Terrorism

Our Enemies Use Our Own Adherence to Law Against Us — But We Knew That

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Do these Islamist fighting groups ignore the international laws of armed conflict? They do not. It would be a grave mistake to conclude that they do. Instead, they study it carefully and they understand it well.
 
They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy’s main weaknesses.
 
Their very modus operandi is built on the, correct, assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules.
 
It is not simply that these insurgents do not adhere to the laws of war. It is that they employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. Their entire operational doctrine is founded on this basis.

Colonel Richard Kemp CBE, Hamas, the Gaza War and Accountability Under International Law, Address to the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 18 June 2009.

Excellent article: RTWT.

Quote of the Day

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Personally, I think Ricks is thinking about the problem the wrong way. The “political breakthrough” he speaks of could never have occurred under Saddam. But in a larger sense I think Ricks is right to warn about failure in Iraq. OIF was meant to send a signal to the despots of the Middle East to mind their manners; to avoid supporting nonstate terror actors; to avoiding seeking weapons of mass destruction. But the dominant meme to emerge from the last six years has almost been the exact opposite. That it is hopeless, except in the sense of buying them off, to deflect Middle Eastern despots from their schemes; that it is equally impossible, and possibly even immoral to stand forcibly in the way of those who seek nuclear arms. Obama is not entirely, as Ricks argues, the hapless victim of the policies of the last six years, rather he is the expression of a point of view that believes they are a failure.

-Richard Fernandez, Iraq, Victory or defeat?

I think the past six years should be seen as a controlled experiment. When we attacked the terrorists and their patrons directly, made them personally accountable as we did the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, they and their allies and emulators backed off. But when we hesitated and temporized and appeased we lost ground. Israel had similar experiences. Its assassination campaign against Hamas leaders was highly effective in suppressing terror attacks, but its negotiation attempts, precipitate withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza, and irresolute handling of the 2006 Lebanese campaign helped to energize its enemies. In this context, Obama’s attempt to gain the favor of the Iranian regime rather than undermine it seems like an effort to replicate some of our and Israel’s recent strategic errors.

What, Eight Years Wasn’t Long Enough?

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Okay, the leftmost half of the Democrats, including Obama, Pelosi et al, have  continuously claimed  for 8 years that detaining illegal  combatants  at Gitmo was obviously illegal under U.S. law, immoral and counterproductive. Usually, when someone makes such a sweeping claim, it means that they have throughly thought out the problem and have a detailed alternative to offer. Given that Democrats have had 8 years to think about the problem, why didn’t Obama and Congressional Democrats have a plan to handle Gitmo and its  detainees  ready to implement on Day 1 of his  administration?

Why are they still dithering to the point of refusing to allocate funds to close Gitmo? [h/t Instapundit]  How dumb are they?

After all, it’s not like they’ve proposed a plan and then the Republicans, using their dominance of the three branches of government, shot it down. No, they haven’t even made a single, concrete, detailed proposal, and the Republicans don’t have the power to stop squat. If Democrats actually had a workable idea, they could have launched it four months ago.  

It’s almost as if they’ve suddenly discovered that the problem of dealing with illegal  combatants is a complex problem rife with dangers and tradeoffs that presents no clear, optimal solution. Too bad somebody hasn’t tried to tell them how difficult a legal, practical and moral problem these people pose for us. Oh, wait, somebody did.  

It’s almost as if they always knew that Bush had to make serious tradeoffs but chose to create a simplistic narrative just for the sake of political marketing. It looks like they spent all their time reflexively  criticizing  Bush and zero time actually thinking about the challenges he faced.  

It’s almost like they never really gave a damn.  

The Obama Administration and the Terrorist Threat

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Andrew C McCarthy, former U.S. Attorney for the southern district of New York, responds to a request from AG Eric Holder for his participation in a task force on detention policies–a request which McCarthy (who led the terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) chose to decline. Here’s why:

I admire the lawyers of the Counterterrorism Division, and I do not question their good faith. Nevertheless, it is quite clear—most recently, from your provocative remarks on Wednesday in Germany—that the Obama administration has already settled on a policy of releasing trained jihadists (including releasing some of them into the United States). Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people. Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop.

Read the whole thing.

For those who don’t remember just what a serious matter the fight against terrorism is, here’s a reminder.

Two Items…and Two Questions

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1) A Palestinian man has been sentenced to death by hanging for the “crime” of selling land to Jews.

Will the people who endlessly denounce Israel for its supposed interference with “Palestinian rights” have anything to say about the rights of this Palestinian man?

I think you know the answer.

2) Palestinian military forces are now being trained–at a cost of tens of millions of dollars to American taxpayers–by United States personnel.

Why on earth should we assist the development of a military which shields a regime under which atrocities such as the one above are a matter of policy?

Note also: The Obama administration is requesting changes to U.S. law which would permit aid to continue flowing to the Palestinian Authority even if officials backed by Hamas become part of a unified Palestinian government. (Since Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization, aid would not be permitted under U.S. law as it stands.)