End Of Week Terrorism Man-Made Disasterism Update

While we're on the subject of terrorism man-made disasterism, what's the latest with Gitmo? Still not closed, though not for a lack of tough talk. Of course, the latest plan of bringing them up to a prison in Indiana until they go for their show trial in NYC is encountering resistance. Oh, sure, from the people of Indiana, too, but also from...seriously, you'll never guess...the terrorists man-made disasters being held at Gitmo! No joke:

But the final irony is that many of the detainees may not even want to be transferred to Thomson and could conceivably even raise their own legal roadblocks to allow them to stay at Gitmo.

Falkoff notes that many of his clients, while they clearly want to go home, are at least being held under Geneva Convention conditions in Guantánamo. At Thomson, he notes, the plans call for them to be thrown into the equivalent of a "supermax" security prison under near-lockdown conditions.

"As far as our clients are concerned, it's probably preferable for them to remain at Guantánamo," he says.

Seems Gitmo isn't quite the house of torture and terror the Left would have you believe, is it?

And speaking of the Gitmo bunch and their trial, you'll never guess what a judge just did:

A federal judge has tossed out most of the government's evidence against a tarrorism detainee on grounds his confessions were coerced, allegedly by U.S. forces, before he became a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay.

In a ruling this week, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan also said the government failed to establish that 23 statements the detainee made to interrogators at Guantanamo Bay were untainted by the earlier coerced statements made while he was held under harsh conditions in Afghanistan.

Or, as Hot Air puts it, the canary in the coal mine keeled over. This ruling basically confirms the worst fears of everyone who thinks that putting terrorists man-made disasters on trial is a very bad idea. On the field of battle (which is, in fact, where these guys were 'detained'), it isn't possible to gather evidence in little plastic baggies and broadcast Miranda rights over a bullhorn. Our soldiers are more worried about dodging bullets and roadside bombs, as well they should be. So, when you start requiring from soldiers in a war the kind of evidence that a law enforcement clean-up crew gathers at the scene of a crime, you're not going to get much. Thus, the terrorist man-made disaster is going to be kicked from the judicial system.

And what happens next? Are they released onto U.S. soil? I've still not heard a satisfactory answer to that. Here's what Hot Air says about the end result:

Obama has basically rigged these trials from the get-go with his two-tiered approach to detainees. Remember? When he’s got a bunch of evidence on someone such that the confession is basically unnecessary, they go to federal court so that The One can boast about due process. When he doesn’t have much evidence besides the confession, they go to a military tribunal so that the confession can be admitted into evidence and he can boast about the eventual conviction. It’s a sham, and it’s crowned by the fact that he’s all but promised to keep dangerous detainees imprisoned even if they’re acquitted, but that’s the game he’s decided he wants to play.

Then there's this bit of lemonade from these lemons:

Frankly, we could use more of these test cases before the KSM trial gets going: If he and Holder miscalculate and end up sending some low-level jihadi to federal court on the assumption that they can get a conviction even if the confession’s thrown out, and then the defendant is freed, the uproar will be such that he’ll have to rethink his whole stupid KSM strategy.

That's an unfortunately good point.

Here's something else that disturbs me. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she was 'most surprised' by Al Qaeda's 'determination'. Uh, Madam Secretary? In case you missed it (and apparently you did), these people strap bombs to themselves and commit suicide in order to kill their enemies. What part of that doesn't strike you as 'determination'? You're surprised by this??

Again, this is the mindset of the people who have a Constitutional duty to protect Americans from foreign enemies. God help us!

Anyway, in the continued wake of the outright mockery made of him by the Christmas Day Undie Bomber, Barack Obama has made yet another statement on terrorism man-made disasterism:

“I am less interested in passing out blame than I am in learning from and correcting these mistakes to make us safer. For ultimately, the buck stops with me. … When the system fails, it is my responsibility.”

Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? Color me skeptical, and Ace of Spades communicates that skepticism well:

He dodged responsibility for a week. He minimized it and claimed it was just an independent actor, unconnected to anything bigger, even when it was pretty firmly established it was Al Qaeda.

I don't think he made this statement because he believes it, or because he wanted to. I think he made this statement because polling and focus-groups told him that if he didn't make it, he was risking an even bigger loss in his poll numbers than anything he'd seen before.

So it's a case -- I am 99% confident -- of "doing the right thing when there are no other options left."

Bingo. For me, it's a classic case of actions and words not meshing. These words would actually mean something if he had ever -- EVER -- acted in a way that matched. Since he has not, the logical conclusion is that these are only just words.

But he didn't stop there. In the latest decisive non-change of policy, Obama has now declared that U.S. intelligence agencies will be...wait for it...following up on tips about terrorist activities:

In a revealing admission, President Barack Obama said today he was directing U.S. intelligence agencies to begin to do something many had assumed they were already doing: "[A]ssigning specific responsibility for investigating all leads on high priority threats so that these leads are pursued and acted upon aggressively."

"That is a shock because we had such a follow-up system when I was there," said Richard Clarke, the White House counter-terrorism director in the Clinton and Bush administrations. Clarke, who worked on the Obama transition team, is now an ABC News consultant.

What?! Uh, yeah, I think pretty much everyone assumed that was going on anyway. It would be ludicrous to think otherwise. Oh, that's right - remember, this is the Obama administration, where terrorism man-made disasterism isn't taken seriously. Oh, and it's all Bush's fault. Can't forget that.

It is this mindset that is going to eventually condemn Americans to death, and it will be on his shoulders for failing to act out his tough-sounding words.

All of this simply adds up to this brilliant cartoon:


There's my two cents.