Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Attorney General Eric Holder has responded to an official inquiry by members of Congress about who ordered the underoos bomber to be tried in a civilian trial rather than declaring him an enemy combatant. His answer: I did. And I was right. And you're wrong.
The decision to charge Mr. Abdulmutallab in federal court, and the methods used to interrogate him, are fully consistent with the long-established and publicly known policies and practices of the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the United States Government as a whole, as implemented for many years by Administrations of both parties. Those policies and practices, which were not criticized when employed by previous Administrations, have been and remain extremely effective in protecting national security. They are among the many powerful weapons this country can and should use to win the war against al-Qaeda.
And suddenly something occurs to me: The one time the right wing gets their dander up in these situations is when you don't mistreat and torture a suspect.
Since the September 11,2001 attacks, the practice of the U.S. government, followed by prior and current Administrations without a single exception, has been to arrest and detain under federal criminal law all terrorist suspects who are apprehended inside the United States. The prior Administration adopted policies expressly endorsing this approach. Under a policy directive issued by President Bush in 2003, for example, "the Attorney General has lead responsibility for criminal investigations of terrorist acts or terrorist threats by individuals or groups inside the United States, or directed at United States citizens or institutions abroad, where such acts are within the Federal criminal jurisdiction of the United States, as well as for related intelligence collection activities within the United States." Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5 (HSPD-5, February 28,2003).In keeping with this policy, the Bush Administration used the criminal justice system to convict more than 300 individuals on terrorism-related charges. For example, Richard Reid, a British citizen, was arrested in December 2001 for attempting to ignite a shoe bomb while on a flight from Paris to Miami carrying 184 passengers and 14 crewmembers. He was advised of his right to remain silent and to consult with an attorney within five minutes of being removed from the aircraft (and was read or reminded of these rights a total of four times within 48 hours), pled guilty in October 2002, and is now serving a life sentence in federal prison. In 2003, Iyman Faris, a U.S.
citizen from Pakistan, pled guilty to conspiracy and providing material support to al- Qaeda for providing the terrorist organization with information about possible U.S. targets for attack. Among other things, he was tasked by al-Qaeda operatives overseas to assess the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City as a possible post-9111 target of
destruction. After initially providing significant information and assistance to law
enforcement personnel, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. In 2002, the "Lackawanna Six" were charged with conspiring, providing, and attempting to provide
material support to al-Qaeda based upon their pre-9111 travel to Afghanistan to train in
the Al Farooq camp operated by al-Qaeda. They pled guilty, agreed to cooperate, and
were sentenced to terms ranging from seven to ten years in prison. There are many other examples of successful terrorism prosecutions - ranging from Zacarias Moussaoui
(convicted in 2006 in connection with the 9111attacks and sentenced to life in prison) to Ahmed Omar Abu Ali (convicted in 2005 of conspiracy to assassinate the President and
other charges and sentenced to life in prison) to Ahmed Ressam (convicted in 2001 for
the Millenium plot to bomb the Los Angeles airport and sentenced to 22 years, a sentence recently reversed as too lenient and remanded for resentencing) --which I am happy to provide upon request.
Holder goes on to note that in the two cases where someone arrested here was either placed initially in military custody or later transferred to military custody by the Bush administration, the courts ruled in both cases that they could not do so (though this is not quite as clear for a non-citizen as for a citizen - the ruling in the Al-Marri case was fragmentary and unclear, while the Padilla decision was quite clear).
I'm glad the administration is pushing back on this issue and not just letting the torture brigade dominate the debate.
Politics
Comments
Wow!
Its amazing how much info the Feds get, when they are not detained in Guantanamo, even when the terrorist get life in prison.
Posted by: Hathor | February 4, 2010 9:30 AM
"And of course, not one"
Sentence fragment. I want to know your concluding thoughts/witty remark.
Posted by: Shawn Wilkinson | February 4, 2010 9:50 AM
I think there are two other related items worthy of our attention.
The undie bomber's family convinced him to completely cooperate with U.S. law enforcement interrogators given that they trust that we'll treat their son fairly. The Justice Dept. has confirmed that they believe he's fully cooperating. This is an astonishing turn-around from the perception non-Americans had of us during the Bush years. I suspect the Obama speech in Egypt has had a bigger impact on our soft power than Americans realize.
Republican leaders such as Maine Senator Susan Collins are criticizing the President's Administration's handling of this issue by using President Bush's initial treatment of Padilla as their preferred example. Ms. Collin is dishonestly ignoring the fact that a federal judge ordered Bush to cease that form of treatment and instead follow the law as AG Holder is doing in this case; an order which ultimately had Mr. Bush's Administration complying.
I continue to be annoyed that our debates in the public square do not revolve around policy differences based on sound premises, but instead the Republicans appear to now rely exclusively on dishonest arguments. There is no way the Democrats will implement and execute sound policies if they aren't honestly challenged by a credible opposition, no group can. I bring this up because as deranged as the Republican party now is, I think the mainstream media continues to underestimate the damage the Republican party and conservatives continue to inflict on the national interest.
Posted by: Michael Heath | February 4, 2010 10:03 AM
Conservative moral intuition uses INGROUP as a foundational criterion. Consequences at the reflexive congnition level: INGROUP must be treated well ~~ OUTGROUP must be treated badly.
One problem with liberals is that they don't recognize (either reflexively or reflectively) the validity of INGROUP as foundation; one big problem with conservatives is they lack a sense of degree and nuance in identifying INGROUP and adjusting with degree and nuance the response accordingly.
Posted by: abb3w | February 4, 2010 10:25 AM
Michael Heath said:
Well it's hard to do otherwise when reality has such a liberal bias.
And abb3w said:
I don't see that as a problem. Ingroup, purity, authority, and whatever other atavistic gut-level reactions guide conservatives have too many negative consequences, and no appreciable benefits that I can see. They are a relic of our Pleistocene ancestry, and ought to be dispensed with in the modern world.
That's why tea baggers are so emotional. They feel rather than think.
Posted by: BaldApe | February 4, 2010 12:04 PM
@abb3w #4,
I would only add that a majority of the U.S. population would consider that a feature, not a bug.
Posted by: Shawn Smith | February 4, 2010 12:11 PM
Golly, AG Holder almost makes me feel I am getting my country back!
Posted by: Margaret Mead | February 4, 2010 1:23 PM
Golly, AG Holder almost makes me feel I am getting my country back!
Posted by: Margaret Mead | February 4, 2010 1:25 PM
WTF? Members of congress are actually saying they want their Star Chambers and torture? I hope they're all voted out this year - or at least the half of them up for election.
Posted by: MadScientist | February 4, 2010 5:20 PM
By the way - did Holder's "1" key get stuck? 9111? Or is the official title different from the popular one? If the official title happens to be different, shouldn't there be a '0' in there?
Posted by: MadScientist | February 4, 2010 5:26 PM
@MadScientist: I would guess that this text was scanned and an OCR scanner program was used to get the text. A '/' looks a lot like a 1 to the dumber OCR programs.
Posted by: Avi Chapman | February 4, 2010 9:05 PM
The suspect broke civilian criminal laws while on a civilian airliner landing at a civilian airport on U.S. soil.
What, exactly, is the rationale for a military trial?
Posted by: James Hanley | February 5, 2010 11:31 AM
Was Margaret Mead's comment supposed to be sarcastic or sincere?
Posted by: daniel rotter | February 5, 2010 9:30 PM
BaldApe: I don't see that as a problem. Ingroup, purity, authority, and whatever other atavistic gut-level reactions guide conservatives have too many negative consequences, and no appreciable benefits that I can see.
That you don't see them, does not mean they aren't there.
1) INGROUP also means that we do not give voting rights to dogs and cats, since they are different species.
2) AUTHORITY is also why liberals consider what experts have to say when they contradict prior beliefs, rather than saying "Somebody’s gotta stand up to experts...."
3) There's benefits associated with PURITY, such as increased motivation to resist dangerous and infectious ideologies, such as Nazism.
I agree that too many conservatives are sloppy in evaluating these, such that INGROUP leads them to ignore how much they have in common with "outsiders", AUTHORITY leads them to place too much emphasis on tradition and to ignore modern experts, and PURITY leads to a whole bloody mess of stupid cultural baggage for religions.
In contrast, liberals sometimes fail to recognize the degree to which outsiders are genuinely different (EG: PETA), experiment blithely with social structures without due consideration of why current social structures exist, and bend over backwards to accommodate even the most idiotic of discourse.
BaldApe: That's why tea baggers are so emotional. They feel rather than think.
In contrast, liberal intellectuals often forget that emotional and instinctive reactions are the result of thousands of years of testing by cultural evolution on top of millions of years of biological evolution.
Shawn Smith: I would only add that a majority of the U.S. population would consider that a feature, not a bug.
Even if the claim of a majority is accurate, that does not make such consideration correct. Insufficient recognition of these moral/ethical flavors by liberals can be just as dangerous as excessive focus on them by conservatives.
Posted by: abb3w | February 6, 2010 3:04 PM
Conservative moral intuition uses INGROUP as a foundational criterion. Consequences at the reflexive congnition level: INGROUP must be treated well ~~ OUTGROUP must be treated badly.
Posted by: Houston Criminal Attorney | March 17, 2011 1:06 PM