Wow, former US attorney and current writer at National Review Andrew McCarthy who helped prosecute the terrorists that were involved in the first WTC bombing, and has come out with a book called “Willful Blindness“, was invited by the Attorney General Eric holder to a roundtable on counterterrorist policy, in which the discussion would be:
“part of an ongoing effort to identify lawful policies on the detention and disposition of alien enemy combatants—or what the Department now calls “individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.”
In the real world, they’re called TERRORISTS, but don’t ask Obama to call a spade a spade.
McCarthy has responded with a polite yet scathing response to Eric Holder:
Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people. Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop.
Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government.
[...]
Consistent with that hyperbolic rhetoric, the President began his administration by promising to close the detention camp within a year. The President did this even though he and you (a) agree Gitmo is a top-flight prison facility, (b) acknowledge that our nation is still at war, and (c) concede that many Gitmo detainees are extremely dangerous terrorists who cannot be tried under civilian court rules. Patently, the commitment to close Guantanamo Bay within a year was made without a plan for what to do with these detainees who cannot be tried. Consequently, the Detention Policy Task Force is not an effort to arrive at the best policy. It is an effort to justify a bad policy that has already been adopted: to wit, the Obama administration policy to release trained terrorists outright if that’s what it takes to close Gitmo by January.
He also expresses his opposition to releasing known terrorists into the American civilian population:
I am similarly powerless to stop the administration from admitting into the United States such alien jihadists as the 17 remaining Uighur detainees. According to National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, the Uighurs will apparently live freely, on American taxpayer assistance, despite the facts that they are affiliated with a terrorist organization and have received terrorist paramilitary training. Under federal immigration law (the 2005 REAL ID Act), those facts render them excludable from the United States. The Uighurs’ impending release is thus a remarkable development given the Obama administration’s propensity to deride its predecessor’s purported insensitivity to the rule of law.
I am, in addition, powerless to stop the President, as he takes these reckless steps, from touting his Detention Policy Task Force as a demonstration of his national security seriousness. But I can decline to participate in the charade.
Ouch…
Read the whole thing. It’s worth it.
Related posts:
- Andy McCarthy: “Prepared to be infuriated”; Obama negotiating with terrorists
- Eric Holder Says Gitmo Prisoners Might Be Released in the US
- CAIR Asks Attorney General Eric “Nation of Cowards” Holder to Defend U.S. Muslim Rights
- Who Mirandized the Panty Bomber? AG Eric Holder
- Obama blames Gitmo for Al Qaeda’s rise in the Arabian Peninsula
- Attorney General Eric Holder Invites Terror Apologist Zogby for Civil Rights Speech
- Obama admits closing Gitmo was a “hasty decision”
- Video: Andrew McCarthy on Islam
- Chinese Muslim inmates at Gitmo to be freed in U.S; China won’t take them
- Obama backs off pressure of Sudan, breaking another campaign promise
