Global Justice Initiative
Josh Meyer has an interesting article in the Los Angeles Times about the greater role the FBI will play in the investigation and prosecution of terrorist activity in the Obama administration:
The FBI and Justice Department plan to significantly expand their role in global counter-terrorism operations, part of a U.S. policy shift that will replace a CIA-dominated system of clandestine detentions and interrogations with one built around transparent investigations and prosecutions.
Under the “global justice” initiative, which has been in the works for several months, FBI agents will have a central role in overseas counter-terrorism cases. They will expand their questioning of suspects and evidence-gathering to try to ensure that criminal prosecutions are an option, officials familiar with the effort said.
Of course, this shift from a military and intelligence-gathering to a law enforcement and criminal prosecution model is the Bush hawks’ worst nightmare. Stephen F. Hayes darkly speculates that Pres. Obama is “trying to kill the CIA.” Ed Morrissey suggests that we ask ourselves, “… between the convictions of the 1993 WTC attack and 9/11, how many al-Qaeda terrorists got convicted in American courts, and how many terrorist attacks did the law-enforcement approach prevent?”
Well, now, the wording of that question is quite clever, is it not? “Between the convictions of the 1993 WTC attack and 9/11. …” Meaning: Not including the five convictions, in American courts, of terrorists involved in the 1993 WTC attack, how many Al Qaeda terrorists were convicted in American courts?
Well, let’s see: Discounting those five convictions, zero. And at Guantanamo: Discounting those three convictions in the Guantanamo military tribunals and January 20, 2009, also zero.
So what have we shown, here? We have shown that the law enforcement approach resulted in five terrorist convictions between 1993 and 9/11/01, and the military tribunals approach resulted in three terrorist convictions between 9/11/01 and 1/20/09. We have also shown that if we do not count the five law enforcement convictions, there were zero convictions. Plus, we have shown that if we do not count the three military tribunal convictions, there were zero convictions.
Are we having fun yet?
One Response to “Global Justice Initiative”
You're right. Rather than keep a conviction count of Terrorists, perhaps we can tally up the number of civilians killed by terrorist actions. We can draw a line from after 9/11 when the FBI was replaced in their law enforcement paradigm with the military's prosecution of a war on terror. To be totally fair we can even keep statistics of soldier deaths as well. Then we can compare that with what happens in the future using the implementation date of the GJI under Obama. Maybe our new president's “kindler, gentler” methods of reading Miranda rights to non US Citizens, who are also not legal combatants under the Geneva Convention, will convince those religious fanatics to follow a different path. Yeah, that's the ticket!