Campaigns Clash Over Terror Trials

Washington Post: In Sharp Exchange, Each Side Calls Other's Position A Risk

(Washingtonpost.com)  This story was written by Anne E. Kornblut and Karen DeYoung.

---

The campaigns of Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama on Tuesday engaged in a heated exchange over the rights of terrorism suspects, with each side accusing the other of embracing a policy that would put the country at risk of more attacks in the future.

In a Tuesday morning conference call with reporters, McCain advisers criticized Obama as "naive" and "delusional" in his approach to the handling of terrorism suspects after he expressed support for last week's Supreme Court decision granting detainees the right to seek habeas corpus hearings. Obama fired back, saying the Republicans who had led failed efforts to capture Osama bin Laden lacked the standing to criticize him on the issue.

The exchange marked the general election's first real engagement over the campaign against terrorism and demonstrated that both sides are confident that they have a winning message on the issue.

McCain's aides seized, in particular, on remarks Obama made during a Monday interview with ABC News. In it, he praised the handling of the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center attackers, who, with one exception, were put on trial and sent to prison.

"He's advocating a policy of delusion," Randy Scheunemann, a McCain adviser, said of Obama (D-Ill.). Former CIA director R. James Woolsey Jr. said Obama's attitude "ignores that we are in a war against terrorism."

Scheunemann described Obama as having the "perfect manifestation of a Sept. 10 mind-set," saying he "does not understand the nature of the enemy as we face it."

Separately, the McCain campaign circulated a statement by former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani that said: "Barack Obama appears to believe that terrorists should be treated like criminals -- a belief that underscores his fundamental lack of judgment regarding our national security."

Obama did not back away from the fight.

"Let's think about this: These are the same guys who helped engineer the distraction of the war in Iraq at a time when we could have pinned down the people who actually committed 9/11," Obama told reporters on his campaign plane. He said his statements about Guantanamo Bay were intended to suggest that suspects have a right to be heard, not freed, and accused McCain (R-Ariz.) of playing political games on national security.

"What they're trying to do is what they've done every election cycle, which is to use terrorism as a club to make the American people afraid," Obama said.

In the ABC interview, Obama said the perpetrators of the 1993 bombing are proof that the existing justice system can handle terrorism cases. "They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated," he said. "And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, 'Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.' "

The debate over whether to treat terrorism primarily as a law enforcement issue or as a military issue goes back years. Some experts argue that it is inadequate to pursue and prosecute suicidal Islamic extremists as if they were typical criminals; other experts say that doing so is precisely what is needed to puncture the aura of "holy warriors" that the terrorists feed on and to deglamorize them in the eyes of other Muslims.

That debate flared hottest after the 2001 attacks. Republicans argued that the Clinton administration had erred by not taking a more forceful military approach against al-Qaeda after a string of terrorist attacks during its tenure -- the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole.

Democrats noted that Clinton had attempted to kill bin Laden with bomb strikes, and they argued that the failure was not so much the reliance on the FBI and CIA to pursue al-Qaeda, but the failure of those agencies to do their jobs as well as they could have.

In 2004, President Bush charged that his opponent for reelection, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), was advocating a pre-Sept. 11 mind-set after Kerry compared Islamic terrorism to other global scourges such as drug trafficking and said it is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world." The charge appeared to help Bush sway security-minded voters on his way to reelection.

But Obama has shown himself far more eager than Kerry and other Democrats to challenge the Republicans on the issue. He argues that the Bush administration's approach to fighting terrorism has been a failure, and he proposes an approach that mixes law enforcement, intelligence and military tools, including the possibility of invading Pakistan to pursue al-Qaeda if the Pakistani government does not cooperate.

As long ago as last August, he condemned the administration's legal approach to processing terrorism suspects. He argued instead for trying detainees in civilian courts or military courts operating under traditional military law, instead of the tribunals established by the Military Commissions Act that he and many other Democrats deride as kangaroo courts.

"I . . . reject a legal framework that does not work," he said in an August speech laying out his counterterrorism plans. "There has been only one conviction at Guantanamo. . . . There has not been one conviction of a terrorist act. I have faith in America's courts, and I have faith in our JAGs. . . . Our Constitution and our Uniform Code of Military Justice provide a framework for dealing with the terrorists."

Tuesday, the McCain team drew a direct line between the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, saying that submitting the bombers to the criminal justice system was, in the words of former Navy secretary and 9/11 Commission member John Lehman, "a material cause" of the 2001 attacks. Lehman participated in the McCain conference call.

Lehman said grand jury evidence in the 1993 bombing was "put under seal" and not made available to the CIA, thus denying the agency timely access to information that "would have enabled many of the dots to be connected well before 9/11 and . . . give a good chance to have prevented" the later attack. In particular, he cited information concerning a connection between Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged ringleader of the 2001 attacks who is imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, and the bombing.

But both the report of the 9/11 Commission, which investigated intelligence failures leading to the 2001 strikes, and the prosecutor of the 1993 case disagreed with Lehman's version of history. The commission's final report, which Lehman endorsed as a member of the panel, gives no indication that any failure to share information on the bombing with the intelligence community had "significance for the story of 9/11."

Instead, the report cites political and intelligence failures to understand the scope of the terrorist threat after the 1993 attack, as well as a failure to fully analyze the implications of the available information. It also blames the FBI and the CIA for failing to effectively communicate with each other, problems that were later addressed in the USA Patriot Act and the reorganization of the intelligence community.

Grand jury secrecy "could have operated in these cases as a barrier to information flowing from law enforcement to intelligence," former U.S. attorney Mary Jo White, who successfully prosecuted six major terrorism cases including the 1993 bombing, said Tuesday. But, she added, "as a matter of fact it did not."

White and several people involved in the 9/11 Commission disputed Lehman's assertion that "the CIA was not allowed to see that evidence." Lehman also described then-CIA Director George J. Tenet as "flabbergasted at what he found in that material" once it was made available to him. But Tenet made no such claim in his 2007 book.

Far from being unknown to the intelligence community, Mohammed was indicted in January 1996 in connection with a plot to blow up transpacific airliners. The congressional joint inquiry on the Sept. 11 plot strongly suggested that the intelligence community was well aware of Mohammed's terrorist activities, but that agencies were unduly focused on apprehending him in the airline case rather than on other plots still in the planning stages.

DeYoung reported from Washington. Staff writers Alec MacGillis and Michael D. Shear and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

[fuzzybear9]

Hello America the next day

Fuzzy are you going to tell us more about your Big Toe ?

why yes, you didn`t think I would leave you hanging?

and since politics has hit an all time low.

lets see, oh yes the Toe

well after some pursuassion I took my big toe that got caught in a chain saw, down to the Walk in ER (not the name), I just love the gastly look the receptionist gives, when you tell her you caught your Big toe in a chain saw!

anyway the Doctor was mad because I didn`t bring it in immediately, she said that she could have sewed it up, What is it with you men?
any way so a Nurse #1 with a turtle smock gives me two shots a tetnus, and sumthin, then proceeds to flush a toe that has already closed itself with no success, Fuzzy did a really thourough cleaning,

then Nurse #2 the little meany, wheels Fuzzy into the sterilization chamber gives me a lead loin cloth and blasts me with high energy photons (x-rays),
which probably killed any bacteria.

then Nurse #3 (hindu) comes in and puts a bandge on my toe,

then Doctor she comes back in and says your x-ray looks clean, but we need to see big toe in a couple of days, then she asks if I want any pain killers on my prescription and I say no, Fuzzy is impervious to pain.

so after 4 hours, 3 x-rays, and two pin pricks,
and $20 deductible

that was my exciting day at the ER. with my Big Toe

sincerely Fuzzy Bear

[fuzzybear9]

Hello America and Iraqi War Vets

Fuzzy Bear what is the important topic today?

rather than talk about these two goofs.

lets talk about Fuzzy Bears big toe.

well let me just say that I think funding for the, vets and Farm are good Ideas, but I wish some of that money could be extended to a website for free medical advice.

Ask a Doctor

we have a serious national crisis in health care,
yesterday while cutting some trees for winter firewood, Fuzzy Bear ran the chainsaw blade through his big toe, fortunately when I pulled off my small leather shoe slippons, I still had a Big Toe attached
but the blade had made about a 1 inch gash and took off 1/4 of my toenail, It basically looked like hamburger.
now after bleeding profusely and soaking my foot in a soapy solution, and then using H2O2 I fixed it in a sterile badge, it is still throbbing.
but I didn''t go to an ER cause the last time I sliced my leg open the ER nurse refused to flush the wound, so I did this one myself, I think, I think I still have a valid tetnus shot.

my only beef is there is no website you can visit for free medical advice, even tho google says there is.

I wish the canadians or european medical associations could publish a website for immediate quick medical help, because the ama will not.

sincerely Fuzzy Bear
p.s. I know the nation would like to see a hamburger toe, and yes use steel toed shoes.

[lilvinnyb]

Awww how cute. Obama want to treat theses people who want to kill americans so nicely. Im sure they will give him a great big hug....just before they drive a knife in his back....what a wimp!

I cant believe people would let this man try and defend America.

[watcher269-2009]

Here''s REAL News - and McShame supports this!

WASHINGTON %u2014 The Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq''s Abu Ghraib prison accused the Bush administration Wednesday of committing "war crimes" and called for those responsible to be held to account.

The remarks by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who''s now retired, came in a new report that found that U.S. personnel tortured and abused detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using beatings, electrical shocks, sexual humiliation and other cruel practices.

"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes," Taguba wrote. "The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

[watcher269-2009]

Here''s REAL News - and McShame supports this!

WASHINGTON %u2014 The Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq''s Abu Ghraib prison accused the Bush administration Wednesday of committing "war crimes" and called for those responsible to be held to account.

The remarks by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who''s now retired, came in a new report that found that U.S. personnel tortured and abused detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using beatings, electrical shocks, sexual humiliation and other cruel practices.

"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes," Taguba wrote. "The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

[taotxzen]

But They''re All ''Ter-ist'' Who Cares What Happens to Them:

Former Army Secretary: A Third Of The Prisoners Don''t Belong In Guantanamo

America''s prison for terrorists often held the wrong men
Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: June 14, 2008 10:50:09 PM

GARDEZ, Afghanistan %u2014 The militants crept up behind Mohammed Akhtiar as he squatted at the spigot to wash his hands before evening prayers at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

They shouted "Allahu Akbar" %u2014 God is great %u2014 as one of them hefted a metal mop squeezer into the air, slammed it into Akhtiar''s head and sent thick streams of blood running down his face.

Akhtiar was among the more than 770 terrorism suspects imprisoned at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. They are the men the Bush administration described as "the worst of the worst."

(cont)

[taotxzen]

(cont)

But Akhtiar was no terrorist. American troops had dragged him out of his Afghanistan home in 2003 and held him in Guantanamo for three years in the belief that he was an insurgent involved in rocket attacks on U.S. forces. The Islamic radicals in Guantanamo''s Camp Four who hissed "infidel" and spat at Akhtiar, however, knew something his captors didn''t: The U.S. government had the wrong guy.

"He was not an enemy of the government, he was a friend of the government," a senior Afghan intelligence officer told McClatchy. Akhtiar was imprisoned at Guantanamo on the basis of false information that local anti-government insurgents fed to U.S. troops, he said.

An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that Akhtiar was one of dozens of men %u2014 and, according to several officials, perhaps hundreds %u2014 whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments.

(cont)

[taotxzen]

(cont)

McClatchy interviewed 66 released detainees, more than a dozen local officials %u2014 primarily in Afghanistan %u2014 and U.S. officials with intimate knowledge of the detention program. The investigation also reviewed thousands of pages of U.S. military tribunal documents and other records.

This unprecedented compilation shows that most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals. At least seven had been working for the U.S.-backed Afghan government and had no ties to militants, according to Afghan local officials. In effect, many of the detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies.

The investigation also found that despite the uncertainty about whom they were holding, U.S. soldiers beat and abused many prisoners.

Prisoner mistreatment became a regular feature in cellblocks and interrogation rooms at Bagram and Kandahar air bases, the two main way stations in Afghanistan en route to Guantanamo.

[taotxzen]

General who probed Abu Ghraib says Bush officials committed war crimes

More on this Story

* Story | Documents confirm U.S. hid detainees from Red Cross
* Story | ''If the detainee dies you''re doing it wrong''
* Story | Easing of laws that led to detainee abuse hatched in secret
* Story | U.S. abuse of detainees was routine at Afghanistan bases
* Story | Documents undercut Pentagon''s denial of routine abuse
* Story | America''s prison for terrorists often held the wrong men
* On the Web | McClatchy''s investigation of Guantanamo Bay detainees

By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON %u2014 The Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq''s Abu Ghraib prison accused the Bush administration Wednesday of committing "war crimes" and called for those responsible to be held to account.

(CONT)

[taotxzen]

(CONT)

The remarks by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who''s now retired, came in a new report that found that U.S. personnel tortured and abused detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using beatings, electrical shocks, sexual humiliation and other cruel practices.

"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes," Taguba wrote. "The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

Taguba, whose 2004 investigation documented chilling abuses at Abu Ghraib, is thought to be the most senior official to have accused the administration of war crimes. "The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture," he wrote.

A White House spokeswoman, Kate Starr, had no comment.

[kansas1946]

"He''s advocating a policy of delusion," Randy Scheunemann, a McCain adviser, said of Obama (D-Ill.). Former CIA director R. James Woolsey Jr. said Obama''s attitude "ignores that we are in a war against terrorism."

Scheunemann described Obama as having the "perfect manifestation of a Sept. 10 mind-set," saying he "does not understand the nature of the enemy as we face it."
*****************************

It is John McCain who is delusional and also a flip-flopper. I would hope Obama has a 9/10 mindset. When the United States was respected in the world and a leader in human rights, humane treatment of prisoners, fair treatment for accused criminals, the right to a trial, the right to face your accusers, the right to defend yourself, the presumption of innocence. A country that stood against torture and abuse of prisoners. A country that would defend herself if need be, but would never attack a sovergn nation without provocation.

Yes we can only pray that Obama has a 9/10 mindset.

[RaferJanders]

Ok how many times is this guy going to change his position? First he is against lifting the band on drilling, then he is for it, First he for closing GITMO now he is agaisnt the Supreme Court for siding
with side of law, First I was aginst it, Now I am for it, that is flip/floppin twice in as many days, SongBird just sings the song you want to hear, So he can get what he wants, Power and Control, Typical old short guy

[Syndicate]

"primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world"

So we wait until they blow stuff up then we arrest them. Stupid Democrats. So if you can''t get the warrant to listen in on phone calls and you can''t get the warrant to seize their bomb making materials. What do you do? Well if its law enforcement your hands are tied and you let them kill a bunch of people then you arrest them. If your approach is similar to Bush''s you drop a bomb on the safe house. Problem solved. I''ll vote for the guy with the closest strategy to mine. Hunt them down and kill them all.

[likeitis5050]

Oh how nice. As long as a Democrat is AWOL, it''''s OKAY.

Posted by ddhinnyc at 12:22 PM : Jun 18, 2008


I remember the dust Republicans would kick up every time Clinton blinked...granted he had given them plenty to be miffed about...but every single thing he did out of the ordinary or off the beaten path was scrutinized and criticized and the same people who insisted the Republicans were just playing politics are the same people now down Bush''s throat and playing patty cake with any thing the liberals want to do....it''s six of one and half dozen of the other. Politicians are scum....and I don''t care what party they line up behind. They are self-serving nit-pickers out to feather their own nests before doing anything for anyone else...and at the end of the day they all sit around together and chew the fat with each other. They are a necessary evil and can not be left alone for a second to fill their own calendar. Voters need to remember regardless which man wins, he serves everyone. Congress is so stupid right now they collectively can''t decide whether to scratch their watches or wind their butts. Voters need to align more in the center and stay focused to what the politicians,and what ever news media they manipulate, are doing to keep attention off the fact that they probably aren''t doing what anyone really wants 90% of the time.

[mr2258]

If this is the way things will be handled.TAKE NO PRISONERS !!!

[likeitis5050]

You mean the country hasn''''t been misled for the last 8 years, or do you mean since McCain has voted with Bush 95% of the time, he will now alter his course put the country on the right track?

Posted by dragonwagon5

If he had been that in step with Bush he wouldn''t be getting so much c.rap from conservatives about choices and decisions he''s made that line up too closely with liberals. Conservatives aren''t thrilled with him, and many are opting to sit out rather than vote for him. Doesn''t sound like much of a ''yes man'' to me.

[akhajawall]

Dear American Voters, reporters and political professionals,

Hon. Senator McCain and Obama, besides each having many attributes and characteristics. The critical differences between the two of these presidential presumptive nominees are as under:

1. Presidential "Temperament and Composer".
2. Little Washington "insider Versus outsider" experience.
3. "Vision and mission" for our nation future rather than past.
4. American policies, " first U.S.A Centric" than any other country [ ies ] centric.

In my professional opinion Senator Obama leads in all above qualities.

Please stay involved, stay engaged, and stay informed. Please do not allow any seduction, deception, and or confusion by some partisan media and leaders effect your vote [ Psychological Terrorism ]..