devastation?

Hopefully never. Denying ourselves the possession of weapons as useful as mines because of the bleatings of naive fools like Williams would be the height of idiocy. And of course the "rest of the world" has hardly banned them. At this very moment one of the greatest threats our soldiers face in Afghanistan, as previously in Iraq, are IEDs. Improvised explosives devices are a type of command-detonated mine. Mines come in a wide variety, from improvised weapons such as IEDs, to highly specialized weapons that can be delivered and deployed in various ways. 

Treaties banning weapons are largely unenforceable, except possibly against weak states, give a false sense of security, and remove valuable and useful military options. Far from considering banning mines, the U.S. is hopefully working to develop new more effective types that take advantage of the latest technology. Demonizing weapon systems is based primarily on emotionalism, and should be ignored by policy makers. Look at William's cry, mines have caused "so much heartbreak and devastation." You know what else causes heartbreak and devastation? Bullets and artillery shells. We aren't banning them and we shouldn't ban mines either. There is nothing "shameful" about the U.S. refusal to sign a useless and harmful treaty.

"War Crimes" in Video Games

Apparently there are not enough actual human rights problems in the real world, because a Swiss human rights organization found the time to do a study on supposed war crimes in video games. Seriously.

Lawyers trained in international humanitarian, criminal and human rights law cast their legal eyes over twenty shooters

In reality of course, such laws have little effect on warfare, except when practiced by countries that actually respect and abide by at least some of these rules -- a small minority. But naturally lawyers take such things very seriously, even in game form. The whole article is pretty funny. Take this for example,

Criticism of Modern Warfare continues with the assessment that the violent interrogation and execution of villain Al-Asad by the player's moustachioed chum and superior officer Captain Price is torture--"prohibited in any context, under any circumstances" in reality.

Far from being "prohibited in any context," torture and summary execution are quite common during conflicts. It's pretty amusing that these lawyers are unable to recognize that even video games are more realistic than their own naive notions.

John Yoo on the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Trial

John Yoo has an excellent article in the Wall Street Journal pointing out one of the major drawbacks of holding a civilian trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. As I've argued before, my primary objection is that KSM is an alien terrorist who should be subject to summary execution, not given undeserved rights as if he were a U.S. citizen. By doing so we bow to a form of blind legalism that introduces laws and rules to a situation in which they were never meant to apply. In addition, we cheapen and degrade the rights of U.S. citizens by extending them to individuals like KSM. But Yoo brings up another important issue.

Yoo makes the case that this trial will provide intelligence on our operations to Al Qaeda, as well as harming our ongoing and future intelligence efforts to counter the terrorist network.

Prosecutors will be forced to reveal U.S. intelligence on KSM, the methods and sources for acquiring its information, and his relationships to fellow al Qaeda operatives. The information will enable al Qaeda to drop plans and personnel whose cover is blown. It will enable it to detect our means of intelligence-gathering, and to push forward into areas we know nothing about.

It will do all of those things. And for that cost we get nothing.

Even more harmful to our national security will be the effect a civilian trial of KSM will have on the future conduct of intelligence officers and military personnel. Will they have to read al Qaeda terrorists their Miranda rights? Will they have to secure the "crime scene" under battlefield conditions? Will they have to take statements from nearby "witnesses"? Will they have to gather evidence and secure its chain of custody for transport all the way back to New York?

The whole article is worth reading. While you are reading it, keep in mind that we are going to suffer these negative consequences in order to please terrorist rights supporters -- people who think self-confessed and unquestioned terrorist leaders like KSM deserve the same rights as an innocent American citizen accused of a crime. Never mind the consequences to national security, or the damage to the very concept of constitutional rights, their desire to feel good about giving terrorist enemies a fair trial in civilian court is just more important.