AU student responds to WSJ article

By Jennifer J. Foster

If you read my post last week about the ridiculous Wall Street Journal article about football and dating, you will be interested in this letter to the editor, which appeared in the print edition of the Opelika-Auburn News today.

Auburn University freshman Peyton Alsobrook was an interview subject for Ms. Hannah Karp. In her letter today, Peyton does a terrific job of responding—with class—to the charges Karp made in the article and the misconceptions she included therein.

War Eagle, Peyton.

President Obama’s biggest mistake

By Jennifer J. Foster

I try very hard not to make snap judgments about presidential moves and decisions. That went for President Bush, and it goes for President Obama. I know that presidents have access to information that we don’t, and I know that they have to take into consideration a whole litany of concerns that we on the outside cannot completely understand.

But it is clear that the biggest mistake to date of President Obama’s administration was his first one: A commitment to close the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year.

We noted here back in January, when the new president signed those papers, that Obama had no plan regarding what to do with those detainees—only that he was going to close the prison.

Well, with that self-imposed and unnecessary deadline now fewer than eight weeks away, it seems that President Obama is close to making a decision about what to do with them. And while it’s not unusual for presidents to steer certain projects and funding toward their home states while they occupy the Oval Office, I don’t think this is what the people of Illinois expected.

From Reuters:

Obama administration officials will visit a virtually empty Illinois prison this week as a possible location to house foreign terrorism suspects held at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison that President Barack Obama has vowed to shut by January, the state’s governor’s office said on Sunday.

“They are weighing their options and Illinois is among them,“ said Robert Reed, a spokesman for Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, a Democrat.

The plan being considered for the Thomson Correctional Center calls for the Federal Bureau of Prisons to operate it as a maximum-security prison for federal inmates and lease a portion to the Defense Department to house fewer than 100 Guantanamo detainees, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin said.

The Thomson Correctional Center, located about 150 miles (240 miles) west of Chicago, was built by Illinois in 2001 and has 1,600 cells. It currently houses only about 200 minimum-security prisoners.

The only thing more inconceivable than the idea of housing terrorist detainees on America’s mainland is the argument U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) makes for it:

Durbin said preliminary estimates show more than 3,000 jobs would be created, potentially injecting more than $1 billion into the local economy over the first four years of operation.

“This is an opportunity to dramatically reduce unemployment, create thousands of good-paying jobs and breathe new economic life into this part of downstate Illinois,“ Durbin, the U.S. Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, said in a statement.

Unbelievable.

Never mind the concept of enemy combantants. Never mind the idea of moving people who are being held because they want to attack the United States into the United States.

It’s all for the economy, you see.

And while we’re on the topic, Obama compounded his Guantanamo error by doing the unthinkable. From the Associated Press:

Attorney General Eric Holder announced the decision Friday to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to trial at a lower Manhattan courthouse hard by the site of the World Trade Center, whose twin towers they will be charged with destroying.

Again, this is a political decision with no basis whatsoever in necessity. In addition to endangering American lives and giving the terrorists a high-profile platform from which to brag about their crimes, Obama’s move actually expands the legal rights—rights bought and paid for in blood, by Americans for Americans—to their killers.

Hauling the professed 9/11 mastermind and four alleged henchmen to a New York courthouse is a risky proposition for President Barack Obama. The move will bar evidence obtained under duress and complicate a case where anything short of slamdunk convictions will empower the president’s critics.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced the decision Friday to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to trial at a lower Manhattan courthouse hard by the site of the World Trade Center, whose twin towers they will be charged with destroying.

The case is likely to force the civilian federal court to confront a host of difficult issues, including rough treatment of detainees, sensitive intelligence gathering and the potential spectacle of defiant terrorists disrupting proceedings. U.S. civilian courts prohibit evidence obtained through coercion, and a number of detainees were questioned using harsh methods some call torture.

Holder insisted both the court system and the untainted evidence against the five men are strong enough to deliver a guilty verdict and the penalty he expects to seek: a death sentence for the deaths of nearly 3,000 people who were killed when four hijacked jetliners slammed into the towers, the Pentagon, and a field in western Pennsylvania.

Let me make this clear: He’s better be right.

It is inconceivable enough that terrorists would be brought to the mainland to face trial for 9/11. Failure to win convictions on 100 percent of the charges against them, and the capital punishment they deserve for their crimes, would be utterly unforgivable.

Supporters of the president who back his decision to pursue KSM’s trial in civilian court seem to be couching their support for it based on their confidence in the federal court system to handle the increased strains and stresses that will be brought to bear by the most high-profile trial in American history.

But—and opponents of the civilian approach need to make this point—it isn’t that the federal courts can’t handle it. It’s that KSM and his fellow conspirators don’t deserve to be tried there.

Obama’s decision is confusing, not only because of the trauma it will cause families, but because it was a split decision. Obama and Holder see no problem bringing KSM and the other four terrorist detainees to the mainland U.S. for trials, but they will try those accused of plotting the attack on the U.S.S. Cole—and killing U.S. sailors—in the military tribunal system.

U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is right: This makes NO SENSE. From CNN:

Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain, however, contended that the decision to hold a civilian trial for some suspected terrorists and a military trial for others sent “a mixed message about America’s resolve in the fight against terrorism.“

“If military tribunals are suitable for the terrorists who attacked our sailors aboard the USS Cole ... then military tribunals are certainly the right venue to try the al Qaeda terrorists, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who murdered thousands of innocent civilians on September 11, 2001,“ he said.

So why split the trials? Why the two approaches? Why extend constitutional protections to KSM and those four? Why take the chance that something could go wrong?

Holder said he decided to bring Mohammed and the other four before a civilian court rather than a military commission because of the nature of the undisclosed evidence against them, because the 9/11 victims were mostly civilians and because the attacks took place on U.S. soil. Institutionally, the Justice Department, where Holder has spent most of his career, has long wanted to reassert the ability of federal courts to handle terrorism cases.

Lawyers for the accused will almost certainly try to have charges thrown out based on the rough treatment of the detainees at the hands of U.S. interrogators, including the repeated waterboarding, or simulated drowning, of Mohammed.

Oh, that’s why. To make a political point. President Obama and his Justice Department seem to welcome that presumed move from the detainees’ lawyers. It is their idea of putting the Bush Administration’s terrorist detainee facility at Gitmo through a “perp walk” of sorts: In closing Gitmo, and in having charges dismissed based on things that happened there, the Obama Administration hopes to win global absolution for the prison and the intelligence-gathering techniques that they consider morally reprehensible.

You know what’s morally reprehensible? Putting politics above national security. Extending to foreign terrorists who have killed Americans the constitutional rights won by and reserved for Americans.

It is a terrible, incredible, inconceivable mistake.

See also:

Plan for 9/11 trial in New York divides the city: This story from The Sunday (U.K.) Times details the split among New Yorkers about having KSM’s trial in the Big Apple. On the one hand, they want revenge, and having the trial in their backyard is an opportunity for them to treat them to comeuppance, New York style. On the other hand, with so many thousands killed on 9/11, millions of the bereaved remain, and they will be subjected to the grandstanding and pontificating of KSM and his co-conspirators.

Many, many New Yorkers are in both camps.

As much as some may want the chance to face KSM, they should not be asked to go through the trauma of 9/11 again.

President Obama has done New Yorkers, and his country, a disservice with his decision to bring the terrorists into Manhattan.

Hillary. Sarah. Coffee. Really?

By Jennifer J. Foster

From the Associated Press:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she would be happy to talk to Sarah Palin over coffee.

In an interview for broadcast Sunday on NBC television’s “Meet the Press,“ Clinton says she’s never met the one-time Republican vice presidential hopeful and former Alaska governor and thinks it would be very interesting to sit down and talk with her.

Clinton was responding to a question about a passage in Palin’s new book. Palin writes that if she and Clinton ever meet for coffee, “I know that we would fundamentally disagree on many issues.“ ...

Clinton, in Singapore for a meeting of world leaders, says she’s ready to have a cup of coffee and maybe she could make a case on some of the issues on which the two women disagree.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that discussion!

Clinton-meets-Palin would be “very interesting”? I’d call that the understatement of the century.

Pundits are abuzz over Clinton’s friendly reception to Palin’s written hypothetical. Mark Sappenfield, writing for the Christian Science Monitor, could hardly contain himself, even coming up with a catchy name for the potential Central Perk-meets-politics event:

It was, almost certainly, a moment of Sunday morning small talk. Yet if cable news’ coverage of Obama’s Beer Summit is anything to go by – with their countdown timers to zero hour and careful deconstruction of each man’s beer selection – CNN, Fox News, and MSBNC are surely mustering all of their resources into seeing if there is any possible way to bring about Clinton Kaffeklatsch (a.k.a. “Beer Summit, the Sequel”).

Yes, cable news’ coverage ... and, dudes writing for the Christian Science Monitor.

As Sappenfield notes, Clinton declined to attack Palin during the 2008 presidential campaign, even when she was given plenty of opportunity—and legitimate reason—to do so. So who knows? Maybe the two would actually—cough cough—get along!!!

Then again, that wouldn’t exactly be good for Palin’s image, what with Hillary being the Wicked Witch of the East to all those Republican women (read: people to whom Palin is trying to sell her book).

Oh well. We can dream!!

This week’s column

By Jennifer J. Foster

In case you missed it in Saturday’s Opelika-Auburn News, or if you live outside the print delivery area, my most recent column is now online. Check it out:

To honor veterans, make a lifelong commitment

This week’s column includes a list of organizations that support veterans. These organizations are not limited to veterans themselves. Please check out the links and find a way to get involved in honoring our American veterans.

Then pass the list along to your family and friends. Our veterans deserve their support, too.

P to the U to the T-I-N

By Jennifer J. Foster

You’re familiar with the concept of politicians putting on various masks—literally and figuratively—to win the support of otherwise skeptical voters?

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin may have jumped the shark on that.

From Reuters:

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rubbed shoulders with rappers and was hailed with “respect” in a television show on Friday that could help boost his flagging ratings.

Putin, wearing a turtleneck sweater and jacket, went on stage to present awards to participants in “Battle for Respect”, a hip-hop music contest run by Muz TV, a Russian rival to MTV ...

Despite hip-hop’s violent image, Putin had a stern message for the rappers about healthy living.

“I do not think that ‘top-rock’ or ‘down-rock’ breakdance technique is compatible with alcohol or drugs,“ Putin told cheering hip-hoppers who responded with chants of “Respect, Vladimir Vladimirovich”.

Whoo boy.

Putin’s advisers insist that Hip-Hop Putin—like Bare-Chested Putin, Siberian Tiger Putin and Biker Putin—have nothing to do with his flagging approval ratings.

Hey, maybe they’re just setting the stage for a line of Putin action figures.

It would be a lot less embarrassing that way.