"The whole premise of Guantanamo promoted by Vice President Cheney was that somehow the American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists. I fundamentally disagree with that. Now, do these folks deserve Miranda rights? Do they deserve to be treated like a shoplifter down the block? Of course not."
Guess again, America.
Congressman Mike Rogers, a former FBI special agent and U.S. Army officer and a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee just got back from Afghanistan, and according to him, the Obama Justice Department has ordered FBI agents to give Miranda warnings to enemy combatants and detainees in Afghanistan after capture and prior to questioning.
Let's remind ourselves of what that Miranda warning actually consists of:
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense."
In other words, instead of being encouraged to provide valuable intel on the battle field that could save American lives, enemy combatants and terrorists are being advised to shut up and get lawyered up. Which gives the jihadis yet another technique to resist interrogation.
According to Congressman Rogers, Congress was never briefed on the Obama Administration's new practice of mirandizing enemy combatants. “I was a little surprised to find it taking place when I showed up because we hadn’t been briefed on it, I didn’t know about it. We’re still trying to get to the bottom of it, but it is clearly a part of this new global justice initiative.”
That new Obama policy, the so-called 'Global Justice Initiative', marginalizes the CIA and allows the FBI and the Justice Department to essentially take over global counter-terrorism operations and design their investigations with court cases in mind.
In other words, it's back to the Clinton era, with Islamist jihad terrorism treated as a law enforcement problem. We've already seen how well that worked.
Aside from the dubious fiction that terrorists captured while waging war against the United States are entitled to the same Constitutional rights as American citizens, the problems involved in this are inherent.
If any useful information is actually gleaned and charges are filed in court, the ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights and National Lawyer's Guild cockroaches that will be representing the jihadis will demand full discovery, which means that any evidence the government has, including confidential sources will have to be disclosed. And that's a spectacularly bad idea., because access by terrorists to criminal trials have led to intelligence leaks in the past.
For instance, in the 1995 trial of Omar Abdel Rahman, AKA the Blind Shiek, evidence turned over to his attorneys by the government ended up being found in documents seized at an al-Qaeda headquarters in the Sudan. To put it bluntly, because of the political beliefs of some of the lawyers who make a living defending these people, they're not exactly safe to have around confidential information. Remember Lynne Stewart?
Bottom line? We're not even going through the motions of treating this like a war anymore, even if it endangers American lives in the field or at home. And any information we manage to glean out of captured terrorists will simply be accidental.That will cost us, rest assured.
One small silver lining..the whole rationale for taking any of these people prisoner was to try to glean intel out of them to help win a war. Since that incentive no longer exists, there's no real reason for our warriors to bother anymore - especially when there's a chance some jihadi and his lawyer might sue them for the equivalent of police brutality or not reading them their rights properly.
No comments:
Post a Comment