Sunday, June 14, 2009

You have the right to remain silent . . .


When 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was captured on March 1, 2003, he was not cooperative. “I’ll talk to you guys after I get to New York and see my lawyer,” he said, according to former CIA Director George Tenet.

Of course, KSM did not get a lawyer until months later, after his interrogation was completed, and Tenet says that the information the CIA obtained from him disrupted plots and saved lives. “I believe none of these successes would have happened if we had had to treat KSM like a white-collar criminal – read him his Miranda rights and get him a lawyer who surely would have insisted that his client simply shut up,” Tenet wrote in his memoirs.

If Tenet is right, it’s a good thing KSM was captured before Barack Obama became president. For, 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 administration has decided to change the focus to law enforcement (Like it was on September 10, 2001?). Here’s the problem. You have foreign fighters who are targeting US troops today – foreign fighters who go to another country to kill Americans. We capture them…and they’re reading them their rights – Mirandizing these foreign fighters,” says Representative Mike Rogers, who recently met with military, intelligence and law enforcement officials on a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan.

Rogers, a former FBI special agent and U.S. Army officer, says the Obama administration has not briefed Congress on the new policy. “I was a little surprised to find it taking place when I showed up because we hadn’t been briefed on it, I didn’t know about it. We’re still trying to get to the bottom of it, but it is clearly a part of this new global justice initiative.”

. . . . Republicans on Capitol Hill are not happy. “When they mirandize a suspect, the first thing they do is warn them that they have the 'right to remain silent,’” says Representative Pete Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “It would seem the last thing we want is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or any other al-Qaeda terrorist to remain silent. Our focus should be on preventing the next attack, not giving radical jihadists a new tactic to resist interrogation--lawyering up.

According to Mike Rogers, that is precisely what some human rights organizations are advising detainees to do. “The International Red Cross, when they go into these detention facilities, has now started telling people – ‘Take the option. You want a lawyer.’”

Rogers adds: “The problem is you take that guy at three in the morning off of a compound right outside of Kabul where he’s building bomb materials to kill US soldiers, and read him his rights by four, and the Red Cross is saying take the lawyer – you have now created quite a confusion amongst the FBI, the CIA and the United States military (Like it was on September 10, 2001?). And confusion is the last thing you want in a combat zone.”

One thing is clear, though. A detainee who is not talking cannot provide information about future attacks. Had Khalid Sheikh Mohammad had a lawyer, Tenet wrote, “I am confident that we would have obtained none of the information he had in his head about imminent threats against the American people.”
Posted by Stephen F. Hayes on June 10, 2009

The Obama Administration doesn't take the time to consider mistakes of the past. I know it's a cliche, but we're destined to repeat history as long as these people remain in power. Oh well, we got what we voted for - a good dancer.

4 comments:

twest said...

How about - "You have the right to remain alive..."

If this policy really comes about - particularly on a battlefield/firefight situation - I doubt seriously too many live combatants will be taken. I'm sure the unwritten rule willbe to take them out now before they're let go to come back later.

actually, I'm hoping you're being sarcastic again, but really don't think so

Mike West said...

I agree with Ted. The military will figure a way around BO.

J Dub said...

Man, talk about not getting it. Such a moralist, holier-than-thou, smug attitude that's extremely dangerous. What happened to the real American attitude (to quote Toby Keith) "We'll put a boot in your ass cuz that's the American way"? Makes me so mad.

You guys are right though, it won't stop the military from doing their jobs.

Brodad Unkabuddy said...

Nope, not being sarcastic. They're not just thinking about reading them their rights, this IS the new policy!