re: "Discretion, Not Amnesty"

Andrew C. McCarthy at The Corner (" The one and only. ") had evaluated former-Speaker Gingrich's approach to immigration enforcement reform.

Money quote(s):

"A successful immigration enforcement policy, easily implemented under current law, would secure the borders; use the capability we have to track aliens who enter on visas to ensure that they don’t overstay; and target our finite law enforcement resources at (a) illegal immigrants who violate federal or state criminal laws (i.e., other than the laws against illegal entry), and (b) employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens and therefore provide the incentive that induces them to come. (An even better policy would deny illegal immigrants various social welfare benefits, but some of that would involve changes in the law so I put it to the side for present purposes.)

Such a policy would materially reduce the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. — if they can’t work, many will leave and many won’t come in the first place. Such a policy would also call on government lawyers to exercise discretion (as they do in all aspects of law-enforcement) to decide which cases are worth prosecuting. Obviously, if an alien has been here illegally for a number of years but has been essentially law-abiding (again, ignoring the fact that it is illegal for him to reside and work in the U.S.), and if his deportation would have the effect of ripping apart an intact, law-abding family, you don’t bring that case. Such a case is not worth the Justice Department’s time when there are plenty of more serious criminals, including more serious immigration offenders, to pursue." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Unfortunately, although DHS was tasked with implementing a means of tracking entry and exit by visa-holding temporary visitors, it's never been fully implemented at every port/point of entry/exit. It's just too hard, apparently, even with a decade's worth of funding and effort.

What they did put together, U.S. Visit, isn't bad and has proven a very useful tool in visa work, but it's just not comprehensive enough to reliably tell us whether any one visitor is (or is not) still in the country past his or her supposed departure date.

(I suppose it sets up a form of Schroediger's Alien.)

"The Obama administration currently exercises its discretion by not only refraining from any meaningful enforcement of the immigration laws but also preventing states (e.g., Arizona) from enforcing the laws." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

&

"Newt was quick to point out last night that he was talking about a humane enforcement policy. He was not proposing that the illegal aliens who were not prosecuted be given citizenship. They just wouldn’t get prosecuted as long as they didn’t make a nuisance of themselves."

This approach tackles the problem from the two critical directions, that of "push" and "pull."

Diminish the "pull" by cracking down on employers of illegal aliens and cutting social benefits that make America such a lucrative proposition, as well as providing the safety net that allows illegal workers to send millions and millions of dollars out of the country in remittances.

And at the same time, increase the "push" by enforcing deportation and other penalties on those illegal aliens who commit criminal offenses above and beyond their immigration violations.

11/23

re: "Andrew McCarthy: Gingrich Has It Right On Our 'Imperial' Courts"

GW at Wolf Howling commented on some proposed Constitutional tinkering.

Money quote(s):

"Conservatives have been shaking their fists impotently at the Courts for their judicial activism - their Poliburo like unilateral amendments to the Constitution working fundamental changes to our nation - for the past fifty years. Heretofore, the only solution to the problem was thought to be electing Presidents who will appoint judges grounded in originalism. That has been less than successful. Enter Newt Gingrich, who has completely changed the paradigm on this critical issue. He wants to make a systemic fix that will permanently restore the Constitutional balance between the three branches of our government as such balance was envisioned by the Founders."

So, what's this all about?

"Andrew McCarthy, reviews Newt Gingrich's plan to redress the balance."

GW concluded:

"Correcting this vast overreach by our Courts over the past half century, restoring the balance to that envisioned by our Founders, is crucial for the future of our nation."

12/21

re: "Islam v. Islamism . again"

Andrew C. McCarthy at The Corner ("The one and only.") posted a correction and clarification.

Money quote(s):

"I make a habit of using the term “Islamist” (or “Islamism”) to distinguish the aggressive and often violent sharia agenda of America’s enemies from “Islam” as it is practiced by millions of Muslims — in America and elsewhere — who are not Islamic supremacists and who do not seek to impose Islamic law on civil society. I added that Messrs. Horowitz and Spencer also draw this distinction."

&

"Robert (Spencer) emailed me over the weekend. While he seemed to agree with most of what I’d written, he offered this correction: He does not use the terms “Islamist” and “Islamism.” In his view, the “Islam/Islamism distinction is an artificial one imposed by the West, with no grounding in Islamic history, theology, or law.” "

There's a lot of quibbling over terminology on this and related issues involving "moderate Islam" (is there such a thing or are its practicioners merely Muslim apostates), "Islamists," "Islamicism," and of course the ever popular "Islam is a religion of peace" narrative.

Not to mention (but I will) the diversional Greater and Lesser Jihads.

"The error does not alter my contention that CAP’s charge of “Islamophobia” is without merit. Again, there is nothing phobic about fearing the nexus between Islamic doctrine (as classically rendered in, for example, the sharia manual Reliance of the Traveller) and the threat Muslim terrorists and stealth jihadists pose to the West. Moreover, the fact that Robert sees the Islamic doctrine in question as Islam rather than as one credible interpretation of Islam (which I call Islamism) hardly makes his concerns irrational." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

10/24

re: "Willful Blindness"

Rand Simberg at Transterrestrial Musings summed-up Andrew McCarthy's thinking (at National Review).

Money quote(s):

"You can't win a war when you pretend that you're not in one." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

But you can certainly lose one..

12/15

re: "Remind Me Again, We're at War in Afghanistan Because . . . ? [CORRECTED]"

Andrew C. McCarthy at The Corner ("The one and only.") took issue with the Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he Taliban is not included in State’s listing of Foreign Terrorist Organizations — not the Taliban whose terrorism and safe haven for al Qaeda are the justification for continuing to have our troops fight and die in Afghanistan"

&

"I’ve argued before (most recently here) that Congress should amend the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force — the legal foundation for conducting U.S. combat operations in the War on Terror — so that the Taliban organizations (among others) are expressly specified as the enemy. But what’s the chance that we will be clear about who the enemy is if the administration can’t even bring itself to say the Taliban is a terrorist organization?" (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Recollecting from the dim recesses of memory, but we went to war in the territory of the Taliban-controlled government of Afghanistan in order to get at Al-Qaeda, the Taliban having declined to give them up to us when we asked nicely.

That approach having lacked much in the way of positive results, a U.S./NATO-led coalition went to war with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan since the two seemed unwilling or unable to extricate themselves from one another.

"(I)f the Obama administration were encouraging negotiations with the Taliban (it is) and even anticipating a settlement in which the Taliban were brought into the Afghan government (ditto), the State Department wouldn’t want to complicate that by naming the Taliban as a terrorist organization, right? So we are putting our forces in harm’s way in the War on Terror order to fight an outfit that we won’t call “terrorists” and that we actually see as part of the future Afghan government we are building."

8/25

re: "There's Willful Blindness, and Then There's Willful Stupidity"

Andrew C. McCarthy at The Corner ("a web-leading source of real-time conservative opinion") puts a smackdown on the DNI.

Quote(s):

"James Clapper, the head of intelligence for the United States of America, has explained to Congress that the Muslim Brotherhood is “largely secular.” It further has “eschewed violence,” decries al-Qaeda as a “perversion of Islam,” and really just wants “social ends” and “a betterment of the political order in Egypt.”"

&

"If this is what $40 billion–plus buys you, maybe Representative Ryan can make up the rest of that $100 billion by eliminating the intelligence community."

I don't happen to know the DNI personally, but a lot folks in the IC whom I do know speak of him with respect.

I haven't read the whole testimony, but one thing I can tell you is that what someone from the IC briefs an open meeting with the media present is not what he or she briefs behind closed doors where everyone inside has the appropriate security clearance. Unclassified briefings are, necessarily, somewhat dumbed-down, and they are so for very good reasons. Such reasons as not exposing the crown jewels of your best sources or means of collection, &tc., so as to make your source's lives shorter and riskier or to make it easier for an adversary to fool or evade your intelligence capabilities.

(The reader may recall, or is invited to discover, why it is that Osama Bin Ladin no longer uses a cellular or satellite telephone.)

That being said, the MB (like Hamas, like Hezbollah) uses the disfunction or disinterest of the legal government and authorities wherever they are to buy legitimacy by providing social services. In other words, they go secular and they do so in a very deliberate, very public way. It's not fake, the medical or social safety net they erect is quite real, and in an environment (such as Egypt) where the overtly political and violent aims of the MB are quite ruthlessly quashed, this sort of thing is much less likely to get one a date with the security ministries interrogators.

With that in mind, it may be that reporting on the DNI's testimony is a little slanted, a little incomplete, and that maybe all that shocked reaction on the part of committee members was just the slightest, teensiest bit stage-managed.

(Not that there's ever any stagecraft and drama practiced in the public eye on Capitol Hill. Perish the thought.)