I really believe that if American hating leftist groups continue to clog up our judicial system with multi-culti crap that does nothing but endanger America, we could have blood thirsty mujahideen hunting the infidel in the name of allah on a daily basis here in America. If you think that is far fetched, check with the Swedes or parts of Canada on what their bastion of leftism has done for their muslim problem.

Before adding a second cheer for Ashcroft, I would like to know just what in the h--- is the Justice Department's strategy for dealing with domestically planted terrorists?

First we get Zacharias Moussaoui--remember him?--shunted off to a federal civil court, where he still sits thumbing his nose at everyone. Then we get an announced policy of military tribunals for the trial of non-citizen terrorists, but to which none are ever consigned. Off next to Ex parte Quirin (1942) and the indefinite detention, without anticipated trials by any tribunal, of persons designated as "enemy combatants." Now, apparently, we are back to the civil courts rout, and losing them all. This is a strategy?

Why on earth does the Bush administration subject itself to daily media whippings for its "assault" on civil liberties, if it is unprepared to use the legal instruments it professes to support? It had the right strategy to start with: those known to be supporting Islamic terror should be identified as "unlawful enemy combatants," with or without habeas corpus. If they are non-citizens, it's off to a military tribunal, and if they are citizens, they should stay in the clink until the executive department determines they are no longer a danger.

Will this be 1984? Hardly. Few of these detentions are likely to go unexamined in the media, and Congress is fully empowered to establish any supervision of the conditions, length, and circumstances of detention it finds expedient.

This is a war, after all. Will somebody in the DOJ please start fighting it?

(For further scenes in this melodrama, look for the Supreme Court to wax eloquent over "the rule of law" and the imperishable Constitution during wartime. Translation: when the president is unpopular, we get to decide.)

I am all in favor of the government granting "black ops" privileges to the FBI. Find 'em, make them disappear.

Granting the right of a trial by jury, or a consensus by the general (liberal part of the) public to scream "INHUMANE," over the fate of a terrorist who will kill with no prejudice, is like saying, "it's just a weasel, and it has a right to be in the hen-house."

Someone said, "A liberal is a conservative that has yet to be mugged..." They had it right.

Does the Geneva Convention apply to terrorists? I thought it was "standing military members of a City-State in uniform."

A copy of the Al-Qaeda manual states that "all non-believers" must die... that includes you, liberal. You gonna protect the guy who wants to kill you?

Tom

Michell Malkin has a list of DOJ terrorist convictions in her column (she takes Krugman to task). I share some of your frustration regarding the absence of military tribunals but Ashcroft has a number of notches on his belt. My sense is the Administration is waiting for the second term to begin a number of new efforts. These would include the military tribunals you and I both want and efforts to corral Iran and Syria. The Saudi's are in line after the Iraqi oil industry ramps up.

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/000033.htm

Gary

I admit to some exaggeration in saying that we are losing all the prosecutions in the civil courts, and the convictions the Bush administration has obtained do contribute something to national morale and do have some deterrent effect.

Nevertheless, I think it is a mistake for the Justice Department to put much emphasis on these trials for three reasons. First, it lends aid and comfort to those who claim that there is no such thing as a War Against Islamic Terrorism, and that the terrorist threats we face can be handled as a crime control problem. Second, the indictments in many of these cases are, as the Bush critics claim, sloppy and vague. Why should we dilute the standards of proof required in ordinary criminal cases so that we can get to the supporters of terrorism? My argument would be that this is exactly why we should not be fighting this war through the ordinary courts. Finally, most of the defendants I have read about strike me as pretty small beer. They seem to be disaffected young men swept up in the romance of jihad rather than important links in a terrorist network. Whatever deterrent effect could be obtained by criminal convictions could be served as well by temporary detentions as enemy combatants.

The president's power to detain enemy combatants indefinitely certainly does create some political risk. But there is a great deal Congress can do to mitigate that risk, and it will be time enough to worry about abuses of the power when they occur. At the moment, the bigger risk is from Islamic terrorism and our general complacency about it.