Remember the time when the ACLUand NY Times would exoriate President Bush and all those around him for his detention of Islamic extremists policies? How times have changed
NEW YORK– The following can be attributed to Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, in response to President Obama’s national security speech today:
“We welcome President Obama’s stated commitment to the Constitution, the rule of law and the unequivocal rejection of torture. But unlike the president, we believe that continuing with the failed military commissions and creating a new system of indefinite detention without charge is inconsistent with the values that he expressed so eloquently at the National Archives today.”
You can almost hear Anthony titter and swoon as he calls Obama a naughty boy.
President Obama’s proposal for a new legal system in which terrorism suspects could be held in “prolonged detention†inside the United States without trial would be a departure from the way this country sees itself, as a place where people in the grip of the government either face criminal charges or walk free.
“You’re a bad boy, President Obama, and….oh, we could never stay mad at you. Come over and let us kiss your ring.”
Anyhow, the whole thrust of the ACLU and NY Times argument is that the terrorists at Gitmo should be treated not as people associated with a war, but as folks who have been picked up on public intoxication charges. Certainly, a 9/10 mentality, where the only method that may be used to fight Islamic terrorism is law enforcement. And only if the officers eat their veggies and wash behind their ears.
The question both of them rarely ask is “if these folks are so safe, then why is it that the only country really willing to take them is Yemen, which is just going to free them?”
Mr. Obama chose to call his proposal “prolonged detention,†which made it sound more reassuring than some of its more familiar names. In some countries, it is called “administrative detention,†a designation with a slightly totalitarian ring. Some of its proponents call it “indefinite detention,†which evokes the Bush administration’s position that Guantánamo detainees could be held until the end of the war on terror — perhaps for the rest of their lives — even if acquitted in war crimes trials.
A kindler, gentler name for the exact same policy, and the Grey Lady swoons like a sophmore asked to the high school home coming dance by star quarterback.
President Bush did mess up badly when he and his folks determined that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the Gitmo vacationers. Had he applied the full meaning, which is that people found fighting without uniforms and for no country can be held as enemy combatants for the duration, it would have short circuited many of the left’s arguments. What’s done is done, though. Now the ball is in Obama’s court. And it is remarkably similar to the one Bush used.
PS: The Wall Street Journal is not swooning from unicorn gas and pixie dust.
