Garden State Patriot

The decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to try Gitmo terrorists in U.S. civilian courts is bad enough. But now we are learning that the AG has a clear conflict of interest regarding this issue and clearly should have recused himself from any involvement in the decision.

What is the issue? Holder’s former law firm, Covington & Burling, represents sixteen Gitmo terrorists. From the firm’s web site:

Guantanamo Bay Detainees

• We represent sixteen men detained at the United States Naval Station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.  Most of the men have been detained for approximately seven years.  None have been charged with any crimes, and none have been accorded the protections of the Geneva Convention.  In Boumediene v. Bush, 128 S. Ct. 2229 (2008), where we were co-counsel for eleven of the detainees, the Supreme Court held that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus extends to detainees held at Guantánamo Bay.  Following that decision, we have been preparing for habeas corpus hearings to be held in federal district court Washington, DC, for eleven of our clients.
• The firm has been involved in the Guantánamo related litigation for the last five years.  In addition to the on-going habeas corpus proceedings, our efforts have included: bringing cases for review of enemy combatant classification decisions in the D.C. Circuit under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005; challenging the destruction of CIA torture tapes in federal court; filing amicus briefs and coordinating the amicus effort in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006); filing amicus briefs in support of Supreme Court review in Moussaoui v. United States, 382 F.3d 483 (4th Cir.), cert denied, 544 U.S. 931 (2005); challenging the government’s practice of redacting information from documents given to security-cleared habeas counsel; and challenging the abusive medical and living conditions that the detainees experience at Guantánamo.

It should also be noted that Holder has a history of going to bat for terrorists. When he was Deputy AG in the Clinton Administration he was directly involved in the pardons of FALN terrorists which caused an uproar in the waning days of Clinton’s term in office.

And just to provide some further context, when the Enron scandal broke during the Bush years, for AG John Ashcroft recused himself because when he ran for senate he had received campaign contributions from Enron execs. Ashcroft also recused himself over the Valerie Plame matter because he had allegedly been briefed about the FBI’s questioning of Karl Rove about the incident.

Yet in this case Holder’s former law firm stands to directly gain from these proceedings and Holder neither discloses such facts nor recuses himself? Senate Republicans now need to step up, voice their objection and threaten to investigate this matter. Holder’s actions are completely unethical and he needs to be held accountable.

Cross-posted at CMNJ.

In 2006, Obama says Khalid Sheikh Mohammad will get a military trial. Hmmm, just what has changed?

(h/t Gateway Pundit)

Cross-posted at CMNJ!

Today marks perhaps the most disgraceful and wrong-headed decision made by this administration to date. The Justice Department, led by Attorney General Eric Holder, has decided to try 4 Gitmo terrorists – including the evil thug shown above, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad – in civilian court! Thanks to the Obama Administration, illegal enemy combatants now have access to lawyers and the same legal rights as American citizens. And to add insult to injury, the trial will take place right in the shadow of the World trade Center attacks in downtown Manhattan.

WASHINGTON — Self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court, an Obama administration official said Friday.

The official said Attorney General Eric Holder plans to announce the decision later in the morning.

The official is not authorized to discuss the decision before the announcement, so spoke on condition of anonymity.

Bringing such notorious suspects to U.S. soil to face trial is a key step in President Barack Obama’s plan to close the terror suspect detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama initially planned to close the detention center by Jan. 22, but the administration is no longer expected to meet that deadline.

The New York case may also force the court system to confront a host of difficult legal issues surrounding counter-terrorism programs begun after the 2001 attacks, including the harsh interrogation techniques once used on some of the suspects while in CIA custody. The most severe method — waterboarding, or simulated drowning — was used on Mohammed 183 times in 2003, before the practice was banned.

In an op-ed that ran in the Wall Street Journal (which I highly recommend reading), former AG Michael Mukasey explains the problems and dangers of trying terrorists in our civilian courts.  

It makes the location of the trial a target. The defendants might not be charged with the death penalty. Soldiers might be forced to leave the battlefield and come to court to testify. Sensitive information used by intelligence agencies will be disclosed – including names of suspected terrorists as well as our methods of acquiring intelligence – compromising our ability to prevent terrorist acts in the future.

The bottom line is this administration is putting ideology ahead of common sense and the security of the American people. It is an absolute outrage.

By the way, 54 Democrats in the Senate also condoned this. You can see their votes on the relevant amendment here.

And here’s what Obama himself said back in March.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: “Now, Do These Folks Deserve Miranda Rights? Do They Deserve To Be Treated Like A Shoplifter Down The Block? Of Course Not.” (CBS’ “60 Minutes,” 3/22/09)

[UPDATE] You can also find a petition to the President here. You will also see a letter to the President from the 9/11 Families for America. (h/t Michelle Malkin)

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

Benjamin Sherman is another brave American hero who gave up his life for his country. While on a mission in Afghanistan he lost his life when trying to save a comrade who had fallen into a river. Sherman jumped in to save his fellow soldier only for both of them to be swept away. 

In an interview with WCBV-Boston, Sherman’s grief-stricken mother and sister talked of their lost son and brother – describing the kind of person and soldier he was and how he would do anything for his country and his brothers-in-arms. 

But at the end of the interview, Sherman’s mother had some words for President Obama.

“It is time,” she said. “It is time to make a decision. This has gone on too long. They either need to come home or we need to end it.”

You can watch the video of the interview here.

Of course, if this were George W. Bush in office the lamestream media would have been showing this video ad nauseum in order to undermine the President. They would have tried to make Mrs. Sherman the next Cindy Sheehan. But now that Obama is in office, there is no such effort.

Hypocrisy aside, no matter where you stand on the Afghanistan question Obama’s ‘dithering’ on this matter has indeed gone on far too long. It has been two months – two months! -since General McChrystal ’s request for more troops. The men and women we send into battle deserve far, far better. And not one more family should have to experience the grief the Sherman family because their President can’t figure out whether the battle is worth fighting any longer. In fact, the indecision is simply unconscionable and beneath the office. It is time for the President to show some leadership on this issue and prove himself even the least bit worthy of the title Commander-in-Chief.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the Sherman family, especially his wife and his unborn child who will never know him.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

With apologies to that unforgettable band of the 80’s, A Flock of Seagulls, their biggest hit song of that era is an apt description of sorts of Obama policy towards the rogue, terrorist state.

President Obama’s approach to Iran is a failure unfolding before our eyes. Despite his overtures to open up a dialogue with the Tyrants on Teheran their fists have only become more firmly and tightly clenched than ever before. Now, as their efforts to acquire nuclear weapons become ever more close to becoming reality, Obama offers the free world nothing but empty words – plenty of carrots but no stick in sight.

In fact, you know the world is turned upide down when the leader of France – France! – feels the need to scold Obama for his failure to lead on the issue.

The contempt with which the president of France regards the president of the United States was displayed in public last week.

Nicolas Sarkozy was furious with Barack Obama for his adolescent warbling about a world without nuclear weapons at a meeting Mr. Obama chaired of the United Nations Security Council last Thursday (9/24).

“We must never stop until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the earth,” President Obama said.

What infuriated President Sarkozy was that at the time Mr. Obama said those words, Mr. Obama knew the mullahs in Iran had a secret nuclear weapons development site, and he didn’t call them on it.

‘President Obama dreams of a world without weapons…but right in front of us two countries are doing the exact opposite,” Mr. Sarkozy said.

“Iran since 2005 has flouted five Security Council resolutions,” Mr. Sarkozy said. “North Korea has been defying Council resolutions since 1993.”

“What good has proposals for dialogue brought the international community?” he asked rhetorically. “More uranium enrichment and declarations by the leaders of Iran to wipe out a UN member state off the map.”

If the Security Council had imposed serious sanctions on the regimes which are flouting UN resolutions, the resolution Mr. Obama proposed about working toward nuclear disarmament wouldn’t have been so meaningless, Mr. Sarkozy implied.

“If we have courage to impose sanctions together it will lend viability to our commitment to reduce or own weapons and to making a world without nuke weapons,” he said.

The extent of President Obama’s naivete – or duplicity – was on display Friday at the G20 summit when the president, flanked by Mr. Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, revealed to the American public that Iran had a second nuclear weapons site on a military base near the holy city of Qom.

News reports indicated Mr. Obama had been briefed on the site before his inauguration. But he’s been conducting his foreign policy as if the mullahs could be trusted.

The fact that Obama has known about the secret nuclear site in Iran and has still persisted in a Neville Chamberlain-like approach to this problem is stunning - and suggests that his ego is far larger than his intelligence. It his time for him to lead before it is too late.

Let me be clear. The Iranian situation is indeed complex. The answers are not easy, nor are the consequences of using military force to stop them pretty. Iran very easily could attack Israel, either directly or throught their surrogate terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah. They could also use these terror groups to attack American interests and disrupt the world’s oil supply and, thusly, further damage an already weak world economy. All of these possibilities are indeed bleak.

Bleaker yet, though, is a world in which Iran possesses nuclear weapons. Like Pakistan and North Korea now, the free world would have no leverage over Iran. The mullahs could see fit to transfer their nuclear know-how to other terror states like Syria or, worse yet, put nuclear weapons in the hands of Hamas or Hezbollah. An arms race could spread across the Middle East. Iran would also be free to continue to foment terrorist activities across the globe, with particular aim at the state of Israel, without the fear of consequence. This second scenario would be a far worse reality than using force to stop them now and, one would hope, replacing the regime with the pro-western contingent in that country.

Despite my many other serious concerns about what this President is doing, this issue should be above party and above ideology. An American President needs to, above all, be grounded in reality. He (or she) needs to understand their role as both leader of America and the free world. The time for diplomacy is quickly running out on Iran, I fear. The President now needs to step up and be forthright about the matter at hand and let the American people know that military force may be the only solution to this crisis. This is not an issue that the United States can defer on and leave to the state of Israel.

The President has before said the time for ‘childish games is over.’ Well, the time for fecklessness, weakness and naivete now ought to be over. It’s time for Obama to step up on this issue. To do otherwise, is an abrogation of his sworn duty to protect and defend our nation. To do nothing, would be unforgiveable.

Cross-posted at Red County and Conservatives with Attitude!

Residents of Englewood are taking a stand against the despicable leader of Libya. Qaddafi, who recently spit in the eye of every American – and in particular the families who lost loved ones – when he celebrated the release of Pan Am bomber, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, as seen here…

…is being told to stay out of Englewood, where the nation actually owns an estate. Here’s the story.

ENGLEWOOD, N.J. — Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi will set foot on U.S. soil for the first time next month when he comes to address the U.N. General Assembly. Now he wants to put down stakes in the middle of American suburbia.

Plans to set up a tent and allow him to stay at a Libyan-owned estate in this upscale community 12 miles north of Manhattan, were attacked Monday by neighborhood residents and public officials, particularly after the hero’s welcome extended by Libya last week to the lone man convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan American Flight 103.

The attack over Lockerbie, Scotland, thought to be the work of Libyan intelligence, killed all 259 people on board the flight, including 33 from New Jersey. Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was freed from a life sentence in a Scottish jail and returned to Libya on compassionate grounds because he is dying of cancer.

“Gadhafi is a dangerous dictator whose hands are covered with the blood of Americans and our allies,” said U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman, whose district includes Englewood. He promised there would be “hell to pay” if the U.S. State Department violates a long-standing deal barring the dictator from staying at the Libyan estate.

Susan Cohen, who lost her then 20-year old daughter in the bombing, said it best:

“This is what happens when you have the path of appeasement,” Susan Cohen, of Cape May Court House, New Jersey, said of the prospect of Gadhafi staying in Englewood. “He’s getting everything he wants, and I guess that includes a trip to the state of New Jersey, which certainly doesn’t need this.”

The mere fact alone that Qaddafi would even think of staying at the estate speaks to his incredible lack of shame – and should remind us all that some men in this world are purely evil.

Cross-posted at Red County and Conservatives with Attitude!

Did you know terrorists caught on the battlefield were now U.S. citizens? Apparently so, because the Obama Administration has our military reading them their rights when they are caught on the battlefield.

…the Obama Justice Department has quietly ordered FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high value detainees captured and held at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan, according a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “The administration has decided to change the focus to law enforcement. Here’s the problem. You have foreign fighters who are targeting US troops today — foreign fighters who go to another country to kill Americans. We capture them and they’re reading them their rights — Mirandizing these foreign fighters,” says Representative Mike Rogers, who recently met with military, intelligence and law enforcement officials on a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan.

Just how in heck are any of these people going to be adjudicated in our courts? Our soldiers are going to have to now act like cops and investigators, garnering sufficient enough evidence to convict them beyond a reasonable doubt? Are these soldiers going to have to leave the battlefield and come to court to testify?

This is beyond ridiculous and flies in the face of how illegal enemy combatants have been handled throughout our history. They are not citizens. They don’t have any claim to the rights Americans possess. They have no right to a day in court.

In a word, this is sick. (h/t Michelle Malkin)

Navy Seal snipers killed 3 Somali Pirates, saving Captain Richard Phillips who had been held captive on a drifting lifeboat for the past week. The Seals and Captain Phillips, who put his own life on the line to save his crew, are all American heroes.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – The U.S. Navy shot dead three Somali pirates and rescued cargo ship captain Richard Phillips on Sunday from a lifeboat off the coast of Somalia where he was being held captive, ending a five-day standoff.

Phillips’ life was in danger when Navy snipers aboard a nearby U.S. destroyer shot his Somali captors, freeing him unharmed and killing three of the four pirates who had held him after trying to seize his vessel, the Navy said.

The fourth pirate was in custody.

“I can tell you that he is free and that he is safe,” said Navy Lieutenant Commander John Daniels.

A U.S. Navy commander made a split-second decision to fire on the pirates because he believed that Phillips, who tried to escape on Friday, faced imminent danger amid tense hostage talks with his captors and deteriorating sea conditions.

“They were pointing the AK-47s at the captain,” Vice Admiral William Gortney, head of the U.S. Naval Central Command, said in a Pentagon briefing from Bahrain.

“The on-scene commander took it as the captain was in imminent danger and then made that decision (to kill the pirates) and he had the authorities to make that decision and he had seconds to make that decision.”

President Barack Obama granted the Pentagon’s request for standing authority to use appropriate force to save the life of the captain, Gortney said.

While all Americans are no doubt thankful for the safe rescue of Captain Phillips, this is by no means the end of this issue. Somali pirates have now threatened violence against Americans and the French (who were also recently involved in a similar incident).

Somali pirates were quick to vow revenge over the shooting of their comrades, as well as a French military assault to rescue a yacht on Friday.

“The French and the Americans will regret starting this killing. We do not kill, but take only ransom. We shall do something to anyone we see as French or American from now,” Hussein, a pirate, told Reuters by satellite phone.

With the stakes in this “game” now having been raised it will be interesting to see how the Obama Administration acts. Will they aggressively go after pirate training camps in Somalia or will the administration back off?

In my view, these are not criminal acts and should be treated as such. These actions are outright atacks on our national interests and we would be in our right to use force against the training camps in Somalia and to aggressively pursue known pirates. If we do not, we will merely be inviting more of these attacks.

Let’s face it. To this point the Obama Administration has displayed Carter-esque weakness and represented retreat for America; as evidence by killing the term “Global War on Terror” or planning to slash our miltary budget. The last thing this administration wants is to live up to America’s responsibility as leader of the free world by, if necessary, resorting to military force to ensure long-term peace and stability.

With respect to Iran, despite Obama’s calls for “mutual” respect and “unclenching of fists” the regime remains a menace and a diplomatic solution to ending their nuclear ambitions appears unlikely.

Without a strong America willing to carry the proverbial “big stick” it leaves Israel with no other option than to move forward on their own should it become necessary. And new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it perfectly clear that Israel reserves the right to pre-emptively strike Iran’s nuclear facilities if diplomacy does, in fact, fail.

The primary imperative for the United States and President Barack Obama is to put an end to Iran’s nuclear race, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said before his swearing-in Tuesday, adding that if the US failed to do so Israel might be forced to resort to a military strike on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear installations.

“The Obama presidency has two great missions: fixing the economy, and preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu told The Atlantic. The Iranian drive for a nuclear weapon was a “hinge of history,” he said, emphasizing that all of “Western civilization” was responsible for preventing an Iranian bomb.

“You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs,” Netanyahu said of the Iranian regime. “When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran.”

Should Israel ultimately have to resort to military force against the Iranian regime, this would mean that Barack Obama has abdicated his responsibility, not only to America, but to the rest of the world. An Israeli attack on Iran would be the worst possible scenario in my view, potentially unleashing an ugly, wider conflict. If Obama were to sit on the sideline and allow this to occur it would be an unforgiveable act.

America must lead with respect to addressing Iran and its quest to become a nuclear power. Should armed force be the only way to make sure they don’t acquire such weapons, then America must do it.  Unfortunately, I don’t believe this President is up to the task.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

How does one end the “Global War on Terror”, you might ask? Well, all you have to do is call it something else – like, I don’t know – the “Overseas Contingency Plan” maybe.

The Obama administration appears to be backing away from the phrase “global war on terror,” a signature rhetorical legacy of its predecessor.

In a memo e-mailed this week to Pentagon staff members, the Defense Department’s office of security review noted that “this administration prefers to avoid using the term ‘Long War’ or ‘Global War on Terror’ [GWOT.] Please use ‘Overseas Contingency Operation.’ “

The memo said the direction came from the Office of Management and Budget, the executive-branch agency that reviews the public testimony of administration officials before it is delivered.

I was thinking QWIT might be a more appropriate acronym – Quit the War on International Terrorism. But, hey, that’s just me.

Of course, this comes on the heels of the administration ending the use of the phrase “enemy combatants” to describe those otherwise nice people who just want to blow us all up and end America.

You see, if we just use the terms and inject a little political correctness, then everything will be just fine. No more worries. 9/11 never happened. Just carry on. Nothing to see here.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!