When criticized for treating the Christmas bomber as a criminal rather than an enemy combatant, the Dems like to make the point that President Bush did the same thing in 2001. Big difference. The following post from the CannonReport sums it up very nicely:
The primary issue of the shoe bomber in 2001 was that up to, and including, that point, the default response of the government was to assign jurisdiction to civilian law enforcement and the civilian courts, under title 18 USC, with out even considering the need for intelligence gathering from these individuals or even considering the concept that a detained terrorist could and quite possibly should, be handled under a different jurisdiction process. Why was this? Because just as the 9/11 Commission pointed out, as a nation as a whole, and as a functioning government, we did not recognize that we were currently, and had been for some time, in a defacto armed conflict (a low intensity war, but still a war none the less) with a properly recognized and lawfully designated trans-national terrorist organization. Even three months after 9/11, when Reid tried to blow up the airliner he was on, we were still looking at the issue of individual terrorists as mear criminals to be arrested. It is no wonder that the federal government defaulted to the previous group think with Reid, when he was caught so close on the heels of 9/11.
Since 2001, the mindset has obviously changed to what was then not intuitively obvious. Today, in 2010, it's mere Common Sense to treat the Christmas bomber as an enemy combatant. However, Common Sense is not something in great supply in the current administration.
1 comment:
BO is a wimp.
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