Saturday, January 30, 2010

Krauthammer on the pantybomber

The handling of the Christmas Day bombing suspect: the scandal grows

The real scandal surrounding the failed Christmas Day airline bombing was not the fact that a terrorist got on a plane — that can happen to any administration, as it surely did to the Bush administration — but what happened afterward when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was captured and came under the full control of the U.S. government.

After 50 minutes of questioning him, the Obama administration chose, reflexively and mindlessly, to give the chatty terrorist the right to remain silent. Which he immediately did, undoubtedly denying us crucial information about al-Qaeda in Yemen, which had trained, armed and dispatched him.

We have since learned that the decision to Mirandize Abdulmutallab had been made without the knowledge of or consultation with (1) the secretary of defense, (2) the secretary of homeland security, (3) the director of the FBI, (4) the director of the National Counterterrorism Center or (5) the director of national intelligence (DNI).

The Justice Department acted not just unilaterally but unaccountably. Obama’s own DNI said that Abdulmutallab should have been interrogated by the HIG, the administration’s new High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group.

Perhaps you hadn’t heard the term. Well, in the very first week of his presidency, Obama abolished by executive order the Bush-Cheney interrogation procedures and pledged to study a substitute mechanism. In August, the administration announced the establishment of the HIG, housed in the FBI but overseen by the National Security Council.

Where was it during the Abdulmutallab case? Not available, admitted National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, because it had been conceived for use only abroad. Had not one person in this vast administration of highly nuanced sophisticates considered the possibility of a terror attack on American soil?

8 comments:

Alexander Münch said...

NOW YOU ARE TALKING !

Alex.

Epaminondas said...

I hate to say this, but this is Bush's fault ..

WE SHOULD HAVE DECLARED WAR on Al Qaeda and all states which harbor them.

Who in Congress would not have voted for this, as Congress did on Dec 9, 1941?

The resultant lack of firm resolve has given the edge to those who confuse American judicial and criminal court rights protecting the individual from the all powerful govt, with the rights of those we capture while trying to kill us and destroy our way of life not to be slaughtered outright and tortured through personal vendetta, and normal human cruelty to such people.

The religious mass murderers deserve treatment as WAR PRISONERS, and not a second's more consideration.

Pastorius said...

If we had declared war specifically on Al Qaeda and all the states who harbor them, that would have left out many other virulent Islamic terrorist groups.

We ought to be going after all of them, Hizbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc.

We are fools to not be following such a policy and it will come back to bite us in the ass one day.

Sure, Hizbollah isn't hitting us now. But, they've signaled their intention to do so:

http://www.danielpipes.org/349/charlottes-web-and-the-hezbollah-in-america-an-alarming

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,244002,00.html

I believe we can assume that any terrorist organization which speaks of us as "the Great Satan", or in any such terms, also would assist in our destruction, if the idea were proposed to them.

Alexander Münch said...

Pasto,

Omelets with Sinai mushrooms for breakfast effects your memory!...

What happened? Temporary amnesia? ( I hope so...).

What is this :- ===" Sure, Hizbollah isn't hitting us now. "===

And who did THIS:- http://ow.ly/12920 ? Huh?!

Yes, I know what you are going to say. 'It was in Lebanon not in the USA'...

I have more stuff in my sleeve!

Alex.
.

Pastorius said...

Thanks for reminding me.

Anonymous said...

It's not limited to "Bush's fault", as Obama clearly stated we are at war earlier this month, and he also made no effort to have Congress make such a declaration - an action which would not have been entertained under Pelosi or Reid, so O would have saved face.

Anonymous said...

"We ought to be going after all of them, Hizbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc. "

Play whack-a-mole much?

Name the enemy. . .come on . . .it's not so difficult to conclude that the doctrine of Islam is a doctrine of perpetual war to bring all that exists under the submission of one deen - Islam.

Pastorius said...

Anonymous,

Your point is my point, essentially. The problem with saying that our war is against Al Qaeda is that Al Qaeda can simply change it's name (a la the Vlaams Blok/Belang), or the Jihadists can simply move to another organization, etc.

The real problem is Sharia and Jihad, which are central to Islam.