The following originally appeared as an op-ed in the New York Post. -Staff
The trial of the century will take place when Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged 9/11 mastermind, and his cohorts stand trial in New York City. Yet Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to treat them as ordinary criminals -- rather than as terrorists captured during wartime -- ignores the lessons of the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui.
The following originally appeared as an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune. -Staff
President Barack Obama has decided the federal government should purchase an Illinois state prison and use it to house Guantanamo detainees. After unsuccessfully lobbying the International Olympic Committee to bring the 2016 Summer Games to Chicago, he has decided to bring captured enemy combatants to Illinois instead. This has to be worst consolation prize in human history.
I am concerned that this transfer into the U.S. will grant privileges and rights to the detainees. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, well-established constitutional protections are triggered once a detainee is brought into the United States. These rights are not always available when an alien is detained outside our nation's borders.
The following originally appeared as an op-ed with Senator Jim Inhofe in the Deseret News. -Staff
It has been said the first casualty in war is the truth. Unfortunately, in the modern political arena we must now expand this maxim to include the defense procurement process. A prime example is the misinformation being disseminated about the F-22A Raptor. If one bases his or her opinion of the F-22 on these inaccurate assertions, it would be natural to conclude the Raptor is the biggest boondoggle since the Edsel. Fortunately, for this and future generations of Americans who will rely on the F-22 to maintain our nation's control of the skies, the truth is far different.
The fact is, the F-22 will be the pre-eminent fighter/bomber for the next 40 years, capable of defeating the air threats of today and tomorrow. What are these air threats? One of the most menacing is, and will remain, the relatively inexpensive advanced integrated air defense system. It is easy, for example, to imagine a nation such as Iran, with its insistence on building nuclear weapons, purchasing the Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile system. This system makes penetrating hostile airspace extremely difficult, if not deadly, for those aircraft lacking the F-22's advanced stealth technology and sustained supersonic speeds of supercruise engines. Only one western aircraft, the Raptor, will for the foreseeable future combine these decisive technologies, thereby giving it the unique ability to penetrate hostile airspace and hunt and destroy strategic ground targets during the night and day.
The Raptor will accomplish this while simultaneously establishing air superiority. For example, during a recent military exercise in Alaska, the F-22 dispatched 144 adversaries versus the loss of only one aircraft. Once again, the F-22's advanced stealth capabilities and supercruise engines proved decisive. The F-22 also has remarkable avionics that, in addition to collecting intelligence and providing battlespace awareness, enable it to engage aircraft and surface threats long before an enemy can retaliate.
The following originally appeared as an op-ed in the Miami Herald. -Staff
Since January, the Obama administration's decision to close the Guantánamo Bay Detention Center was heralded with fanfare; however, there were few details on how they actually planned to do so by January 2010. Recently -- like the Titanic hitting an iceberg -- the unsinkable presidency hit its first obstacle.
Congressional Democrats wisely realized that requesting $80 million to close Guantánamo, without any plan on how to spend so much money, was a terrible idea. Not to mention the fact that Guantánamo is a $200 million investment that cannot be duplicated, and it is nearly impossible to determine how much more money it would cost to care for these terrorists domestically. I commend my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for recognizing this flawed proposal and supporting Republican amendments stripping those funds out of the war supplemental.
Before we close Guantánamo, the public should know exactly who the remaining detainees are and how closing the prison will help keep us safe.
- Of the approximately 240 detainees remaining at Guantánamo, 174 of them received or conducted training at al Qaeda camps and facilities in Afghanistan; 112 participated in armed hostilities against U.S. and coalition forces; and 64 either worked for or had direct contact with Osama bin Laden.
- Of the 240 detainees, 17 are Chinese Uighurs who all have demonstrable ties to the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, a designated terrorist organization since 2004 that is known for its terrorist threats against the 2008 Beijing Olympics and its close ties to al Qaeda members. Hassan Mahsun, one of the trainers for the Uighurs, was an associate of Osama bin Laden, and when the group traveled to Afghanistan -- where they were later captured -- they lodged in al Qaeda safe houses and terrorist training facilities.
Recently, Attorney General Holder described the closure of Guantánamo as "good for all nations." He argued that anger over the prison has become a "powerful global recruiting tool for terrorists." But neither he nor anyone else has yet demonstrated a strong analytic understanding of what is motivating terrorist recruitment. Terrorist groups did not appear to face a shortage of recruits prior to the media frenzy on Guantánamo.
Violent jihadists are ideologically motivated. Closing Guantánamo in the next eight months is not going to be a "silver bullet" and solve the problem of terrorist recruitment. For this and other reasons, I am not willing to trade Guantánamo for the possibility of trying to appease and become more popular with our critics in foreign countries.
Sadly, Guantánamo's epitaph was written the day the executive orders to close it were signed, even though it is still an asset to this country. I don't see how anyone who is honest about the matter can characterize it any other way.
Posted by: Staff in Strong National Defense on
Mar 13, 2009
Senator Hatch says bringing enemy combatants to the U.S. is ridiculous. From Desert News:
Hatch Says Gitmo Should Keep Detainees
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, says it is "ridiculous" that President Barack Obama has ordered closure within a year of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, and it may attract terrorist attacks if he sends the enemy combatants now held there to the mainland United States.
"Bringing these detainees to the continental United States is tantamount to injecting a virus into a healthy body," Hatch told the Senate in a long speech Thursday.
"Removing these detainees from a secure military facility with an airport, a highly trained security force, a secure infrastructure and located on an island outside the continental United States is, in my opinion, reckless," he said.
Hatch said many of the combatants once held there and released have returned to fight against the United States, including a former detainee now identified as the No. 2 leader of al-Qaida in Yemen -- who is believed to have planned an attack on a U.S. embassy there last year that killed 10 people.
Hatch said 245 enemy combatants are still held at Guantanamo, and said U.S. prisons are full and have no room for them. Also, despite well-publicized early problems, Hatch said recent reports indicate that treatment there is now humane and conditions exceed those of typical U.S. prisons.
Read more of Senator Hatch's speech.
Do you think we should bring terrorists to the U.S.?
My priorities as Senator are to:
- Give taxpayers back more of what they earn
- Work for a country in which children can be safe, healthy, and well-educated
- Defend Constitutional rights
- Cut down the size of a bloated government bureaucracy
- Empower the military with the tools to fight terror and tyranny
- Embody the time-honored principles of integrity, honesty and candor
