Who are these 300 Mirandized terrorists?

Former WTC bombing prosecutor Andrew McCarthy discovers that the claim that the U.S. has Mirandized and prosecuted 300 terrorists is highly dubious.

It was just brought to my attention that, if you don’t read carefully, the phony figure of 195 convictions of “international terrorists” since 9/11 magically becomes 300 by the time the Justice Department is done with it. Last week, DOJ put out a “fact sheet” on “The Criminal Justice System as a Counterterrorism Tool.” Among other things, it claims (the italics are mine, for reasons that will become clear):

“Hundreds of terrorism suspects have been successfully prosecuted in federal court since 9/11. Today, there are more than 300 international or domestic terrorists incarcerated in U.S. federal prison facilities.”

Note first the slippery use of the word “suspect.” All this means is that a person was suspected of being a terrorist at some point in the course of an investigation. It does not mean he actually was one, that he was ever charged with an actual terrorism crime, or that he was ever convicted of such a crime.

Adds McCarthy, it matters much how many of these 300 were, say, members of an environmental or animal-rights group gone awry — after all, we’re in a war against Islamic fanatics, not PETA.