PrintDecember 6, 2009
Take Our Playbook, Please
The time for words has passed. President Obama and Eric Holder are placing American lives in danger and openly aiding and abetting America's enemies. Obama and Holder want to give civilian trials to confessed 9/11 mass-murderer Kalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and his accomplices. Giving civilian trials to non-U.S. citizens and unlawful combatants not even protected by the Geneva Conventions is both unconstitutional and a violation of the oath of office to defend Americans against all enemies foreign and domestic.
The obvious risks of giving an accomplice in the terrorist murder of three thousand Americans a civilian trial are many. Trivial arguments like concern about the psyche of New Yorkers, or more serious ones like the ability to get a conviction, don't get to the heart of the matter. Never in U.S. history have foreign soldiers been given the rights and immunities of U.S. citizens in American courts. Cases such as Mohammed's have always been handled in military tribunals. This is a stunning departure from accepted practice, with no reasonable justification. Why?
President Obama couldn't find a precedent if he spent a ten years poring over every law-related tome ever written. The only prominent Supreme Court cases granting terrorists rights in civilian court are irrelevant in the case of KSM. The Supreme Court decision Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, which ruled that U.S. citizens held in Guantanamo are entitled to habeas corpus, does not factor because KSM is not a U.S. citizen. Boumediene v. Bush, which held that foreign combatants are also entitled to habeas corpus and repudiated military tribunals, does not apply because President Obama has decided that military tribunals are allowable.
When Lindsey Graham asked Holder point-blank if he could produce a legal precedent for his decision, Holder could not. Holder even refused to give a definite answer in the hypothetical of whether or not Osama bin Laden would be tried in civilian court. What will it take before we hold President Obama accountable? Will he have to sign an order granting bin Laden a visa?
When President Obama and his chief legal adviser are talking citizen's legal rights for the man that viciously slaughtered three thousand peaceful Americans as they worked in their offices, it is time for heads to roll. Why are they doing this, when there is no legal precedent, unless the aim is to help America's enemies?
Aiding and abetting America's enemies is the constitutional definition of treason, and it applies to every American, in every walk of life. That includes President Obama and his shady allies. The president is not above the law, and he must be held accountable for his transgressions, whatever they may be. But what do you do when your own president commits this kind of brazen assault on America? Is anyone really ready to accuse him?
I grow weary of the widespread argument that President Obama is an inexperienced, bumbling innocent who is simply naïve of history when it comes to foreign policy. Obama knows what he is doing. He's not just appeasing America's enemies; he's friends with them.
Everything Obama has done since he took office points to his bias against his own country: abandoning victory in Afghanistan; appointing two radical supporters of Islamic Sharia law to key government positions; selling out European allies in a secret deal with Russia; threatening Israel; and hiring every communist Mao-worshiper available. Obama's hiring practices might lead one to conclude that he evaluates applicants solely on the basis of their support of Soviet doctrine and Maoist strong-arm tactics.
Also true to form is President Obama's request for Congress to delay investigation of the recent Islamic attack at Fort Hood. Whatever his stated reasons, this just doesn't feel right. President Obama actually had the nerve to justify this course of action in terms of preventing "political theater."
Even disregarding innocent side-issues like President Obama's fondness for the militant Islamic Call to Prayer, we should certainly be alarmed by his eagerness to give preferential treatment to our most virulent enemies.
And President Obama goes far beyond mere preferential treatment. He might as well have declared surrender in the War on Terror during his Cairo address, saying that "America is not -- and never will be -- at war with Islam." Tell that to those fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, the victims of the London Tube bombings, or the victims of 9/11. Adding insult to injury, Obama also gives open support to the aims of Hamas:
With respect to Hamas, I do think that if they recognize the Quartet principles that have been laid out -- and these are fairly modest conditions here...then I think the discussions with Hamas could potentially proceed. And so, the problem has been that there has been a preference oftentimes on the part of these organizations to use violence and not take responsibility for governance as a means of winning propaganda wars or advancing their organizational aims.
To President Obama, the radical aims of Hamas are fine, so long as Hamas achieves them "peacefully."
President Obama apparently could even see Islam dominating in the USA, calling America "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world." Obama believes that we have much in common with the tenets of Islam, saying, "America and Islam are not exclusive...and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings." If that is true, I fear for the survival of freedom in America. Islamic views of "dignity" and "tolerance" generally involve killing infidels: "seize them [non-believers] and put them to death wherever you find them, kill them wherever you find them, seek out the enemies of Islam relentlessly" (Sura 4:90). "Fight them until Islam reigns supreme" (Sura 2:193). "Cut off their heads, and cut off the tips of their fingers" (Sura 8:12).
How are we to respond to this kind of behavior? Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath. President Bush was nearly impeached for farcical accusations against him concerning the Valerie Plame affair. What should happen to President Obama for repeatedly siding with America's enemies? When is enough enough?
If America allows President Obama to proceed unchallenged in his move to give citizens' legal rights to foreign terrorists, what's next? How can a nation control its destiny when virtual agents of our enemies control policy? It's time to call things what they are and act accordingly.
