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TechnoratiMcCain used to champion a common-sense, values-based approach to terrorism. Now he's criticizing Obama for doing the same thing.
No one wants to be the first candidate to invoke Sept. 11. As a campaign tactic, 9/11 chest-thumping has become both predictable and tacky. So this week, John McCain's campaign hit on a creative solution: Invoke Sept. 10.
Sept. 10? Yup. Barack Obama has "a Sept. 10 mind-set," McCain foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann informed reporters Tuesday. The idea, as Scheunemann explained for those too thick to grasp the implied insult, is that a "naive" Obama just doesn't get it about terrorism.
Obama's offense? He praised the U.S. Supreme Court's June 12 decision that Guantanamo prisoners, detained for years without charge or trial, should be able to ask federal courts to rule on their continued detention.
McCain's surrogates were quick to seize the opportunity: Obama thinks that courts are the way to keep America safe! He "ignores that we are in a war against terrorism," opined former CIA Director R. James Woolsey. The McCain campaign even dredged up Rudy Giuliani, who lamented that Obama was "more concerned about the rights of terrorists ... than the rights that the American people have to safety and security."
Does Obama have a "Sept. 10" mind-set, whatever that is? No.
What Obama did was make a glaringly obvious point: If the Bush administration had prosecuted the captured terrorists in federal court instead of trying to put them through an error-riddled system of military commissions created on the fly, those terrorists would by now have probably been tried and convicted in fair proceedings that would have been accepted as such around the world.
Obama's point boiled down to common sense: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Our federal courts have been in business for more than 200 years. They've tried brutal Mafia bosses who controlled entire American cities, violent drug lords, Nazis, spies and the Oklahoma City bombers. U.S. courts have procedures for handling sensitive national security evidence, and they have already successfully tried Al Qaeda terrorists, including "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid and 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui. These men had their day in court, made idiots of themselves, and now they're locked away in a U.S. supermax prison.
Better still, they're now rightly dismissed by the rest of the world as megalomaniacal thugs -- not the kind of guys anyone would want to emulate. In contrast, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his buddies remain untried at Guantanamo, insisting proudly that they're "warriors" against the mighty United States -- and as Obama commented, that has "given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, 'Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.' "
To the McCain campaign, Obama's remarks show that Obama thinks terrorism can be adequately addressed through criminal law alone. But when the McCain camp isn't denouncing Obama for supposedly wanting to coddle terrorists in the courts, they're denouncing him for wanting to use military force to capture or kill terrorists.
In August 2007, for instance, Obama said: "There are terrorists holed up in [Pakistan's] mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. ... If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and [the Pakistani government] won't act, we will." Ever since, McCain's been taking this out of context and hammering Obama for "suggest[ing] invading our ally, Pakistan."
You can't win with these guys.
The "terrorism is crime/terrorism is war" squabbling is as silly as the "great taste/less filling" fights depicted in the old Miller Lite ads. Most Americans know that "terrorism" takes many forms, and we need to be flexible in response. Prosecutions in federal courts make sense when we're talking about suspects far removed from battlefields; military force makes sense when U.S. troops are confronting fighters in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Here's the saddest thing about this week's dust-up. Not too long ago -- before he decided that becoming the Republican presidential nominee required him to cozy up to his party's most demagogic extremists and play politics with 9/11 -- McCain was the champion of a common-sense, values-based approach to terrorism.
It was McCain who refused to sanction torture. It was McCain who said Guantanamo detainees "have rights under various human rights declarations. And one of them is the right not to be detained indefinitely." It was McCain who advocated moving Guantanamo detainees to Kansas' Ft. Leavenworth, where they would come under the certain jurisdiction of federal courts. It was McCain who insisted that we respect the basic rights even of enemies who "don't deserve our sympathy" because "this isn't about who they are. This is about who we are."
John McCain, who are you now?
--Rosa Brooks
Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times
16 Comments so far
Show AllDear "pdf" and "RSJ".....Both of you are sadly ignorant of the National Security mechanisms under Clinton. First..."pdf" please cite one credible source that had Clinton ..."dismantling intelligence networks, military capability, etc."
It was Bush's father and his Sec. of Defense Dick Cheney who began dismantling the military as a result of the "peace dividend". To argue our military, whether we spent $200 billion a year on it or $550 billion a year, was at any time weak and vulnerable requires a complete suspension of logic and intellect.
After the 1st Twin Tower attack in January of 1993....(please note, no one ran around like pansies blaming Bush Senior)......Clinton's group busted up, tried and sentenced to life eternal in prison all of the plotters.
Here's where it gets interesting. Clinton wanted to install a program with many newer surveillance powers akin to those in the Patriot Act.....yet he was denied by the REPUBLICANS who kept raising the "rights of privacy", 4th Amendment, etc. Clinton was also fought when he tried tightening weapons and arms sales in the US after the OK City bombing.
Move forward to the Taliban who took over much of Afghanistan by the mid 90's. Clinton, on Human Rights arguments, levied huge sanctions and restrictions on US dealings in Afghanistan. This ended up halting the CONOCO Gas pipeline from the Caspian thru Afghan-land and to the Sea for US consumption.
Bush comes into office with the graves of the USS Cole victims still fresh and painful.....YET HE DID NOTHING AT ALL. Bin Laden was a special guest of the Taliban in Afghanistan and was fingered as the author of the USS Cole attack by the CIA in February, Bush's first real month in office. Bush never responded to the USS Cole attack.
What Bush did do was eliminate many Taliban restrictions and then reward the Taliban in May of 2001 $43 million for their help in the "war on drugs". FIVE months later the Taliban and friend Bin Laden pulled off the 9-11 attacks. SEVEN years later and the Taliban has killed more US soldiers in Afghanistan than we've lost in Iraq and Bin Laden is still taunting Bushniks with his audio tapes.
How much of the $43 million that Bush gave the Taliban was used to finance the 9-11 attacks? The "9-11 Commission" never investigated the finacing of the plot of 9-11.
Bush "appeased" the Taliban for material wealth (oil). The entire Republicon myth of strength, honor and security is absolute rubbish, the end result of a conspiring Corporate Media...Government...and Military.
Facism it is called.
"Most Americans know that "terrorism" takes many forms, and we need to be flexible in response."
You're dead-wrong Rosa ; most Americans are too-overworked , too over-weight , too underpaid , too sick , too much in-debt , too marginally-literate but mostly too scared to "know" or care to know anything about terrorism except the lies that Pentagon , White House , Congress , Supreme Court ... tell them .
Some day they may peacefully or violently shed these shackles . Then again , the whole American Experience may just dry up and blow away like the south-west Anastazi civilization did
RSJ ~ No shift intended; just perspective.
96 months of Clintons acts cannot be logically attributed to 9 months of Bush. Plenty of blunders to be found there without adding Clintons.
Sorry for the venom; but I as in the military during Clinton's watch; and felt the affects of his ineptitude first hand. Roundly despised by nearly all that wore the uniform, with good reason.
pdf [June 21st, 2008 8:37 am] all you say about Clinton is true, but Bush was in office for nearly nine months before 9/11 and it doesn't excuse his ineptitude, in the best case, nor that of his staff, for failing to listen to his White House counter-terrorism chief, nor pay attention to the August 6 CIA PDB.
Bush knew, or should have known, that the WTC had been attacked by a truck bomb in 1993; that the USS Cole had been attacked just before he became president, and that Al Qaeda was behind both of those terrorist plots, as well as others. He ignored Al Qaeda during the first nine months of his presidency and that is inexcusable.
Trying to shift the blame to Bill Clinton is ludicrous.
RSJ: I'll leave it to others to confirm Sharia law being foisted upon the Dutch; a quick google search of "Holland" and "Sharia" tells the story of what has been, and is going on in the Netherlands.
When looking for blame with regard to 9/11, I'm sure most will nod to your stated Bush claims, but it would be inaccurate and disingenious to do so without mention of Clinton's systematic dismantling of intelligence networks, military capability & survelliance methods. In his zeal to capitalize on the "peace dividend" that he thought existed, Bill made the fatal error of doing all of the above while courting the Chinese with trade and military capabilities. He's still being paid by China for these actions, and the Clinton foundation and the former president's library in Little Rock have received millions of dollars in donations from the Saudi royal family and the Middle East sheikdoms of the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar, along with the governments of Taiwan and Brunei.
What is all this funding for, if not back-scratching for the actions and inactions Clinton took to benefit these foreign agencies?
pdf [June 20th, 2008 9:33 am], yes, there are Muslim extremists, they are spoon-fed propaganda, get angry and march in the street. And what Bush has been doing in the Middle East has helped incite this kind of overreaction.
How is this any different than crazy Christian John Hagee claiming Katrina was God's punishment on all of New Orleans; than Warren Jeffs marrying underage girls; than the KKK; than Jerry Falwell telling us to blow Muslims away in the name of the Lord? These goofs are no more representative of Christianity than Al-Qaeda terrorists are of Islam. Trust me, if the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world all decided to become suicidal terrorists, we'd be sunk. For that matter. a few thousand of that number marching in the street is only a small fraction of Islam. Extremists always get more media attention than the vast majority who are not demented, just as criminals get more media coverage than the majority who are law-abiding. This is not an apology for extremism, simply pointing out the reality -- it's actually not that big a problem. We were hit on 9/11 because Bush ignored Richard Clarke, his anti-terrorism expert, and the August 6, 2001, CIA PDB entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the United States." Bush and Cheney had no meetings on terrorism before 9/11, and Condi Rice had one, just days before the attack, and she took no action. If Bush and Condi had been doing their jobs, 9/11 could have been prevented.
BTW, since when is Holland under Sharia law?
Little Brother [June 20th, 2008 10:16 am], right and that's exactly what happened to those hapless 'terrorists' in Florida, morons who had to be led down the path step by step by the FBI informant until they could be nailed for 'supposedly' plotting to bomb Sears Tower. By themselves, these guys wouldn't have been capable of planning an attack on a lemonade stand. I'd be curious to know how much of the Homeland Security and Intelligence budgets are being spent on this kind of nonsense.
Her overall point may be valid, but the specific "successful" trials she cites-- especially Moussaoui's-- were far closer to "The Ox-Bow Incident" than models of civilized jurisprudence.
And there are an abundance of lesser cases in which the Terrorist Perpetrators are clearly hapless, lost souls acting out some delusion or fantasy. Yet careerist prosecutors will insist on re-prosecuting even after mistrials are declared due to an appalling lack of credible evidence and argument.
And let's not leave out those flat-out entrapment scams, in which snitches or other shady characters reel in some joker or jokers as "terrorists" or "arms suppliers". The PRI radio program "This American Life" had an episode in which a possibly greedy and disreputable man with no real connections to arms merchants was set up by a discredited informant and enticed into agreeing to sell the snitch a missle or missile-launcher.
The target of the sting wasn't exactly a Boy Scout, and he definitely played into the scam. But it is also true that he was in no way a real arms dealer, much less a dedicated terrorist. But the kicker is that when he was UNABLE to produce an actual "sample" (portable) missile to prove his "bona fides", the SNITCH actually SUPPLIED a (fake) missile. Then, of course, they busted this dupe.
And throughout, the pissant prosecutor pretended that this was a real catch, and a feather in his cap for winning a battle in the Global War on Terror. Disgusting.
So, while treating acts of terror as crimes rather than military actions is an improvement, the federal courts are hardly the bastions of disinterested and neutral jurisprudence the author makes them out to be.
If I didn't know better, I'd interpret the above posts to be from Islamic apologists.
Of course, we haven't seen any widespread extreamist behavior with regard to say, "cartoons", have we? We haven't seen "honor killings"? We haven't seen Sharia law being imposed on Holland?
I don't want to demonize anyone, but we do have to look at some reality here...
Turce is correct: as with the Judeo-Christian Bible, many bizarre interpretations are laid upon different verses in the Koran (Qu'ran), but the Islamic Prophet Muhammad was clear that doing good is good and doing evil is evil, and he definitely considered the taking of human life and lying evil. Of course, as with some Christians not taking Jesus' "turn the other cheek," "blessed are the peacemakers" and forgiveness seriously, especially as national policy, some Muslims also cavalierly disregard Muhammad's words.
BTW, did you know that Muhammad was married to a Jewish woman and worked for her? And that Muhammad considered Abraham, Moses and Jesus as prophets to be revered? It makes the contentiousness between Muslims, Christians and Jews even more perplexing and asinine.
Of course, none of this is really about religion, except to the rare insane -- among the leaders of nations, it's really about money and power, as it always has been, and they exploit the faithful to achieve their own evil ends. The Old Testament, the New Testament and the Koran also address and harshly condemn this aspect of human venality.
canuckchuck [June 19th, 2008 2:58 pm], LOL, and he should be called 'Chinese' McCain and wear a British general's uniform.
Mr. Street, any relation to John and Milton, opeluboy is correct re; al-Islam. First, al-Qaeda are not Muslim, if they tell yo 90 bazillion times an hour, I guarantee you they are not. The Qur'an is absolute in regards to a believer murdering, intentionally another believer, let alone on the holiest of days Ramazan(Turkish, Ramadan is Arabic)let alone on Ramazan inside the Cami for prayers! Not a Muslim.
No Virgins, women are allowed to divorce and vote, Adam, Ibrahim, Jesus, Moses, all prophets. Mary revered. This Jihadist thing is not correct either, yes Jihad is in the Qur'an but not the way people throw it around these days. If you follow al-Islam the Qur'an teaches you that if you encounter a non-believer and they treat you in kind you are to be as civil. All of thsi women wearing niqab and abaya or burqa is a man made thing. Women were not required to cover themselves from head to toe. I do believe Mr. Street that you are aware that all Muslims are not Arabs, yeah? Not a bunch of skerrry tererrrrists, either and to think my youngest has blonde hair and turquoise eyes, as does her Dad as do I except my eyes are greenish-yellow. We do things for many reasons, some are Muslims, others are Christians, then someare of no particular religious belief, simply psychotic, like the Murderer that resides at 1600...
canuckchuck; tres bien, mon ami (and i'm not even french)!
william street - Maybe we could have Israel head the convention. Oh wait, they already do!
Your desire to get these guys is all well and good, but if the candidates were to talk about anything that would actually deal with this issue it should be the cause of terrorism itself. Of course we all know that isn't going to happen.
You also repeat the endlessly disproven myth that Islamic terrorism is "religious." It is not. It is political.
And how about state-sponsored terrorism, the kind that Israel avails itself of daily. Can that be addressed? Think it has anything to do with Islamic terror?
Nah. Just a bunch of crazy ragheads trying to get 72 virgins.
All of this "September 10th mindset" horseshit, seeking to depict a false choice between pure militarism and a purely criminal law approach, should play itself out as the presidential campaign devolves into the much derided one-on-one popularity contest format this fall. Whether it be in a chummy town hall, or from towering podiums in a cathedral somewhere, I suspect there to be a glaring contrast between McCain and Obama that will almost invariably work to the Democrats' advantage.
Beyond watching the horse race however, I would like to see Barack Obama begin to develop some ideas for the creative use of beefed up international law to deal with the real world threat of nongovernmental entities like Al Qaeda that do cross national boundaries to kill innocent people for reasons of ideology. Here are two concrete suggestions.
First, create an international convention defining "international terrorism" as a crime against humanity - a definition that avoids overlap with the existing laws of war that seek to govern state-sponsored violence undertaken by orthodox military forces. The WTC airline high jack attack, the Madrid train attack, the London public transportation bombings would all clearly fall within the definition. Pattern the approach after the international convention outlawing piracy.
Nation states signing on to the new convention would supplement any ordinary existing international extradition treaty or Interpol cooperation agreement (a clumsy legal hodge podge riddled with loop holes) with a high level, stream lined system for a state believing it was being targeted for a terrorist strike to obtain immediate law enforcement and intelligence agency assistance from another signatory state that was believed to have the terrorist group(s) within its boundaries. A target state's demand for assistance (similar to an extradition request) would trigger a response requirement from the host state to locate and hold (in custody or under house arrest) the terrorist suspect(s) for a fixed, reasonable period of time, so that (at a minimum) the suspects could be ID'd comprehensively, confronted, and questioned by law enforcement professionals from the targeted state.
By treating international terrorism as a unique, special type of crime (somewhat analogous to piracy on the high seas or air piracy) the well recognized short comings of the Interpol/extradition system (and the extralegal US "extraordinary rendition" system) could be significantly overcome.
Second, for actual terrorist perps who happen to openly declare they seek death and martyrdom motivated by their religious zealotry, the international legal system should be flexible enough to accommodate their wish.
Rather than having Khalid Sheik Mohammed raving down in Cuba at his accusers in front of an ad hoc military tribunal whose jurisdiction he disdains, why not give him a public trial under Islamic law, in front of a rainbow coalition of respected international Muslim clerics representing all theological shades of the Prophet's faith?
Couldn't hurt.
If such an international religious court convicted KSM, it would certainly deliver a powerful message to the devout rank and file, establishing who really has the authority to issue a fatwa or declare jihad, and what the Koran really does have to say about suicide and the blowing up of inhabited office buildings, pizza parlors, and the like. Deranged as he is, I suspect KSM the defendant would beg for the death penalty to be carried out much less audaciously if the trial forum, and the substantive law being applied, were that of his Islamic peers.
And if KSM were somehow exculpated following such an ecumenical trial, then at least we'd know that a clash of civilizations truly was upon us.
Bill from Saginaw
John McCain has a Sept 10, 1901 mindset
mccain is a puppet.....the corporate masters are pulling his strings....i still don't think mccain will be the republican nominee come november....even rush and ann coulter think he is weak .....just wait and see......something's going on
On Sept 10 Bush knew what was going to happen on Sept 11.