BeldarBlog

In the Obama Administration, closing "Guantanamo was everyone's part-time job"

If you need another reason to question the Obama Administration's basic ability to provide the single most important function of the federal government — keeping America safe from foreign enemies — read this WaPo story.

The Spin

True to form, the WaPo's writers and editors carefully withhold the screamingly obvious judgment that drips from the facts they report, and indeed, they try hard to spin things in a pro-Obama way. Thus, the article starts with a gentle bit of chin-rubbing:

With four months left to meet its self-imposed deadline for closing the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Obama administration is working to recover from missteps that have put officials behind schedule and left them struggling to win the cooperation of Congress.

Mere "missteps" — does that kind of imply something mild, like an uneven sidewalks problem? Well, back in WW2, the good soldiers of the American military came up with an acronym for the kinds of "missteps" described in the WaPo article: "Let's recover from this situation," our soldiers would say very politely, "because at present, the situation is FUBAR'd." In this exact same sense, the Battle of the Bulge was a "misstep."

The facts reported by the WaPo go on to show that when the White House senior officials acknowledge that they're "behind schedule" on closing down Gitmo, that's actually a nice euphemism for "everything's totally screwed up and there is no actual 'schedule,' just a ridiculous, arbitrary deadline that's going to be missed and that may never be met at all, ever."

And as for the "struggle for cooperation" with Congress — wouldn't "struggle" imply something whose outcome was at least close? Readers have to dig down to paragraph 24 to be reminded that "in May, the Senate decided, by an overwhelming vote of 90 to 6, to block funding for shutting Guantanamo Bay — Obama's first major legislative setback as president."

The Fall Guy Goes Under the Great Bus of State

The WaPo gamely repeats — without comment or the Bronx cheers it actually deserves — White House counsel Gregory B. Craig's insistence that

some of his early assumptions were based on miscalculations, in part because Bush administration officials and senior Republicans in Congress had spoken publicly about closing the facility. "I thought there was, in fact, and I may have been wrong, a broad consensus about the importance to our national security objectives to close Guantanamo and how keeping Guantanamo open actually did damage to our national security objectives," he said.

Got that? Dubya is responsible both for creating all problems and for misleading the poor Obamites into thinking that they'd be easy to solve. But nothing — nothing — is ever the fault of The One and his minions, at least not to hear them tell it.

But despite the fact that this and all other evils are obviously all Dubya's fault, lest someone else — like, uh, everyone else in America who's not part of the First Family or the White House staff — become interested in assigning responsibility for events subsequent to January 20, 2009, the good angels of the Obama Administration have demonstrated, once again, that they do know very well how to throw one of their own under the wheels of the bus:

Craig oversaw the drafting of the executive order that set Jan. 22, 2010, as the date by which the prison must be closed.

"It seemed like a bold move at the time, to lay out a time frame that to us seemed sufficient to meet the goal," one senior official said. "In retrospect, it invited a fight with the Hill and left us constantly looking at the clock."

"The entire civil service counseled him not to set a deadline" to close Guantanamo, according to one senior government lawyer.

Thus Craig is clearly being set up — with or without his consent, and it's quite possible that he's been importuned to fall on his sword and is doing so willingly — as the fall guy. And where will he land?

Three administration officials said they expect Craig to leave his current post in the near future, and one said he is on the short list for a seat on the bench or a diplomatic position. Craig has long made clear his desire to be involved in foreign policy, but he declined to comment on his plans.

How likely is it that Roger Craig will be the next Ambassador to, say, China, the United Kingdom, or Bermuda? I'd say only slightly better than the odds that the Obama Administration will meet President Obama's own the outgoing White House counsel's own self-imposed deadline for closing Gitmo:

After the congressional setbacks, Craig orchestrated the release of four of the Uighurs, flying with them and a State Department official from Guantanamo Bay to Bermuda, a self-governing British territory whose international relations are administered by Britain.

The transfer produced a diplomatic rift. British and U.S. officials said the Obama administration gave Britain two hours' notice that the Uighurs were being sent to Bermuda. "They essentially snuck them in, and we were furious," said a senior British official.

The move also caused friction between Britain and China, which seeks the Uighurs for waging an insurgency against the Chinese government.

Still Holding Your Breath for Gitmo to Be Closed?

And so how close, then, did the Obama Administration come to meeting its goal before Mr. Craig became tire fodder for the Great Bus of State?

In coming weeks, officials say, they expect to complete the initial review of all the files of those held at Guantanamo Bay.

(Italics mine.)

The scariest part of all this is that these are facts revealed by the Washington Post. If the pro-Obama WaPo can't put any better face on what's going on inside the Obama Administration's prosecution of the Global War on Terror (whatever they've renamed it to this week), how much chaos must there really be behind the scenes?

My absolute favorite quote could be expanded beyond the Guantanamo Bay closure difficulties to describe the entire Obama Presidency to date:

"Guantanamo was everyone's part-time job," said a senior official, one of several interviewed for this article who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Amateurs. Incompetents. Ideologues. Full-time politicians turned half-wit government officials. Brilliant leftists who, confronted with the real world, are exposed as clueless idiots and children.

It's going to be a long time until January 2013. Will the millions of American voters who should have known better, but who were taken in by Obama's sham, have stopped thinking 'Wow!' by at least November 2012?

Supermax prisons' no-escape record doesn't answer concerns about moving Gitmo terrorists onto U.S. soil

I'm already very tired of hearing the stupidest new talking point of the mainstream media: "Why worry about bringing terrorists from Gitmo to the mainland U.S., when we've never had a single escape from a federal 'Supermax' prison?" Duh. This is the sort of 9/10/01 thinking, the sort of "treat global terrorism like a domestic law enforcement problem," that is going to get people killed.

The risk isn't just, or even primarily, that the terrorists will escape, or that they'll misbehave while in custody, although those are indeed considerable risks that ought not be dismissed out of hand. Nor is the risk just, or even primarily, that being on U.S. soil will strengthen the prisoners' potential legal claims and defenses — although that's a considerable risk, too.

Rather, the most serious risk is that the same type of terrorist organization that mounted a simultaneous four-plane multi-state flying bomb assault on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on 9/11/01 would welcome the opportunity to assault any holding facility on American soil, or whatever community was closest thereto, in an attempt to force the captured terrorists' release. Simply put, friends and neighbors: Any holding facility for radical Islamic terrorists on American soil would be a target and a potential "rescue mission" for which al Qaeda or its like would delightedly create dozens or hundreds of new "martyrs" from among their own ranks.

Right now — as has been continuously true since the first prisoners were shipped there after we began operating against the Taliban in Afghanistan — these terrorists' would-be "rescuers" can't assault Gitmo without first getting to Cuba and then defeating the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps at sea, on land, and in the air. That's not the kind of fight they want; those aren't the kind of logistical hurdles they can ever overcome. Keeping all the captured terrorists at Gitmo, in other words, has played directly to our strongest suit as a nation — our superb, unparalleled, and highly professional military strength as continuously projected in a place of our choosing without risk of collateral casualties among American civilians.

But once the scene shifts to American soil, we lose virtually all of that combination of power and flexibility, and surrender back to the terrorists all the advantages upon which they regularly depend. Getting into the U.S., or using "sleepers" already here? In a fight against some local sheriffs or prison guards armed mostly with revolvers and tasers (perhaps supplemented with shotguns or even a few assault rifles, but no heavy weaponry at all)? With the fighting to take place in or even near any American population center? Can the Obama Administration possibly be so stupid as to forfeit all of our own advantages, and give all of the terrorists' advantages back to them? Can they do that for no better reason than to placate the idiots on the Hard Left who still have failed to heed the warnings on those Viagra/Levitra commercials? (Their hard-ons for George W. Bush have lasted now for substantially more than four hours — indeed, for more than eight years! — but they're still not seeking immediate medical, which is to say, psychiatric, attention.) I'm very afraid that the Obama Administration's answer to these questions may remain: "Yes we can!" (Followed by, "Shut up! We won.")

If instead you distribute the current Gitmo prisoners among many American locations, you still forfeit all of the advantages of Gitmo, while simply multiplying the number of potential targets that we have to protect, and without significantly diminishing the potential propaganda rewards to their would-be terrorist rescuers from even a single assault. Their international publicity coup would be about the same — humiliating the "Great Satan" again on its own soil — whether they sprang two prisoners or two hundred. And for that matter, their PR purposes don't require them to actually succeed in the rescue attempt, just to get a lot of non-terrorists killed too.

As for why domestic history with merely criminal organizations isn't instructive: The Mafia, or the Colombian drug-lords, or whatever other allies there may be of those who've been successfully held in Supermax and other American civilian prisons, generally aren't willing to engage in mass suicides to free their incarcerated compadres. Nor are they inclined to try to kill thousands of American civilians in the process of effecting a rescue. "Terrorism" is a sideshow for them, a temporary and small-scale means to generate financial profit. And while they have money and access to at least paramilitary weapons, they don't have the kind of rogue state support (think Iran and potentially North Korea) that may be available to our enemies in the Global War on Terrorism — ummm, errr, Global War on Man-Caused Disaster-Creators.

Security for the terrorists now being held at Gitmo, in short, isn't just a question of "keeping them in." It's necessarily a question of keeping them where they can't get to others and others can't get to them — or anywhere remotely close to them.

Holocaust 2

Even in this long winter of discontent for conservatives, I am optimistic about America. Even this early on, it's obvious to me that the Obama Administration is wearing clown shoes. Just like Hollywood tries to make Tom Cruise look 6' 2" through creative camera angles, shot composition, and discretely hidden wooden boxes and ramps, the mainstream media will continue to try to make the Obama Administration look competent and successful. But they can't fool most of the people all of the time. It's already clear to America's grass-roots conservatives where the GOP went wrong in 2006 and 2008, and when new faces in the party return to classical principles with clear and steady voices, enough additional voters will respond. There will be disaster repair to do, and that for quite a while. But I'm still mostly optimistic about America in the long term.

I wish I were as optimistic about the world, but it seems to me that we're re-living 1934. Or is it 711?

I have no doubt whatsoever that in articles like this one, Mark Steyn is being an alarmist. But as much as I'd like to, I can't find any reasonable basis to argue that Steyn's ringing a false alarm (emphasis mine):

So it will go. British, European, and even American troops will withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, and a bomb will go off in Madrid or Hamburg or Manchester, and there will be nothing left to blame except Israeli “disproportion.” For the remnants of European Jewry, the already discernible migration of French Jews to Quebec, Florida, and elsewhere will accelerate. There are about 150,000 Jews in London today—it’s the thirteenth biggest Jewish city in the world. But there are approximately one million Muslims. The highest number of Jews is found in the 50-54 age group; the highest number of Muslims are found in the four-years-and-under category. By 2025, there will be Jews in Israel, and Jews in America, but not in many other places. Even as the legitimacy of a Jewish state is rejected, the Jewish diaspora—the Jewish presence in the wider world—will shrivel

... It may be some consolation to an ever-lonelier Israel that, in one of history’s bleaker jests, in the coming Europe the Europeans will be the new Jews.

Please read the whole thing.

Outside Europe, though, in the tiny country they've reclaimed on the Mediterranean's east coast, the old Jews will still have the familiar role they had in Holocaust 1. "Never again" is going to have to be modified to read "Never (quite that slowly) again." The new holocaust will turn millions of Jews (and others) into smoke and ashes in a matter of seconds, minutes, and hours, not weeks, months, and years. Such Jews as are left, there or (mostly) in America, will have the ruinous "comfort" of Israel's retribution in a similarly compressed timetable, with Tehran left in a mix of smoking radioactive ruins and green glass that will make Berlin circa May 1945 look positively lush and undamaged. Thereupon those mullahs who love death as we love life will re-declare their own victory. And as history is repeated and we re-write it, the question will be asked again: "Who could have prevented this, given who had the capabilities (if not the requisite moral clarity and courage)?" The answer will, ironically, be identical to the title of Steyn's recent book: America Alone.

Iran will have its bomb before the end of Obama's first term. After that, it's a dice throw: I'd guess maybe two chances in twelve that it gives a bomb to "plausibly deniable" terrorists who'll explode it in America, against maybe seven chances in twelve that the target is Tel Aviv. Maybe you count the number of spots on the dice differently, or you think it will be during the term of the POTUS elected or reelected in 2012 that Iran gets its bomb, or you think that the bomb will instead have come directly from Pakistani stockpiles. But whatever tweaks to the probabilities you'd like to apply, you must admit that almost all of the plausible scenarios carry risks so huge that they make mockery of the phrase "Never again."

I don't want to bask in the self-righteous glow of I-Told-You-Soism as I replay clips from Bush-43's Greatest Hits — "grave and gathering dangers," the "Axis of Evil," and most of all, the urgent warnings that we must at all costs prevent "the world's most dangerous weapons" from falling into the hands of "the world's most dangerous regimes." But I have zero confidence — I laugh aloud, in the blackest and bleakest of humor — at the notion that the Obama Administration will do anything except embolden our, and Israel's, enemies, and I believe instead that The One and his minions (including Hillary) will end up actually abetting and accelerating Iran's acquisition of weapons of mass destruction.

I understand how the American Left has deluded itself into mass denial of these probabilities, even though they have no answer to alarmists such as Steyn. What I — as a male American WASP who admires Israel, counts many Jews among his very best friends, and has tried to raise his own children to appreciate the horror of the Holocaust — genuinely can't understand, and don't anticipate that anyone will ever be able to forgive in hindsight, is how a large majority of American Jews are letting themselves be so deluded. My saying that may make some of them angry, and they may argue that I have no standing to kvetch. But I reject that; everyone has standing to say "Never again," because by virtue of being human everyone has the right and the moral obligation to reject inhumanity on that barely imaginable scale.

The only strings preventing the United States from ensuring that Iran doesn't get nuclear weapons are those we have used to tie ourselves down. The longer we wait to break them, the greater the cost will be, and we've waited so long already that the costs now would be fearsome indeed — fearsome in comparison to anything except the probable future that will be brought about by our failure to act. When we fail to act, the costs will be incalculable, and there will be so much blame to go around that I'll still flagellate myself for having done nothing much more than writing a rant like this one. "That was it, Grandfather? You pointed out Obama's clown shoes on your blog?" And I'll nod, and then hang my head and weep.

NYT again misreports maximum potential penalty that could have been sought against surviving Somali pirate

U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Peck of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has ruled that the surviving Somali pirate captured by the U.S. Navy after attempting to hijack the M/V Maersk Alabama, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, will stand trial as an adult. In so doing, Judge Peck credited testimony yesterday from New York City Detective Frederick Galloway, who — according to the New York Times — "who went to Africa as part of an investigative team." Detective Galloway testified that

Mr. Muse, after giving different ages, said he had been untruthful, apologized and said he was “between 18 and 19.”

“He also said, ‘I’m sorry for lying to you,’” Detective Galloway testified. “He said, ‘When I pray again, I’ll ask Allah to forgive me for lying to you, and I won’t lie to you again.’”

Judge Peck rejected as "incredible" contrary testimony given by Muse's purported father (through an interpreter and via a telephone hookup to Somalia) to the effect that Muse is only 15 years old. As for suggestions that Muse was merely a passive follower of the other pirates, the NYT story reports:

Disputing his father’s portrayal of his son as an unwitting dupe, prosecutors say Mr. Muse conducted himself as the leader of the pirate gang, and was the first among them to climb aboard the Maersk Alabama on the morning of April 8 in the Indian Ocean off of Somalia.

He fired his gun at the captain, Richard Phillips, who was still on the bridge, and then entered the bridge with two other armed pirates, and demanded money, the complaint said.

In fact, the Department of Justice's sworn criminal complaint filed against Muse is considerably more damning as to Muse's overall role in these events than the NYT's summary. According to the complaint(caps in original):

MUSE entered the Bridge, and told the Captain to stop the ship. MUSE, who conducted himself as the leader of the Pirates, later demanded money from the Captain. MUSE and two other Pirates, each of whom was armed with a gun, then walked with the captain to a room on the Maersk Alabama that contained the ship's safe. The captain opened the safe and took out approximately $30,000 in cash. MUSE and the two other Pirates then took the cash.

And the complaint likewise disputes previous press suggestions that Muse had "effectively surrendered" by boarding the USS Bainbridge before Navy SEAL snipers shot and killed his co-conspirators (italics mine):

On April 12, 2009, MUSE requested and was permitted to board the USS Bainbridge. The other three Pirates continued to hold the Captain on the Life Boat. On the USS Bainbridge, MUSE continued to demand for himself and the other Pirates safe passage from the scene in exchange for the Captain's release. In addition, MUSE received medical treatment.

Muse wasn't surrendering, in other words, and hadn't "withdrawn from the conspiracy," but was instead continuing to convey threats that his co-conspirators would kill Captain Phillips unless all of the pirates, including Muse, were released and guaranteed their continued freedom.

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This NYT story — like every other mainstream media report I've seen since the attempted hijacking and hostage-taking — again incorrectly claims that life imprisonment is the most severe penalty available for any of the crimes with which Muse could be charged. As I wrote last week, 18 U.S.C. § 1203(a) provides that "if the death of any person results, [hostage-taking] shall be punished by death or life imprisonment." The statute doesn't require that the defendant himself have committed the homicide, nor that the victim of the homicide be one of the hostages. Rather, as with many state felony murder laws, all that section 1203(a) literally requires is that the hostage-taking have resulted in "the death of any person" for its violation to become a capital crime punishable by death. The criminal exposes himself to this penalty by taking part in a crime which ends up getting anyone killed as a result, even if it's an innocent bystander killed by accident, or even if it's one of his accomplices and co-conspirators who's killed in a justifiable homicide by law enforcement officers.

Hostage-taking in violation of section 1203(a) is indeed one of the five counts with which Muse has now been charged. However, the DoJ did not see fit to include in the charging language for that count an allegation that the hostage-taking resulted in the "death of any person," so Muse appears to be at risk for nothing worse than a life sentence as the case presently stands.

Section 1203(a) is not a complicated or long statute, and it's simply inconceivable that the prosecutors were unaware that it permits capital punishment when the hostage-taking has resulted in the "death of any person." So we must assume that the decision not to to charge the crime in a manner that would permit the death penalty under section 1203(a) was a deliberate one.

Such decisions fall within the general realm of "prosecutorial discretion." Because prosecutors are responsible not only to do what's right but to do justice, not every crime that could be charged should be charged. And one may argue with a perfectly straight face that Muse's relative youth (even if, by his own admission, he wasn't below the age of 18) and poverty-stricken life, plus the fact that only bad guys got killed, were enough in the way of mitigating factors to justify the prosecutors' decision not to seek the death penalty. Were I in their shoes, I probably would have been inclined instead to leave that to the jury to decide. But I am not accusing these prosecutors of having abused their discretion; and indeed, in other respects, the complaint is commendably robust.

But I do think that the mainstream media ought to truthfully report that the death penalty could indeed have been sought by the Obama Administration. This isn't quite the "Wag the Dog" scenario I've been predicting. But Obama's spinmeisters have been quite aggressive in seizing this as an example of "Obama as Tough Father Figure." It's bad practice, but unfortunately common (verging on universal), for the mainstream media to aid and abet Obama in such exaggerations, and this is simply another example of that.

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UPDATE (Wed Apr 22 @ 11:45am): It's hard to overcome the defendant's own confession as to his age in the best of circumstances, but from another report of yesterday's hearing, this time from the NY Daily News (h/t Althouse), we see that there were further problems with the defense team's contention that Muse is a minor (italics mine):

The judge called Muse's father, who said the suspect was his eldest son, born in November 1993, making him just 15.

Pressed further, the father said his fourth-born son was born in 1990 — and the judge ruled his testimony was not credible.

Muse's court-appointed lawyers said they will appeal the age ruling and also want to see if he's subject to Geneva Convention rules on international prisoners.

They said he was shackled and blindfolded for eight days and had not been given pain medication for his hand in 24 hours.

"He is extremely young, injured and terrified," said lawyer Deirdre von Dornum.

To which my first reaction is: Poor (probably intercontinental) wood-shedding of the father by defense lawyers? If your witness' story depends on the proposition that time flows backwards when you get close to the equator, he may have some credibility problems.

The initial "appeal" of the age ruling will be not to the Second Circuit, but rather to the United States District Judge under whose authority Magistrate Judge Peck is proceeding. Unless they can come up with a lot of new and better evidence to cast doubt on the defendant's admission to the NYC police detective, though, along with an explanation for why they didn't have that evidence yesterday (which may be less problematic, given the international nature of the case and their very recent engagement), defense lawyers are very unlikely to win that appeal. District judges tend to be pretty deferential to their magistrates' fact-findings.

Statements to the press like Ms. von Dornum's tend to blow up in lawyers' faces when the prosecution shows videotape of the "extremely young, injured and terrified" defendant threatening a hostage with an AK-47. By overplaying their hand, his lawyers are ultimately doing their client no favor. But a companion article, quoting a criminal defense lawyer not part of Muse's team, shows just how tone-deaf defense lawyers can be (italics mine):

"You've got an 18-year-old kid who has no education. He's as poor as they come, and he got caught up with these pirates," veteran defense lawyer Martin Geduldig said.

"In a sense, he's as much a victim as anybody else," said Geduldig, who is not involved in Muse's defense.

Friends and neighbors, any lawyer who makes that argument will forfeit all credibility with the jury and judge. If that's the best argument you've got, you should probably get your client's consent to plead him guilty on the best deal you can get, and then hope for whatever marginal sentencing leniency you may can find in the discretion of the court, if there's any to be found. Argue mitigating circumstances as hard as you can; but don't go over the top, which is where you are when you claim your client is "as much a victim" as the guy he shot at repeatedly, robbed at gunpoint, kidnapped and took hostage, beat up, and repeatedly threatened with death as part of a crime spree stopped only by the precision marksmanship of three Navy SEAL snipers.

UPDATE (Wed Apr 22 @ 1:30pm): And now the AP reports that Muse's mother insists that he's actually 16, but "'wise beyond his years' — a child who ignored other boys his age who tried to tease him and got lost in books instead." And the AP, once again, ignores the capital punishment angle.

News from America guaranteed to prompt terrorist belly laughs

This makes me laugh too, sorta — but it simultaneously makes me want to weep, for my profession and my country, and for what the former has done to hamstring the latter's desperate fight against the terrorists who would destroy us if they could (first and third bracketed portions mine, others by TIME):

The CIA desire to use insects during interrogations has not previously been disclosed, according to two civil liberties experts contacted by TIME. The Bybee memorandum, which was written on August 1, 2002[, by then-Assistant Attorney General, now U.S. Circuit Judge Jay S. Bybee], described the CIA's plans for using insects this way:

"You [the CIA] would like to place [top Al Qaeda official Abu] Zubaydah in a cramped confinement box with an insect. You have informed us [the Department of Justice] that he appears to have a fear of insects. In particular, you would like to tell Zubaydah that you intend to place a stinging insect into the box with him. You would, however, place a harmless insect in the box. You have orally informed us that you would in fact place a harmless insect such as a caterpillar in the box with him."

An additional sentence at the end of this paragraph is redacted in the copy made public Thursday. Later in the same memo, Bybee concludes that "an individual placed in a box, even an individual with a fear of insects, would not reasonably feel threatened with severe physical pain or suffering if a caterpillar was placed in the box." Bybee adds, however, that the interrogators should not tell Zubaydah that the insect sting "would produce death or severe pain."

One presumes that threatening to dip Zubaydah's pony-tail into an inkwell would likewise have been "torture" unless he were first warned that the "ink" was really easily washed out with ordinary shampoo.

Snark aside: Faced with the choice of putting American lives at mortal risk or putting an al Qaeda terrorist into a juvenile hissy fit, we, as a nation acting through our elected leaders' lawyers, chose the former.

And the Obama administration still calls that "torture," and apologizes for it anyway:

"Those methods, read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, appear graphic and disturbing,” said [Director of National Intelligence Dennic C.] Blair in a written statement....

I suspect the al Qaeda terrorists are laughing even harder about the part about us all being "safe" now that it's April 2009 and The One has moved into the White House. But that doesn't make me want to laugh at all.

Surviving Somali pirate captured by U.S. Navy should face death sentence under U.S. hostage-taking law

God bless the United States Navy! (H/t "Jack Dunphy" @ Patterico's.) And what a spectacular Easter blessing for the brave Captain Richard Phillips of the MV Maersk Alabama and his gallant crew and grateful family!

Three of the four pirates who were holding Captain Phillips on the Alabama's lifeboat were shot dead, apparently through the exceptional marksmanship and professionalism of Navy SEAL snipers.

As to the fourth pirate — who was aboard the U.S.S. Bainbridge trying to negotiate when his co-conspirators met their just deserts — news organizations including Fox News and the Associated Press are reporting that if brought to America and prosecuted under federal law, he faces a maximum potential sentence of life imprisonment.

I'm pretty sure that's just wrong. I think that if he's brought back to the U.S. for punishment under our criminal justice system, then the surviving pirate could be, and should be, charged with and found guilty of a capital crime punishable by death.

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It's true that federal laws against piracy — chief among them 18 U.S.C. § 1651 — prescribe life imprisonment as not only the maximum penalty, but the only penalty. But with respect to a federal conviction for hostage-taking, 18 U.S.C. § 1203(a) provides that "if the death of any person results, [hostage-taking] shall be punished by death or life imprisonment."

Congress' use of the word "results" means there must be a causal connection between the hostage-taking and the fatality, but it's a fairly loose one. There is no requirement that it be the defendant hostage-taker who directly inflicted any lethal injuries. And Congress could easily have limited the death penalty to situations where it was the hostage, or perhaps also law enforcement members or innocent bystanders, who were killed. But Congress didn't.

Instead, under the plain language of the statute, Congress instead chose to make the death penalty available when "the death of any person result[ed]" from the hostage-taking. Thus, even the death of one of the hostage-taker's fellow criminals satisfies the literal language of the statute.

I can't find any federal capital punishment appellate precedent directly on point under section 1203, and little precedent even from the federal trial court level. But as with "felony murder" capital punishment laws generally — under the Enmund/Tison standard — I believe that due process and other constitutional concerns are satisfied so long as the defendant is a "major participant" in the underlying felony (here, hostage-taking) and that underlying felony involved a "reckless indifference to human life" (a slam-dunk where the hostage-takers are threatening the hostage's death). There's no requirement that the prosecution show that the hostage-taking defendant had a specific mental intent to accomplish the death of any particular person when he committed the hostage-taking crime. Indeed, in contrast to some state "felony murder" capital punishment statutes, "foreseeability" of the death of the eventual decedent is not an element of this particular federal crime under section 1203(a), according to United States v. Straker, 567 F. Supp. 2d 174 (D.D.C. 2008).

And that should be no surprise to either pirates or decent folk: Hostage-taking, by its very nature, is a threat to kill innocents, and is likely to lead, one way or another, to the sudden and violent death of someone. It's only due to the skill of the SEALs — and, as I'm sure they'd be the first to acknowledge, the grace of God — that no one except pirates were killed or seriously injured. The pirates themselves did practically everything within their power to turn this into a fatal encounter for someone, and there's no doubt that all of them possessed sufficient murderous intentions to imbue them with capital culpability. Thus, in my opinion, even though it ultimately turned out that the only fatal shots were fired by Navy SEALs, that matters not for purposes of charging and convicting the surviving pirate of a capital offense.

I'd much rather see him swinging from the yardarms aboard the Bainbridge after a shipboard summary trial — or failing that, dropped off at Guantánamo as another of whatever the Obama Administration is now calling illegal enemy combatants — rather than afforded the due process which our federal courts accord to civilized human beings. But if the surviving pirate is indeed to be brought back to the U.S. and tried under our federal criminal law, then prosecutors at least ought to seek the most serious punishment for the most serious offense which applies to these facts under federal law.

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Chances that the Obama/Holder Justice Department will agree with me? I'd say less than 1%. My only question is whether the ACLU or some NYC white-shoe law firm (purportedly acting pro bono publico) has already filed a "Maxamed Doe" habeas corpus petition for the guy.

Finally, I endorse, recommend, and enthusiastically associate myself with (i.e., wish I had written) the following authors' recent essays on piracy and how the U.S. ought to respond to it (with 21st Century speed and firepower, but 18th and 19th Century principles): Andrew C. McCarthy at the National Review Online and Bret Stephens at the Wall Street Journal.

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UPDATE (Sun Apr 12 @ 7:15pm): Greyhawk at The Mudville Gazette, in the midst of some very perceptive comments about the media coverage of these events, refers to reports that the fourth and only surviving pirate might be (a) the one who was originally captured by the Maersk Alabama crewmen in re-taking the ship, (b) as young as sixteen years old, and/or (c) possibly cooperating with the Navy, rather than (as I'd heard) trying to negotiate on behalf of the other pirates. My comments about his culpability are based on the premise that he's an adult who was actively involved in plotting and executing the attempted piracy and the hostage-taking, and of course my only source for that premise is the admittedly sketchy and unreliable news reporting we've all been following. Even were he to be subjected to the traditional summary ship's-deck justice of decades' past, the sorts of circumstances suggested by Greyhawk, if they panned out, would be given due weight. I don't think this will turn out to be complicated or uncertain, and indeed, to the knowledgeable people already on the scene, these issues are almost certainly already crystal clear. But if my premises turn out to have been wrong, I of course reserve the right to reconsider my conclusions from them.

UPDATE (Sun Apr 12 @ 8:45pm): If you're wondering why I've been so churlish in not extending even a nod of appreciation to our Commander in Chief, read this paragraph tucked away near the end of the New York Times' account of the rescue:

The Defense Department twice asked Mr. Obama for permission to use military force to rescue Captain Phillips, most recently late on Friday night, senior defense officials said. On Saturday morning, the president agreed to permit action, they said, but only if it appeared that the captain’s life was in imminent danger.

Then tell me: When, exactly, during this entire episode was Captain Phillips' life not in imminent danger? Why did Barack Obama have to sleep on the decision whether to permit our military commanders on the scene to use their own judgment as to whether to kill pirates who had attacked an American vessel and were holding its captain hostage? If this paragraph from the NYT is correct, then even if our forces had clear shots at all of the pirates simultaneously prior to Saturday morning, they lacked Obama's permission to take them. And that is outrageous and, on the part of our nominal Commander in Chief, pathetic.

Yes, I suppose Obama could have been more pathetic — he could have refused permission altogether. But Obama obviously thinks he's our Defense Lawyer in Chief, maybe Defense Lawyer for the World. And that's not the job he's in — that's emphatically not the oath he took last January, and there are times, including this one, when it could be inconsistent with the oath he took last January. Obama's operating under a delusion that is very dangerous for America and the rest of the free world. Color me unsurprised but still disappointed.

UPDATE (Sun Apr 12 @ 10:25pm): The WaPo report leaves open the possibility that the fourth and surviving pirate was an adult (as judged at least by American law), but is equivocal about the degree of his relative culpability and cooperation:

Meanwhile, one of the pirates, estimated to be between 16 and 20 years old, asked to come aboard the Bainbridge to make a phone call. He had been stabbed in the hand during an altercation with the crew of the Maersk Alabama and also needed medical care. "He effectively gave himself up," said a senior military official. The Navy then allowed that pirate to speak with the others in hopes that he could persuade them to give up.

I disagree with the SCOTUS precedent that forbids imposition of capital sentences on Americans who were under 18 when they committed their crimes, at least when those defendants have been found as a matter of individual fact to have been sufficiently mature to justify being tried as adults. But if this individual isn't yet 18, there's no chance whatsoever that the Obama administration will seek to hold him responsible as an adult, regardless of any other facts. Whether charging this as a capital offense turns out to be justified on these particular facts for this particular individual, however, I still think the media is wrong in describing life imprisonment as the maximum possible sentence for his crimes. (And I still think treating this as an ordinary crime to be tried in our civilian courts is a mistake as well.)

UPDATE (Mon Apr 13 @ 2:45am): Someone is re-writing the first draft of history. The paragraph I quoted above from the NYT now reads (at the same URL, but with no acknowledgment of having been stealth edited)(additions in red, deletions in strikeout):

The Defense Department twice sought asked Mr. Obama’s for permission to use military force to rescue Captain Phillips, most recently late on Friday night, senior defense officials said. On Saturday morning, the president agreed to permit action, they said, but only if it appeared that the captain’s life was in imminent danger.

The other changes are minor, but the phrase "but only" has completely disappeared, which changes the emphasis significantly to make Pres. Obama seem less squeamish.

And in the Politico.com version, you can almost hear the chorus singing "Brave, Brave Sir Robin" in the background as they, umm, associate the POTUS' valor with that of the SEALs and Captain Phillips:

President Barack Obama issued a standing order to use force against pirates holding an American captain hostage — including giving a Navy commander the authority to act if he believed the captain’s life was in danger, two senior defense officials said Sunday night.

Aha. Now it's a "standing order." (¿Quien es mas macho: Barack Obama, Jack Lord, o Lloyd Bridges?) If, as the NYT insisted, Obama's permission was conditioned on the danger to Captain Phillips' life having been "imminent," Politico.com's reporters can't find the bandwidth to mention that. As for when the go-ahead was actually given, Politico.com, contra what the NYT still says, insists that "A timeline provided by the White House showed he issued the orders to use force at 8 p.m. Friday, and again at 9:20 a.m. Saturday, after new Navy forces moved on to the scene." Which would make the re-issued Saturday morning order sort of, ya know, redundant if the first order were both given on Friday night and really a "standing order." (This takes to new extremes — something under 14 hours — Jim Geraghty's frequent observation to the effect that every statement made by Barack Obama comes with an expiration date, because "standing orders" now have to be repeated at least twice a day.)

Keep in mind, friends and neighbors, that this was a five-day standoff. Whether we credit the NYT's version of events or Politico.com's, our military apparently only had shoot-to-kill authority for something under the last 24 hours of it. And that, I repeat, is simply pathetic.

UPDATE (Tue Apr 14 @ 4:35am): I have no basis to dispute or second-guess these statements from the Secretary of Defense, made on the record on Monday, as reported in the WaPo:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Monday that the Defense Department twice requested the authority to use deadly force because two groups of Special Operations Forces were involved in the operation. Each required its own sanction. He said that "the approval was given virtually immediately in both cases."

A senior administration official said that the president did not deny any operational request made to him and that he knew the broad outlines of the operation that the Navy had planned. The official said that "our people tried a variety of ways to resolve the situation peacefully, and the guidance all along was that the overriding interest was the captain's life."

Gates said the four pirates involved in taking Phillips hostage were 17 to 19 years old — "untrained teenagers with heavy weapons." The pirate whom Reza wounded in the hand asked the USS Bainbridge for medical attention, effectively surrendering.

That all the pirates were "teenagers" is sad, but not very exculpatory. I'd bet a large sum of money that each of them considered himself an adult before undertaking this piracy, whatever Western law might say for the ones not yet 18. They were engaged in a violent and dangerous crime using military weapons; the three who were slain certainly deserved what they got, but I'll reserve further judgment on the fourth for reasons I've explained earlier in this post or in comments below.

I'm still troubled and unsatisfied by the notion that it takes so many layers of approval, extending to the office of the POTUS, to provide our military forces on the scene — who were, after all, there patrolling for pirates whose routine method of operation is to seize and threaten hostages with execution — the very basic authority to kill any pirate whenever so doing will secure the release of a hostage. If the regular officers and crew of the Navy vessels in the area, including the Bainbridge, didn't already have the authority to do that, they ought not be there. But that is a systemic criticism, and one that may be leveled against American civilian leaders of both parties going back to at least the Bush-41 administration, when lawyers and concerns for civilian-style legalities began to infect every aspect of our efforts to fight both conventional military enemies and terrorists.

Bottom line: If Secretary Gates was being candid and thorough, that puts Obama in a better light than I gave him credit for earlier in this post. If Gates is engaging in spin, I have no way to tell that — and neither does anyone else, absent unfettered access and complete cooperation from Navy personnel who were on the scene but are not about to publicly second-guess the SecDef or the POTUS, whoever holds those offices. The possibility that Gates is being candid and the possibility that he's engaged in spin are not mutually exclusive. But in any event, with our ship recovered and Captain Phillips rescued, and with rare near-unanimity among Americans of every political stripe in celebrating the competency of our military forces and their performance, I'm not going to spend any more energy second-guessing Obama's personal performance on this episode.

The world will little note, nor long remember, the angle of Obama's bow from the waist to King Abdullah; but ...

I'm in a particularly crusty mood at the moment, and this post may draw disagreement from many or maybe even most of those who read it. That's okay. I've just been working up to a rant, and I have to let it out.

*******

In March 1936, my father was a 14-year-old in rural Lamesa, Texas, and he was fairly preoccupied with working toward the rank of Eagle Scout. Thus, he may, or he may not, have paid any attention to the national and international news of that month. The Hoover Dam was completed, and that certainly was a good and noteworthy demonstration of American engineering prowess. On St. Patrick's Day, they had a terrible flood in Pittsburgh. Daytona Beach hosted the first-ever American stock car race. Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art paid an estimated $300,000 — a shocking sum — for Titian's "Venus and the Lute Player." And TIME magazine had already observed with respect to the upcoming presidential election that the incumbent administration of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt was

approach[ing] the November election in a high state of hope. The head of the firm, despite sporadic booing, remains extraordinarily popular with customers who must be resold. His health holds up as well as his glowing confidence. His campaign will be simple: "Things are getting better & better. We planned it that way. Let's have four years more of Democratic Recovery." The Party debt has been cleared away and millions of voters living on government bounty will not be allowed to forget who feeds them. And, above all, the Republicans have no one candidate now in sight who can fire the country with personal enthusiasm.

Across the Atlantic, the Royal Air Force conducted the first test-flight of the Spitfire Type 300. King Edward VIII, having succeeded King George V in January of that year, was deeply in love with Wallis Simpson — a not-quite-yet divorced American — but was still a few months away from his decision to abdicate the throne to marry her. He drew mixed press reviews from his participation on behalf of British and Commonwealth manufacturers at the British Industries Fair outside London: some thought he had compromised his dignity by pulling up his pants leg to display, and roundly endorse, his "ingenious 'Munrospun Sock[,]' into which [was] woven its own garter."

I'm sure if there had been an internet in March 1936, English-language bloggers would have blogged about all of these things. Would my dad have been among them? Not likely, unless there had also been a blogging merit badge available for him to earn.

But with the hindsight available a mere three and a half years later, it would be crystal clear to everyone in the world that the most important event of March 1936 had occurred on the seventh day of that month when — in clear and unambiguous violation of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles — German military forces suddenly reoccupied the Rhineland. Either France or Britain could have immediately and decisively crushed the German forces — not only throwing them out of the Rhineland but almost certainly causing, as a consequence, the toppling of the German government led by Chancellor and Führer Adolf Hitler. Either nation had ample military force to enforce the Treaty at minimal military risk, but neither had the political spine to do so.

There and then, the civilized world forfeited its last clear chance to prevent, at minimal cost and with unquestionable righteousness, the horror that became World War Two. By the time my father enrolled at the University of Texas in September 1941, most of the world was already at war, and he entered an accelerated NROTC program designed to churn out naval officers to fight and, if necessary, to die on the oceans bordering both of America's shores.

*******

Perhaps when we all have the benefit of similar hindsight, you will pardon me, friends and neighbors, that I have not already blogged this week about whether Barack Obama did or did not bow to the King of Saudi Arabia. (He did, which was stupid and beneath the dignity of the POTUS, but at least he's had the minimal sense to brazenly lie about it now.) And maybe you'll forgive me in a few years, gentle readers, for failing to obsess during the past week or so over the outcome of the close special election in New York's 20th Congressional District, or the considerably more distressing probable last gasps of Norm Coleman's efforts to keep (it pains me to even type these words) Al Franken from taking one of Minnesota's seats in the U.S. Senate. In the long run and the big picture, even in a Senate teetering on the edge of a filibuster-proof majority, Al Franken is going to be no more consequential than Edward VIII's socks, either with or without garters.

But in three or four or six years, when a North Korean missile drops a nuke somewhere on Japan, or perhaps in the vicinity of Anchorage — or, even assuming no continued technical progress by the Norks, they simply hand over a very, very dirty bomb to al Qaeda to put into a container bound for the Port of Houston or wherever — then the whole world will know that it was this past ten days in which Barack Obama proved himself as gutless, indecisive, and naïve as the Brits and the French were in March 1936.

Those of you who were alive and aware in 1986 surely remember how Ronald Reagan reacted to Mohamar Khadaffi's "Line of Death" in the Gulf of Sidra. Even John Kennedy reacted forcefully to a threat of nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba in 1962 (although he himself had invited that particular bit of Soviet adventurism by his weak-kneed showing at the 1961 Vienna Summit).

So what did Barack Obama do about North Korea's missile launch, made in defiance of the United Nations and world opinion, made to intimidate and threaten our staunch allies Japan and South Korea, and made to humiliate the United States?

He toured Europe. Where he blamed America first for all the world's problems, winning applause from reflexively anti-American crowds and not a damned thing of value more from our European allies.

Then he came home and cut production of the preeminent air superiority fighter of the first half of the 21st Century.

Yes, in the last 10 days, Obama has answered the only question remaining about his administration: We're now sure beyond any doubt that it will be not just a domestic fiscal catastrophe, but a foreign policy/national security catastrophe as well.

Barack Obama is on track to become the worst president in American history, and I frankly can't see any way that can be avoided any more.

So you think we're better off spending money on pork than on keeping the F-22 Raptor production lines going?

Without air superiority, America isn't a superpower. It is exactly that simple.

"No one would dare challenge America in the air," say those who want to slash defense spending. "We don't need more cutting-edge aircraft because the ones we already have are sufficient to intimidate all of our possible opponents."

I'm sure the crewmen on the deck of the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Stennis were close enough to check for signs of "intimidation" on the faces of the "two Russian Ilyushin IL-38 'May' maritime patrol aircraft [that] overflew the USS Stennis by an altitude of 500 feet" as it led a carrier strike group off the coast of South Korea just last week. But our sailors might have needed binoculars to eyeball the "two Russian 'Bear' long range bombers [that] overflew the USS Stennis and the flagship USS Blue Ridge multiple times at an altitude of 2,000 feet" on the following day.

So how is the Obama Administration going to respond to this Russian provocation?

Probably by cutting the "funding of the last 40 F-22 Raptors (numbers 204-243) presently scheduled for construction," according to Aviation Week.

The F-22 is the world's only operational "fifth-generation" air superiority fighter, featuring stealth, super-cruise (non-afterburner powered) supersonic speed, range, maneuverability (aided by advanced thrust vectoring), efficiency (requiring less maintenance downtime than older stealth aircraft), total situational awareness and airspace data integration, and unmatched lethality — the total package, the fighter jock's wet dream. It's the kind of machine we make better than anyone else, and it's quite possibly the best current example of American technical know-how of any sort. The successor to the venerable F-15 Eagle, the Raptor stands poised to achieve the same kind of phenomenal air-to-air combat record over the next three decades that the Eagle has earned in the last three — so long as our Raptors are not overwhelmed by vast numbers of less capable, but still dangerous, fourth or fourth-and-a-half generation fighters of the sort currently being researched and produced in Russia and China.

Without absolute air superiority, America cannot conduct even humanitarian operations in dangerous parts of the world. Without absolute air superiority, our ability to project conventional power against rogue state actors — and yes, I'm thinking of one whose president's name sounds like "After Dinner Jacket," and who very much wants some nuclear toys in the worst possible way — dries up. And as America's options diminish, so do those of the entire free world. As pointed out in a recent op-ed by Dr. Rebecca Grant, an airpower specialist at the Lexington Institute,

What's of concern is whether the United States is shaping the force to meet the demands of conventional deterrence in the next 20 years. Decisions made now affect the health of the conventional deterrent because competitors are moving ahead with sophisticated systems at a pace not seen since the Cold War.

If the U.S. Air Force's F-22 fleet remains stuck at 183 aircraft, it will put future conventional deterrence abilities at risk. Commanders may not have enough of these specially designed aircraft to defeat threats with confidence, and the overall fleet life will be used up years before it should be, due to heavy tasking.

Right now, the United States has the ability to stay ahead in the conventional deterrence game by upgrading its air power with the unique capabilities of the F-22. When production ceases, the door will close. It would take many years and billions of dollars to begin a new program to surpass the F-22. Long before then, the United States could see its policy options cramped by the limits of its own military power.

Yes, I know the F-22 isn't a carrier-based fighter, and yes, the Stennis' F/A-18s intercepted the Russian planes on their way in-bound and could have splashed them at any time. Yes, I know overflights like these have been going on, in varying degrees, for decades. But that doesn't make them routine. That doesn't mean the Russians aren't sending us, and the world, an important signal.

Yes, the last enemy air attack on surface targets that resulted in an American soldier's or sailor's death was in the Korean War, more than 55 years ago. But if the Russians wanted to be sufficiently provocative — if they wanted to prove Joe Biden right, big-time, in his predictions about young and inexperienced Pres. Obama being "tested" early in his administration — one twitch of a Russian pilot's thumb on a pickle switch last week could have ended that particular streak pretty dramatically.

Anyone who thinks we'll be able to maintain air superiority anywhere and everywhere we like with no more than a few dozen super-advanced fighters like the F-22s that have already been delivered is an idiot. Yes, the F-22s we do have — and the incredible pilots we have to fly them — are amazing. But they're not invincible, and they can and will be overwhelmed, someday, if they're fielded in insufficient numbers. And you don't replace these machines in a month, or in six months, or in two years. We can't just switch over some Chrysler factories from making mini-vans and tool 'em up to make F-22s after the ones we have now are shot down.

You don't think Hugo Chavez would send a steady stream of oil tankers to China in exchange for a collection of fourth-generation aircraft that would let him plausibly claim an ability to deny America air superiority — even temporarily, even if only during a crisis elsewhere — in our own hemisphere?

Hundreds of billions in the just-passed "stimulus act" are dedicated to projects whose economic stimulating effects are dubious at best, and that are not only not "shovel-ready," but years from even beginning. But the F-22 production lines aren't just "ready," but on-going. With the lead times involved, we need to commit now to avoid them grinding to a halt in a matter of months. And if we shut down the current F-22 production lines, we'll not only lose high-paying defense jobs (plus the secondary jobs they fund) — Lockheed Martin estimates that "95,000 jobs are at stake" — we'll lose the opportunity to enjoy the lower average per-unit cost that comes with larger and continuing production runs, a factor that was important to the initial planning for these aircraft.

We daren't put F-22s into the hands of, say, our "friends" the Saudis, but we've got absolutely reliable allies like Australia who need, and who'd very much like to buy, F-22s from us now, before the F-35 multi-purpose fighter (planned for broader distribution among American allies) comes online. Two U.S. studies have reportedly assessed the risks of F-22 technology being compromised through sales to Australia, the U.K., or Canada as being minimal. So let's sell a squadron to Oz, and see if the Brits and Canadians are also interested!

And Obama will indeed be able to find true bipartisan support if he extends F-22 production. Michael Fumento wrote in the Washington Times on March 1, 2009, that "[l]ast month, 44 U.S. senators, including Edward Kennedy and John Kerry, sent the president a letter requesting an additional order of unspecified size to prevent the planned 2011 shutdown." Those two names are almost enough to make me re-think my position, but this may be one of those occasions when constituents' job concerns have actually motivated the two Massachusetts senators to do the right thing.

There are at least four Russian aircrews who are probably still working off a week-long celebratory drunk before returning to their training. They almost certainly have new medals, and they're sharing with their buddies some snapshots of American naval aircraft and vessels for which they needed no telephoto lenses. Have no doubt: The training they will return to is expressly designed to prepare them to sink American ships and shoot down American aircraft. And the militarists in their government — and those in the Chinese government, and those in every other country in the world who'd like to see the end of American air superiority — are celebrating with them.

Ronald Reagan damn sure knew how to address that problem, and indeed military spending helped pull us out of the recession of the early 1980s. And Obama desperately needs to find a dose of The Right Stuff somewhere; this could be it. The Obama Administration and Congress ought to respond to this Russian provocation by redirecting some of the most obviously wasteful spending from the "stimulus" package to guarantee continued production of the Raptor, in quantities that won't leave us gambling on American air superiority against any challengers or circumstances.

(All photos in this post are © Lockheed Martin, but I hope they won't mind my "fair use" of them for this public commentary. At least two of them were shot in Alaska — you know, at those air bases where we keep our best fighters to regularly intercept military aircraft from Russia — a real and genuine potential threat from a real and serious potential enemy, no matter how many people make ill-informed and bigoted jokes about whether Sarah Palin can see them from her porch or not.)

Election morning prayer

This was what it says.

---------------------------------

[Copied here for archival purposes on November 5, 2008, from the post linked above at HughHewitt.com.]

(Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar)

Brave American men and women, at home and on foreign fields of combat, in forces both military and civilian, are protecting your right to vote today.

I worry that the threats and dangers they've successfully suppressed — keeping us safe from a major terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11/01 — may be underappreciated by many voters. But that does not lessen my gratitude for those who have stood, and continue to stand, their posts. May God bless and protect them all.

— Beldar

Challenge for next administration will be to be worthy of our military's professionalism and dedication

On a guest-post yesterday at HughHewitt.com, I expressed my gratitude and admiration for our professional military forces, who are already on special alert as we approach the election and the transition to a new administration.

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[Copied here for archival purposes on November 5, 2008, from the post linked above at HughHewitt.com.]

(Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar)

During the last several years, probably the single most offensive and ridiculous and insulting meme of the Most Radical Left — the Bill Ayers types who still can't decide whether they're merely small-c communists or anarchists, joined by colossal morons like Michael Moore — has been the argument that the Bush-43 Administration has already effectively mounted a military coup to destroy civil liberties within the United States. Perhaps the most magnificent irony in the world is that those folks' right and practical opportunity to display such caustic stupidity is protected by the finest, most professional all-volunteer military force in the history of the world. Those soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and guardsmen feature prominently in my prayers every night.

(Always near the very top of my personal prayers list is a young nephew of mine who, like his grandfather did long ago, proudly wears the uniform of a junior officer in the U.S. Navy. As a military dentist, he's currently at Twenty-Nine Palms Marine Base in California, and the odds of him deploying abroad with a Marines medical unit are high. Like everyone else in my family, I'm so proud of him, I could burst.)

The men and women in our military represent the full spectrum of America and all its politics, of course. I wouldn't care to guess at the relative percentages, but pollsters could probably find some number of current and recent American service personnel who might agree with leading Democratic Congressman Barney Frank that we need to cut our national military spending by 25% to finance the Democratic Party's spending and give-away programs. But even if that is (as I suspect) a fairly small minority among those serving in our armed forces, all Americans (except for the most crazed and rabid moonbats referenced above) can be confident that whoever succeeds George W. Bush as commander-in-chief will immediately benefit from the full measure of their professional dedication.

And indeed, as this article tucked away in the back pages of Sunday's WaPo recounts, senior military officials are already on special alert — recognizing that the risks of adventurism and reckless testing of America by its enemies increases as the election approaches, and that on either side of the next presidential inauguration we will be in extra peril:

The U.S. military, bracing for the first wartime presidential transition in 40 years, is preparing for potential crises during the vulnerable handover period, including possible attacks by al-Qaeda and destabilizing developments in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to senior military officials.

 

"I think the enemy could well take advantage" of the transfer of power in Washington, said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, who launched preparations for the transition months ago, and who will brief the president-elect, the defense secretary nominee and other incoming officials on crisis management and how to run the military.

Officials are working "to make sure we are postured the right way around the world militarily, that our intelligence is focused on this issue, and in day-to-day operations the military is making sure it does not happen," Mullen said in an interview. "If it does happen, we need to be in a position to respond before and after the inauguration."

I have no doubt — none whatsoever — that our armed forces will comport themselves with dignity and honor in the performance of their duty regardless of whether John McCain or Barack Obama is the next president. For that we should all be grateful. My concern is that the new civilian leadership beginning in January 2009 be steadfast and wise in the performance of its duty. Other than wishful thinking on the part of people like Colin Powell (who ought to know to value record over rhetoric, but have chosen instead to load up their hopes on the latter), I see no basis to believe that an Obama-Biden Administration is likely to be remotely as competent as the magnificent military forces who will nevertheless execute their orders to the best of those forces' ability.

— Beldar