Worldview Item of the Day
The Obama administration has decided to order the FBI to Miranda-ize high-value targets detained by military operations inside Afghanistan, essentially extending constitutional protections over foreign fighters captured in combat and making their behavior and objectives a law-enforcement, rather than a military, issue. The Justice Department has confirmed the practice is in use.
My understanding is that the FBI is in Afghanistan only to investigate threats against US territories and citizens and to take custody of suspects wanted in conjunction with crimes and threats against the US under investigation by the FBI. The FBI, to my knowledge, is not involved in any of the operations where suspects are captured or detained because it has no jurisdiction outside US controlled facilities in Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, this Obama policy cannot help but create more confusion and ambiguity over the nature of the war, the detainees, and their treatment as well as all kinds of constitutional questions regarding US actions in combat zones.
Further, it signals that the Obama does not understand that the actions in places like Afghanistan and Iraq are, in fact, war, not law-enforcement. As events in neighboring Pakistan prove, al Qaeda and the Taliban are playing for keeps and have the capacity, when properly equipped and supplied, to challenge governments.
It is these kinds of decisions that will undermine our ability to win the long war in which we are engaged just as surely as previous administrations’ failures to act allowed our enemies to gain the strength necessary to fight at the level they do today. What will the consequence of such undermining be?
Election Day 2010 is sixteen months away. How will you vote?
Imperial Russia died in Nicholas II’s hand, and US will be ruined by Obama.