terror

Jose Rodriguez, the former head of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and National Clandestine Service, has made quite a splash in the past couple of days. Building on arguments in his new book, Hard Measures, Rodriguez has dealt with all of the most controversial aspects of the CIA’s response to 9/11 in his television appearances and op-eds. In particular, Rodriguez has offered a spirited defense of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) used on senior al Qaeda operatives.

This morning, there was a curious report originating with the Egyptian state press, and then repeated throughout the Western media, that Saif al Adel, a longtime al Qaeda bigwig, had flown from Pakistan to Egypt to turn himself in. The report didn't make much sense, mainly because it offered no explanation why one of the world's most wanted terrorists—who has been hunted since at least 1998, when he was implicated in al Qaeda's embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania—would voluntarily turn himself in. No reason was proffered for al Adel's supposed decision to simply give up.

An American intelligence official based in South Asia recently told me, “It has been a long time since we captured a senior al Qaeda leader.” His point was transparent: Without detaining and interrogating terrorists who know what is going on inside the clandestine al Qaeda network, American officials are blind to much of the terrorists’ designs. It is an important point that Marc Thiessen has correctly and repeatedly made.

It is not always bad to be offensive. And offending terrorists, for instance, strikes me as a pretty good example. But this point seems lost in our politically correct culture -- and it seems especially lost on New York Times columnists.

Steve Hayes, with Mara Liasson and Charles Krauthammer, last night on Fox News:

The New York Times reports on a Saudi Arabian man in Texas who "has been arrested by federal agents, who charged him with planning to build bombs for terror attacks inside the United States, the Justice Department announced on Thursday." The alleged plotter is named Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari. He studies business at South Plains College in Lubbock, Texas.

James Cole, recess appointed this week by President Obama to serve as deputy attorney general, famously wrote an op-ed on September 9, 2002, criticizing then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. Cole argued:

Is the British government preparing to make one of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s alleged co-conspirators a millionaire? The Washington Post reports on the British payouts to former Gitmo detainees as part of an out-of-court lawsuit settlement:

The UK government has decided to award seven former Guantanamo detainees millions of dollars in an out-of-court settlement, according to multiple press accounts. Why? The ex-Gitmo detainees claim that British authorities knew they were being tortured during their detention by the U.S. and other countries. And the Brits reportedly do not want their intelligence officials to become embroiled in costly and time-consuming litigation.

Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat from New York, has come out against prosecuting Khalid Sheik Mohammed in New York City:

Politico reports:

Liz Cheney's appearance on Fox News earlier today: