Posted on 03/05/2010 6:32:36 AM PST by opentalk
The Washington Post article that Dan posted about last night is a head fake. President Obama is not caving on military commissions. He has already caved on them: He failed (thankfully) to abolish them, Congress enacted legislation endorsing them again in 2009, and the administration has already directed a commission trial for the Cole bombers.
The real agenda here is to close Gitmo. That’s the ball to keep your eye on. The Post is trying to soften the opposition to shuttering the detention camp by portraying beleaguered, reasonable Obama as making a great compromise that will exasperate the Left. The idea is to strengthen Sen. Lindsey Graham’s hand in seeking reciprocal compromise from our side.
This, however, is a matter of national security, not horse-trading over a highway bill. You don’t agree to do a stupid thing that endangers the country just because your opposition has magnanimously come off its insistence that you do two stupid things that endanger the country.
If a deal to grant military commissions in exchange for closing Gitmo happens, it is a major win for the Obama Left and an enormous loss for public safety.
We were headed inexorably toward military commissions for the 9/11 plotters. We don't need to cut a bad deal to get it. Congress was not going to approve funding to transport trained terrorists to the U.S., nor to hold civilian trials. As I said, we’ve already got military commissions for some enemy combatants, and if we play this out, we are likely to get them for most if not all of the combatant war crimes trials. And we are likely to get them at Gitmo — the best place to have them, and the place on which the public has expended hundreds of millions of dollars to construct a safe, humane, fastidiously Islamo-friendly prison with state-of-the-art trial facilities.
Military commissions didn’t exist when the jihadists carried out the Cole attack in October 2000. For years, moreover, there has been a pending civilian indictment in the Cole case. Yet, despite these facts, the Obama administration called for a military commission for the Cole bombers. Once they did that, there was no longer any coherent rationale for giving the 9/11 plotters a civilian trial. The only predicate for trying the Cole bombers by commission is the 9/11 attacks — so how do you do the 9/11 plotters in civilian court if the Cole bombers have to go to military court?
Furthermore, the public strongly opposes a civilian trial for the 9/11 plotters. There is only so much an administration can do against the will of the American people. Obama is pushing that envelope as far as it can go on health care. He was not going to go over the edge just to give KSM a civilian trial. The president would have caved on this no matter what.
In sum, we were winning the argument. But instead, in Gang of 14 style, Senator Graham and whoever else are treating the president like he has cards to play. Rather than just be quietly embarrassed over their loopy position that Gitmo causes terrorism, these senators are using that fiction as a reason for trading away Gitmo (i.e., a facility we need) in order to achieve military commission trials for enemy combatants (i.e., something we'd get anyway without the trade).
Senator Graham and others will tell you such an outcome will be a great victory for national security conservatives who think terrorists should be tried by commission. Don't buy it. The deal would be a great victory for the terrorists. As I argued here, it would significantly increase the threat to U.S. military bases and geometrically increase the likelihood that federal judges will order that trained terrorists be released in the United States. There is no excuse for taking on these risks given that Gitmo is a top-flight, completely secure facility. It makes no sense to horse-trade when Obama was being pushed toward military commissions by reality.
Proponents will call frame the compromise floated by the Post as a triumph for bipartisanship. In reality, it will be a defeat for national defense.
WTH?
more like a head fake to keep us all talking about this while they cram through Obamacare. Perhaps it was just that all along...
“This, however, is a matter of national security, not horse-trading over a highway bill.”
PLOUFFE IS BACK...IT’S A FAKE TO GAIN BACK THE INDEPENDENTS WHO FELL FOR THIS A WHOLE’S LINE OF BS TO GET ELECTED...
Obama playing more games. First reconciliation smoke and mirrors, now Gitmo.
Expect another three years of this bull$hit.
Its all about perception and to trick the public.- Then Jam agenda - Same with health care summit.
"Its all about perception and to trick the public.- Then Jam agenda - Same with health care summit."
Exactly...
This is going to only fool some of the people usually the naive. There is a good portion of the public that is saavy to Obutthead and this strategy will lose its effectiveness if it has any.
“This is going to only fool some of the people usually the naive. There is a good portion of the public that is saavy to Obutthead and this strategy will lose its effectiveness if it has any.”
Hope so...Plouffe got him elected with this shite...it’s no coincidence he’s in the WH now.
yes, the fact that “my cricits are all racist” does not appear to be working has them all flummoxed
If he's found guilty, the juror's lives are very much at risk if their identities are known. If they keep the jury hidden, it's a tacit admission that the "religion of peace" is not, and they know it.
Also possibility that congress would not approve funding for trial. That would of been an embarrassment
Obama is in full retreat on every front as his presidency crumbles. No president has ever failed so fast or so comprehensively (or so predictably for that matter). Whatever Lindsey Graham wants to do, Congress won't vote to spend a billion dollars we don't have so that we can close Gitmo only to replicate its facilities elsewhere. Closing Gitmo never made sense any more than civilian trials for the likes of KSM. Obama can sound the trumpet for any number of suicidal charges — closing Gitmo, trying KSM in NYC, Obamacare. Sadly for him he no longer has anything like the political clout to bring a majority of Congress along with him. The only thing Obama’s suicidal charges will accomplish is to riddle his political corpse with still more bullet holes. He can still mess a lot of thing up without passing legislation, but he is no longer anything like the threat he was on inauguration day.
The rest of Obama’s term is likely to look a lot like what David Patterson is experiencing in Albany or the last days of the Nixon administration. He's a spent force. McCarthy is giving him credit for much more power to do harm than he retains. By all means, watch him like a hawk but don't imagine him to be more formidable than he is. Overestimating the enemy is as dangerous as underestimating him.
Money quote.
The deal with Senator Graham is that he’s gay. It is very difficult to be homosexual and conservative. A few people can manage it, but Lindsey Graham isn’t one of them. His sexual orientation puts him in an adversarial posture with respect to the culture that conservatives are striving to preserve. He is a natural ally of the leftists who are doing their best to destroy that culture so they can build utopia on top of its ruins. More often than not, he lines up with them. It’s no surprise. Cf. Crist, Charlie.
“Obama isn’t going to close Gitmo.”
Hope you are right. McCarthy wants us to keep our eye on the ball here, and not underestimate the opposition. I agree with what you are saying, but the pressure has to stay on.
Our R’s have had a nasty habit of backing off.
Bunning’s lack of support, as the recent example.
I think you are right on.
Again, I hope you are right. I am unsure of Big D support for gitmo, but those pleasant vacationers have to end up somewhere, and I can’t imagine many volunteering their district.
Except for the inevitable big payoffs, which many need right now. So folks, “we can either close the schools, lay off all the police and fire departments, or simply take a couple of misunderstood vacationers...”
Gitmo is not a problem for anyone right now. So any “solution” creates problems. In that way, I am hopeful. A little.
I am still holding my breath until this health scare is resolved.
The media is on its heels and frustrated right now, and any kind of a “win” there (any bill) will result in a lot of noise, declarations of momentum, renewed hopeychange, choruses of Kumbaya, The New FDR, etc.
This would give them an opening to pull off some big Saturday Night Stupids.
So I am with the bulldog McCarthy. Just keep hitting.
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