What should we do with Abdulmutallab?

The New Neo Posted on by

James Kirchik thinks we should waterboard him, because Abdulmutallab is a good example of the “ticking time bomb” scenario. I don’t even think waterboarding would be necessary—he’s hardly the hardened and veteran terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is. But I’m in complete agreement with Kirchik’s assertion that the Knickerbomber ought to be in Guantanamo being dealt with by the military justice system rather than the civilian, because he was trained by al Qaeda, a group that is at war with us, and he attempted mass murder of US citizens in furtherance of that struggle.

But no. The Obama administration is determined to give Abdulmutallab all the rights and privileges of the ordinary US citizen/murderer. Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder is even on record saying that, if we ever were to capture Osama Bin Laden (remember him?), he could be tried in our ordinary criminal justice system because we’ve got enough evidence to convict him—thereby showing how irredeemably clueless Holder is about the entire idea of obtaining intelligence information from these characters.

In a related item, Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan stated the supremely reassuring news that, although the Knickerbomber has clammed up now that he’s been lawyered up; never fear, a plea bargain is near. In other words, in the same time-honored fashion that the government gets the smaller fish in drug dealing cases to rat out the larger fish by offering them suspended or reduced sentences for testifying, we’re going to offer the Knickerbomber the same opportunity.

I’m sure that’ll get all the other terrorists to shaking in their shoes, dreading the wrath of the US government. It’s almost as though Obama and Holder and Brennan are trying to underline, and give greater validity to, Dick Cheney’s assertions that their policies have made us more vulnerable to terrorism.

[NOTE: And for anyone who wants to mount the tired old “but the Bush administration did the same with Richard Reid” argument, here’s my rebuttal.]

The constitutionality of Reidcare

The New Neo Posted on by

I agree with this WSJ article by Orrin Hatch, J. Kenneth Blackwell, and Kenneth A. Klukowski that the Senate health care reform bill is unconstitutional, representing an extension of federal power far beyond what was envisioned, intended, or allowed by the framers.

But I wonder whether it will matter. Conservative justices are likely to find it unconstitutional, liberal justices will rule for it, and swing justices are unpredictable. Right now the Court is unusually balanced, with four predictable liberals and four predictable conservatives and one unpredictable swing vote. But to overrule an act of Congress takes guts, and could this Court (particularly swing vote Kennedy) muster the requisite intestinal fortitude to do so in the face of an overwhelmingly liberal House, Senate, and President bent on passing this “historical, transformative” piece of legislation? Somehow, I doubt it.

Laughing all the way

The New Neo Posted on by

I found this You Tube video at Ann Althouse’s, featuring the bride who couldn’t stop laughing:

I have been known to fall prey to the same phenomenon, especially when pregnant—which was not at my own wedding, fortunately, but as a wedding spectator, in a pew that magnified the quaking/shaking tendency of my (or anyone else’s) laughter. It can be painful as well as embarrassing to laugh so much, at times even requiring a shameful exit from the scene.

On occasion I even have been known to laugh in my sleep so hard that it woke me up. Usually, it was at some joke that seemed indescribably, unbearably hilarious in the dream. But on wakening, it didn’t seem especially humorous at all. Anyone else ever had this happen?

Krauthammer on Obama on terrorists

The New Neo Posted on by

Krauthammer gets it, Obama doesn’t:

Obama reassured the nation that this [Knickerbomber] “suspect” had been charged. Reassurance? The president should be saying: We have captured an enemy combatant — an illegal combatant under the laws of war: no uniform, direct attack on civilians — and now to prevent future attacks, he is being interrogated regarding information he may have about al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Instead, Abdulmutallab is dispatched to some Detroit-area jail and immediately lawyered up. At which point — surprise! — he stops talking.

This absurdity renders hollow Obama’s declaration that “we will not rest until we find all who were involved.” Once we’ve given Abdulmutallab the right to remain silent, we have gratuitously forfeited our right to find out from him precisely who else was involved, namely those who trained, instructed, armed and sent him.

But, the Left says, what about Bush’s treatment of Richard Reid, the somewhat-analogous shoe bomber, who was tried and convicted in civilian courts for his attempted airline attack? I wrote about some of the differences between the two cases here: by then, Bush had already proven his seriousness about fighting terrorism through his behavior during the crucible of 9/11, the subsequent anthrax scare, and the Afgan war, all of which had occurred very recently and which completely dwarfed anything Reid had done.

But here’s another point: the prison at Guantanamo for illegal enemy combatants had not yet been set up when Richard Reid was taken into custody. Reid acted on December 21, 2001, but the first prisoners in the war on terror only came to Guantanamo (with a great deal of fanfare, and a great deal of media disapproval even at the outset) on January 11, 2002, to be housed in the temporary wire cages that featured so prominently in articles of the time. How could Reid have been sent to a place that didn’t yet exist, and tried under a system that had not yet been set up?

I suppose he could have been transferred there later, ex-post-facto. But no doubt that would have set up a host of legal appeals from his attorneys in the civilian court system under whose jurisdiction he already was at the time, and it probably would not have seemed worth the risk and trouble. Remember, again, it was only a few short months after the trifecta of 9/11, the anthrax scare, and the Afghanistan war. Reid seemed like small potatoes then, but only in comparison.

And not only had the alternative military legal system at Guantanamo not yet been set up and operating, but in addition, the vast majority of Americans were aware that our more muscular and serious response to terrorists was still being developed by the Bush administration. In stark contrast, by the time the Knickerbomber tried to bring down a Northwest Airlines plane over Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009, we expect a great deal more from our government. A great deal of time has passed. It has been almost a decade that we’ve been inconvenienced much more than ever before while traveling, and we would like something to show for it.

But instead we have a president who has trouble uttering the word “terrorists,” and who took many months to decide to listen to his own general’s request and send some of the troops he’d asked for into an Afghan war that Obama himself had hyped mightily during his own campaign. This same president has been relentless in criticizing the Guantanamo prison for illegal enemy combatants, and the system of military justice there that most Americans perceive as having helped kept us safe during the Bush administration. Despite this, Obama hasn’t been able to think of a better one, at least not in most people’s eyes.

In addition, as part of Obama’s war against the Guantanamo prison and the system of military justice for terrorists, his Attorney General, Eric Holder, is the official front man for the administration’s dreadful and dangerous decision to try the 9/11 terrorist (and Daniel Pearl beheader) Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in our civilian criminal justice system. Holder showed a remarkable combination of ignorance, incompetence, stupidity, and/or mendacity in public Senate questioning that many Americans were able to view on You Tube.

In short, Obama has not proven his mettle in fighting Islamicist terrorists. Americans are very uneasy; many are very angry. And rightly so.

Avatar: the war against humans

The New Neo Posted on by

I decided to go see the movie “Avatar” even though I knew that, as a futuristic action film loaded with special effects, it probably wasn’t going to make my top-ten list. The idea of a 3-D movie intrigued me, though, and it seemed absolutely necessary to see that sort of thing on the big screen.

And so I went. And so there was some pretty nifty technical wizardry indeed going on, with many attractive imaginary foliage and landscaping and astronomic visuals. But, even though I thought I was prepared beforehand by my son’s admonition “you’re not going to like the politics,” I was nevertheless surprised at how very far this particular film went with those politics.

In case you’ve been on a desert island for the last month or so, let me mention that “Avatar” features life on Pandora (an earth-ish moon in another solar system) in the year 2154, a place where aboriginal tall thin blue (very tall and thin; most people say they’re catlike, but they reminded me most of blue Barbie dolls with ET faces and tails) creatures called the Na’vi have reached a wonderfully respectful symbiotic relationship with each other and the world around them, and are threatened by rapacious and greedy mankind.

There’s a war of sorts, and just guess who fares poorly. In the meantime, we’re treated to statements on the part of the human soldiers on the Pandora outpost that go something like this (I’m doing this from memory, so it might not be verbatim): “We must fight terrorism with terrorism,” and “Let’s give them some shock and awe,” as well as a reference to “daisycutters.”

In addition to finding it odd that people in the year 2154 would still be referencing the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars of a hundred and fifty years earlier, I found it especially odd that this movie takes human-hatred many steps further than previous movies ever did.

In my youth (not so very long ago), the natives were often the bad guys and the cavalry good. That wasn’t quite right, either, as we children intuitively knew (and as I, who sided with the Indians partly because I looked somewhat like them and partly because my brother and his friends used to place me unwillingly in that role when they tied me and the other girls to neighborhood trees and war-whooped around us, most definitely knew).

But a few years later, cinema corrected that imbalance by providing us with films that advanced a more sympathetic view of native Americans, and then later offered a reversal in movies such as “Dances With Wolves” (another one I hated; way too long and way too violent for me) in which the US cavalry was for the most part the bad guy (what would Rin-Tin-Tin say?).

Same with extraterrestrials. First they came to kill us, then they came to entrance us (“Close Encounters of the Third Kind“), then to befriend and amuse us (“ET“). And, although they still come to kill us now and then (“Independence Day“), in “Avatar” it’s we who come to kill them. Humans are most definitely the bad guys, except for a few kind souls who cross over and defend the noble Na’vi (combination of Navajo and Hopi?).

That means that this film is the first I’m aware of in which, except for a few human heroes who are the exceptions, we’re meant to root and cheer for the destruction of humans in general. And destruction there is, aplenty. This fits in so nicely with the current notions of many of the AGW and PETA folks—that humans (especially of the first-world variety) are the scourge of an otherwise wonderful earth—that it makes me think the idea of humankind as a cancer on the planet has gone mainstream.

Yes, yes, I’m taking a frivolous movie too seriously. It’s just a fun romp with a lot of fine visuals, right? I suppose it is that. But movies have messages that reach many millions of people, and this one’s only just begun what promises to be a long and lucrative voyage around the globe.

New Year’s resolve

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, I broke my first New Year’s resolution of 2010 before I even got out of bed today. The idea was to keep more reasonable hours. How about you? Any resolves, broken or un?

As far as kissing the decade of the twenty-oughts goodbye, I might want to say “good riddance” to a decade that began for me with the very painful aftermath of a surgery, segued right into the breakup of my marriage (shortly after my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary), and featured 9/11, various wars, and the election of President Obama. On the other hand, I’ve been blessed by the fact that I finally did recover from that surgery, had some fun in the aftermath of that breakup, and of course (of course!) entered the blogosphere with all its many pleasures and rewards.

Here’s to the twenty-teens!

David Broder, tool

The New Neo Posted on by

David Broder, tool:

It came as no surprise to anyone who knows her that Napolitano handled the [Flight 253 bomber) incident and its aftermath with aplomb. In the years I have known her, she has managed every challenge that has come her way with the same calm command that she showed in this instance. If there is anyone in the administration who embodies President Obama’s preference for quiet competence with “no drama,” it is Janet Napolitano.

I would say her competence is very quiet.

New Years Eve: what are you doing?

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a slightly-edited version of a previous post.]

I have a confession to make: I’m not extraordinarily fond of New Years Eve.

Oh, back when I was a very little kid I remember liking it very much indeed. It was an opportunity to beg my parents to be allowed to stay up, and often I won that battle and had the thrill of watching the ball drop on TV.

Back then each year had seemed almost endless, and the punctuation of that last day, with its celebrations and dramatic turning of the number of the year into one we’d never seen before (wow! 1959! next, 1960!) was exciting and fresh. It also meant I was growing up, gaining in privilege and stature.

In high school it was still sort of fun—we went out in big packs, once or twice to Times Square to watch the whole thing in person. In college it became more problematic because I went home for Christmas vacation and was away from the boy friend de jour.

Then later on I was married. What do married people do on New Years? Parties still happened, but they were starting to end earlier and earlier (New Englanders don’t tend to be nightowls or wild partygoers, I’m afraid). For me they functioned mostly as an excuse for getting dressed up. It doesn’t help that I don’t drink much. Watching others get drunk has been an interesting spectator sport over the years, but not really my favorite activity.

As for that “growing in stature and privilege” thing—well, I’m kind of on the other side of that particular slope. Gaining in wisdom, perhaps; at least, that’s a consummation devoutly to be wished. And the passage of time seems to have accelerated at an alarming rate.

This year? Going out for a while, then coming in. Friends and loved ones it is.

And then on New Years Day: resolutions galore! Will they last more than a day this time? And the fervent hope that 2010 will be a much better one than 2009 was for this country, and the entire world.

So folks—what are you doing New Years Eve?

Shelby Steele on Obama’s emptiness

The New Neo Posted on by

Shelby Steele writes another impressive article about President Obama. In it, he offers the following analysis:

Mr. Obama won the presidency by achieving a symbiotic bond with the American people: He would labor not to show himself, and Americans would labor not to see him. As providence would have it, this was a very effective symbiosis politically. And yet, without self-disclosure on the one hand or cross-examination on the other, Mr. Obama became arguably the least known man ever to step into the American presidency.

Our new race problem””the sophistication of seeing what isn’t there rather than what is””has surprised us with a president who hides his lack of economic understanding behind a drama of scale…Mr. Obama’s economic thinking (or lack thereof) adds up to a kind of rudderless cowboyism combined with wishful thinking. You would think that in the two solid years of daily campaigning leading up to his election this nakedness would have been seen…

I think that Mr. Obama is not just inexperienced; he is also hampered by a distinct inner emptiness””not an emptiness that comes from stupidity or a lack of ability but an emptiness that has been actually nurtured and developed as an adaptation to the political world…

…[H]e has come forward in American politics by emptying himself of strong convictions, by rejecting principled stands as “ideological,” and by promising to deliver us from the “tired” culture-war debates of the past. He aspires to be “post-ideological,” “post-racial” and “post-partisan,” which is to say that he defines himself by a series of “nots”””thus implying that being nothing is better than being something. He tries to make a politics out of emptiness itself.

I think this is very finely put, but I would add the following: I do not believe that Obama’s political emptiness is real. Rather, I think he is quite full—of leftist ideology, that is. This political emptiness was (and still is, although the extent to which he can still manage to pull it off has diminished over time as his actions have begun to speak more loudly than his lofty words) a strategic pose that he adopted in order to get elected. His truer and deeper emptiness is an emotional one which, to paraphrase Steele, has been “nurtured and developed as an adaptation to the world in which he found himself as a child and young adult.” That, perhaps, is the most frightening part of all; I believe he lacks an inner core, and has filled the vacuum with an ideology that he plans to impose on this country if he possibly can, whether we like it or not.

That’s what “yes, we can” was all about.

Voting over—I’m still regent

The New Neo Posted on by

Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote in the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva contest. Voting has closed and Pam Geller has won (she’s really more the diva type anyway, don’t you think?). But thanks to all you stalwart voters I’ve managed to retain my regent crown with a nice comfy margin. The whole thing is just kind of fun, and I get that cool logo for my sidebar.