California Conservative

In 1992, James Carville infamously wrote “It’s the economy, Stupid” on a chalkboard inside the Clinton war room. If there’s a modern application for that cliche, it would be the American people telling the Obama administration saying “It’s the war, Stupid.” It seems utterly lost on the Obama administration that al-Qa’ida is still at war with us.

Last night, a criminal defense attorney named Tamara Holder argued on O’Reilly that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should be prosecuted like a criminal. Former CIA operative Gary Berntsen dismantled her arguments in this video:

Here’s a partial transcript of the interview:

ERIC BOLLING: As you may know, the Nigerian man who attempted to set off a bomb on a plane in Detroit was arrested, Mirandized, and taken to a federal prison in Michigan. He was charged in the criminal court system, where he faces up to 20 years in prison. But should he have been taken to Gitmo, interrogated and treated like an enemy combatant? Joining us now from Chicago is criminal defense attorney Tamara Holder. And with us in studio is a retired CIA operations officer, Gary Berntsen.

Tamara, this guy tried to blow up 300 innocent people in the air over Detroit on Christmas day. We should give this guy a break?

HOLDER: I’m not saying give him a break. Whoever said that? He needs to be charged in America. Look, there’s something called Special Aircraft Jurisdiction. What that means is that, if you are in an American plane bound for America, you do something or you commit a crime, you are subject to American courts. Just because we give him rights, just because we give him a trial, that doesn’t mean that we have some failed American justice system.

I don’t know what the big deal is. We’re gonna send him to Guantanamo and then what? Send him back to Illinois like we’re gonna do with all the other detainees? That doesn’t even make sense.

BOLLING: Well, Tamara, I’m trying to figure it out. Is it a crime or is it a terrorist attack? Because if it’s a terrorist attack, you can be held as an enemy combatant and be interrogated.

HOLDER: No. You’re wrong. Actually, in March, Obama dispelled the word enemy combatant. There is no word enemy combatant. I don’t know why Hoekstra and Candace Miller and all these people are saying that he’s an enemy combatant. There is no such term in America anymore. Obama dispelled with that. He is a terrorist. He did commit a terrorist attack. He was not on the battlefield. He is supposed to be tried and convicted in America. Just because we give him his rights and we read him his Miranda warning doesn’t mean that our American justice system has failed.

BOLLING: Alright Gary. Go ahead.

BERNTSEN: Well, first of all, the term enemy combatant does exist. Enemy combatants are defined by the Geneva Convention. They’re not in uniform. They’re carrying their…they’re hiding their weapons. They’re not being led by a competent authority and they’re not following the rules of war.

BOLLING: And they want to kill us.

BERNTSEN: Al-Qaida is an organization. It is a non-state actor that has declared war on us. We need to recognize that we are actually at war with these guys. This guy didn’t do a carjacking. He didn’t hold up a 7-11. He tried to commit mass murder as part of and in support of Al-Qaida’s war on the United States.

If we treated him and tried him in a military tribunal, as Roosevelt did in 1942 with those Germans that came ashore in Long Island, near where I’m from, and in Florida, we would have the military at him interrogating him. And what we’re fighting with right now is time. The more access we have to him right now, to find out everything that he knows without having his lawyer between us and him, the quicker we can track down other people who are planning to conduct mass murder against us.

BOLLING: Follow that up, Gary. What else can we find out?

BERNTSEN: Where was he recruited? Who trained him. What other people were trained along with him that are planning on committing mass murder against America?

BOLLING: Tamara, Gary makes a very good point. This a little different than a guy holding up a 7-11.

HOLDER: Of course but at the same time, he was attempting to commit a crime against American whether it is holding up a store and trying to kill one person or whether he’s trying to kill a whole group of people. The issue is that he committed a crime in America on an American plane and he should be tried accordingly. To interrogate him any differently…he’s still gonna give us plenty of information.

This appears to be the Obama administration’s mindset, too. This isn’t a crime. It’s an act of war. This isn’t even mass murder of the Dahmer or Bundy types. Everything about Friday’s attempted terrorist attack screams jihadist martyr attack. Abdul Mutallab was prepared to die that day on that plane. That’s why he got a window seat right next to the wing (Seat 19A) where the fuel is stored.

Officer Berntsen is exactly right. Abdul Mutallab was acting on al-Qaida’s behalf in their war against the United States. Ms. Holder is exactly wrong about the terrorist giving us “plenty of information:”

“Authorities are holding out hope that [Abdulmutallab] will change his mind and cooperate with the probe, the officials said.”

Mr. President, it’s time you realized that all your diplomatic initiatives are utterly ineffective. We’re fighting a real, honest-to-goodness war with a bunch of persistent, ruthless terrorists. There’s only one proper response to acts of war: aggressively pursue these jihadists with our military and intelligence assets. Fighting this war with intensity and with total ruthlessness is the only way we’ll defeat these jihadists.

The Obama administration’s unwillingness to admit that their policies have failed has led them to push back against their critics rather than reviewing and changing their policies. While the Obama administration’s allies decry the Republicans’ attempts to “score cheap political points”, Americans wonder whether this administration is serious about fighting the jihadists with everything in this nation’s arsenal.

It didn’t help that, after President Obama declared that his administration wouldn’t rest until the terrorists were defeated, he left to return to his round of golf in Paradise, aka Hawaii.

It’s often possible to tell what’s important to a person by how much time he devotes to the subject. We’ve known for some time that taking over America’s health care system is President Obama’s highest priority. Day after day, week after week, President Obama has fought for and gave speeches on health care reform.

By contrast, President Obama has spent almost no time talking about the importance of defeating the terrorists. Now the DCCC is pushing back, saying that President Obama “has been much more aggressive about going after al Qaeda than the Bush administration.”

That’s insulting. Was President Obama’s procrastination a sign of President Obama’s commitment to aggressively attacking the jihadists?

It’s insulting because it took President Obama more time to figure out whether he’d increase troop levels in Afghanistan than it took the Bush administration to destroy al-Qaida’s sanctuary in Afghanistan.

Mr. President, if you’d spent half as much time focusing on fighting the “real war” as you spend talking about it, the troops would’ve already been in theater. Next time, don’t talk. Get it done.

Thus far, it’s accurate to say about the Obama administration that after everything is said and done, more was said than done.

Technorati Tags: Terrorism, Intelligence, Military, Troop Levels, Afghanistan, President Obama, 9/11, Al-Qaeda, Gary Berntsen, CIA, Interrogations, Abdulmutallab, War

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 at 4:39 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Foreign Policy, Intel, Military, Obama, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.