There is not a perfect or even agreed upon definition of “Terrorism,” but I think this definition by Yohan Alexander in his 2002 book Combating Terrorism: Strategies of 10 Countries is about the best I’ve read. Consider his definition as you debate whether or not the mass murder by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was terrorism or a case of the crazies (or both):

[On the basis of the act, perpetrator, objective, motivation, target and method] Terrorism is defined as the calculated employment or the threat of violence by individuals, subnational groups, and state actors to attain political, social, and economic objectives in violation of the law. These acts are intended to create an overwhelming fear in a target area larger than the victims attacked or threatened.

It’s important to try and define terrorism, especially after the Ft. Hood shootings. What’s sad is that we still seem to have to do so even after 9-11. And what’s disconcerting is how so many persons hastily refuse to even consider that Hasan was a terrorist even while they condemn others for for doing so without thought or with haste, or both.

Maj. Hasan clearly had a political/social agenda  — he wished to not only avoid deployment to a Muslim country, but championed the idea that any Muslim in the military have the right to refuse deployment to Muslim countries — and illegally pursued the means to achieve it, committing mass murder.

Hasan “exchanged 10 to 20 e-mails” with Anwar al-Awlaki, still wanted by federal authorities, who was imam of a Falls Church, Va., mosque where three 9-11 hijackers attended. Hasan reportedly proselytized Islam to patients, was considered by soldiers who knew him to be seriously disloyal to both the military and his country, and worried fellow doctors by giving a 50-slide Powerpoint presentation promoting conscientious objection for Muslims and filled with disconcerting messages like “We love death more then [sic] you love life!” and “Fighting to establish an Islamic State to please God, even by force, is condoned by the Islam.”

U.S. Intelligence agencies reportedly were investigating Hasan for attempting to contact persons (i.e., plural) with known al Qaeda connections. He “spent time surfing radical Islamic Web sites,” and shouted “Allahu Akbar” — God is great — during his murder spree, thus mimicking Islamic terrorists who have done the same.

Hasan may have even been practicing the terrorist strategy of takfir, where the terrorist attempts to better blend into their role by conducting themselves in a manner of the kefir (unbeliever): Hasan reportedly went to strip clubs similar to how the 9-11 hijackers did (or then again, maybe he’s just a typical sexually-repressed, misogynist, Islamic fanatic who’s also a hypocrite).

Hasan sure sounds like a terrorist. He may not have been a card-carrying member of al Qaeda (there is no such thing), rather just a wannabe, and perhaps even crazy too. It’s not an either-or paradox. He could have both “gone nuts” and been a blatant Islamic militant.

But ask yourself this: If Hasan had been a Tim McVeighesque Bible-thumper who proselytized to patients about an angry Jehovah; who championed conscientious objection for Christians serving against other Christians (say against any further enforcement of Balkan issues); who was a frequent visitor and hate-posting member of neo-Nazi websites; who delivered 50-slide Powerpoints on the evils of gay marriage or abortion; who was known to be in contact with persons connected to white militias or domestic terrorist groups; and then chanted “Onward Christian Soldiers” as he gunned down persons in a Planned Parenthood facility…

… would Hasan still have been in the military or kicked out long before? Would the FBI be calling his pre-shooting behavior “benign” now? Would we be fearing that the same politically correct atmosphere that at least in part exacerbated the chances of success for 9-11 is back with us? Would Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey Jr. be on television defensively arguing the importance of “diversity” and not wishing to offend religious liberties? Would not the media be screaming “[right-wing] terrorist” at the top of their lungs?

The answers to those questions should be obvious to all of us.

Michelle Malkin asks the reasonable question of why the heck do we have to find this out from the UK Telegraph? (Perhaps because that same PC mentality forbids our media from asking the obvious questions).

[UK Telegraph] [Major Nidal Malik] Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother’s funeral was held there in May that year.

The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.

Hasan’s eyes “lit up” when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki’s teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday’s horrific shooting spree.

As investigators look at Hasan’s motives and mindset, his attendance at the mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw. Al-Awlaki moved to Dar al-Hijrah as imam in January, 2001, from the west coast, and three months later the September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour began attending his services. A third hijacker attended his services in California.

Hasan was praying at Dar al-Hijrah at about the same time, and the FBI will now want to investigate whether he met the two terrorists.

Charles Allen, a former under-secretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security, has described al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, as an “al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader to three of the September 11 hijackers… who targets US Muslims with radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home in Yemen”.

This is a great commentary on the evils of political correctness by author and former Lt. Col. Ralph Peters:

[NY Post] On Thursday afternoon, a radicalized Muslim US Army officer shouting “Allahu Akbar!” committed the worst act of terror on American soil since 9/11. And no one wants to call it an act of terror or associate it with Islam.

What cowards we are. Political correctness killed those patriotic Americans at Ft. Hood as surely as the Islamist gunman did. And the media treat it like a case of non-denominational shoplifting.

This was a terrorist act. When an extremist plans and executes a murderous plot against our unarmed soldiers to protest our efforts to counter Islamist fanatics, it’s an act of terror. Period.

When the terrorist posts anti-American hate-speech on the Web; apparently praises suicide bombers and uses his own name; loudly criticizes US policies; argues (as a psychiatrist, no less) with his military patients over the worth of their sacrifices; refuses, in the name of Islam, to be photographed with female colleagues; lists his nationality as “Palestinian” in a Muslim spouse-matching program, and parades around central Texas in a fundamentalist playsuit — well, it only seems fair to call this terrorist an “Islamist terrorist.”

But the president won’t. Despite his promise to get to all the facts. Because there’s no such thing as “Islamist terrorism” in ObamaWorld.

And the Army won’t. Because its senior leaders are so sick with political correctness that pandering to America-haters is safer than calling terrorism “terrorism.”

And the media won’t. Because they have more interest in the shooter than in our troops — despite their crocodile tears.

Maj. Nadal Malik Hasan planned this terrorist attack and executed it in cold blood. The resulting massacre was the first tragedy. The second was that he wasn’t killed on the spot.

Hasan survived. Now the rest of us will have to foot his massive medical bills. Activist lawyers will get involved, claiming “harassment” drove him temporarily insane. There’ll be no end of trial delays. At best, taxpayer dollars will fund his prison lifestyle for decades to come, since our politically correct Army leadership wouldn’t dare pursue or carry out the death penalty.

Maj. Hasan will be a hero to Islamist terrorists abroad and their sympathizers here. While US Muslim organizations decry his acts publicly, Hasan will be praised privately. And he’ll have the last laugh.

But Hasan isn’t the sole guilty party. The US Army’s unforgivable political correctness is also to blame for the casualties at Ft. Hood.

Given the myriad warning signs, it’s appalling that no action was taken against a man apparently known to praise suicide bombers and openly damn US policy. But no officer in his chain of command, either at Walter Reed Army Medical Center or at Ft. Hood, had the guts to take meaningful action against a dysfunctional soldier and an incompetent doctor.

Had Hasan been a Lutheran or a Methodist, he would’ve been gone with the simoon. But officers fear charges of discrimination when faced with misconduct among protected minorities.

Now 12 soldiers and a security guard lie dead. 31 soldiers were wounded, 28 of them seriously. If heads don’t roll in this maggot’s chain of command, the Army will have shamed itself beyond moral redemption.

There’s another important issue, too. How could the Army allow an obviously incompetent and dysfunctional psychiatrist to treat our troubled soldiers returning from war? An Islamist whacko is counseled for arguing with veterans who’ve been assigned to his care? And he’s not removed from duty? What planet does the Army live on?

For the first time since I joined the Army in 1976, I’m ashamed of its dereliction of duty. The chain of command protected a budding terrorist who was waving one red flag after another. Because it was safer for careers than doing something about him.

Get ready for the apologias. We’ve already heard from the terrorist’s family that “he’s a good American.” In their world, maybe he is.

But when do we, the American public, knock off the PC nonsense?

A disgruntled Muslim soldier murdered his officers way back in 2003, in Kuwait, on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Recently? An American mullah shoots it out with the feds in Detroit. A Muslim fanatic attacks an Arkansas recruiting station. A Muslim media owner, after playing the peace card, beheads his wife. A Muslim father runs over his daughter because she’s becoming too Westernized.

Muslim terrorist wannabes are busted again and again. And we’re assured that “Islam’s a religion of peace.”

I guarantee you that the Obama administration’s non-response to the Ft. Hood attack will mock the memory of our dead.

In a matter of about three weeks, the Left’s view of Afghanistan has gone from “the good war” to “the next Vietnam.” This turnabout — in effect, the Left is dumping the war now that it has stopped being politically useful — deserves an honored place in the annals of bad faith. Meantime, our troops in the field are still fighting.

In an unsparing 66-page assessment, commanding general Stanley McChrystal warns of failure unless he gets more troops quickly for a counterinsurgency campaign to protect the population and to thwart the enemy’s momentum. McChrystal is President Obama’s hand-picked general, selected to carry out the “comprehensive” counterinsurgency strategy that Obama announced in March. But the White House now acts as if it barely knew its own four-star and had not heard of his strategy.

It is understandable that Obama wants to be deliberate in committing perhaps tens of thousands more troops to the field, but his change of tune, away from his formerly approved strategy and the stalwart rhetoric (“the necessary war”) of a few months ago, indicates fecklessness or political calculation or both.

If we want to keep al-Qaeda from reestablishing a base in parts of Afghanistan and militants from regaining the initiative in neighboring Pakistan, there is no alternative to defeating the Taliban and associated insurgencies in Afghanistan, and that will require manpower. Obama’s political advisers hate the war, and Vice President Biden is selling a characteristically unrealistic plan to fight it from afar. Obama should resist the urge to flinch.

– National Review’s: The Week.($)

[Washington Post] For up to four hours a day, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, can sit outside in the Caribbean sun and chat through a chain-link fence with the detainee in the neighboring exercise yard at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Mohammed can also use that time to visit a media room to watch movies of his choice, read newspapers and books, or play handheld electronic games. He and other detainees have access to elliptical machines and stationary bikes.

At Guantanamo, such recreational activities interrupt an otherwise bleak existence, according to a Pentagon report of conditions at Camp 7, which houses 16 high-value detainees. But even those privileges may soon vanish.

The Justice Department has begun to hint in court filings that at least some of the defendants in the Sept. 11, 2001, case, as well as other prominent suspects, will be transferred to federal custody in the United States. While lawmakers and activist groups have been consumed with a debate over such a move, little attention has been paid to the conditions that Mohammed and other high-value detainees would face in the United States.

And those conditions, it turns out, would be vastly more draconian than they are at Guantanamo Bay. … Based on what is known about restrictions in the country’s highest-security federal prisons, Mohammed and other terrorism suspects would face profound isolation in the United States.

If sent to a facility such as the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colo., they would be sealed off for 23 hours a day in cells with four-inch-wide windows and concrete furniture. If they behave, and are allowed an hour’s exercise each day in a tiny yard, they will do so alone. They will have little or no human contact except with prison officials. And the International Committee of the Red Cross, the only outside group with access to Camp 7, will no longer have contact with them.

“Confinement for life,” as one is quoted in the article, or better yet, sentences of death, is admittedly quite appealing for these animals who bomb our cities and turn our planes into missiles. Nonetheless, the sense of justice served might be instead be an enabler for more terrorism.

Critics of Guantanamo Bay have often confused the point of the detainee camp: it’s never been about convictions or justice, but about gathering intelligence necessary to prevent future attacks. That’s the primary rationale for Guantanamo, and why so few of the detainees — albeit all of them deserving such a fate — have been tried and sentenced, whether in civilian court or by military tribunal. And that’s just a defense for starters: it’s not including such unintended and adverse consequences of introducing militant religious fanatics to a population of hardened and angry imprisoned civilians (many of whom will be released one day) with whom to proselytize and convert into the next generation of suicide bombers.

Similarly, critics of the USA Patriot Act have often confused both its intent and its application. That act, most recently defended by former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, simply expanded surveillance abilities, from roving wiretaps to public record searches (i.e., the public library red herring) already in existence for narcotics investigations and organized crime to terrorism. It seems silly to say that Feds should have those powers for local drug dealers or Mafia lords but not for Osama bin Laden. And it seems incompetent to argue their dissolution altogether.

“Mr. [New York-Dallas-Denver bomb suspect Najibullah] Zazi’s arrest is only the most recent case in which intelligence apparently has averted disaster. Cells have been broken up and individual defendants convicted in New York, Virginia, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas and Ohio,” wrote Mukasey.

And yet still liberal Democrats attempt to sunset Patriot Act provisions. The intelligence used to capture Zazi may have well originated from interrogations with Guantanamo Bay detainees, and yet still liberal Democrats attempt to close that facility.

And to what end? Even for those with the best intentions, their sake of justice may undercut the ability to prevent the next 9-11.

Bruce Riedel and Michael O’Hanlon explain in USA Today why the strategy of “offshoring” operations in Afghanistan, championed by many on the Left and some on the right, most recently George Will, will not work. The Offshoring is essentially counterterrorism, a strategy more reactionary based where the U.S. relies on technology and human assets not physically in Afghanistan. Riedel and O’Hanlon argue that counterinsurgency — boots on the ground interacting with the local population — is the only strategy for success, or at least a chance for success, in Afghanistan.

Here’s why:

The fundamental reason that a counterterrorism-focused strategy fails is that it cannot generate good intelligence. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban know not to use their cellphones and satellite phones today, so our spy satellites are of little use in finding extremists. We need information from unmanned low-altitude aircraft and, even more, from people on the ground who speak the language and know the comings and goings of locals. But our Afghan friends who might be inclined to help us with such information would be intimidated by insurgent and terrorist forces into silence — or killed if they cooperated — because we would lack the ability to protect them under a counterterrorism approach.

Afghan forces simply do not have the capacity to do the protecting themselves at this point and, given the challenges of building up new institutions in Afghanistan after decades of war, will not have the ability until at least 2012. Even that distant date will be postponed further if we do not deploy enough forces to mentor and partner with Afghans as they build up an army and police force largely from scratch. This adds up to a prescription for a drying up of intelligence.

The second reason a counterterrorism-oriented strategy would fail is that, if we tried it, we would likely lose our ability to operate unmanned aircraft where the Taliban and al-Qaeda prefer to hide. Why? If we pulled out, the Afghan government would likely collapse. The secure bases near the mountains of the Afghan-Pakistan border, and thus our ability to operate aircraft from them, would be lost. Our ability to go after Afghan resistance fighters would deteriorate. And the recent momentum we have established in going after Pakistani extremists would be lost.

For those who have forgotten the realities of the 1990s — when we tried to go after Osama bin Laden without access to nearby bases by using ships based in the Indian Ocean — the two- to four-hour flight times of drones and cruise missiles operating off such ships made prompt action to real-time intelligence impractical.

Third, we would likely lose our allies with this approach. A limited mission offers nothing to the Afghans, whose country is essentially abandoned to the Taliban, or to the Pakistanis, who would similarly see this as the first step toward cut and run. The NATO allies would also smell in a “reduced” mission the beginning of withdrawal; some if not most might try to beat us to the exit.

Once the Taliban is back in power in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda will not be far behind. Our top nemesis will be able to salvage a victory in the very place from which it launched the 9/11 attacks eight years ago. Al-Qaeda will have its favorite bases and sanctuaries back, as well as a major propaganda win.

Here’s this week’s most obvious headline: Probe of CIA Imperils Interagency Trust. Seriously, why would anyone want to work at the CIA? They blame you when you get it wrong. Worse, they investigate you when you get it right, and question the methods you used to do so. It’s despicable.

It’s also history. Those few CIA officers who truly committed wrongs have long ago been punished (and some their careers ended early). The CIA’s inspector general created a tell-all report in 2004, a rare example of transparency in the Beltway — just try asking Congress to do the same.  Indeed, just this week the New York Times exposed excessive abuses of the New York state penitentiary system (minus, of course, any state inspector general report). Attorney General Eric Holder isn’t giving the public anything new, he’s just digging up the past to score political points.

And what did this CIA IG report conclude? Marc Thiessen writes:

While the focus of the news media has been on the abuses described in the report, the inspector general himself describes these abuses as deviations from approved procedure. The inspector general further concluded that, “The CTC [CIA Counterterrorism Center] did a commendable job in directing the interrogation of high value detainees. . . . Agency personnel—with one notable exception described in this review—followed guidance and procedures and documented their activities well. . . . Numerous agency components and individuals invested immense time and effort to implement the CTC program quickly, effectively, and within the law.”

As bad as the Obama administration repackaging yesterday’s fabricated outrage is their selective focus — why not investigate Congress too?

[WSJ] Congress also knew about it. The IG report belies House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claims that she wasn’t told about all this. “In the fall of 2002, the Agency briefed the leadership of the Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committees on the use of both standard techniques and EITs. . . . Representatives . . . continued to brief the leadership of the Intelligence Oversight Committees on the use of EITs and detentions in February and March 2003. The [CIA] General Counsel says that none of the participants expressed any concern about the techniques or the Program . . .” Ditto in September 2003.

And if that liberal hypocrisy isn’t enough, consider that Eric Holder’s investigation has the potential to betray both sources and methods of CIA investigations. Just a few years ago our liberal friends were supposedly outraged that a Bush official had outed Ambassador Joe Wilson’s wife (Valerie Plame, aka Plamegate), although it actually turned out to be Dep. Sec. of State Richard Armitage — a Bush critic, and someone who was never punished, unlike Scooter Libby.

In April, President Obama appeared before the CIA and promised to “protect your identities and your security as you vigorously pursue your missions,” reminds Bret Stephens.

What’s nearly certain, however, is that the names of the agents will soon become a part of the public record, either directly or through leaks that the liberal press will have no scruple about printing. Last year, for instance, the New York Times published the name of a CIA officer who interrogated 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. This was despite the protests of the officer and the CIA that to identify him would “put him at risk of retaliation from terrorists or harassment from critics of the agency,” as the Times put it in an editor’s note.

So much, then, for President Obama’s solemn promises to the CIA troops. Nor is Mr. Holder’s decision the only political missile tracing a course toward Langley.

On Friday, the Washington Post reported that the Justice Department is looking into allegations that military defense attorneys for top al Qaeda detainees had shown their clients photographs of CIA officers and contractors.

The pictures, some of which were “taken surreptitiously outside [the CIA officers'] homes,” were gathered by an outfit called the John Adams Project, jointly sponsored by the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The Project seeks to identify the interrogators to serve as witnesses if and when their clients are tried in federal court or by military commissions. “We are confident that no laws or regulations have been broken,” ACLU executive director Anthony Romero told the Post.

He’s got to be kidding. The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, the law endlessly invoked in Mrs. Wilson’s case, specifically proscribes anyone “in the course of a pattern of activities” from seeking to expose the identity of covert agents “to any individual not authorized to receive classified information.” Equally plain is the penalty: “fined under Title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”

Obama tossed some more red meat to his constituents (at the expense of our safety): Obama Administration to Investigate CIA Terror Interrogations.

How stupid a decision is this? CIA Director Leon Panetta is threatening to quit. Panetta isn’t exactly a Dittohead Limbaugh listener.

Among the investigations: The Washington Post reports a now retired CIA officer used a gun, and another a power drill, back in 2002 to “intimidate a captured al-Qaeda suspect.” That former suspect, by the way, was USS Cole bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. I wonder if the families of those 17 sailors shed a tear for the “intimidation” of this killer?

A statement from Mr. Panetta hit the nail on the head:

“I make no judgments on the accuracy of the 2004 IG report or the various views expressed about it,” Mr. Panetta wrote. ”Nor am I eager to enter the debate, already politicized, over the ultimate utility of the Agency’s past detention and interrogation effort.”

Still, he wrote, “this much is clear: The CIA obtained intelligence from high-value detainees when inside information on al Qaeda was in short supply.”[emphasis mine]

Exactly! Let alone the triviality of this — we “simulate,” we “intimidate,” we “threaten,” whereas our enemy flies passenger planes into skyscrapers and cuts peoples’ heads off — note the complete lack of context. These same CIA officers were in 2002 being grilled by Congress and the public as to why they didn’t stop 9-11. So we captured a bunch of the terrorists. We demanded answers. But now these same CIA personnel are being grilled because seven years later the Obama administration needs a quick PR victory.

And what else other than investigating the CIA would one expect from Obama for such a victory, given his cash for clunkers debacle, lots of egg on his face from a unified American public saying “no thanks” to his single-payer health care proposal, a DOA climate change bill, TARP Part Two, or as George Will noted, “an 85 percent unspent stimulus.” (aka, not a stimulus).

Approval rating is down, call in the investigators! This is a tried and true Pavlovian response from the ‘blame America first’ wing of the Democratic Party.

It’s also adding a little insult to the injury following the UK releasing the 1988 Lockerbie bomber. Sure it’s the UK, not Obama, but other than the typically bland “we’re disappointed” statements from team Obama, there’s not been much of a reaction. It’s as if they’re recollecting a bad meal — “we’re disappointed with the fillet” — rather than the release of a terrorist who murdered 270 people.

How’s about a bit of outrage? Leftists are great at outrage, so long as it’s targeted at Big Oil, or Big Pharma, or Big Banking, or Big Anything, so long as it’s not, you know, Big Terror.

One can’t see how any of this could be a political victory except amongst his most Kool-Aid filled backers. Most Americans will recognize that keeping the country safe requires a bit more than name, rank and serial number from terrorists who have several aliases, but no rank, and no serial number.

At the same time, this administration which excels at apologizing for American behavior is creating the exact risk-averse intelligence culture which assisted 9-11 hijackers in executing their murderous plan. Adds the UK Daily Mail, “Tactics in the grey area between torture and legal questioning – such as sleep deprivation and playing loud music – will be banned.” Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ll sure sleep easier knowing that we won’t deny a mass murderer like Khalid Mohammed of his beauty rest.

You see, it’s not enough to start a witch hunt against our intelligence services. The Obama administration is also going to castrate them:

President Obama has approved the creation of an elite team of interrogators to question key terrorism suspects, part of a broader effort to revamp U.S. policy on detention and interrogation, senior administration officials said Sunday.

Obama signed off late last week on the unit, named the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG. Made up of experts from several intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the interrogation unit will be housed at the FBI but will be overseen by the National Security Council — shifting the center of gravity away from the CIA and giving the White House direct oversight.

Panetta says he expects a flood of employees from the CIA. But the ones who remain won’t be in charge of investigating much. Instead, the White House is going to “nationalize” the intelligence biz, micromanage it from the top, becoming subject matter experts on interrogation. Yeah, that’ll work about as good as them becoming subject matter experts on the automobile industry. And how’d *that* experiment work out, fellas? Not so hot, eh?

It would be comical were it not our national security.

Democrats have a lot of rhetoric denouncing Bush-era War on Terror policies these days. Just one thing: They seem to be keeping all of the Bush-era War on Terror policies.

Saying earlier today that the United States “went off course” with it’s post 9-11 actions President Obama promised to pursue new policies that sound exactly like what was already occurring:

Obama contended that the record is clear: Rather than keep Americans safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security. Turning to detainees who remain, the president will announce this framework:

–When feasible, try those who have violated American criminal laws in federal courts.

–When necessary, try those who violate the rules of war through Military Commissions.

–When possible, transfer to third countries those detainees who can be safely transferred.

Indeed, the Bush administration already prosecuted several War on Terror suspects in our federal court system, including Zacarias Moussaoui and Jose Padilla. The military commissions act was already established by Congress a couple of years ago (not that FDR ever bothered asking Congress for powers he already had from the U.S. Constitution), and would have been used more if not for the liberals now advocating… military tribunals. And, to retort point three, hundreds of detainees have been released to date, mostly transferred to other countries. (Of the remaining couple hundred detainees our allied countries are justifiably asking why we won’t take them if they’re really not dangerous — the answer is, of course, because, you know, they’re actually dangerous.)

So, what’s changed? Just the amount of Obama rhetoric is all. Maybe we need more HopeNChange?

Meanwhile Democrats like Senator Michael Bennet are protesting ANY attempt to transfer Guantanamo detainees to their home states. Indeed, the hypocritical Democrat Senate voted 90-6 today “to keep the prison at Guantanamo Bay open for the foreseeable future and forbid the transfer of any detainees to facilities in the United States.” (Associated Press) Oh, be sure to read James Taranto’s satire making fun of those Senate Democrats.

But, wait, there’s more:

For example, President Obama kept George W. Bush’s military tribunals for terror detainees after calling them an “enormous failure” and a “legal black hole.” His campaign claimed last summer that “court systems . . . are capable of convicting terrorists.” Upon entering office, he found out they aren’t.

He insisted in an interview with NBC in 2007 that Congress mandate “consequences” for “a failure to meet various benchmarks and milestones” on aid to Iraq. Earlier this month he fought off legislatively mandated benchmarks in the $97 billion funding bill for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Obama agreed on April 23 to American Civil Liberties Union demands to release investigative photos of detainee abuse. Now’s he reversed himself. Pentagon officials apparently convinced him that releasing the photos would increase the risk to U.S. troops and civilian personnel.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama excoriated Mr. Bush’s counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, insisting it could not succeed. Earlier this year, facing increasing violence in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama rejected warnings of a “quagmire” and ordered more troops to that country. He isn’t calling it a “surge” but that’s what it is. He is applying in Afghanistan the counterinsurgency strategy Mr. Bush used in Iraq.

As a candidate, Mr. Obama promised to end the Iraq war by withdrawing all troops by March 2009. As president, he set a slower pace of drawdown. He has also said he will leave as many as 50,000 Americans troops there.

Karl Rove, of all people, calls Obama’s reversals “praiseworthy.” That they may be, but don’t expect him to be honest about the actions not matching the rhetoric.

Here’s the Wall Street Journal:

President Obama’s endorsements of Bush-Cheney antiterror policies are by now routine: for example, opposing the release of prisoner abuse photographs and support for indefinite detention for some detainees, and that’s just this week. More remarkable is White House creativity in portraying these U-turns as epic change. Witness yesterday’s announcement endorsing military commissions.

White House officials insist that their tribunals will be kinder and gentler, stressing additional due-process safeguards for terrorists on trial for war crimes. But the debate that has convulsed the political system since 9/11 isn’t about procedural nuances. It has been over core principles, with Democrats decrying a “shadow justice system” and claiming that “Our Constitution and our Uniform Code of Military Justice provide a framework for dealing with the terrorists.”

The latter quote is from a speech by Senator Obama in 2007 denouncing “a legal framework that does not work.” He also referred to the civilian criminal justice system and courts martial that Democrats then claimed, and many still claim, are the right venues for antiterror prosecutions. After the Supreme Court’s Boumediene decision gave terrorists habeas rights, Mr. Obama again laid into the Bush Administration’s “legal black hole” and “dangerously flawed legal approach,” which “undermines the very values we are fighting to defend.”

At least some people in the White House must now be embarrassed by their boss’s switcheroo, though you can’t tell from Friday’s declaration. Part of the tribunal face-lift is that “the accused will have greater latitude in selecting their counsel.” Say what? Enemy combatants already have better access to attorneys — white shoe and pro bono, no less — than nearly every criminal defendant in America. Perhaps this means Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 90 Yemenis and the rest will now be able to choose lawyers from both Shearman & Sterling and Covington & Burling, instead of one or the other.

Another red herring is supposedly tightening the admissibility of hearsay evidence. Tribunal judges already have discretion to limit such evidence, and the current rules are nearly indistinguishable from those of the International Criminal Court. The sensible exceptions involve evidence obtained under combat conditions or from foreign intelligence services, which are left untouched by Mr. Obama’s nips and tucks.

In any event, Mr. Obama deserves credit for accepting that the civilian courts are largely unsuited for the realities of the war on terror. He has now decided to preserve a tribunal process that will be identical in every material way to the one favored by Dick Cheney — and which, contrary to the narrative that Democrats promulgated for years, will be the fairest and most open war-crimes trials in U.S. history. Meanwhile, friends should keep certain newspaper editors away from sharp objects. Their champion has repudiated them once again.