Al Megrahi: the terrorist who didn’t die

The New Neo Posted on by

Ah, how time flies. It seems it was only yesterday that Lockerbie terrorist Al Megrahi was released by Scottish authorities on compassionate grounds and sent home to Libya to die.

It may seem only yesterday, but in fact it’s been three months—exactly. And three months, you may recall, was the amount of time Al Megrahi had left to live, in the best estimates of his Scottish doctors. But it should come as no surprise whatsoever that Al Megrahi is still alive.

I’m not asking that Al Megrahi die. I’m merely asking that he be returned to prison, where he belongs—and where he should have stayed in the first place, even if the three months’ prediction had been correct. I’m joined in this position by none other than New York’s Senator Charles Schumer, who says he’s written a letter to Gordon Brown asking for Al Megrahi’s immediate return to prison.

A spokeswoman for Scottish Justice Minister Kenny Macaskill gave this answer:

For Megrahi to be recalled, he would need to breech one or more conditions of his license. Not dying withing three months is not one of those conditions.

Here’s the best report I could find on Al Megrahi’s medical progress since leaving the UK three months ago. It seems that after his hero’s welcome he entered a Tripoli hospital, where the Libyans somehow found a more effective way to treat his cancer than the Scottish medical system could offer:

[Al Megrahi] entered [a] Tripoli hospital to undergo an aggressive chemotherapy programme just days after Libyans celebrated his triumphal return.

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime publicly declared its hope that “a miracle from God” would preserve his life…Under the terms of the medical parole arrangement made with the Scottish government, Megrahi was supposed to communicate with officials weekly via a videolink installed in his family home.

Megrahi has now been sent back to the family’s villa in central Tripoli where a police guard keeps unauthorised visitors at bay. The family has been ordered to sever contacts with journalists.

Here’s an article whereby we learn some background; “only prisoners with three months or less to survive are eligible for release on compassionate grounds.” No doubt it’s a complete coincidence that Al Megrahi was found to have about three months to live, that he was then released, and that he’s still alive three months later.

The only real question seems to be: were the Scottish and/or other UK authorities played by al Megrahi, or were they in cahoots with him in order to get rid of him?

Obama: fool or knave?

The New Neo Posted on by

As Obama goes from weakness to weakness instead of strength to strength, the question keeps popping up: is he fool or knave? In other words: is he merely ignorant and incompetent, or is his course of action cleverly and intentionally designed to weaken this country, undermine its economy, and grow his own power?

For a while, “fool” was the leader. But the “knave” camp has been building for quite some time now.

Of course, the two attributes are not mutually exclusive. It’s a big tent; there’s room for both.

And if you want to be philosophical about it, that may not be such a bad thing. If we must have a knave as president, he may as well be a fool as well. That way he’s more likely to be unsuccessful at accomplishing his goals.

Beginning Saturday, at a Senate far from you: health care disaster in the making?

The New Neo Posted on by

On Satuday, the the Senate will vote on whether to move Reidcare forward by cutting off further debate on the issue. Senate Republican Tom Coburn, who had promised to read the entire bill into the record before such a vote, has relented and decided that it’s more important that everybody get home way before Thanksgiving.

We wouldn’t want Senators and their aides to have to fight the holiday traffic like the rest of us, would we? And debate? I hear it’s highly overrated. At any rate, it’s becoming a thing of the past.

Let the wild rumpus begin!

Lindsey Graham gives Eric Holder a lesson in the law

The New Neo Posted on by

This is a very different Lindsey Graham from the one we’re used to. This Lindsey Graham is sharp and articulate, charged with righteous outrage at Eric Holder and Barack Obama’s unjustifiable decision to try KSM in a civilian criminal proceeding.

Heck, Holder doesn’t even really make an attempt to justify it. Even if you didn’t think much of Holder before, it remains shocking to see how extraordinarily little he appears to have thought about the legal issues involved. He has no answer for Graham, and he seems to sense early on in the questioning that he’s caught in a trap, and can find no way out.

It’s almost painful to watch as Holder stutters his way through the interrogation. This is the Attorney General of the United States?

After watching this, I became curious to learn more about Graham’s own background. He is acting like a lawyer here, and a good one at that. When I read his Wiki entry, it all made sense. It turns out that Graham just happens to have the perfect background to speak knowledgeably on this issue [emphasis mine]:

Graham graduated from the University of South Carolina with a B.A. in Psychology in 1977 and from the University of South Carolina School of Law with a J.D. in 1981. Upon graduating, Graham was sent to Europe as a military prosecutor, and eventually entered private practice as a lawyer.

Graham decided to join the United States Air Force in 1982, and served on active duty until 1988. Following his departure he stayed in the military, joining the South Carolina Air National Guard and the U.S. Air Force Reserves. During the Gulf War, he was recalled to active duty, serving as a Judge Advocate at McEntire Air National Guard Station in Eastover, South Carolina, where he helped brief departing pilots on the laws of war.

In 2004, Graham received a promotion to Colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserves at a White House ceremony officiated by President George W. Bush. Graham served in Iraq as a reservist on active duty for short periods during April and two weeks in August 2007, where he worked on detainee and rule-of-law issues. He also served in Afghanistan during the August 2009 Senate recess.

No wonder Graham cleaned Holder’s clock.

[NOTE: Attorney General Holder reminded me of nothing so much as one of the faltering and poorly prepared law students sweating it out under Professor Kingsfield’s Socratic method in “The Paper Chase:”

Finally, a New York Times article I can recommend—with gusto

The New Neo Posted on by

Thanksgiving’s coming, and if you’re like me you try to get an invite somewhere else. But sometimes, yes, the cooking falls to you and yours.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing—but again, if you’re like me, it can be a stressful thing. There’s just so much to do on that day that it’s possible to be too worn out to fully enjoy it when the guests actually arrive.

But it’s the NY Times to the rescue, with 101 head starts on the day, dishes you can make ahead of time and serve with the obligatory turkey. The article is helpfully divided into sections for relishes and chutneys, soups, stuffing and grains, vegetables (a particular challenge for making ahead, I’ve found, and nicely handled by the Times), salads, breads and crackers, and the one that’s ordinarily no challenge at all and for which we usually need no help—dessert.

Thank you, NY Times. There, I’ve said it. You may not ever see those words emanate again from this source.

Ask the 1993 WTC prosecutor what he thinks

The New Neo Posted on by

So, if the Left’s best argument for trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in the civilian justice system is that we’ve done so well getting terrorists convicted there before, why is Andy McCarthy, the prosecutor of the case they cite the most—the 1993 WTC bombing—so dead set against it?

He’ll tell you himself:

For what it’s worth, I think the team I led in the Blind Sheikh case did an excellent job, and we also convicted everybody. But that is not the measure of success. It’s not whether the government wins the litigation; it’s whether the national security of the United States has been harmed more by having the trial than it would have been harmed by handling the detainees in a different manner.

Further, if we are going to have military commissions at all (and Holder says we will continue to have them), it makes no sense to transfer the worst war criminals to the civilian system. Doing so tells the enemy that they will get more rights if they mass-murder civilians.

The question is not whether the prosecutors are able, whether they’ll do a spectacular job, and whether they’ll get these guys. They are extraordinarily competent, they will perform at a very high level, and I’ll be shocked if they don’t win the case. The issue is: What damage will we sustain by doing things this way, and is there a way we could do them without sustaining that much damage

Ah, but McCarthy must be afraid of terrorists. And he must not trust our civilian criminal legal system. And what would he know about it, anyway?

The liberal meme de jour: those cowardly conservatives, afraid of the US criminal justice system

The New Neo Posted on by

The word is out: the best way to defend Obama and Holder’s execrable decision to try KSM in civilian courts is that it’s just another example of the fraidy-cat nature of those well-known cowards, the conservatives. For example, we have Holder’s statement that:

We need not cower in the face of this enemy. Our institutions are strong, our infrastructure is sturdy, our resolve is firm, and our people are ready.

Unsurprisingly, Kos says something similar in an article in the Hill—conservatives are cowards who don’t trust the American justice system: “Seems that macho conservatives are terrified of shackled terrorists in orange jumpsuits and the United States Constitution.”

You can see virtually the same accusation in the comments section of almost any blog that has discussed the KSM trial. It’s not just the argument de jour; it’s the only argument the liberals have, and they’re working it for all it’s worth.

Which is: nothing. It’s a fun argument, though. It sounds good, it turns those macho conservatives on their heads, and as for logic—well, who cares? But for anyone who does still care, let me just say that the military justice system is part of the US legal system, is in full accord with our Constitution, and has a long tradition of successfully trying war criminals, terrorists, and illegal enemy combatants, the category into which KSM most definitely falls. It is a question of which system of justice is most suitable for KSM.

As for fear—well, I’ve dealt with this question already here:

The real question is whether the fear is realistic or whether it is exaggerated, and whether the person is paralyzed by that fear, or whether he/she takes appropriate action to forestall the feared consequences.

The left has its own fears, of course, and they are potent motivators, as well. As previously stated, they fear abuse of power by our own government in the pursuit of national security more than any foreign threat. To parse it even more finely, sometimes it seems that they fear abuse of power by a Republican executive branch more than anything; back in the days of FDR they liked a powerful federal government well enough, when it was run by a Democrat.

I would add that the current stance of conservatives towards KSM and his civilian trial shouldn’t even be called “fear”—it could best be described as troubled concern, and justified concern at that. Why give other terrorists the sensitive intelligence information that any civilian KSM trial will of necessity drag from the prosecution? Why is the system of military justice perfectly fine for our own military, as well as the other less-well-known Guantanamo resident terrorists who have specifically not been exempted from it by the recent Holder/Obama decisions?

Why, indeed—because military justice doesn’t afford the Left the same golden opportunity to embarrass Bush, Cheney, and the CIA.

[ADDENDUM: Oh, and speaking of the American criminal justice system—Obama-style….]

Mammograms: don’t you bother your pretty little heads about them

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s difficult to understand the new mammogram recommendations that suggest that women who are not in high risk groups because of genetic predispositions to breast cancer only begin screening at fifty, and then only every other year, and that doctors should stop recommending breast self-examinations. The reason given is that such things only save a few lives (one in 1,904 women in the age 40 to 49 group) but can cause unnecessary anxiety and unnecessary biopsies.

This is a disturbing calculus. The listed harms of extra mammograms seem minor although more frequent, the benefits admittedly less frequent but rather more major—life vs. death, for example. And deaths in the age group specified—women in their forties—involve a population of young mothers. We’re not talking about death squads for grandma here; we’re talking about mommy.

The panel making these recommendations is, according to the Times, an “influential group that provides guidance to doctors, insurance companies and policy makers.” The attempt to weigh these things in a cost-benefit analysis is exactly what we fear will become more frequent with ObamaPelosiCare. Although this already happens to a certain extent with insurance companies, is there anyone here who thinks the restrictions will become more rational and less Draconian when government is in charge? If you do, there’s a certain bridge in Brooklyn that I might be able to offer you…

Many doctors and many women are skeptical of the new guidelines, as well they should be. I can’t imagine that these new rules will reduce the amount of anxiety in women about breast cancer, either, if that’s the goal; it seems that women have a lot of anxiety about the new rules themselves, as well as the reasons behind the change.

And here’s an ominous line from the original article: The guidelines are not expected to have an immediate effect on insurance coverage…

Well, just wait folks. You ain’t seen nothin yet.

[NOTE: Breath of the Beast has a very interesting thought experiment on the subject.]

[NOTE II: Here’s a link to the full study. I’ve only given it the most cursory skimming possible, although I plan to take some time later to read it more fully. I’d be curious what the scientists among you have to say, but what I’ve gleaned from my very brief look at it is that: (a) the assumptions behind it are somewhat shaky, as is true in a great deal of research dealing with human subjects and effectiveness evaluations; (b) it’s mostly about “efficiency;” and (c) the study found that, if you look at years-of-life saved rather than lives saved, mammography for women in their 40s is more cost-effective than for women in their later years, a fact which is not mentioned in most of the popular articles about the research, nor does it appear to have affected the recommendations of the researchers themselves.]

Bowing to Mao—you be the judge

The New Neo Posted on by

Another non-surprise is that Obama’s defenders have been poring through old footage to find presidential bows similar to Obama’s. They’ve come up with this one from Nixon to Mao (at minute 1:24):

I admit that I don’t like it. But it’s a little head bob compared to Obama’s extraordinarily deep obeisance. What’s more, in Obama’s case the bow is symbolic of his policies to humble America. In Nixon’s, the intent and the policies were—different.

If you’re going to bow to someone, however, I’d rather it be to the present emperor of Japan than to Chairman Mao, one of the great tyrants of history. Then again, it seems ironic when the Left offers Nixon as an example of the president whom Obama is supposedly emulating.