war on terrorism

John Yoo writes in the Wall Street Journal in response to the "bias and sheer incompetence" of the Obama DOJ's investigation of Yoo and other former government officials:

Why bother fighting off an administration hell-bent on finding scapegoats for its policy disagreements with the last president? I could have easily decided to hide out, as others have. Instead, I wrote numerous articles (several published in this newspaper) and three books explaining and defending presidential control of national security policy. I gave dozens of speeches and media appearances, where I confronted critics of the administration's terrorism policies. And, most importantly, I was lucky to receive the outstanding legal counsel of Miguel Estrada, one of the nation's finest defense attorneys, to attack head-on and without reservation, each and every one of OPR's mistakes, misdeeds and acts of malfeasance.

I did not do this to win any popularity contests, least of all those held in the faculty lounge. I did it to help our president—President Obama, not Bush.

Earlier today at the Heritage Foundation, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell delivered a speech on the many flawed policies of the Obama administration’s approach to terrorism, paramount among them, “that terrorism should be treated as a law-enforcement matter.”

McConnell then pointed out that the administration’s failure with respect to the Christmas Day bomber—from not acting on intelligence it received from the boy’s father to mirandizing him immediately after he attempted to blow up an airliner over U.S. soil—should not have shocked anyone. This is, McConnell concluded, merely the logical conclusion, the “practical consequences,” of a pre-9/11 mentality that considers terrorism a crime, not an act of war.

Al Qaeda has taken credit for the suicide attack that killed seven CIA operatives, including a station chief, and a Jordanian intelligence operative. In a statement released on the Internet, Mustafa Abu Yazid, al Qaeda's leader in Afghanistan, said the attack was to "avenge" the leaders and "brothers" of al Qaeda and the Taliban killed in the U.S. airstrikes in Pakistan.

Press reports indicate that the latest Pentagon assessment of recidivists who were once held at Guantanamo “shows about one in five detainees released” have returned to terrorism. That, of course, is a recidivism rate of “about” 20 percent.

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Donald Rumsfeld's memo on the "Global War on Terrorism" has elicited derision and glee from many in the press and the Democratic party. The publicly upbeat, brusque secretary appears in the in-house memorandum far more pensive and tentative in his judgments about America's--specifically the Pentagon's--success in its battle against Islamic holy-warriorism.

"We are having mixed results with [Osama bin Laden's] al Qaeda," Rumsfeld confesses. "Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. . . .

ON IRAQ the administration likes to talk interest, not duty. "We did ourselves and the world a favor." But interest is always arguable; duty can be absolutely clear. Torture, mass murder, and hellish tyranny make for the clearest case possible. Yet too often the administration has sounded hesitant and defensive on Iraq. It has a compelling, open-and-shut moral case but prefers to make pragmatic arguments about global terrorism and Arab politics. Of course security is important, but mass murder is even more important.

OVER THE COURSE of the last few months, every respectable argument against war in Iraq has fallen apart. In December the peaceniks insisted that inspections would work; even Hans Blix now admits that they have not. In January the peaceniks insisted that the United States was acting unilaterally; then a group of European nations stepped shoulder-to-shoulder with America and the ranks of support have since swelled.

WE ARE NOW just weeks away from going to war to disarm and depose Saddam Hussein's regime, and beginning the difficult but necessary task of bringing the fresh breezes of self-government into the authoritarian hothouses of the Arab world. The arguments of the antiwar protestors--to the extent they even bother making arguments more sophisticated than placards reading "Bush = Hitler"--are refuted easily enough, and fortunately they've only strengthened the resolve of George W.

ONE REASON the coming war disturbs many Americans is that it seems optional. While the fight in Afghanistan was thrust upon us, this conflict is one our country enters by choice. It is a war we wouldn't be undertaking but for the conviction of our leaders--crucially, our president.

But in that, it is not unique in the American experience. If Afghanistan was like World War II in being a war of necessity, Iraq is like the Civil War in being a war of leadership and conviction.

It is easy to forget how optional the Civil War seemed to many at the time.

FROM THE MOMENT listeners realized that terrorism had come to America, callers to my radio program have wanted to discuss various terrorism scenarios. Invariably the conversation begins, "If I was a terrorist, here's how I'd paralyze the country . . ."

Then I cut them off. It is a conversation with no upside other than ratings, and perhaps a little--or even more than a little--risk. Why advertise vulnerability, and why encourage paranoia?

Last week I called some local law-enforcement types to press them on the mechanics of homeland defense.

Singapore

THE BUMBOAT FERRY from Changi Point to Pulau Ubin may be as close as modern Singapore gets to Joseph Conrad's tropic island of trade and empire. Instead of coconut copra the boat's smell is diesel, but the engine chugs at a steam-driven rhythm and the deckhouse is open to the humid air and high noon of the equatorial sun.

Just 60 miles above the Equator--astride the main sea lane between the Indian and Pacific Oceans--Singapore's location is still its raison d'etre.

COLIN POWELL travels to the United Nations today to "make the case" for war in Iraq. He will detail Saddam Hussein's possession, ongoing development, and continued concealment of weapons of mass destruction. It's a solid case, and most Americans buy it. As Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) told me last week, "There is no doubt in my mind that if Saddam Hussein were put on trial for having weapons of mass destruction, he would be found guilty." Those predisposed to agree with us will find it compelling. So will most of the fence-sitters, including Russia.