Shocker. Obama Justice Nominee Says 9-11 Was Not an Act of War
Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, June 17, 2010, 5:11 AM
Does this guy know anybody who’s not an Marxist, socialist or America-hating radical?
Obama’s nominee to be the number two official at the Justice Department, James Cole, wrote that the 9-11 attacks were not an act of war… in 2002. The only America-hating radicals brave enough to speak out against the US in 2002 were Ward Churchill, Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers… And, James Cole.
Where does Obama find these anti-American kooks?
CNS News reported, via Free Republic:
Despite a resolution by Congress authorizing war against those responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Obama’s nominee to be the number two official at the Justice Department, James Cole, wrote an op-ed in 2002 likening the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to the domestic crimes of murder, rape and child abuse, while arguing that the attackers ought to be treated like domestic criminals.
“But the attorney general is not a member of the military fighting a war–he is a prosecutor fighting crime,” Cole wrote in a Sept. 9, 2002 article in Legal Times that critiqued the way then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft was handling the 9/11 case.
“For all the rhetoric about war, the Sept. 11 attacks were criminal acts of terrorism against a civilian population, much like the terrorist acts of Timothy McVeigh in blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City, or of Omar Abdel-Rahman in the first effort to blow up the World Trade Center,” said Cole. “The criminals responsible for these horrible acts were successfully tried and convicted under our criminal justice system, without the need for special procedures that altered traditional due process rights.
“Our country has faced many forms of devastating crime, including the scourge of the drug trade, the reign of organized crime, and countless acts of rape, child abuse, and murder. The acts of Sept. 11 were horrible, but so are these other things,” Cole wrote in his op-ed.
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Published May 24, 2012 at 8:46 pm - 89 Comments
Melvin Winter commented:
Headline parody: Crime! Declared on al-Qaeda and Other 9/11 Terrorists http://optoons.blogspot.com/2009/11/crime-declared-on-al-qaeda-and-other.html
No Man commented:
“Our country faces many forms of devastating crimes, including the scourge of racism, organized crime, Jim Crow laws, and countless acts of rape, capitalism, and murder. The acts of December 7, 1941 were horrible, but so are these other things, . . . ”
Mats commented:
“Fundamentally changing america” are words that should be considered illegal in the USA.
programmer commented:
I disagree. This is a perfectly reasonable legal opinion. It might not be the best option for justification in using the military against Al Queda, but it is certainly a legitimate position. IMHO, we as a nation need to avoid swinging too far to the Left or too far to the Right. Bashing someone for formulating an opinion that doesn’t end in, “… and therefore I advocate nuking the %&@ SOBs” is probably not a long term healthy policy for America.
StanInTexas commented:
“I disagree. This is a perfectly reasonable legal opinion.”
Only if you can make the case that citizens committing crimes within this nation, no matter how horrific, is the same as forerigners attacking America on American soil.
He is making his entire case by comparing apples to Buicks!
ChrisM commented:
I’m with Programmer. Notwithstanding your overheated description, the actual quotation from Cole expresses a perfectly reasonable, level-headed analysis. He was actually far from the only person at the time pointing out that the 9/11 attacks were in fact criminal acts, not acts of war (which require a state actor), and pointing this out certainly does nothing to diminish the heinousness of those acts.
Moreover, he was completely right regarding the central point of the article, which was that Ashcroft’s behavior (i.e., “special procedures that altered traditional due process rights”) were uncalled-for by the circumstances and were legally questionable. There’s nothing “anti-American” about this; it’s a principled upholding of a core American value, namely the rule of law.
Opus #6 commented:
These types of radical beliefs must be a hiring prerequisite for the Obama administration.
Valerie commented:
*sigh*
Yet another lawyer that does not understand the concept of jurisdiction.
What the hell kind of law school graduates people who have no idea that the applicable law governs the vocabulary one uses to describe a given act?
Auntie Em commented:
It was an act of war. In the hearts of the terrorists, that is exactly what it was.
Valerie commented:
And, he might have been asleep at the wheel over the AIG mess.
http://www.whistleblower.org/blog/31-2010/611-james-coles-confirmation-hearing-senate-judiciary-committee-silent-about-aig
B.A. from the University of Colorado and his J.D. from the University of California-Hastings.
http://thepage.time.com/obama-to-nominate-james-m-cole-as-deputy-ag/
Andreas K. commented:
He calls them “criminals”, with that he acknowledges that they have rights in the US justice system.
It was the attack of a foreign power, much like the Nazi and Soviet invasion of Poland, the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark. Yes, like Pearl Harbor.
The difference is, that these historical examples were performed by the standing military of sovereign nations, marked as such and clearly identifyable. Plus, their targets were either clearly military targets (and thus legitimate) or the strike was part of a full scale invasion.
In case of 9-11 the enemy chose to infiltrate and then strike against civilian targets (which, accodring to the Hague Convention, is forbidden.)
Also, none of the 9-11 attackers, nor any of the Talis, AQs or other nutjobs detained in Gitmo right now qualify as what the Hague Convention calls “belligerents”.
I quote:
CHAPTER I.–On the Qualifications of Belligerents
Article 1
The laws, rights, and duties of war apply not only to armies, but also to militia and volunteer corps, fulfilling the following conditions:
To be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
To have a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance;
To carry arms openly; and
To conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
In countries where militia or volunteer corps constitute the army, or form part of it, they are included under the denomination “army.”
Article 2
The population of a territory which has not been occupied who, on the enemy’s approach, spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading troops without having time to organize themselves in accordance with Article 1, shall be regarded a belligerent, if they respect the laws and customs of war.
The Talis don’t fall under any of that, nor do the AQs and the rest.
So, the whole Team Zero is violating the Hague Convention.
Andreas K. commented:
If anyone would have been authorized to put them on trial, it would have been the US military. Because
Article 8
Prisoners of war shall be subject to the laws, regulations, and orders in force in the army of the State into whose hands they have fallen.
and BTW
Article 6
The State may utilize the labor of prisoners of war according to their rank and aptitude. Their tasks shall not be excessive, and shall have nothing to do with the military operations.
Make those jihadis in Gitmo work.
That if of course only if we accept that these are actually POWs, which, according to Article 1 and 2 of the Hague Convention they are not. They are franctireur and should be treated as such.
eaglewingz08 commented:
By ‘successfully prosecuted’, Cole must mean that we disrupted the network of terrorists so that they would not be able to plan and perform a second successful operation on the same target and obtained useful intelligence from the criminals to that end.
Oh, never mind.
Charlie commented:
Since when did judicial nominees obtain the power to declare war? “The Congress shall have power to declare war” to me pretty much means that the Congress has the power to declare war, not the courts or even the president.
bg commented:
++
make peace..
not war.. /s/
what the fascist left have been aiming for is to “equate” good with evil.. that’s the only way they can appease their conscience in the face of the harsh reality they are trying to escape from because it does not fit in with their ideological utopian matrix.. if there is no good vs evil, then all is good even if [the] all is evil.. – bg
==
SeniorD commented:
Well, if 9-11 was not an act of war, what about 11-4-08? The election of a radical Socialist, know-nothing, no-experienced, elitist snob to the most powerful office in the ‘Free’ World would certainly qualify as an Act of War against the United States of America.
AuntieMadder commented:
Cole’s is a perfectly reasonable legal opinion to attorneys and others who suffer from the pathological condition known as “liberalism.”
Toaster802 commented:
Q; Does this guy know anybody who’s not an Marxist, socialist or America-hating radical?
A; Yes. Obama refers to them as “enemies”.
Anna commented:
Why are you folks back this radical Cole?
Anna commented:
excuse me–backing
Neoavatara commented:
Who can rationalize a fool like this for the second position in the Justice Dept?
It would be like a republican nominating a birther to be attorney general…it just doesn’t make sense.
http://neoavatara.com/blog/?p=11226
Callipygian1 commented:
NoMan:
“Our country faces many forms of devastating crimes, including the scourge of racism, organized crime, Jim Crow laws, and countless acts of rape, capitalism, and murder. The acts of December 7, 1941 were horrible, but so are these other things, . . . ”
I caught them… lol
Robert commented:
From the article linked:
Cole did concede in his Legal Times piece that an “arguable difference” between domestic rape, child abuse and murder and the 9/11 attacks was that foreign organizations and perhaps even countries were involved in the latter. “But we have never treated such influences as a basis for ignoring the core constitutional protections ingrained in our criminal justice system.”
This is where the lawyer falls short in his analysis. By minimizing the central component, the lawyer shifts emphasis to a less important one, thus distracting everyone from the task at hand, namely, to respond to an act of war.
This is the same “profession” that twist words and writings to mean something completely different than what the writer intended. We see the examples of this in their ongoing assault on the most basic foundations of our society. Thus, babies are killed and crosses are taken down while criminals are set free and the most vile “art” is celebrated and promoted.
Letting lawyers have the final say on every matter hampers true justice and is leading us to perdition.
kansas commented:
If Obama had been President in 1941:
On December 7th, 1941, a day that will live in infamy, battleships and destroyers owned by the United States of America were sunk by airplanes owned by Japan. This resulted in the loss of many millions of dollars worth of equipment, and resulted in the deaths of some military people who were there of their own volition.
I am sending my legal team immediately to Japan to demand they repay the costs of those ships, and the rebuild the infrastructure that housed them. In addition I have summoned some other homeys to advise me whose ass to kick.
In the meantime, I have scheduled 7 parties, and several rounds of golf.
That is all.
Hussein Obama
jainphx commented:
Yeah it’s not an act of war, so lets just forgive them. Whats that you say: They did it again. How many died this time? Oh well it’s not an act of war it’s a crime, wait whats that New York just blew up, not an act of war it’s a crime.
Tell me please if it was not an act of war, what in your opinion is? Should we wait, and if we do, for what? How many must die before we take action? Some just don’t care unless of course it happens to one of theirs.
Valerie commented:
Yet another administration member, who does not understand ethics.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/dept-of-energys-cathy-zoi-still-flouting-the-law-still-stonewalling-the-investigation-pjm-exclusive/
“Documents obtained from the Department of Energy and elsewhere appear to present a prima facie case of a senior Obama administration official, Assistant Secretary of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Cathy Zoi, participating substantially in decisions impacting companies in which she is heavily invested. This flouts ethics requirements and would be a violation of U.S. criminal law.”
“The Freedom Foundation of Minnesota has also kindly directed me to Zoi’s direct advocacy supporting one of these companies. This comes in the rather inescapable form of testimony to Congress, where she championed a major new program that would directly benefit the company for which her husband works — “green window” vendor Serious Materials. The Zois maintained ownership of 120,000 shares in Serious Materials — previously obscure, but now an administration favorite — as well as stock options.”
**************
This article leaves open the possibility that the Zois did properly divest themselves of the stock in question — however, that should be a matter of public record, easily obtained, and not requiring a FOIA request.
Stock ownership is a perennial sticky question for members of the executive branch and the judiciary. The rules, however, are well-know, and the underlying information should be available.
bg commented:
++
re: bg #17
how about Osama’s declarations of war??
Osama bin Laden
[The following text is a fatwa, or declaration of war, by Osama bin Laden first published in Al Quds Al Arabi, a London-based newspaper, in August, 1996. The fatwa is entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places."]
Saddam Hussein calls for holy war
Obama knew all about Farrakhan
[In 1985, the year following Wright and Farrakhan's trip to Libya, Obama, then a Chicago community activist, visited Wright's church. In Wright, it was reported, Obama "had found both a spiritual mentor and a role model." In 1991, Obama joined TUCC and "walked down the aisle in a formal commitment of faith."
[..]
The following year, in January 1996, Farrakhan returned from another trip to Libya. It was the same month in which Barack Obama became an Illinois State Senator. By then, Obama had been attending Rev. Wright’s church for ten years, the latter five as a committed member. The New York Times reported:
[..]
Colonel Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, quoted by the state press agency, said: “Our confrontation with America used to be like confronting a fortress from outside. Today we have found an opening to enter the fortress and
to confront it from within.”]
Along came a black citizen of Kenyan African origins, a Muslim, who
had studied in an Islamic school in Indonesia. His name is Obama.
Lybian Leader 4/10/06
“[.] If we want to amend the state of humanity, and live in a global village, because of globalization [.] The fifty million Muslims in Europe will turn
it into a Muslim continent within a few decades. [.] Europe is in a predicament, and so is America. They should agree to become Islamic in
the course of time, [.]”
KEEP THOSE ABORTIONS COMING INFIDELS!! /sarc/
btw, Saddam was in tight with Gadaffi @ Arafat
(Husseini), just to name a couple of other jihadists..
==
Rock commented:
Nothing more than setting the ground work to turn the Justice Department loose on the Tea Party or any who oppose this regimes agenda to fundamentally corrupt this Nation. No Islamic terrorist any longer, only homegrown terrorist, pretty obvious where these inbred thugs are heading, and it will not be pretty. Anyone who believes we will ever see anything that resembles a honest election is living in a dream world.
ChrisM commented:
-Valerie, Cole’s whole discussion is *about* the applicable law. You can’t simply assert he’s wrong as a presupposition; that’s a conclusion requiring a supporting argument.
-Andreas, 9/11 was in no way “an attack by a foreign power.” There was no state or other sovereign entity behind it. When (e.g.) the IRA committed bombings in London, or Mafia families committed large-scale murder, what you had were *criminal organizations* committing *violent crimes*, not acts of state. Likewise with al Qaeda. The motivations of the perpetrators may have been political, but so were McVeigh’s in Oklahoma City.
(And did you *really* mean to compare AQ to the French resistance against the Nazis? Not exactly the best analogy.)
-Robert, the “central component” of any analysis of DOJ behavior surely *has* to involve “the core constitutional protections ingrained in our criminal justice system.” The background and/or motivations of alleged perpetrators or conspirators are entirely secondary. I’m not sure why you’d want to invert these priorities.
(But then, I gather from your later remarks that you’re something of a religious zealot, so I’m not sure of your priorities. I’d never argue that justice and law are synonymous—no system is perfect—but they’re certainly more closely related than either one is to religion.)
-Jainphx, no one ever argued to “forgive” anyone. An alternative approach would have been to pursue and dismantle AQ using international law-enforcement resources, which are substantial, an approach for which we probably could have gotten much wider cooperation than for a military “solution.” But that was moot anyway by 2002, when Cole was writing this; remember, his point was specifically to address the overreachings of John Ashcroft’s DOJ, which at the time was detaining large numbers of people in ways that were, in fact, subsequently found to be unconstitutional in quiet a few cases.
Stuart commented:
Kansas #26:
You forgot:
“As of today I am declaring a six month moratorium on all aviation activity within the borders of the United States, to include aeronautical research and aircraft production.”
Jainphx #27
Just wait until A.Q. gets a nuke or some biologicals. I’ll bet it will be a big enough “Crime” to get on Americas Ten Most Wanted.
bg commented:
++
ChrisM @ 7:24 am #7
yes, by all means, lets revert to the 9/10/01 “mentality”..
you know, where Gorelick’s Wall & Clinton’s roll
back policy allowed AQ to slip through the cracks..
Obama has already bowed several investigative sources
to Islamic instruct/construct/monitoring (just a sample)..
The Islamic Infiltration, Part 1
The Islamic Infiltration, Part 2
It’s not over until it’s over
[.] Could we be more blind? Acts of terror are rooted in the aspirations of Islamists to create an Islamic state and impose their version of Shariah law.
[..]
It certainly is not the role of any administration to determine who are “good” and “bad” jihadists. Not calling them exactly what they call themselves makes the White House the arbiter of who is and who is not a Muslim. This avoidance behavior allows American Islamists, like the Muslim Brotherhood’s front groups in Washington, to continue to deny their responsibility to lead the Islamic reform effort against Islamism and its role in radicalization — the real existential threat to the West. [.]
Failing at force protection
[.] It is ridiculous that our military would be “outsourcing” spiritual guidance for our force members. It is insane that they would utilize ISNA when they are part and parcel of the problem. ISNA’s roots are in the global project of the Muslim Brotherhood. They were listed as an unindicted coconspirator in the successful Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial of 2008. They refuse to recognize the separatist influence of Islamist ideology. The Imam’s use of ISNA is akin to the Trojans bringing the Greek’s horse inside the fortress. Our military should never farm such deeply essential counseling out. [.]
Terror czar deserves honorary membership in the Muslim Brotherhood
[Defeating the ideology of Political Islam (Islamism) needs to be the focal point of the United States efforts at ending Islamist extremism. Yet again we see a highly placed government official unable to identify and discuss the root of the threat. Brennan was more focused, if not obsessed, on appealing to the narrative of victimology that is being perpetuated by well-funded Islamists in the American Muslim communities. His inability to even mention the words "political Islam" speaks volumes on the administrations capability to confront the radicals the United States is increasingly facing.]
How can we thwart future Islamist attacks?
[.] Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to how to stop the continued uptick in attacks stemming from jihadists on our soil. In the short term,
we are going to have to continue to have faith in our Homeland Security apparatus, FBI, police, and supporting agencies to continue doing the great work they are doing in prevention, counterintelligence, and monitoring. This has certainly included our share of good fortune as we saw in this most recent case at Times Square. More importantly, in the long term, our nation desperately needs to wake up to the war of ideas. We have taken major steps backward in the past year too many to mention here. While the Obama administration wastes its time striking the words “Islam,” “Islamic,” “Islamist” and “Jihadist” from the government lexicon, the Jihadists continue to virally spread their unopposed narrative that “American society, government, and media are against Islam and against Muslims.”[.]
much more here..
stop looking at the trees, you’re missing the forest..
==
Robert commented:
ChrisM #32
The central component to which I was referring was that al Qaeda had the backing and support of the then-ruling authority in Afghanistan, making the attacks of September 11 an act of war. This is something which you and the author conveniently choose to minimize, in your case incorrectly stating that “There was no state or other sovereign entity behind it.”
If you think that anything short of military force could have begun to enact retaliation then you are indeed a bit too enamored of the justice system. You seem as if you may be a lawyer, and think that applications of law without respect to other social mores (which have been dismantled by lawyers implementing leftist actions for decades) are sufficient to resolve today’s disputes.
We also have the then and current situation where your fabled system of justice is not quite able to handle all of the issues involved in this situation. Witness the difficulty in finding an alternative to incarceration in Guantanamo, or having the wondrous trials in civilian courts. So maybe Bush\Ashcroft had it right, especially in light of the fact that actions had to be undertaken and not debated for years on end. We see right this moment the effect of endless debate as oil washes up on the shores of the Gulf states. It is very easy to debate a situation into paralysis.
The importance of lawyers has been over-inflated, and their abilities to render justice are not the be-all and end-all of true just outcomes.
Maybe they need to get a little more religion.
eaglewingz08 commented:
Even on Cole’s perverted reasoning his claim that this was not an act of war is baseless. The Taliban was the gov’t of Afghanistan. The Taliban plotted and used Al Queda as an arm of the gov’t of Afghanistan. At the very least Al Queda were mercenaries of the gov’t of Afghanistan. So these acts of Al Queda were the acts of the gov’t of Afghanistan. It would be like saying the acts of the Hessians in the Revolutionary War, weren’t acts of war, because they were mercenaries for England (whom we were at war with) but because the Hessians weren’t the formal army of Germany, they could only be tried in our criminal courts.
Nonsense. Cole doesn’t deserve the position of dog catcher for his addled and ideologically driven drivel.
Rock commented:
Liberals will without question will try and confuse the issue for no other reason than to advance their agenda. Vietnam was a wake up call to all who hate America. War against the U.S. in conventional armed conflict is costly and dangerous. Liberals provided the means for them to wage war against us and hide behind acts of war disguised as criminal acts. Wars then become long expensive actions that at some point become hard to justify, and allows the U.S. to be seen as a paper tiger. Do not forget the Liberal Left has always seen the Military Industrial Complex as a enemy that they needed to destroy. The same scum that belittle our Vietnam era troops are now in place of authority, their agenda has not changed, only their clothing, no longer American Flags on their backsides, no more tie dye shirts no more Mao t-shirts, now they have adopted the pin strip clothing (typical guerrilla tactic) of their sworn enemy. While their attire may have changed they are the same reprehensible trash of the 60′s.
bg commented:
++
ChrisM @ 10:15 am #32
update re: [specifically to address the overreachings of John Ashcroft’s DOJ, which at the time was detaining large numbers of people in ways that were, in fact, subsequently found to be unconstitutional]
Turkmen v. Ashcroft
[On December 18, 2009 the Second Circuit affirmed Judge Gleeson’s dismissal of plaintiffs’ claims about prolonged detention. The Court vacated the balance of the District Court’s decision, regarding abusive conditions of confinement, and remanded the case to the District Court to consider Plaintiffs’ motion to amend the complaint and to apply the new pleading standard created in Iqbal v. Ashcroft.]
ASHCROFT, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL, et al. v. IQBAL et al.
someone’s opinion re:
ASHCROFT V. IQBAL
==
Catherine commented:
Not an Attack? Hummmm
I saw it as an attack.
NYC
D.C
and ? stopped in Pa.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GARQvLtjMis&feature=related
TO SAY YOU HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN
Then why did the American people elect Democ-rats to run things the oil shut down by bho aids the enemy who did this attack on the American people and our way of life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl4RFoT-sJQ&feature=related
Voices of 9/11 (part 2) Hijacked
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqjqT3xhWvE&feature=related
Voices of 9/11 (part 3) Nightmare Unfolding
AND JUST 8 SHORT YEARS BHO SENDS AIRFORCE 1 FOR A PHOTO OP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8rznSxIMXI&feature=related
BUT BHOs people democrats said this was not an attack?
What have the American people done?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59KWlXpKz7I&feature=related
Voices of 9/11 (part 5) The City that Wouldn’t Sleep
I blame the MSM for the lies and the cover up that has misled the American People. to help those who aid the enemy yet they the MSM is still aiding the enemy and covering for bho and the democrats
Remember within 3 weeks the democrats were complaining we had not done enough?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GMAC6ZuhUo&feature=fvw
Voices of 9/11 (part 6) Amazing Grace
And now the democrats that run NYC will allow a mega mosque on ground zero in just 9 short years I would say the People should feel shame shame shame.
Catherine
ChrisM commented:
bg @#32-
I don’t know what the “9/10 mentality” is supposed to be other than a rhetorical cheap shot, but if it signifies standing by the established rule of law rather than discarding it in a panic then that, at least, is something I’ll embrace.
The fact that a tiny network of extremists harbors aspirations to impose Sharia law around the world doesn’t mean that those aspirations are in any way credible, much less that they pose an “existential threat” to the U.S. or to western civilization in general. It just means that they’re detached from reality.
The writings of Mr. Jasser that you linked, at FamilySecurityMatters, in the Times letter and etc., come from a different perspective but aren’t much closer to reality; frankly they reek of paranoia. There are no “Islamists” within the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association, of all places; more than anything else this evokes the McCarthyite “reds under the bed” idiocy (especially when Jasser equates political Islam with “socialism,” which is truly mind-boggling). Certainly nothing in his extensive quotes from Mr. Abdul-Malik indicates a drive toward “Islamist domination” as he claims.
Jasser would seem to have a problem with the First Amendment. Abdul-Malik may process his politics through his faith too much for my personal taste, but what he says is no more extreme (frankly, less so) than a lot of home-grown American “Christian nationalists.” We can worry about getting Islam out of our politics after we get *them* out; until then we’re whining about the speck in our eye while ignoring the log.
As to unconstitutional detentions and case law, BTW, the main cases I was thinking of were of course Hamdi; Hamdan; and Rasul. The less-famous al-Kidd v. Ashcroft is also relevant, however.
Robert @#35-
The Taliban may well have provided a safe harbor for certain key members of AQ (as did Sudan and sundry other countries at various points), but unless the 9/11 conspirators were acting at the behest of the Afghan government (something for which not a shred of evidence has ever been adduced, contra eaglewingz’s assertions), it still wasn’t an act of war in any meaningful sense… much less a casus belli for a vague “Global War on Terror.”
(Moreover, any ties between AQ and the Taliban dissolved in acrimony some time ago, begging the question of why we’re still in Afghanistan. But I digress.)
Yes, I am in fact a lawyer (although not in current practice). Apparently you think this makes one *less* qualified to comment upon legal issues. Curious reasoning, there.
I’m not an apologist for the legal system in general—I recognize that it’s plagued by many systemic flaws, although excessive liberalism is hardly one of them. But there is no real “difficulty” in finding an alternative to Guantanamo, save the difficulties created by right-wing politicking; put the remaining detainees in any domestic high-security prison, separated from the genpop, and that’d be just fine.
Rock @#37-
War should always be “hard to justify.” It’s a last resort, not a first one. What kind of chaotically violent world would we be living in otherwise? And do you imagine Dwight Eisenhower was part of the “liberal left” when he decried the military/industrial complex?
bg commented:
++
ChrisM @10:15 am #32
did not the Taliban claim Afghanistan to be AQ’s home?? /sarc/
btw, there have been many (fitb’s)
filled in that have gone unnoticed..
Iraqi WMD Debate and Intelligence: the Links to Libya
1. Documents Moved to Syria: In essence, documentation of that small portion of the WMD program which was administered directly in Iraq was moved, along with other sensitive material and resources, to the Hshishi Compound at al-Qamishli (Kamishli) in Syria, just near the Iraqi border,
in August-September 2002. This was noted by GIS at that time.
2. R&D Conducted in Libya: The great bulk of the work on WMD and on associated missile delivery systems, however, was conducted since 1991
in a partnership with Libya, and also with Egypt, at facilities in Libya, in order to keep the programs away from US and United Nations (UN) probes. That, too, was noted by GIS.
Musawi disclose the rainbow of the existence of evidence proving the involvement of the former regime with terrorists, bin Laden and Zawahiri
[Revealed the former president of the prosecution in the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal and a member of the Iraqi National Coalition Jaafar al-Moussawi in an exclusive interview with Fayhaa revealed the existence of documentary evidence and documents proving the involvement of the regime of Saddam regime in a relationship with the leaders of the organization of terrorist leaders Osama bin Laden, the terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri. He said al-Moussawi said the limbs, including the Saudi royal family has worked to strengthen the relationship of Saddam's regime to al-Qaeda terror network.]
now you know why Gaddafi surrendered his
“wmd” & Israel blew up Syria’s nuke facility..
don’t you just love our press/media..
Media Suppress Hamilton’s Scolding of
Misreporting of Iraq-Qaeda
[Kean: "Were there contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq? Yes. Some
of them are shadowy, but there's no question they were there."
Hamilton, two soundbites: "I must say I have trouble understanding the flap over this. The Vice President is saying, I think, that there were connections between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government. We don't disagree with that."
"So it seems to me that the sharp differences that the press
has drawn, the media has drawn, are not that apparent to me."
Thus Hamilton undermined the premise of two days of the media
line on how the report supposedly undermined Bush and Cheney.]
at any rate..
9/11 references re: Iraq/AQ
Commission confirms links
[A 9/11 commission staff report is being cited to argue that the administration was wrong about there being suspicious ties and
contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda. In fact, just the opposite is
true.
The staff report documents such links.
The staff report concludes that:
• Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden "explored possible
cooperation with Iraq during his time in Sudan."
• "A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made
three visits to Sudan, finally meeting bin Laden in 1994."
• "Contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda also occurred
after bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan."
Chairman Thomas Kean has confirmed: "There were contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda, a number of them, some of them a little shadowy. They were definitely there."
Following news stories, Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton said he did not understand the media flap over this issue and that the commission does not disagree with the administration's assertion that there were connections between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government.
President Bush and members of his administration have said all along that there were contacts and that those contacts raised troubling questions.]
more related links (just a sample)..
Saddam’s Fingerprints on N.Y. Bombings
==
ChrisM commented:
Bottom line, so as not to get things too far off-track? Jim Cole is an experienced lawyer who’s solidly within the legal and political mainstream. He’s served under and been endorsed by both Republicans and Democrats. There is no reason to think he would not be a capable deputy AG.
The attempts to demonize him now are, frankly, perplexing… even die-hard opponents of Obama can surely find more attractive targets on which to focus?
Rock commented:
Chris M @#40 First, yes war is terrible, never hinted otherwise, unfortunately it is the result of supposed learned politicians and lawyers failing at their chosen profession, not skilled warriors, and trust me these men and women want a quick resolution to armed conflict, not the prolonged conflicts that the supposed libs have forced us into with this criminal activities BS. And what 8 years between the first Towers attack and the last, then add the Cole, the Marine Corps barracks bombings, and a number of other incidents. Just when do you suppose we stop being the Beta Dog and become the Alpha Dog. We live in a violent world, and turning the other cheek more than once is just foolish. Lastly I have no idea what D. Eisenhower mindset was, but the result is the same, we become victims not a victors.
bg commented:
++
ChrisM @ 12:28 pm #40
i’m not taking any “cheap shots” at you.. if anything or one, it was towards the Clinton Administrations inaction against the Muslim Brotherhood & al Qaeda Inc (aka: terrorists ‘r’ us).. besides, you seem intelligent enough to make a good argument whether or not your facts are wrong or not..
so allow me to reiterate on the 9/10/01 “mentality” aka: Dems = it’s a
“law enforcement problem”, let me assure you it’s a hell of a lot more
of a problem than law enforcement alone could ever hope to handle sufficiently, never mind thoroughly, as 9/11 proved positive via (sample)..
Gorelick’s Wall
Clinton’s roll back policy
RICHARD CLARKE: Actually, I’ve got about seven points, let me just go through them quickly. Um, the first point, I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration
to the Bush administration.
Al Qaeda absent from final Clinton report
[The final policy paper on national security that President Clinton
submitted to Congress -- 45,000 words long -- makes no mention
of al Qaeda and refers to Osama bin Laden by name just four times.]
==
Rock commented:
A possible reason to have these attacks labeled crimes may be nothing more than financial greed. Per the American Bar Association, there are approximately 1,143,358 licensed lawyers in the U.S., while our combined active duty military is just a bit more reported at about 1,406,000. Far better to make the War on Terror a crime and reap billions for the lawyers of America, and embrace a position that will insure a self generation income. Maybe that old joke has merit.
bg commented:
++
ChrisM @ 12:34 pm #42
you’re the one posting point after point in defense of Cole.. whereas i &
others are addressing you’re points and in some cases correcting them..
i know your type.. if everyone doesn’t agree with everything
you say, then the name calling & collective demeaning begins..
just thought i’d let you know,
you fool no one but yourself..
oh btw re: ChrisM #40
[War should always be “hard to justify.” It’s a last resort, not a first one. What kind of chaotically violent world would we be living in otherwise?
And do you imagine Dwight Eisenhower was part of the “liberal left”
when he decried the military/industrial complex?]
no.. but one also needs to understand what he was stating in context,
not take it to mean what they believe for granted, nor out of proportion
in relation to reality.. (have the times tilted towards favoring dictatorship via an UN/ISLAM NWO, yes, i believe so, will the military follow, i don’t believe so, well, not yet at any rate.. but if we cannot manage to take our country back, then over time, they will definitely be a boot on our neck so to speak..)
1961 speech Eisenhower Warns us of New World Order
transcript:
btw, there is an unimaginably huge distinction to be made between
a military defending it’s citizens against it’s enemies -vs- defending
it’s dictators against it’s citizens..
==
bg commented:
++
ChrisM @ 12:34 pm #42
re: [There is no reason to think he
would not be a capable deputy AG.]
duh.. try:
Obama Justice Nominee Says 9-11 Was Not an Act of War
for starters..
==
bg commented:
++
re: bg #47
eh, what should we expect from someone who’s future boss
DECLARED THE WAR DECLARED THAT WAS WASN’T..
==
bg commented:
++
Robert @ 10:55 am #35
flashback to 1999
It’s Official: Taliban Pose a Danger to the United States
[On July 4, 1999, President Clinton sent the following letter to the speaker of the House of Representatives and the president of the Senate, declaring
a "national emergency," effective at 12:10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on July 6, 1999, in response to the "unusual and extraordinary threat" posed by the Taliban-dominated government of Afghanistan.
[..]
The measures taken in this order will immediately demonstrate to the Taliban the seriousness of our concern over its support for terrorists and terrorist networks, and increase the international isolation of the Taliban. The blocking of the Taliban’s property and the other prohibitions imposed under this executive order will further limit the Taliban’s ability to facilitate and support terrorists and terrorist networks. It is particularly important for the United States to demonstrate to the Taliban the necessity of conforming to accepted norms of international behavior.]
also not to mention the support the Taliban was receiving from Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, and who the heck knows where else “the enemies of their enemies are their friends” support came from..
(again, that was just a sample: aka:
a drop in the ole proverbial bucket..)
==
bg commented:
++
ChrisM @ 12:28 pm #40
V. Conclusion
The majority opinion closes with a quote from Blackstone. What Blackstone describes and condemns therein—the indefinite and secret detention of individuals accused of no crime in harsh conditions—is simply not a description of this case. Even the majority agrees that the harsh conditions of al-Kidd’s confinement are not before us because al-Kidd has not adequately pleaded John Ashcroft’s personal responsibility for such conditions. Al-Kidd’s confinement was neither indefinite nor in secret. He was detained on a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate. The duration of that confinement was subject to continuing judicial supervision. There is no allegation that al-Kidd was held incommunicado. Nor is there any allegation al-Kidd was somehow denied the right to petition for a writ of habeas corpus, a right that has long secured individuals’ freedom from the horrors Blackstone envisioned. We are not called upon to judge the constitutionality of the material witness statute. And we are not called upon to judge whether al-Kidd should be released, only whether he is entitled to proceed in his suit to recover money damages from the pocket of a cabinet-level official. Were we presented with the Blackstonian case the majority envisions, I would surely agree. But we are not, and for the reasons explained above, I dissent in part and concur in part.]
The petition for rehearing en banc is DENIED.
[disclaimer: i am so far from being a lawyer i
wouldn't dare pretend to know what's what..]
==
Catherine commented:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59KWlXpKz7I&feature=related
FOR those who said bho was as strong on the oil spill as Bush?
chrisM is just trying to justify voting for the democ-rats
Wonder if you punched him in the face if he would just stand there and take it cry like a baby or fight back?
Catherine commented:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9GD9LKO0&show_article=1
Times Square car bomb suspect indicted in NYC
Jun 17 05:59 PM US/Eastern
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
NEW YORK (AP) – Times Square bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad was charged Thursday with 10 terrorism and weapons counts in an indictment that accuses him of receiving explosives training from the Pakistani Taliban months before the botched bombing.
The indictment returned by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan added five charges to the original case against the 30-year-old Shahzad.
“The facts alleged in this indictment show that the Pakistani Taliban facilitated Faisal Shahzad’s attempted attack on American soil,”
OF COURSE THIS WAS JUST LUCK THAT THE BOMB DID NOT WORK RIGHT?
we also must look at the megahead case who was let go? but was found with bombs in his car?
the 9/10 thinking got a hell of a lot of people killed.
Makes me sick to see gorlick and this crew slinking back they have blood on their hands.
Catherine
ChrisM commented:
bg @#44, #46-
Thanks for being gracious about my intelligence, at least. However, I have no idea where you see me engaging in “name calling” or “collective demeaning” here (although I’ve certainly seen it from some other posters). I’ve always been firmly convinced that reasonable people can disagree reasonably.
Contra your assertion that law enforcement authorities cannot handle terrorism (just as they handle a variety of other criminal conspiracies), I would submit that in fact all the historical examples show that military solutions consistently fail to handle it. That approach didn’t work for the British in Ireland, it hasn’t worked for Israel in the Occupied Territories, and it surely hasn’t worked for the U.S. in the “war on terror”, among numerous other examples. Ultimately it takes law enforcement on the one hand and diplomacy on the other. There are no easy shortcut solutions, and no matter how much you clamp down, there’s no such thing as a perfectly safe and secure world.
I really, honestly have no idea what you mean when you use a phrase like “take our country back,” although it’s much bandied-about these days, and it certainly sounds ominous. I certainly felt very alienated from my government during the Bush/Cheney years, as I saw it doing things that violated the Constitution, domestic and international law, and binding treaty obligations, all with little or no public accountability… but I never framed my discontent as an all-or-nothing conflict between “my” country and somebody else’s. We’re all Americans, even when we disagree.
(Although I am convinced, again through looking at history, that if ever we suffer “a boot on our neck” it’ll come not from without but from within, through forces like those that disregard the laws and principles that give this country its very legitimacy. And lest you wonder, yes, I also readily criticize the Obama administration when it sidesteps due process and civil liberties.)
—
As for Cole’s capabilities and your “duh” (who’s being demeaning, now?), let’s take a look at some details of his Legal Times op-ed [pdf] excerpted above:
“Attorney General John Ashcroft has a tough job on his hands. In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, he is confronted with one of the most extreme threats to domestic safety in our country’s history. He not only has to lead the fight to apprehend those who have committed those crimes, but also has to prevent such acts from occurring again. …
“But the attorney general is not a member of the military fighting a war—he is a prosecutor fighting crime. For all the rhetoric about war, the Sept. 11 attacks were criminal acts of terrorism against a civilian population, much like the terrorist acts of Timothy McVeigh in blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City, or of Omar Abdel-Rahman in the first effort to blow up the World Trade Center. The criminals responsible for these horrible acts were successfully tried and convicted under our criminal justice system, without the need for special procedures that altered traditional due process rights. …
“One arguable difference between those [other] crimes and the tragedies of Sept. 11 is that foreign organizations, possibly even foreign governments, were involved in the planning, funding, and carrying out of the Sept. 11 attacks. But we have never treated such influences as a basis for ignoring the core Constitutional protections ingrained in our criminal justice system. The ‘war on drugs’—a longer-term and far more devastating disaster for our country in terms of the number of affected people—has been facilitated by foreign organizations and governments. Yet, even after Panamanian President Manuel Noriega was arrested by U.S. military forces in Panama, he was brought to the United States, tried in the federal courts, and had full access to counsel, a trial by jury, the right to cross-examine witnesses, and the right to conduct his own defense. …
“The attorney general justifies much of his agenda [denying such due process rights] by pointing to the ‘war on terrorism’ and saying that it is an extreme situation that calls for extreme actions. But too much danger lies down that road. The protections built into our criminal justice system are there not merely to protect the guilty but, more importantly, to protect the innocent. They must be applied to everyone to be effective. What are we fighting for if, in the name of protecting the principles that have raised this nation to the pinnacle of civilization, we abandon those very principles?”
There is NOTHING in what he wrote that is legally inaccurate, politically radical, or otherwise unreasonable. Yes, he was opposing certain policies of the Bush administration… but doing so is hardly a disqualifier (indeed, it may arguably be a prerequisite) for serving the public under the current administration. I happen to think he was right. You’re free to disagree with him, of course—that’s inevitable in politics—but the fact that you disagree in no way, shape or form makes him an “America-hating radical” or “kook” as Jim Hoft would have it above.
—
Finally, I wonder if you realize that you’re quoting from the dissent in the Al-Kidd case. What the 9th Circuit actually held was that the case against Ashcroft could go forward. Did you happen to look at the facts underlying the case?
“Plaintiff-Appellee Abdullah al-Kidd (al-Kidd), a United States citizen and a married man with two children, was arrested at a Dulles International Airport ticket counter. He was handcuffed, taken to the airport’s police substation, and interrogated. Over the next sixteen days, he was confined in high security cells lit twenty-four hours a day in Virginia, Oklahoma, and then Idaho, during which he was strip searched on multiple occasions. Each time he was transferred to a different facility, al-Kidd was handcuffed and shackled about his wrists, legs, and waist. He was eventually released from custody by court order, on the conditions that he live with his wife and in-laws in Nevada, limit his travel to Nevada and three other states, surrender his travel documents, regularly report to a probation officer, and consent to home visits throughout the period of supervision. By the time al-Kidd’s confinement and supervision ended, fifteen months after his arrest, al-Kidd had been fired from his job as an employee of a government contractor because he was denied a security clearance due to his arrest, and had separated from his wife. He has been unable to obtain steady employment since his arrest.
Al-Kidd was not arrested and detained because he had allegedly committed a crime. He alleges that he was arrested and confined because former United States Attorney General John Ashcroft… unlawfully used the federal material witness statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3144, to investigate or preemptively detain him. Ashcroft asserts that he is entitled to absolute and qualified immunity against al-Kidd’s claims. We hold that on the facts pled Ashcroft is not protected by either form of immunity.”
Why did the majority hold this? To quote from its conclusion:
“…the Framers of our Constitution would have disapproved of the arrest, detention, and harsh confinement of a United States citizen as a “material witness” under the circumstances, and for the immediate purpose alleged, in al-Kidd’s complaint. Sadly, however, even now, more than 217 years after the ratification of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, some confidently assert that the government has the power to arrest and detain or restrict American citizens for months on end, in sometimes primitive conditions, not because there is evidence that they have committed a crime, but merely because the government wishes to investigate them for possible wrongdoing, or to prevent them from having contact with others in the outside world. We find this to be repugnant to the Constitution, and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.”
There’s a genuine philosophical divide there, I think, as to what one holds to be important about America. I’d say Jim Cole is on the right side of that divide.
bg commented:
++
ChrisM @ 4:30 pm #54
lets not & say we did, because we did & it’s done..
opinions facts do not make..
however, i’m sure we could agree that people should be held accountable for their words as well as their actions, both of which obviously matters in an Obama Administration..
imo he can take his philosophical view
and you know what he can do with it..
and you did read the conclusions for
the cases you mentioned didn’t you??
what you need to do is stop looking at trees, not to mention
counting the twigs on each, because you’re the missing the forest..
bottom line: the man & his boss hold
the US responsible for 9/11, period..
my opinions, take em or leave em
& you’re welcome to keep yours..
==
bg commented:
++
correction re: bg #56
re: [both of which obviously matters
in an Obama Administration..]
should read:
both of which obviously matters
not in an Obama Administration..
==
bg commented:
++
btw.. ChrisM #54
i haven’t the time to go point by point
re: your assertions of what i’ve stated..
however..
re: [Contra your assertion that law enforcement authorities cannot handle terrorism (just as they handle a variety of other criminal conspiracies),]
where did i sate law enforcement couldn’t handle anything??
in summation:
what i stated was the fact that the 9/10/01 mentality of terrorism being a law enforcement only issue was more or less instrumental in begetting US 9/11..
==
Rock commented:
Declaring the actions of the forces aimed at our destruction as criminal is nothing more than handicapping our ability to defend ourselves. The lair of Political Correctness is a tool the legal community uses to dictate how war is fought. War World I & II where won by applying overwhelming force until the enemy broke, both wars lasted but a few years after we entered them. Wars fought as dictated by the Left have been long costly and left unresolved. All the scholarly arguments to claim otherwise are nothing but window dressing. North Korea, Iraq, and others on a regular basis trump our so called experts in the field of diplomacy. To trust these less than functional defenders of our Nation is fool hardy. One well trained grunt is worth more than any ten diplomats or lawyers in defending us against foreign invaders. Face it many Americans do not trust the army of liberals that inhabit the halls of the Ive League institutes. Rule of law is a corner stone of any great nation, so is the ability to defend it with a ruthlessness that secures victory. War sucks, losing sucks more.
ChrisM commented:
bg-
I took some time and effort to post a long and thoughtful response, so it’s disappointing that your response is to retreat from the discussion.
“[Cole] can take his philosophical view
and you know what he can do with it…
“my opinions, take em or leave em
& you’re welcome to keep yours.”
Seriously, that’s it? You “haven’t the time” to respond to my points? To quote your own remark upthread about withdrawing from honest debate, “you fool no one but yourself.” If you really think there’s a forest I’m missing, the least you could do is explain how and why that forest differs from the trees I’ve been talking about.
BTW, regarding where exactly you wrote dismissively of what law enforcement could handle? Post #44: “it’s a hell of a lot more of a problem than law enforcement alone could ever hope to handle.”
Rock-
Evidently you’re the sort who valorizes strength and conflict, and thinks that victory is more important than being in the right on matters of principle. There’s a whiff of anti-intellectualism in there, too. IOW, ironically, you’re exactly the sort of person on whom the Axis powers in WWII built their fascist regimes.
bg commented:
++
ChrisM @ 1:24 pm #59
retreat??
go back, read my posts, comprehend..
==