Wednesday, August 13, 2008

"Prosecuting Terrorists": In Defense of the Obama Doctrine

In early July, the terrorism issued reared its head as the country debated whether we should allow terrorists their "day in court" and access to the American justice system. As these enemy combatants are not US citizens, the McCain camp had much to say. From Senator Obama, we heard the following:
What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks - for example, the first
attack against the World Trade Center - we were able to arrest those
responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in US prisons, incapacitated.
And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a
situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on
trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all
around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries
that say, "Look, this is how the United
States treats Muslims."

While it is very debatable that we have indeed arrested even half of those terrorists (lead prosecutor on those cases Andrew McCarthy talks at great length as to how we failed in this case in a new book and on National Review (www.nationalreview.com) ) McCain would find issue with the portion of his speech where Obama talks about "prosecuting terrorists". McCain understands (in the Republican mind) the evil of terrorism at the gut level and wants to fight it with the military, using big guns and bombs. Democrats like Kerry and Obama are accused of a wimpy approach by Republicans and of preferring to send nerdy prosecutors to "serve our enemies with legal papers," as President Bush would like to say, rather than being "tough on terror".
McCain and his allies accuse the Obama camp of trying to treat terrorism as a law enforcement issue rather than as a "clear and present danger" to the United States. They throw out the accusation of a "September 10th" mindset and accuse the law school educated Obama of favoring lawyers over the Marine Corps.
However, looking deeper at Obama's doctrine reveals some odd inconsistencies for McCain. First, Obama never said, or even implied, that legal prosecution should be the sole method of preventing terrorism. Second, terrorist often operate in our country, and in friendly countries, which makes military action against them tricky. But, when the terrorists are holed up in New York City as they were in 1993, simply arresting them seems more efficient than leveling their apartment or town-house with a drone-fired missile.
Third, when terrorists have been found outside the reach of law enforcement, Obama has explicitly proposed to strike them militarily. Last summer, he commented in the New York Times after a cancelled attack on Al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan that such a failure was "a terrible mistake," and promised, "that if we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will." McCain criticized Obama for this, too, saying he "once suggested bombing our ally, Pakistan."
Lastly, none other than Rudy Giuliani once prosecuted terrorists. In 1994, Giuliani said that the conviction of World Trade Center bombers "demonstrates that New Yorkers won't meet violence with violence, but with a far greater weapon - the law." This could be pre-September 11th jargon that would be different today, and, if he caught terrorists again, he would use tactical weapons against them. The problem here is that he continued to tout his prosecution of terrorists during his presidential campaign and was became the face-man and representative of being "tough on terror".
Despite Giuliani's tough talk on using the law and nerdy prosecutors, against the tough talk of his campaign, McCain often trouted out Giuliani to talk to reporters and support the campaign whenever talk of 9/11 came up. Oddly enough, Giuliani's own lasting legacy to the political culture may be taking a concept (9/11) that was freighted with the strongest emotional and patriotic overtones and relentlessly milking it. He did so because, as McCain himself pointed out during the primaries, he had no foreign policy experience and repeatedly demonstrated his ignorance of basic facts about his alleged area of competence. The same situation that led the Bush administration into action and that the administration continually brings up everytime support for anti-terror measures are questioned.
McCain has a very credible line of foreign policy attack against Obama: that Iraq is improving and could be imperiled by a pullout. It's as if, by invoking 9/11, he can summon the return of the mentality that prevailed in the years after the attack.
It seems that Obama has talked some good talk that has been supported by McCain and some of his supporters in the past. His pursuit of prosecution for terrorists within our borders and behind the borders of our allies sounds like good policy, and policy that the Republicans have used in the past. If McCain's hawkishness in the Middle East and Obama's hawkishness on actionable intelligence can be comingled, we might have something. Add to it Obama's insistence on prosecuting these disgusting people and getting them in prison and not in Guantanamo, we might be able to take away one of the terrorists selling points that we do not uphold the law and do not unfairly treat Muslims. Holding the higher ground, even against the scum of the earth, is not such a bad idea.

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