MucheDumbre

If there was ever a clearer sign that the Obama administration is making it up as they go along as far as the war on terror goes, it was Attorney General Eric Holder’s appearance on the Sunday shows yesterday. 

First, it took them until Sunday to admit that, yep, maybe the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, was an actual Islamic terrorist, not merely a crazed “Tea Bagger” upset about the health care bill or the foreclosure of his home by greedy Wall Street fat cat bankers.  Specifically, a terrorist of the Pakistani Taliban; a group allied both with the Afghani version of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Most of the country had figured that out already.  As columnist Mark Steyn noted, whenever a terrorist event happens, “there seem to be two kinds of reactions:

a) Some people go, “Hmm. I wonder if this involves some guy with a name like Mohammed who has e-mails from Yemen.”

b) Other people go, “Don’t worry, there’s no connection to terrorism, and anyway, even if there is, it’s all very amateurish, and besides he’s most likely an isolated extremist or lone wolf.””

As is usually the case, the people picking the second category, which includes almost all liberals, government spokesmen, and media types, are almost always wrong. 

Even wrong, the FBI, New York City Police Department, and apparently, the U.S. Army, managed to capture Shahzad in a little more than two days and before Shahzad could flee the country.  So certainly my hats off to those fine folks, and the investigation they ran.

Even the post capture investigation is going well.  The administration finally deployed their High Value Interrogation Group to interrogate Shahzad, and of course, good news for us, Shahzad is cooperating.

So, why is it that the Attorney General ready to throw Miranda rights to the wolves?

On ABC’s This Week, Holder said, “If we are going to have a system that is capable of dealing, in a public safety context, with this new threat, I think we have to give serious consideration to at least modifying that public safety exception [of Miranda warnings].”

Setting aside for the moment that Holder actually views terrorism as a new threat, why has he fought so hard to avoid enemy combatant detainee rules, and military hearings if he intends to turn the civilian criminal process into a vague copy of the enemy combatant one?

“One of the things that I think we’re going to be reaching out to Congress to do – to come up with a proposal that is both Constitutional, but that is also relevant to our time and the threat that we now face.”

I may be going out on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure many of the people who voted for Obama because they felt that terrorists shouldn’t be held in military custody and tried in military courts,  didn’t intend to see Miranda weakened, and thereby all American’s rights under a normal criminal proceeding. 

I’m not one of those who believe that the constitution requires a specific Miranda warning, but I’ve always felt that there should be a clear separation between the rights of American citizens in criminal courts and terrorists in league with a foreign organization waging war against the United States.  The Obama administration, so urgently wanted to separate itself from the Bush era military detentions and tribunals, now seem to be beginning the process of recreating it in the civilian court system.   The Obama administration is slowly learning and trying to adapt what the Bush administration had already figured out:  Terrorists are not common criminals, and they can’t practically be treated that way.   Interrogation is not just about getting a conviction, it’s about trying to prevent the next attack; a key difference between the civilian court system and a military detainee system.

Shahzad is different however.  He’s an American citizen, not just a captured detainee.  He does have rights that are not (or should not be) available to the average underwear bomber.  But the President still retains the authority to declare even American citizens  enemy combatants.  That would be a better alternative to altering our rights in order to accommodate the legitimate national security needs we have in fighting terrorism.  The last administration had already set up a system to do that.  But the new administration, in a bid to be the un-Bush, seems intent to set up a system in the civilian court system more Bushy than Bush ever dreamed.

And I’m guessing the pussy left will say nothing, proving once again the hypocrites that they are.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Obama administration to consider Miranda reform (hotair.com)
• Holder’s Slippery Slope: Denying Miranda Rights on the Way to Torture (alternet.org)