president should be saying: We have captured an enemy combatant -- an illegal
combatant under the laws of war: no uniform, direct attack on civilians -- and now to
prevent future attacks, he is being interrogated regarding information he may have about
al-Qaeda in Yemen.
Instead, Abdulmutallab is dispatched to some Detroit-area jail and immediately lawyered
up. At which point -- surprise! -- he stops talking.
This absurdity renders hollow Obama's declaration that "we will not rest until we find all
who were involved." Once we've given Abdulmutallab the right to remain silent, we have
gratuitously forfeited our right to find out from him precisely who else was involved,
namely those who trained, instructed, armed and sent him.
This is all quite mad even in Obama's terms. He sends 30,000 troops to fight terror
overseas, yet if any terrorists come to attack us here, they are magically transformed from
enemy into defendant.
The logic is perverse. If we find Abdulmutallab in an al-Qaeda training camp in Yemen,
where he is merely preparing for a terror attack, we snuff him out with a Predator -- no
judge, no jury, no qualms. But if we catch him in the United States in the very act of mass
murder, he instantly acquires protection not just from execution by drone but even from
interrogation. “
