Posted on 12/06/2001 5:34:50 AM PST by SJackson
SEN. PATRICK J. LEAHY, who enjoys a good snit as well as the next member of Congress, is piqued because President Bush did not seek his counsel before issuing the order allowing suspected terrorists who are not U.S. citizens to be tried by military tribunals. Leahy found out what the administration was proposing in the newspapers, as if he were some citizen or something. Oh, the ignominy.
"There's been no consulting," Leahy sulked last week. "These things just get announced: George Washington got a British spy once by doing this, so thank goodness we've got recent precedents." This little sneer is wonderfully instructive, and not just for what it says about the senator's self-centeredness and shallowness.
In mocking the Bush administration for citing precedents for its limited transgressions against civil liberties in war, Leahy seeks to point up the absurdity of the administration's claim to extraordinary recourses. He succeeds only in pointing up the irresponsibility of his own position.
For precedence is the point of the whole thing. Or, rather, lack of precedence. Any intellectually honest contemplation of the situation we are dealing with here must begin with the obvious: The United States has never faced a threat like this. It has faced graver threats, but never one of this nature -- and that unprecedented nature is such as to demand unprecedented curtailing of liberties.
To remind the senator, the unprecedented threat is this: Al Qaeda, a global terrorist organization, has declared war on the United States and is waging that war not through conventional battlefield means but through attacks on American institutions and people wherever they exist. We have ample reason (Sept. 11) to know that this organization can inflict massive punishment inside America. At war with this enemy, we appear close to destroying its leadership; but thousands of trained followers are still planted in cells around the world.
Since the suicide bombers of Sept. 11 were able to legally enter and live in America for many months, we have to assume that there are additional al Qaeda terrorists also hidden in America. Going by track record, we have to assume that these terrorists are well financed, well trained, self-sufficient and equipped with specific targeting plans that require no triggering orders. We have no idea who these people are, or what their plans are, or when they will attack again. We have no intelligence penetration of al Qaeda, and because of its purposely fragmented structure, we cannot crack the organization's secrecy through conventional spying, such as eavesdropping on messages between headquarters and the field. We know that it takes only a few al Qaeda terrorists, in our country, to strike past our inadequate internal defenses and inflict great casualties.
In other wars the nation had to deal with spies, saboteurs and enemy sympathizers at home. But the current situation is truly novel. This time, we are not dealing with a fifth column at home that may help enemy armies abroad or in their defined battles against our armies. We are dealing with elements of the enemy army here, on a battlefield that is the nation.
Facing this unheard-of threat, a government that did not engage in the immediate and widespread detention of foreign suspects here, and did not aggressively question anyone who might help in the hunt for hidden terrorists here, would be guilty of an impeachable failure to defend and protect the nation.
Old Leaky Leahy can't find anyting wrong with W's plan of action - he just pi$$ed that he wasn't consulted and is making a big deal out of it! (He can't get much attention any other way!)
He seems to forget how he loved Paul Begala's "Stroke of the pen; law of the land. Neat! Huh?"
Vermont has a way of picking unique senators.
It is wonderful to accept that all criminals are innocent until proven guilty, under normal conditions. However, we are under anything but normal conditions just now.
We must hunt those terrorists among us who are planning to hurt our nation and not wait to find them after the fact. This was the basic mistake of the last administration (the president who’s name must never be spoken again).
You cannot treat terrorist as criminals.... you cannot wait for the event and then prosecute.... you must strike them before they strike us.
Prior to that the only competition he had for media adulation was McLame.
All the demorat media types were kissing his hiney after he betrayed the Republican party and America.
Now he's nobody and he can't stand it!
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