Yes, There's Still a War On

And, yes, Obama's been clobbered with reality, and, yes, the Left will mostly pretend it isn't an issue because, yes, they're all big fat phonies. Oh, and, yes, being clobbered with reality doesn't mean Obama's giving up all his retarded ideas, just the most inconvenient ones.

The story.

A Somali militant linked to Al Qaeda was held and interrogated for two months on a U.S. Navy ship — the first publicly known example of the Obama administration secretly detaining a new terrorism suspect outside the criminal justice system.

Senior administration officials revealed the case Tuesday after an indictment against the man, Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, was unsealed in federal court in New York. The indictment, which does not mention Warsame's military detention, charges that he worked to broker a weapons deal between Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen and the Somali militant group Shabab. It alleges that he fought on Shabab's behalf in Somalia in 2009, then went to Yemen in 2010 for explosives training and took part in terrorist activities there.

Secret detentions? Prison ship? Cue the outrage, I'll wait.

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What do you mean there are no calls for impeachment, no cries of "ILLEGAL!", no Sense-of-the-Senate proposals condemning violations of treaty conventions? Because I'm pretty sure that Obama said detained terrorists are to be treated in accord with the Geneva Conventions, to which the United States is a signatory, and detaining and interrogating an alien on a naval vessel would be in violation of Article 22 of Geneva Convention (III). Didn't the President make a big to-do about complying with international law?

What a joke. If all our lives weren't at stake, it would be comical to see Obama stumble his way through each terrorism-related event, each time getting knocked further and further from anything like coherent, effective leadership.

Lemme see if I've got this right. The President acknowledges that we have to interrogate these guys. He's admitted that, finally. But he cannot send terrorists to U.S. detention sites on our allies' territory because he railed against that when Bush 43 did it. He cannot send terrorists to the major detention facility created for that purpose on territory we control because he similarly railed against that at a time when he had no real responsibilities and despite the fact that he has now conceded that it will remain in operation indefinitely. He cannot send them straight to the United States because then we couldn't interrogate them and he has surrendered to the fact that we need to interrogate them.

Solution: avoid this entire mess of his own creation by secretly detaining terrorists on naval vessels and as far as international (or domestic law) goes just fugedaboudit. Too. Much. Trouble. Presidentin'. Is. Hard.

Oh, here's another Obama snowball-into-avalanche mess:

Warsame was turned over to the FBI after extensive "humane" interrogation aboard ship by a unit known as a High-Value Interrogation Group, made up of FBI, CIA and Defense Department personnel, the officials said. But a U.S. official said CIA officers did not directly question Warsame. After the controversy surrounding George W. Bush-era interrogations of detainees, the CIA has consistently said it has kept its agents away from direct questioning.

I originally went through there bolding the important bits, but when I got to the end, practically the whole thing was bolded. Read it again, Sam. The CIA literally won't touch terrorist interrogations with a ten foot pole. Not even "humane" interrogations. And that's a direct result of Obama's and AG Holder's witchhunt. (See this must-read column on that issue.)

At the end of these interrogations, Warsame was Mirandized and then turned over to the FBI, which reportedly built its own independent and "untainted" case against him. Warsame will be tried in New York City for aiding Al Qaeda, assuming he doesn't take a plea deal first.

Slightly, but not really related: Early in the week, Gleen told me to seek a psychiatrist because I don't care about so-called "torture." I just. Don't. Care. that the pseudo-, not-even-real-torture that Obama won't even let us do anymore was used to retrieve valuable intelligence from some of the world's worst human beings. Don't. Care. And in fact, I'm positively gleeful that every court to consider lawsuits on the basis of that pseudo-torture has kicked those lawsuits to the curb. The judges don't care either, Gleen.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 10:01 AM

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