re: "Credit Where It's Due"

Spook86 at In From the Cold ("MUSINGS ON LIFE, LOVE, POLITICS, MILITARY AFFAIRS, THE MEDIA, THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY AND JUST ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE THAT CAPTURES OUR INTEREST") recognized a good call by our former president.

Money quote(s):

"George W. Bush and his advisers deserve our lasting thanks for deciding to hold terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, and conducting their trials through military tribunals, instead of a federal courtroom.

The wisdom of this approach was on display yesterday, during the arraignment of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9-11 attacks, and two other senior Al Qaida figures. According to The New York Times (and other media accounts), the proceedings were a study in confusion and obfuscation"

Don't think the confusion, sown liberally by the defendents, wasn't intended. It's part of their playbook, after all.

"Instead of a global stage, KSM and his fellow killers will have to make due with pool coverage from a handful of reporters at Gitmo. Instead of a battery of ACLU lawyers, they have a small defense team which they may (or may not) cooperate with. And instead of a federal judge trying to ride herd over a legal circus, the Al Qaida defendants have a no-nonsense military judge, Colonel James L. Pohl.

Of course, the antics that unfolded yesterday at Gitmo were utterly predictable."

See above. Key word: playbook.

"KSM and the terrorists at Gitmo were nabbed overseas, and with their designation as combatants, military tribunals became the most viable option. The prosecution of Al Qaida terrorists at Gitmo will likely drag on for years, but without the media circus that terrorists crave and in a secure environment. Security costs for a trial in a New York federal court were pegged at $300-500 million a year, with the interruption to normal traffic and commerce costing millions more."

CAA suspects the average (i.e., non-Al Qaeda sympathizer) New Yorker would be perfectly happy to host the public execution of the defendents, so long as the whole process took-up only one business day, but the kind of media and security circus a civilian trial process would entail for them is right out.

"On the issue of trying terror suspects, Mr. Bush was correct in opting for military tribunals, and the wisdom of that approach will be affirmed in the months and years that follow."

5/6

re: "On Newt Gingrich; and immigration questions"

Dr. Jerry Pournelle at Chaos Manor ("The Original Blog*") insists on applying logic and reason to political issues.

Money quote(s):

"There are about 20 million illegal aliens living in the United States. Suppose that Congress and the President decided tomorrow that "they all must go." How would that come about? Merely transporting Twenty Million People is a non-trivial task. Assume that of the 20 million aliens in the US, ten million will require transport of 1,000 km (621 miles). That is ten billion passenger/kilometers. The total annual rail passenger traffic in the US, including commuter travel, is about 17 billion passenger/kilometers. They would have to be fed. Many would have medical needs. While many of them could be transported by rail to the Mexican border -- in boxcars? or must there be at least day coach transport? -- many would have to go elsewhere, some to Latin America, but many to Asia and Africa, and many to places that will refuse to accept them.

A non-trivial task, even assuming that we could identify them all, and assuming there would be no expensive legal actions required: just identify, apprehend, and transport. It would take an enormous budget to accomplish.

Now add political realities. It's all very well to grab some thug with a long criminal record and say "Enough! Out!" to the general applause of a vast majority, but even then there are going to be problems with the ACLU as well as various immigrant rights organizations. Assume that it can be done: what fraction of the 20 million will that account for?

Of course advocates of amnesty or the dream act like to show the example of a teenage girl brought to the US at age five, brought up to speak English and assimilate to American customs, earning a high school diploma with an A- average, and in general an all-American girl who ought to be college bound. Or the young oriental boy with much the same record. We don't have to concede that people with similar stories will be a very great fraction of the 20 million, but it is not zero, and every one of those will be paraded by the media as soon as apprehended."

Discussion of the logistics? Check.

Discussion of the costs? Check.

Discussion of political opposition? Check.

Discussion of likely poster children? Check.

"(A)n operation this large will require a lot of police agents. Do we insist that they all be capable of handcuffing teenagers and putting them on the train to the border? Do we want a lot of people with that attitude to have police power? And what of illegals who have joined the Armed Forces? Veterans? Active duty soldiers? An operation this large may well require action from the Legions: will they pay more attention to the orders of their officers or the appeals of their comrades? Of course that's a silly question, but my correspondent did talk about crossfire and punishing treason, which probably means civil war, and the Legions, both Regulars and various reserves and militias and National Guard are certainly not going to be idle while that happens."

This is why I don't favor a "big round-up" solution to illegal immigration. The cure is worse than the disease. Dr. Pournelle isn't afraid to think past the it-couldn't-happen-here emo-llectual linders about civil-military conflict.

"The problem of the illegals amongst us will not go away simply because we don't think about it.

Note, incidentally, that Newt distinguishes between the right to be a legal resident and citizenship. This is not brought up in most "amnesty" discussions, but it should be. Citizens have rights, including the right to sponsor other immigrants. The Supreme Court has held that illegal immigrants have rights very similar if not identical to citizens, but that is not the plain language of the Constitution. A sane immigration policy will make that distinction -- including entitlements.

I am not going to "solve" the illegal immigrant problem here, but I will say that denouncing as "amnesty" anything other than a policy of 'deport them all and deport them now' is not useful. We aren't going to deport them all, and no Congress or President will do that, nor could even if it were thought desirable. The United States is not going to erect detention camps nor will we herd people into boxcars. We can't even get the southern border closed."

Any amnesty must be exceptional. That is, exceptionally positive candidates for amnesty receive it, others not-so-much. The honor students and military veterans who'd qualify would self-identify, come forward, and receive it. Bio-metrics and police checks, &tc., would have to apply. Age limits and a prior-to date sometime in the past would be necessary as well, otherwise it only encourages even more illegal immigration.

And I would quibble with former-Speaker Gingrich about the "right to be a legal resident." In what Constitutional article may I find that "right" ennumerated?

Certain classes of person, qualifying under specific statues, have the "right" to petition on behalf of other persons (usually relatives, sometimes employees) to obtain an immigration benefit, including legal permanent residence (LPR). That can include self-petition in certain circumstances.

"We can and should do more to enforce employment laws; but do we really want police coming around to demand "your papers" from our gardeners and fry cooks and homemakers? For if "your papers, please" becomes common practice, there will be demands for equality; for not profiling; for equal opportunity harassment -- but you get the idea."

Just keep the pressure on. Require proof of legal residency (I had to do it whenever I applied for a job) and when it's found out, terminate employment (or fine the employer). If an employee is so blessed valuable that the employer is willing to pay the fine, then perhaps they should be sponsoring (i.e., petitioning on their behalf) them for LPR status. Make both the fine about double the cost of the immigration petition, and that not insignificant (but not necessarily punitive).

The idea is to take them "out of the shadows" and get them enrolled in our public life. Document them. Fingerprint them. Hell, DNA-sample them; but limit that to out-of-the-shadows illegal/undocumented immigrants, line-crossers, and deportees.

And if they break other laws, commit felonies (or three-or-more un-related misdemeanors; that is, not stemming from the same offense) then they get on the conveyor belt to deportation.

IIRC, deportees are barred from legal travel to the U.S. for a period of 10 years (the first time). Apologies: my immigration law book is still in a crate somewhere.

"(P)erhaps, perhaps, there will come a time when there is an actual serious discussion of the subject, and we can come up with policies and tactics that have a chance of working and of actually being adopted.

But we will never get there so long as bringing up the subject for discussion makes you a traitor."

Gingrich? A traitor?

(Nah: just someone I wouldn't want dating a family member.)

_____

Note: Chaos Manor has moved!

re: "Because We Have Nothing Better To Keep Obsessing About"

Jules Crittenden at Forward Movement just marvels.

Money quote(s):

"What a strangely marvelous thing it must be to be an enemy of the United States. Feted and exalted as folk heroes by Euro-weenies and the American left, lavishly rewarded by the United States itself upon eventual ultimate defeat, with a well-financed, no-heavy-lifting assist on the propaganda front.

For the record: The American Civil Liberties Union has filed exactly no lawsuits against al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the Saudi banking system, Pakistan’s ISI, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraq’s former Baathist regime, the former Soviet regime, the current Cuban one, or any number of other associated entities for denying thousands of Americans their civil liberties or being complicit in the denial of a massive pile of American civil liberties up to and including life and the pursuit of happiness, though all of those entities at different times have operated and/or had assets and agents in the United States."

LAT - ACLU seeks release of ex-Hawthorne resident being held in the United Arab Emirates

From my archive of press clippings:

Los Angeles Times

ACLU seeks release of ex-Hawthorne resident being held in the United Arab Emirates

Naji Hamdan, a U.S. citizen, was arrested three months ago on the United States' behalf, the group's lawsuit alleges.

By Raja Abdulrahim

November 20, 2008

The American Civil Liberties Union petitioned the U.S. government Wednesday for the release of a U.S. citizen who, the group alleges, has been under FBI scrutiny for years and has been imprisoned without charge in the United Arab Emirates for three months.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Naji Hamdan, 42, a former Hawthorne resident, was arrested Aug. 29 by Emirates state police at the request of the U.S. government, effectively putting Hamdan in U.S. custody, says the writ of habeas corpus filed by the ACLU in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday."

&

"A State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs spokeswoman, citing privacy concerns, would not say whether the U.S. government was involved in Hamdan's current detention or whether officials were seeking his release.

The spokeswoman would confirm only that a U.S. citizen was in custody in the Emirates. She said a consular officer had met with the citizen on Oct. 19.

Richard Olson, U.S. ambassador to the Emirates, and the U.S. consulate sent letters to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Hamdan's wife, Mona Mallouk, confirming that a U.S. consul met with Hamdan while he was in custody and planned to meet with him again, according to court documents.

"There have not been any charges filed against Mr. Hamdan at this time," Consul R. Sean Cooper wrote to Waters' office on Nov. 5. "This extended detention, while very unusual from our American perspective, does not run counter to the laws of the United Arab Emirates." "