Cafe de Mello

This is in part a response to Eva Rodriguez’s post “Don't buy the administration's spin on the Christmas day bomber” in today’s Washington Post. That Ms. Rodriguez, who can be fairly reasonable (e.g. “No KSM trial in Manhattan, after all?” and “On Alito's State of the Union head wag, you're all wrong.”), is so ready to abandon the rule of law, may serve as an example of why the Republican’s scare tactics are so dangerous to America.

Ms. Rodriguez views recent reports detailing how Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, known as the underwear bomber, is now providing lots of valuable information to the FBI as an admission of failure. In her view, rather than reading Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights after his initial 50 minute interrogation, he should have promptly been dragged off to some military prison and what? Waterboard him? Have the Republican’s learned nothing?

Ms. Rodriquez’s central point is that some of the information may have gone stale, and that military interrogation would have gotten to the information more quickly. Says who?

Remember our experience with our first high value captive Abu Zubaida. Based on the information he provided after he was waterboarded and subjected to other “harsh interrogation” our intelligence agencies sped off on months of wild goose chases. Why? Because Abu Zubaida lied to get the torture to stop. He did, however, provide a quantity of useful information, before he was waterboarded. It is quite possible, I would say probable, that treating Mr. Abdulmutallab in a civilized fashion has produced more and better intelligence than other methods would have.

Ms. Rodriguez also missed the fact that these days (since the US signed on to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and ratified the US Constitution in 1788) Mr. Abdulmutallab had the right to an attorney whether he was detained at military facility or a county jail. He had provided actionable intelligence before he went in for medical treatment (which was what terminated his initial interrogation), and that he had stopped talking before he was Mirandized.

And as to the danger in the delay, if any, in getting information from Mr. Abdulmutallab, I suspect that Ms. Rodriguez needs to point to all the terrorist attacks that have been carried out in the US since Abdulmutallab’s arrest. I must have missed them while watching Countdown or some other work of liberal propaganda.

And speaking of liberal propaganda, the next attack you will hear coming from the right is that Obama’s administration has put us all in danger by releasing the information that Abdulmutallab is cooperating with the FBI. In other words, the Republicans are going to argue that the Obama administration should have allowed itself to be pilloried and the American people terrified by the Republican’s railing against Mr. Abdulmutallab’s treatment rather than disclose that the administrations methods are working.

As to Ms. Rodriguez’s last point that various intelligence agencies are warning that there is an increased likelihood of a terrorist attack in the next six months. Yeah? And so what else is new. As I wrote yesterday, a new successful terrorist attack is inevitable, whether Obama or Dick Cheney is President. Al Qaida and its allies will keep working to find a way through our defenses and will ultimately succeed. (The French Underground carried out successful operations, despite being opposed by Hitler’s massive security apparatus, in a country where everyone had to carry identity papers.)

Sacrificing our dedication to law and civil rights for all persons will not keep us safe; but rededicating ourselves to our Constitution and its principles will insure that those who seek to terrorize us will not win.