George Bush's Terrorism Pander-Rama

Isn't it just extraordinary that the Bush administration has yet to obtain a single major conviction of a terrorist beyond Zacharias Moussaoui despite incarcerating hundreds of men, some in secret gulags, over the last five years, but in a spasm of activity is transferring the hardest of the hard core to Guantánamo Bay and wants Congress to give it permission to try them before military tribunals?

Well, no, it's not extraordinary at all. It's more election year pandering by a White House looking down the wrong end of a gun.

This is the part of the movie where we note that some of these so-called enemy combatants, including Khalid Sheik Muhammad, a 9/11 mastermind, are very bad people. But where the hell has the administration been the last five years?

Some reactions to President Bush's speech:

Spencer Ackerman opines on the detention of Khalid Sheik Muhammad at New Republic Online and the bind the administration has put itself in:

Look deeper and not only is the White House not giving an inch in the debate, the KSM Shift of 2006 actually takes a mile. That's because, to be blunt, we have tortured the dickens (to use a Rumsfeldian locution) out of KSM. All Guantánamo detainees, according to the Supreme Court, have the right to at least some access to the U.S. legal system. KSM, therefore, will pose an interesting test: Should his probable trial reflect the legal doctrine of the "fruit of the poisoned tree" - that is, will evidence obtained through torture be admissible in the military tribunals or not? McCain's Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 says "of course not!" but Bush indicated in his infamous "signing statement" that he thinks he has the right to torture whoever he pleases.

Now Congress will face a very unpleasant question: Unless it rejiggers the military tribunals to bless torture/coercion, KSM and other Al Qaeda figures might in fact be set free by the courts. Is Bush so cynical as to force Congress into the odious position of either setting the stage for murderers to walk out of Gitmo or blessing torture? Of course he is!

Wretchard is smoking the good stuff over at the Belmont Club:

This should have been done from the first and it should have been done while the ashes of the WTC were still smoldering. Nevertheless better late than never. It is entirely possible that the President's proposals will be rejected in their entirety or substantially watered down in the Congress; but on the other hand it's possible they may be approved. No politician likes to take responsibility for exposing the public to danger by treating terrorists with kid gloves yet no one likes to admit that the Geneva convention is inadequate for dealing with global terrorist threat. Now the dilemma can no longer be avoided. And since Hamdan decided the question cannot be left to the President alone, it is now before the nation in the shape of a request to Congress. Not everyone will be satisfied with whatever results; some will think the rules too soft, others too harsh. But either way the issues can no longer be avoided. And that's good because either way, for good or ill, the war against terrorism must be America's war and not just President Bush's.

The Washington Post praises and condemns in an editorial:

More broadly, Mr. Bush asked Congress to approve a legal framework for the trial of terrorist suspects, which would make the nation's response to the threat posed by al-Qaeda the product of democracy rather than secret executive decisions.Yet as Mr. Bush took these constructive steps, he also undermined them. He delivered a full-throated defense of the CIA's "alternative set of procedures" that the world properly regards as torture. With an election pending and families of Sept. 11 victims as his audience, he demanded legislative action on issues of enormous complexity in the few remaining days of the congressional session. And the bill he sent to Congress would authorize the administration to resume some of the worst excesses of the past five years.

Captain Ed uses pretzel logic at Captain's Quarters:

[Bush's] speech should remind people . . . that we aren't fighting against an honorable enemy, one that fights under the rules of war set by sovereign nations. They want to kill civilians, and their efforts land them far outside the scope of the American justice system. We need to continue vigorously gathering intelligence from captured terrorists, and then make a determination on their guilt and damage to the U.S. in a way that doesn't harm our ability to capture others. Treat them humanely, but don't treat them as American residents or even as POWs.

And me:

What this is all about is seeking ex post facto approval for secret prisons, torture practices like waterboarding, extralegal prosecutions and other practices that have made America the shame of the free world as it claims to be defending the free world.

What is so bloody sad is that none of this 11th hour pandering would have been necessary if the administration had played by the rules. You know, the rules that the Pentagon brass believe should be obeyed to keep its own combatants out of harms way should they be captured. And, you know, the rules on that little piece of paper called the U.S. Constitution.