Barry In Charge: Playing With US Defense (the domestic satellite defense ruse)

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration plans to kill a controversial Bush administration spy satellite program at the Department of Homeland Security, according to officials familiar with the decision.

The program came under fire from its inception two years ago. Democratic lawmakers said it would lead to domestic spying.

The program would have provided federal, state and local officials with extensive access to spy-satellite imagery — but no eavesdropping capabilities— to assist with emergency response and other domestic-security needs, such as identifying where ports or border areas are vulnerable to terrorism.

It would have expanded an Interior Department satellite program, which will continue to be used to assist in natural disasters and for other limited security purposes such as photographing sporting events. The Wall Street Journal first revealed the plans to establish the program, known as the National Applications Office, in 2007.

"It's being shut down," said a homeland security official.

The Bush administration had taken preliminary steps to launch the office, such as acquiring office space and beginning to hire staff.

The plans to shutter the office signal Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's decision to refocus the department's intelligence on ensuring that state and local officials get the threat information they need, the official said. She also wants to make the department the central point in the government for receiving and analyzing terrorism tips from around the country, the official added.

Lawmakers alerted Ms. Napolitano of their concerns about the program-that the program would violate the Fourth amendment right to be protected from unreasonable searches-before her confirmation hearing.

Once she assumed her post, Ms. Napolitano ordered a review of the program and concluded the program wasn't worth pursuing, the homeland official said. Department spokeswoman Amy Kudwa declined to speak about the results of the review but said they would be announced shortly.

The lawmakers were most concerned about plans to provide satellite imagery to state and local law enforcement, so department officials asked state and local officials how useful that information would be to them. The answer: not very useful.

"In our view, the NAO is not an issue of urgency," Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, wrote to Ms. Napolitano on June 21.

Writing on behalf of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, Chief Bratton said that were the program to go forward, the police chiefs would be concerned about privacy protections and whether using military satellites for domestic purposes would violate the Posse Comitatus law, which bars the use of the military for law enforcement in the U.S.

Rep. Jane Harman (D., Calif.), who oversees the House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence, said she was alarmed when she recently saw that the Obama administration requested money for the program in a classified 2010 budget proposal. She introduced two bills that would terminate the program.

"It's a good decision," Ms. Harman said in an interview. "This will remove a distraction and let the intelligence function at [the department] truly serve the community that needs it, which is local law enforcement."

Supporters of the program lamented what they said was the loss of an important new terrorism-fighting tool for natural disasters and terrorist attacks, as well as border security.

"After numerous congressional briefings on the importance of the NAO and its solid legal footing, politics beat out good government," said Andrew Levy, who was deputy general counsel at the department in the Bush administration. (source)

Barry In Charge: "Just Words"? - The Case Of Mirandizing The Enemy (while he kills you)

Isn’t it bewildering to try to crawl inside a liberal’s head, and follow along their thought processes? They feign indignation and condemnation if you suggest “my country, right or wrong” to them. It’s off to the races about the Ugly American, how nationalism has been over with since the sixties, and if I wasn’t so stupid I would know that it’s all relative, man. Makes it hard to follow when they’re so far past my linear thinking, of course. Anything you say in that conversation is going to be met with: the Indians; slavery; Jim Crow laws; etc. And you will either have to waste a lot of breath disecting their stance of moral equivalence between us and the terrorists, or you will give up.

Having not given up yet, I find this deathgrip by Obama around the notion that it is BEST to divulge our innermost interrogation procedures and other secrets never revealed before to be nothing short of strangling the baby in the crib. Our stance against the Middle East has been put off since the 1972 oil embargo, done by OPEC in alliance against our support of Israel, which amounts to an act of economic terrorism. Add to that the more lethal acts of terrorist activities–hijackings, kidnappings, and bombings have followed for the past 35 years–and it becomes obvious that our attention to the problem has been compromised because of oil for far too long.

When we finally begin to fight not the oil shieks and the ruling families, but the crazy lunatic fringe who control to some degree the king’s population, we are met with what seems to be operatic hues and cries from the Left. All of the “Bush lied, people died”, has seemed so juvenile and niave from the moment it went up on the MSM, but…we have actually become sidelined because of it.

And now, we actually see a grown adult try to commit Americide. He is helped along by the conversation between regular Americans, many misguided, that goes something like this:

YOU: Well, we sure are handing the enemy everything he needs to win this war, thanks to Obama.

THEM: It’s international law we’re worried about. We have to follow these rules of engagement when we do war.

YOU: Does al Qaeda follow those rules?

THEM: Doesn’t matter.

YOU: Really? How does that work?

THEM: We need to Mirandize battlefield combatants we catch, so as to lead the world by example, then they’ll see the error of their ways and do the same.

YOU: So, you have faith that the Islamic Brotherhood will reform their jihadist ways if we set the example first…

THEM: Yes.

YOU: But you don’t have any faith that abstinence programs work for teenage American girls.

Obama Administration Says Some Detainees Overseas Are Being Mirandized -- and Bush Did It, Too

June 11, 2009 9:51 AM

The Obama administration announced this week that some detainees captured and held abroad have been read Miranda rights to preserve evidence for a potential prosecution.

Administration officials say the Bush administration did this as well in some instances relating to certain criminal cases.

They would not offer specifics in any of the cases, whether under President Obama or President Bush.

The question of detainees being Mirandized was raised by the Weekly Standard's Steven Hayes who wrote that "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 Obama administration took issue with the notion that this was a blanket policy change, one ordered by the Justice Department.

"There has been no policy change and no blanket instruction issued for FBI agents to Mirandize detainees overseas," Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. "While there have been specific cases in which FBI agents have Mirandized suspects overseas, at both Bagram and in other situations, in order to preserve the quality of evidence obtained, there has been no overall policy change with respect to detainees."

Miranda rights come from the 1966 Supreme Court ruling Miranda v. Arizona. They are a way to protect a suspect's Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination.

While the actual Miranda rights differ in different states, they adhere to the court ruling that "the person in custody must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed that he or she has the right to remain silent, and that anything the person says may be used against that person in court; the person must be clearly informed that he or she has the right to consult with an attorney and to have that attorney present during questioning, and that, if he or she is indigent, an attorney will be provided at no cost to represent him or her."

The ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., told Hayes that he was concerned about this news.

"It would seem the last thing we want is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or any other al-Qaeda terrorist to remain silent," Hoekstra said. "Our focus should be on preventing the next attack, not giving radical jihadists a new tactic to resist interrogation--lawyering up."

In March, President Obama told 60 Minutes that "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."(source)

1 in 7 Freed Detainees Rejoins Fight, Report Finds

Released detainee Said Ali al-Shihri is now an al-Qaida commander in Yemen.

Thanks to Barry's unnecessary inflammation of conditions during our fight against terrorism, we now have intelligence officers paralyzed with fear over helping our country fight these fanatics.

This is what happens when you're concerned first with impressing your leftist cowards who wouldn't put up a fight to save their families, instead of keeping our secrets safe so that our solidiers' next move won't be telegraphed straight to the enemy.

The blood on Barry's soft hands has only begun to stain him.

WASHINGTON — An unreleased Pentagon report concludes that about one in seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad from the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has returned to terrorism or militant activity, according to administration officials.

The conclusion could strengthen the arguments of critics who have warned against the transfer or release of any more detainees as part of President Obama’s plan to shut down the prison by January. Past Pentagon reports on Guantánamo recidivism have been met with skepticism from civil liberties groups and criticized for their lack of detail.

The Pentagon promised in January that the latest report would be released soon, but Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said this week that the findings were still “under review.”

Two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the report was being held up by Defense Department employees fearful of upsetting the White House, at a time when even Congressional Democrats have begun to show misgivings over Mr. Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo.

At the White House on Wednesday, Mr. Obama ran into a different kind of resistance when he met with human rights advocates who told him they would oppose any plan that would hold terrorism suspects without charges.

The White House has said Mr. Obama will provide further details about his plans for Guantánamo detainees in a speech Thursday.

To relocate the 240 prisoners now at Guantánamo Bay, administration officials have said the plan will ultimately rely on some combination of sending some overseas for release, transferring others to the custody of foreign governments, and moving the rest to facilities in the United States, either for military or civilian trials or, in some cases, perhaps, to be held without charges.

But the prospect that detainees might be moved to American soil has run into strong opposition in Congress. To show its misgivings, the Senate voted on Wednesday, 90 to 6, to cut from a war-spending bill the $80 million requested by Mr. Obama to close the prison, and overwhelmingly approved a second amendment requiring that a threat assessment be prepared for each prisoner now at Guantánamo to address what might happen on release.

The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, said Wednesday that moving detainees to American prisons would bring with it risks including “the potential for individuals undertaking attacks in the United States.”

But Michele A. Flournoy, the under secretary of defense for policy, said of the detainees: “I think there will be some that need to end up in the United States.”

Pentagon officials said there had been no pressure from the Obama White House to suppress the report about the Guantánamo detainees who had been transferred abroad under the Bush administration. The officials said they believed that Defense Department employees, some of them holdovers from the Bush administration, were acting to protect their jobs.

The report is the subject of numerous Freedom of Information Act requests from news media organizations, and Mr. Whitman said he expected it to be released shortly. The report, a copy of which was made available to The New York Times, says the Pentagon believes that 74 prisoners released from Guantánamo have returned to terrorism or militant activity, making for a recidivism rate of nearly 14 percent.

The report was made available by an official who said the delay in releasing it was creating unnecessary “conspiracy theories” about the holdup.

A Defense Department official said there was little will at the Pentagon to release the report because it had become politically radioactive under Mr. Obama.

“If we hold it, then everybody claims it’s political and you’re protecting the Obama administration,” said the official, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. “And if we let it go, then everybody says you’re undermining Obama.”

Previous assertions by the Pentagon that substantial numbers of former Guantánamo prisoners had returned to terrorism were sharply criticized by civil liberties and human rights groups who said the information was too vague to be credible and amounted to propaganda in favor of keeping the prison open. The Pentagon began making the assertions in 2007 but stopped earlier this year, shortly before Mr. Obama took office.

Among the 74 former prisoners that the report says are again engaged in terrorism, 29 have been identified by name by the Pentagon, including 16 named for the first time in the report. The Pentagon has said that the remaining 45 could not be named because of national security and intelligence-gathering concerns.

In the report, the Pentagon confirmed that two former Guantánamo prisoners whose terrorist activities had been previously reported had indeed returned to the fight. They are Said Ali al-Shihri, a leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch suspected in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Sana, Yemen’s capital, last year, and Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, an Afghan Taliban commander, who also goes by the name Mullah Abdullah Zakir.

The Pentagon has provided no way of authenticating its 45 unnamed recidivists, and only a few of the 29 people identified by name can be independently verified as having engaged in terrorism since their release. Many of the 29 are simply described as associating with terrorists or training with terrorists, with almost no other details provided.

“It’s part of a campaign to win the hearts and minds of history for Guantánamo,” said Mark P. Denbeaux, a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law who has represented Guantánamo detainees and co-written three studies highly critical of the Pentagon’s previous recidivism reports. “They want to be able to claim there really were bad people there.”

Mr. Denbeaux acknowledged that some of the named detainees had engaged in verifiable terrorist acts since their release, but he said his research showed that their numbers were small.

“We’ve never said there weren’t some people who would return to the fight,” Mr. Denbeaux said. “It seems to be unavoidable. Nothing is perfect.”

Terrorism experts said a 14 percent recidivism rate was far lower than the rate for prisoners in the United States, which, they said, can run as high as 68 percent three years after release. They also said that while Americans might have a lower level of tolerance for recidivism among Guantánamo detainees, there was no evidence that any of those released had engaged in elaborate operations like the Sept. 11 attacks.

In addition to Mr. Shihri and Mr. Rasoul, at least three others among the 29 named have engaged in verifiable terrorist activity or have threatened terrorist acts. (source)

Obama Revives Terror Tribunals, Dismaying Liberals

One only has to read between the lines to see that Barry will say one thing while doing another. My guess: he will hold tribunals for a select few of these combatants at Gitmo, but, being the Harvard-trained lawyer he is, he will stack the court in a sure-fire way that will render any “justice” meaningless.

His preoccupation with the military courts being “properly structured and administered”, lest they perform as “sloppy”, shows this little boy’s disdain for military discipline and lack of lawyerly wiggle room to free guilty defendants.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Friday he would reform and restart the military tribunals he once reviled for Guantanamo Bay detainees, jeopardizing his timetable for closing the prison by January and dismaying many supporters who suggested he was going back on campaign promises.

Now, after the detainees are given stronger legal protections — a ban on evidence obtained under cruel duress, for example — the trials of 13 defendants in nine cases will be restarted no sooner than September. Five of the 13 are charged with helping orchestrate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The rest of the 241 Guantanamo detainees will either be released, transferred to other countries, tried in civilian U.S. federal courts or, potentially, held indefinitely as prisoners of war with full Geneva Conventions rights.

"This is the best way to protect our country, while upholding our deeply held values," Obama said, announcing his decision to renew the tribunals in a three-paragraph White House statement. The administration said he was not embracing the Bush-era system because it would be so significantly changed.

However, his action was almost instantly denounced by a host of liberal-leaning groups that championed his presidential campaign last year.

"In one swift move, Obama both backtracks on a major campaign promise to change the way the United States fights terrorism and undermines the nation's core respect for the rule of law," said Amnesty International executive director Larry Cox.

"There is no such thing as 'due process light,'" said American Civil Liberties Union executive director Anthony D. Romero.

"As a constitutional lawyer, Obama must know that he can put lipstick on this pig — but it will always be a pig," said Zachary Katznelson, legal director of Reprieve, a London-based legal action charity that represents 33 Guantanamo detainees.

Obama's announcement was greeted more warmly on Capitol Hill, where he will need broad support to quickly push through tribunal changes. The White House hopes to do so before mid-September, when a new 120-day freeze the president put on the cases Friday runs out.

The Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, D-Mich., called the changes "essential in order to address the serious deficiencies in existing procedures." Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said the announcement was an "encouraging development."

"By taking this action, President Obama has reinforced that we are at war, and that the laws of war should apply to these prisoners," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.

The tribunal system was established after the military began taking detainees from the battlefields of Afghanistan in late 2001. But the process immediately and repeatedly was challenged by human rights and legal organizations for denying defendants rights they would be granted in most other courts.

As a senator, Obama voted for one version of the tribunal law that gave detainees additional rights, but then voted against the more limited 2006 legislation that ultimately became law. Friday's changes restore some of those rights, including:

_Restrictions on hearsay evidence that can be used in court against the detainees.

_A ban on all evidence obtained through cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. This would include statements given from detainees who were subjected to waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, although a U.S. official said no evidence of that kind had been allowed anyway.

_Giving detainees greater leeway in choosing their own military counsel.

_Protecting detainees who refuse to testify from legal sanctions or other court prejudices.

The latest delay, however, means Obama could face an uncomfortable choice as the clock runs out on his self-imposed January 2010 deadline to close Guantanamo.

His administration will have only four months to finish the nine trials before then, or risk moving the cases to the United States if they are still under way. If that happens, the detainees would be given even greater legal rights than they have at Guantanamo — and more than Obama wants to give.

Asking Congress to change the 2006 commissions law could create longer delays. Lawmakers, leery that the detainees could be brought to the U.S., already have held up funding for closing the prison until the White House outlines details of how it would happen.

Obama could roll back the January 2010 deadline, which he imposed on his second day in office. That could throw in doubt his campaign promise to shut down the prison and, at the least, highlight his struggle to reverse Bush-era national security policies that damaged America's image worldwide and stoked recruitment among insurgents.

Clive Stafford Smith, who represents several current and former detainees, was surprised that the Obama administration plans to restart the trials at Guantanamo instead of elsewhere. "There is zero chance that the military commissions could be over by January, so that cannot possibly be the plan," he said.

Navy Lt. Richard Federico, who represents two Guantanamo detainees charged before the military commissions, including alleged 9/11 plotter Ramzi bin al Shibh, also doubted cases could be completed by January. Litigation over the legality of the new rules "will certainly incur additional delay," Federico told The Associated Press.
(source)

Nancy Pelosi: "Dangerous", Says Newt

Nancy Pelosi: "Save Me From My Own Stupidity"

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bluntly accused the CIA on Thursday of misleading her and other lawmakers about its use of waterboarding during the Bush administration, escalating a controversy grown to include both political parties, the spy agency and the White House.

"It is not the policy of this agency to mislead the United States Congress," responded CIA spokesman George Little, although he refused to answer directly when asked whether Pelosi's accusation was accurate.

But the House's top Democrat, speaking at a news conference in the Capitol, was unequivocal about a CIA briefing she received in the fall of 2002.

"We were told that waterboarding was not being used," the speaker said. "That's the only mention, that they were not using it. And we now know that earlier they were." She suggested the CIA release the briefing material.

Pelosi also vehemently disputed Republican charges that she was complicit in the use of waterboarding, and she suggested the GOP was trying to shift the focus of public attention away from the Bush administration's use of techniques that she and President Barack Obama have described as torture.

Coincidentally, Pelosi spoke as the CIA rejected former Vice President Dick Cheney's request to release secret memos judging whether waterboarding and other harsh techniques had succeeded in securing valuable intelligence information.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said the request was turned down because the documents are the subject of pending litigation, which makes them not subject to declassification.

Pelosi has been the target of a campaign orchestrated in recent days by the House Republican leadership, which is eager to undercut her statements as well as stick Democrats with partial responsibility for the use of waterboarding — a kind of simulated drowning — in the Bush administration.

GOP officials secured the release of an unclassified chart by the CIA that describes a total of 40 briefings for lawmakers over a period of several years. Pelosi's name appears once, as having attended a session on Sept. 4, 2002, when she was the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Former Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., who at the time was the chairman of the committee and later became CIA director, also was present.

The notation says the briefing was on "enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah ... and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed."

Little, responding to Pelosi for the CIA, said the chart "is true to the language in the agency's records." But he did not say whether the information was accurate.

Instead, he pointed to a recent letter from CIA Director Leon Panetta to lawmakers saying it would be up to Congress to determine whether notes made by agency personnel at the time they briefed lawmakers were accurate.

The CIA has said it could allow congressional staff to review the notes made by briefers who spoke with lawmakers.

The chart specifically notes a discussion of waterboarding in 13 briefings between February 2003 and March 2009, most attended by Democrats as well as Republicans. Two Democrats, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and former Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, have challenged the accuracy of some of the CIA's chart.

Pelosi's decision to respond to her critics was something of a surprise, since most polls show Obama and his policies are popular, and Republicans have exhibited virtually nonstop political disarray in the six months since last fall's elections.

Pelosi renewed her call for a so-called truth commission to investigate the events in the Bush administration that led to the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques. While President Barack Obama has banned waterboarding, calling it torture, he has been notably cool toward an independent inquiry that might distract attention from his domestic agenda.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also has expressed opposition, as have congressional Republicans.

Pelosi was unusually harsh in describing the CIA.

"They mislead us all the time," she said. Asked whether the agency had lied, Pelosi said yes.

Pelosi contended that Democrats did what they could to stop the use of waterboarding. The senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, who received the 2003 briefing on the practice, sent the CIA a formal letter of protest, she said. That was a reference to Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif.

But Pelosi said her focus at the time was on winning control of Congress from the Republicans so her party could change course.

"No letter could change the policy. It was clear we had to change the leadership in Congress and in the White House. That was my job — the Congress part," Pelosi said.

Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the minority leader, said during the day that Democrats "want to have it both ways" on waterboarding by claiming they did not oppose it even though they criticize it.

Boehner also asked Obama in a recent White House meeting to release the CIA memos that describe the information gained through the use of waterboarding.

Cheney says the documents show that the tactics prevented terrorist attacks and saved lives.

In an embarrassment for the administration, the director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, told employees in a recent memo that interrogations that included waterboarding had secured useful intelligence. He later issued a public statement that said it was not known whether the same information could have been obtained without harsh techniques — the same position Obama has taken. (source)

Nancy Pelosi: Caught By The CIA

CIA Says Pelosi Was Briefed on Use of 'Enhanced Interrogations'

By Paul Kane

Intelligence officials released documents this evening saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda prisoners, seemingly contradicting her repeated statements over the past 18 months that she was never told that these techniques were actually being used.

In a 10-page memo outlining an almost seven-year history of classified briefings, intelligence officials said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) were the first two members of Congress ever briefed on the interrogation tactics. Then the ranking member and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, respectively, Pelosi and Goss were briefed Sept. 4, 2002, one week before the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The memo, issued by the Director of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency to Capitol Hill, notes the Pelosi-Goss briefing covered "EITs including the use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah." EIT is an acronym for enhanced interrogation technique. Zubaydah was one of the earliest valuable al-Qaeda members captured and the first to have the controversial tactic known as water boarding used against him.

The issue of what Pelosi knew and when she knew it has become a matter of heated debate on Capitol Hill. Republicans have accused her of knowing for many years precisely the techniques CIA agents were using in interrogations, and only protesting the tactics when they became public and liberal antiwar activists protested.

In a carefully worded statement, Pelosi's office said today that she had never been briefed about the use of waterboarding, only that it had been approved by Bush administration lawyers as a legal technique to use in interrogations.

"As this document shows, the Speaker was briefed only once, in September 2002. The briefers described these techniques, said they were legal, but said that waterboarding had not yet been used," said Brendan Daly, Pelosi's spokesman.

Pelosi's statement did not address whether she was informed that other harsh techniques were already in use during the Zubaydah interrogations.

In December 2007 the Washington Post reported that leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees had been briefed in the fall of 2002 about waterboarding -- which simulates drowning -- and other techniques, and that no congressional leaders protested its use. At the time Pelosi said she was not told that waterboarding was being used, a position she stood by repeatedly last month when the Bush-era Justice Department legal documents justifying the interrogation tactics were released by Attorney General Eric Holder.

The new memo shows that intelligence officials were willing to share the information about waterboarding with only a sharply closed group of people. Three years after the initial Pelosi-Goss briefing, Bush officials still limited interrogation technique briefings to just the chairman and ranking member of the House and Senate intelligence committees, the so-called Gang of Four in the intelligence world.

In October 2005, CIA officials began briefing other congressional leaders with oversight of the intelligence community, including top appropriators who provided the agency its annual funding. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam and an opponent of torture techniques, was also read into the program at that time even though he did not hold a special committee position overseeing the intelligence community.

A bipartisan collection of lawmakers have criticized the practice of limiting information to just the "Gang of Four", who were expressly forbidden from talking about the information from other colleagues, including fellow members of the intelligence committees. Pelosi and others are considering reforms that would assure a more open process for all committee members. (source)

Homeland Insecurity, American Style

By: John Perazzo
FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, May 06, 2009



During her first few weeks on the job, the Secretary of America’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS), former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, has shown herself to be unqualified for her new post in a number of significant ways. She has proudly banished the word “terrorism” from the federal lexicon; she is ignorant of the most elementary facts regarding 9/11; she is eager to blame the United States for drug cartels violence in Mexico, without a shred of evidence; despite that violence, she is demonstrably averse to halting illegal immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border; and she is inclined to smear American conservatives as potential “terrorists.”

Because of her already dismal performance, some have begun to call for Napolitano’s resignation. Republican Congressman John Carter of Texas, for one, says that Napolitano “has no business serving in the position she’s in now” and “should be fired by the administration.” The conservative group Move America Forward is calling for Napolitano’s dismissal on grounds that she is “so ignorant” of a host of key facts that bear heavily on her ability to fulfill the duties of her office.

Although much commentary has focused on the recent report that brands conservatives as terrorists, the former Arizona governor still enjoys an undeserved reputation as a tough border governor. Consider Napolitano’s record vis à vis illegal immigration. As Arizona governor, she vetoed a bill that sought to eliminate voter fraud by requiring voters to present a valid driver’s license or two alternate forms of identification when casting their ballots. According to Napolitano, such a requirement would have disenfranchised “poor voters” who might not possess the requisite documents. She also supported a proposal to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants; she supported a Senate bill that would have granted amnesty to millions of illegals; she vetoed a state bill that would have required police to enforce federal immigration laws; she vetoed measures to cut illegal-alien welfare benefits and college-tuition discounts; she vetoed a proposal that would have allowed local police and federal immigration officials to work collaboratively on immigration cases; and she opposed legislation that would have officially barred the use of the easily forged Mexican Matricula Consular card as a valid form of identification.

During her stint at DHS, Napolitano already has called off a series of scheduled immigration raids at U.S. workplaces. When Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents busted dozens of illegal aliens at a Bellingham, Washington engine plant, a furious Napolitano chastised ICE supervisors and ordered an immediate investigation into the raid because it violated President Obama’s campaign pledge (to Hispanic lobby groups) that illegal aliens would not be arrested at their workplaces. Moreover, she supports a pathway to citizenship whereby illegals could, within a relatively short time, become naturalized.

It is difficult to see how Americans are made safer by Napolitano’s stance on immigration.

In an April interview with CNN’s John King, Napolitano casually dismissed Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio’s assertion that illegal aliens should be prosecuted and jailed. Said the DHS Secretary:

“Sheriff Joe … knows that there aren’t enough law-enforcement officers, courtrooms or jail cells in the world to do what he is saying. What we have to do is target the real evil-doers in this business, the employers who consistently hire illegal labor, the human traffickers who are exploiting human misery. And yes, when we find illegal workers, yes, appropriate action, some of which is criminal, most of that is civil, because crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil.”

Contrary to Napolitano’s absurd claim, however, illegal immigration is indeed a criminal offense under United States law. Section 8, Title 1325 of the U.S. Code clearly states:

Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willfull concealment of a material fact shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned for not more than six months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

Why doesn’t the head of DHS know that illegal immigration is a crime?


In a March 2009 speech to the Brookings Institution, Napolitano characterized U.S. efforts to protect its southern border as insensitive displays of jingoistic arrogance. “One of the things that we need to be sensitive to,” she said, “is the very real feelings among southern border states and in Mexico that if things are being done on the Mexican border, they should also be done on the Canadian border.” Absent from Napolitano’s logic was any recognition of the rapidly growing epidemic of violence, abductions, and murders near the Mexican border—a state of affairs that bears no resemblance whatsoever to the situation along the U.S.-Canada border. To make matters worse, in an April 20th interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Napolitano claimed, incorrectly, that some of the 9/11 hijackers had entered the U.S. through Canada.

Napolitano is exceedingly prone to prevarication. For instance, she claimed recently that “70 percent of the weapons in the hands of the [Mexican] drug cartels are coming from the U.S.” But in fact, more than two-thirds of the guns recovered at Mexican crime scenes are never even sent to the U.S. for tracing, because their markings make it obvious that they originated from somewhere else. Moreover, a large number of the recovered weapons lack serial numbers entirely and thus cannot be traced to any location. In the final analysis, a mere 17 percent of all the guns in question can actually be traced to America.

That is a far cry from Napolitano’s 70-percent fairytale.

One of Napolitano’s most controversial moves as DHS Secretary has been to break with the Department’s tradition of warning the American public about potential terrorist threats by Islamic extremists. Instead, she refers to such acts of terrorism as “man-caused disasters.” In an interview with Germany’s Spiegel Online, she was asked whether her avoidance of the term “terrorism” meant that “Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pos[es] a threat to your country.” She replied:

Of course it does [pose a threat]. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word “terrorism,” I referred to “man-caused” disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.

It seems, however, that Napolitano’s aversion to the so-called “politics of fear” comes into play only with regard to Islamic terrorists. By contrast, unfounded smears implying that American conservatives represent a “terrorist” threat fall well within the bounds of legitimate political discourse, according to Napolitano.

You may recall that in April, Napolitano’s DHS released a report warning that “right-wing extremists” who were “hate-oriented” might be “gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues” such as “the economic downturn,” “the election of the first African American president,” and “the possible passage of new restrictions on firearms.” Particularly susceptible to recruitment, added the report, were: “anti-government” groups; people “dedicated to…opposition to abortion or immigration”; and military veterans (returning from Iraq and Afghanistan) who face “significant challenges reintegrating into their communities.”

Remarkably, the text of this DHS report was liberally peppered with explicit references to the otherwise forbidden word—“terrorism”—as the supposedly exclusive domain of “right-wingers.” The report said, for example, that its warnings would be “provided to…counterterrorism and law enforcement officials so they may effectively deter…terrorist attacks against the United States”; that DHS “has no specific information that domestic right-wing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, but rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits”; that during the 1990s, “an economic recession, criticism about the outsourcing of jobs, and the perceived threat to U.S. power and sovereignty by other foreign powers…contributed to the growth in the number of domestic right-wing terrorist and extremist groups”; that “[t]he possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups”; that “the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years”; that “white supremacists’ longstanding exploitation of social issues such as abortion, inter-racial crimes, and same-sex marriage…[have] contributed to the growth in the number of domestic rightwing terrorist and extremist groups”; and that DHS “assesses that lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent rightwing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.”

So much for avoiding the word “terrorism.”

For actions such as this, the aforementioned Rep. John Carter says, “We shouldn’t even give [Napolitano] the respect of letting her resign. She should be fired by the administration for accusing honest, American citizens—because of their political beliefs—of being domestic terrorists.” The Texas Republican says he will “keep pounding” the issue “until we get rid of this woman.”

Congresswoman Mary Fallin, R-OK, declares that Napolitano is “out of touch with mainstream America” if she believes that returning war veterans and people who support the Second Amendment are predisposed to engage in “terrorism.” In addition, says Fallin, the DHS Secretary “insulted our friends in Canada by falsely claiming the 9/11 terrorists came from there.”

According to Move Forward America (MFA), Napolitano has demonstrated that she is “ignoran[t] about Islamic terrorism” and “has no clue about the details of what happened to America on September 11, 2001.” “Her outlook and priorities are exactly backward and plainly dangerous,” says MFA. “Napolitano is unfit to serve as secretary of Homeland Security and President Obama must fire her before she causes more damage to our country.”

Examining her belief system, damage is the most likely prognosis...(source)

Andrew McCarthy Delivers A Defeaning Blow To The Obama Administration

May 1, 2009

By email (to the Counterterrorism Division) and by regular mail:

The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr.
Attorney General of the United States
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001

Dear Attorney General Holder:

This letter is respectfully submitted to inform you that I must decline the invitation to participate in the May 4 roundtable meeting the President’s Task Force on Detention Policy is convening with current and former prosecutors involved in international terrorism cases. An invitation was extended to me by trial lawyers from the Counterterrorism Section, who are members of the Task Force, which you are leading.

The invitation email (of April 14) indicates that the meeting is part of an ongoing effort to identify lawful policies on the detention and disposition of alien enemy combatants—or what the Department now calls “individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.” I admire the lawyers of the Counterterrorism Division, and I do not question their good faith. Nevertheless, it is quite clear—most recently, from your provocative remarks on Wednesday in Germany—that the Obama administration has already settled on a policy of releasing trained jihadists (including releasing some of them into the United States). Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people. Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop.

Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government.

Beyond that, as elucidated in my writing (including my proposal for a new national security court, which I understand the Task Force has perused), I believe alien enemy combatants should be detained at Guantanamo Bay (or a facility like it) until the conclusion of hostilities. This national defense measure is deeply rooted in the venerable laws of war and was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in the 2004 Hamdi case. Yet, as recently as Wednesday, you asserted that, in your considered judgment, such notions violate America’s “commitment to the rule of law.” Indeed, you elaborated, “Nothing symbolizes our [adminstration’s] new course more than our decision to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay…. President Obama believes, and I strongly agree, that Guantanamo has come to represent a time and an approach that we want to put behind us: a disregard for our centuries-long respect for the rule of law[.]” (Emphasis added.)

Given your policy of conducting ruinous criminal and ethics investigations of lawyers over the advice they offer the government, and your specific position that the wartime detention I would endorse is tantamount to a violation of law, it makes little sense for me to attend the Task Force meeting. After all, my choice would be to remain silent or risk jeopardizing myself.
For what it may be worth, I will say this much. For eight years, we have had a robust debate in the United States about how to handle alien terrorists captured during a defensive war authorized by Congress after nearly 3000 of our fellow Americans were annihilated. Essentially, there have been two camps. One calls for prosecution in the civilian criminal justice system, the strategy used throughout the 1990s. The other calls for a military justice approach of combatant detention and war-crimes prosecutions by military commission. Because each theory has its downsides, many commentators, myself included, have proposed a third way: a hybrid system, designed for the realities of modern international terrorism—a new system that would address the needs to protect our classified defense secrets and to assure Americans, as well as our allies, that we are detaining the right people.

There are differences in these various proposals. But their proponents, and adherents to both the military and civilian justice approaches, have all agreed on at least one thing: Foreign terrorists trained to execute mass-murder attacks cannot simply be released while the war ensues and Americans are still being targeted. We have already released too many jihadists who, as night follows day, have resumed plotting to kill Americans. Indeed, according to recent reports, a released Guantanamo detainee is now leading Taliban combat operations in Afghanistan, where President Obama has just sent additional American forces.
The Obama campaign smeared Guantanamo Bay as a human rights blight. Consistent with that hyperbolic rhetoric, the President began his administration by promising to close the detention camp within a year. The President did this even though he and you (a) agree Gitmo is a top-flight prison facility, (b) acknowledge that our nation is still at war, and (c) concede that many Gitmo detainees are extremely dangerous terrorists who cannot be tried under civilian court rules. Patently, the commitment to close Guantanamo Bay within a year was made without a plan for what to do with these detainees who cannot be tried. Consequently, the Detention Policy Task Force is not an effort to arrive at the best policy. It is an effort to justify a bad policy that has already been adopted: to wit, the Obama administration policy to release trained terrorists outright if that’s what it takes to close Gitmo by January.

Obviously, I am powerless to stop the administration from releasing top al Qaeda operatives who planned mass-murder attacks against American cities—like Binyam Mohammed (the accomplice of “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla) whom the administration recently transferred to Britain, where he is now at liberty and living on public assistance. I am similarly powerless to stop the administration from admitting into the United States such alien jihadists as the 17 remaining Uighur detainees. According to National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, the Uighurs will apparently live freely, on American taxpayer assistance, despite the facts that they are affiliated with a terrorist organization and have received terrorist paramilitary training. Under federal immigration law (the 2005 REAL ID Act), those facts render them excludable from the United States. The Uighurs’ impending release is thus a remarkable development given the Obama administration’s propensity to deride its predecessor’s purported insensitivity to the rule of law.

I am, in addition, powerless to stop the President, as he takes these reckless steps, from touting his Detention Policy Task Force as a demonstration of his national security seriousness. But I can decline to participate in the charade.

Finally, let me repeat that I respect and admire the dedication of Justice Department lawyers, whom I have tirelessly defended since I retired in 2003 as a chief assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. It was a unique honor to serve for nearly twenty years as a federal prosecutor, under administrations of both parties. It was as proud a day as I have ever had when the trial team I led was awarded the Attorney General’s Exceptional Service Award in 1996, after we secured the convictions of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and his underlings for waging a terrorist war against the United States. I particularly appreciated receiving the award from Attorney General Reno—as I recounted in Willful Blindness, my book about the case, without her steadfastness against opposition from short-sighted government officials who wanted to release him, the “blind sheikh” would never have been indicted, much less convicted and so deservedly sentenced to life-imprisonment. In any event, I’ve always believed defending our nation is a duty of citizenship, not ideology. Thus, my conservative political views aside, I’ve made myself available to liberal and conservative groups, to Democrats and Republicans, who’ve thought tapping my experience would be beneficial. It pains me to decline your invitation, but the attendant circumstances leave no other option.

Very truly yours,

/S/

Andrew C. McCarthy

cc: Sylvia T. Kaser and John DePue
National Security Division, Counterterrorism Section (source)

Porter Goss Writes Open Letter Regarding Our Suicidal Leaders: Pelosi, Barry, And The Gang Of Four

Porter Goss is not just some critic of this new, traitorous administration. Indeed, Goss was director of the CIA from September 2004 to May 2006 and was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 1997 to 2004.

Read his own words here:

Since leaving my post as CIA director almost three years ago, I have remained largely silent on the public stage. I am speaking out now because I feel our government has crossed the red line between properly protecting our national security and trying to gain partisan political advantage. We can't have a secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets. Americans have to decide now.

A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former colleagues on Capitol Hill. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of the committees charged with overseeing our nation's intelligence services had no higher priority than stopping al-Qaeda. In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were briefed on the CIA's "High Value Terrorist Program," including the development of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and what those techniques were. This was not a one-time briefing but an ongoing subject with lots of back and forth between those members and the briefers.

Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.

Let me be clear. It is my recollection that:


-- The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists.


-- We understood what the CIA was doing.


-- We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.


-- We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.


-- On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.

I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues. They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding. And for those who now reveal filed "memorandums for the record" suggesting concern, real concern should have been expressed immediately -- to the committee chairs, the briefers, the House speaker or minority leader, the CIA director or the president's national security adviser -- and not quietly filed away in case the day came when the political winds shifted. And shifted they have.

Circuses are not new in Washington, and I can see preparations being made for tents from the Capitol straight down Pennsylvania Avenue. The CIA has been pulled into the center ring before. The result this time will be the same: a hollowed-out service of diminished capabilities. After Sept. 11, the general outcry was, "Why don't we have better overseas capabilities?" I fear that in the years to come this refrain will be heard again: once a threat -- or God forbid, another successful attack -- captures our attention and sends the pendulum swinging back. There is only one person who can shut down this dangerous show: President Obama.

Unfortunately, much of the damage to our capabilities has already been done. It is certainly not trust that is fostered when intelligence officers are told one day "I have your back" only to learn a day later that a knife is being held to it. After the events of this week, morale at the CIA has been shaken to its foundation.

We must not forget: Our intelligence allies overseas view our inability to maintain secrecy as a reason to question our worthiness as a partner. These allies have been vital in almost every capture of a terrorist.

The suggestion that we are safer now because information about interrogation techniques is in the public domain conjures up images of unicorns and fairy dust. We have given our enemy invaluable information about the rules by which we operate. The terrorists captured by the CIA perfected the act of beheading innocents using dull knives. Khalid Sheik Mohammed boasted of the tactic of placing explosives high enough in a building to ensure that innocents trapped above would die if they tried to escape through windows. There is simply no comparison between our professionalism and their brutality.

Our enemies do not subscribe to the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury. "Name, rank and serial number" does not apply to non-state actors but is, regrettably, the only question this administration wants us to ask. Instead of taking risks, our intelligence officers will soon resort to wordsmithing cables to headquarters while opportunities to neutralize brutal radicals are lost.

The days of fortress America are gone. We are the world's superpower. We can sit on our hands or we can become engaged to improve global human conditions. The bottom line is that we cannot succeed unless we have good intelligence. Trading security for partisan political popularity will ensure that our secrets are not secret and that our intelligence is destined to fail us. (source)

The Left: A Dionysian Comparison

On my favorite blog, Sweetness & Light, an astute contributor started a thread which I thought worthy of reproducing here. The readers of Ann Coulter's blog (administered by Steve Gilbert) are a cut above ther rest:

proreason
April
16, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Has anybody noticed that every single thing said by these left wing hacks is a lie or one sort or another.
At least there is one area where The Moron is demonstrating his leadership.

englishqueen01
April
16, 2009 at 9:45 pm
It’s not lies, proreason.
It’s PROJECTION. As in, everything liberals say about us is absolutely 100% true…about them, their beliefs, their policies, and actions.

jrmcdonald
April
18, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Your both right. Ayn Rand said that people do not believe in the irrational, but they do believe in the unjust. The lefts core beliefs in the unjust are:1. Punishing the producer while rewarding the parasite.2. Mocking the moral while celebrating the deviate.3. Killing the innocent while protecting the homicidal.4. Removing the sacred while expanding the bureaucrat.

proreason
April
18, 2009 at 8:17 pm
jr: “The lefts’ core beliefs in the unjust ”
It’s a rather profound thought.

But is eq correct in saying the belief in the unjust is a projection (a generous assessment, imho), or am I correct in saying that it is a simple case of defending one’s own deviant behaviour patterns (which I summarized by just calling them liars….in fact, it goes way beyond lying to all sorts of immoral behaviours, including the one jr points out, but well beyond them as well)?

It may be a fine point, but I personally feel the left compounds their immoral and anti-social behaviours by defending them, much like children twist themselves in knots when caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

And I also believe that the core liberal beliefs arise out of their immorality. For example, the reason they defend abortion with such gusto is that they know it is murder. Another example, the reason they defend taxes in the face of the obvious failure of almost all government programs is that, like Biden, they are selfish and will give nothing to charity themselves without being forced.

Howard Roark
April
20, 2009 at 12:57 pm
I like all of the responses to PR’s original question, here. I think they all are true: projection, Rand’s thought on the unjust, immorality.

My only addition to this is my belief that we see a present-day version of what the Greeks knew of as Dionysian principles in the modern liberal Democrats.

We Conservatives are the Stoics.

25 years ago, you couldn’t have convinced me of the value of Stoicism. I called myself a Dionysian. In fact, I remember doing a class report in the third year of my Latin studies during my senior year in the public high school I attended. I passed around plastic cups of Kroger-brand fake wine to everyone, and launched into what the differences were between Stoicism & Dionysianism, and why I, (a 17 year-old immature kid) was indeed a Dionysian. After all, who could be an adolescent and turn your back on wine, intoxication, and ecstasy?

It took me nearly twenty years to understand the other component of living a Dionysian lifestyle, though: chaos. Add to that: irrational thought, insincerity, and faithlessness. I now merely shake my head at my foolish youth.

Democrats/liberals are stuck in their adolescent youth, living a life of satisfying their every impulse, especially the base ones. They aren’t full of “principles” as we know them.

Their only “principles”, I have found, are based on doing the exact opposite of what they think a Republican or Conservative would do. And they are happy with that shallow definition of their core belief system. They are chaos, plain and simple.

Some of us Christians would call them “lost”.

As much as J. Gerofalo would love to medicalize the “condition” of being a Conservative (her laughable display on K. Olbermann’s show recently saw her attempt at diagnosing all “Teabaggers” as having a limbic brain disorder of overgrowth, resulting in misfirings of the synapses in our frontal lobes, ‘natch.

Isn’t it ironic that a good liberal like her would rest the diagnosis of “intelligence” on brain size/growth? The last time cranial studies were done to “prove” intelligence,
African Americans didn’t fare too well, so we demonized those scientists, of course. But I guess you’d have to be one of those “readers” to know that. Perhaps Gerofalo didn’t get that Twitter blast.), I, like EQ above, believe that they project the neurological/brain condition on us, yet it is they who suffer from a condition of underdeveloped sectors of the brain. As the Colonel might say, “can’t prove it, just know it.”

Their brain suffers from a suite of maladies, I believe: unresolved phobias, coping problems, attention span deficiencies, irrational thought, etc. I am not trained as a medical scientist, but I see these patterns in the arch liberals I’ve encountered in my life.

Leon Assures The Senate: We Won't Be Anything Like The Bush-Cheney Era CIA [which kept the US safe for over 7 years]

"Don't you worry about a thing", he seemed to be telling us today. The world is just so worried that America will continue to torture, you know. We must make sure to never repeat the "extraordinary" things that President Bush and VP Cheney practiced, Leon said today.

Well, just what were those extraordinary things? Burning up 20 children and 60 innocent parents, adults, and elderly Americans like Cinton & Reno committed? How about bombing Sarajevo without UN approval? How about murdering Chinese embassy workers in Bosnia? How about murdering innocent Africans in a bombing of an aspirin factory?

Are all of those the "extraordinary" situations you speak of, Leon?

Oh, let me guess: you mean the kind of non-lethal, time-practiced methods of interrogations that actually save lives? The kind of things that only happened 3 times in 8 years? The kind of things that were performed on combatants who would easily have been executed under any other humanitarian military force in times past?

Leon Panetta is a lickspittle coward who can't stand up for the country that protects his children, his wife, and the very life he lives. He masks himself behind some artificial disguise of "compassion" and Democratic priciple, but as mentioned above, Democrats have a far worse record of murdering innocents and not solving the problem.

President Bush interrogated the right people, got the right information from them, and saved lives for 7 and a half years. They did the right thing without leaving the same embarrassing, feckless, CIA to take the blame.

Barry In Charge: Guantanamo Lives For Another Year

Only a day later, and Barry keeps revising his policy: this time he plans to keep Guantanamo prisoners for yet another YEAR! While this apparachik in the video above tries to put a happy face on Barry's extension, protestors, Leftists, and Progressives (redundant?) are squealing in horror.

Here's quick article that came out a few minutes ago: here.