More on the Law Enforcement Model for Fighting Terrorism

by Little Miss Attila on December 30, 2009

The Anchoress:

At the very end of the article, the [Washington] Post notes:

Abdulmutallab remains in a Detroit area prison and, after initial debriefings by the FBI, has restricted his cooperation since securing a defense attorney, according to federal officials. Authorities are holding out hope that he will change his mind and cooperate with the probe, the officials said. (Emphasis added)

Writes Marc Thiessen:

Holding out hope? Change his mind? Are they kidding? A terrorist like Abdulmutallab is not a common criminal who should be told he has the “right to remain silent.” He is an enemy combatant, who tried to commit an act of war against the United States of America. He possesses vital intelligence about the terrorist network that deployed him to attack America, and may be planning still more attacks. The Obama administration has a responsibility to make him give up that information. Treating him like a criminal is an abdication of that responsibility, and puts our nation at risk.

There is a later note:

Several readers have pointed out that the Post has mysteriously dropped this line, which appears in the print edition, from the online version: “Authorities are holding out hope that he will change his mind and cooperate with the probe,” the officials said.

I guess they have given up hope?

Yeah, so, this is how we’re going to fight terrorism: we’re going to read them their rights, lawyer them up and then hope against hope that maybe they’ll wa[i]ve their right to remain silent, so we can prosecute them. And maybe they’ll tell us all about the operation that supports them, too, and where they were trained and by whom. And why will they tell us all of these things? Well, because we’re nice, or because they don’t want to go to Federal prison where they can hang out with other terrorists from ‘way back in ‘92. At least they’ll have prayer-buddies and fellowship. Or maybe they’ll talk because we’ll cut them a deal if they do. Immunity?

I don’t want to be overly critical, here—and I have no intention of “blaming Obama” for what (except for a failed detonation) was for all intents and purposes, a successful attack on the US, and one that will clearly hearten Al Qaeda—as President Bush used to say, “we have to be lucky every day but the terrorists have to be lucky only once,” and so I don’t call this “Obama’s fault.” Yes, there were serious failures involved here; after 8 years without an attack, we had perhaps become a bit complacent, but—unless a president and administration actually puts policies in place to weaken our security—the blame for a terror attack always goes to the terrorist.

Still, it seems to me that the law-enforcement model of terrorism-combat is not a serious mode of operation in a time of war. We saw this tactic before, under the Clinton administration. Back then, I am not sure anyone really understood what they were dealing with. The WTC bombers of ‘92 were tried and imprisoned, but that did not stop terrorism from being used as a means of movement by Islamic extremists. Al Qaeda continued to attack American interests and holdings (and her naval vessel the USS Cole) every year-and-a-half, or so. President Clinton made little overt response to the provocation, even more or less allowing the Cole attack to go unaddressed because he did not want it to weigh heavily on an impending election. What Osama bin Laden saw in all of that was “the weak horse.”

Because we were so very damned reasonable about terrorism, the terrorists figured they could attack us on our own soil. They took out two towers; they hit the Pentagon; they seemed to be aiming to hit the White House or the Capital, as well.

After 9/11, no administration can claim not to fully understand what we are facing; that bird has flown.

Read the whole thing.

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