Here’s a question as you read this — if the federal government can try KSM in federal court without him ever been read his Miranda warning, what’s from stopping them from doing the same to a U.S. citizen?

[NPR] SEN. GRAHAM: Well, let me ask you this. Okay, let me ask you this. Let’s say we capture him tomorrow. When does custodial interrogation begin in his case?

If we captured bin Laden tomorrow, would he be entitled to Miranda warnings at the moment of capture?

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: Again I’m not — that all depends. I mean, the notion that we –

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, it does not depend. If you’re going to prosecute anybody in civilian court, our law is clear that the moment custodial interrogation occurs the defendant, the criminal defendant, is entitled to a lawyer and to be informed of their right to remain silent.

The big problem I have is that you’re criminalizing the war, that if we caught bin Laden tomorrow, we’d have mixed theories and we couldn’t turn him over — to the CIA, the FBI or military intelligence — for an interrogation on the battlefield, because now we’re saying that he is subject to criminal court in the United States. And you’re confusing the people fighting this war.

What would you tell the military commander who captured him? Would you tell him, “You must read him his rights and give him a lawyer”? And if you didn’t tell him that, would you jeopardize the prosecution in a federal court?

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: We have captured thousands of people on the battlefield, only a few of which have actually been given their Miranda warnings.

With regard to bin Laden and the desire or the need for statements from him, the case against him at this point is so overwhelming that we do not need to –

SEN. GRAHAM: Mr. Attorney General, my only point — the only point I’m making, that if we’re going to use federal court as a disposition for terrorists, you take everything that comes with being in federal court. And what comes with being in federal court is that
the rules in this country, unlike military law — you can have military operations, you can interrogate somebody for military intelligence purposes, and the law-enforcement rights do not attach.

But under domestic criminal law, the moment the person is in the hands of the United States government, they’re entitled to be told they have a right to a lawyer and can remain silent. And if we go down that road, we’re going to make this country less safe. That is my problem with what you have done.

You’re a fine man. I know you want to do everything to help this country be safe, but I think you’ve made a fundamental mistake here. You have taken a wartime model that will allow us flexibility when it comes to intelligence gathering, and you have compromised this country’s ability to deal with people who are at war with us, by interjecting into this system the possibility that they may be given the same constitutional rights as any American citizen.

And the main reason that KSM is going to court apparently is because the people he decided to kill were here in America and mostly civilian, and the person going into military court decided to kill some military members overseas. I think that is a perversion of the justice system.

Holder and later Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) went on to retort that Graham’s question about custodial interrogation was a “red herring,” because the scenario was “unrealistic” and “For one thing, capturing Osama bin Laden — we’ve had enough on him, we don’t need to interrogate him.”

They wouldn’t interrogate Osama bin Laden? Really? And that’s supposed to make us feel better?

[Politico] During a round of network television interviews conducted during Obama’s visit to China, the president was asked about those who find it offensive that Mohammed will receive all the rights normally accorded to U.S. citizens when they are charged with a crime.

“I don’t think it will be offensive at all when he’s convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him,” Obama told NBC’s Chuck Todd.

So let me get this straight. The primary rationale, we were told for years, to try Guantanamo detainees in our civilian federal court system was to improve our image and standing around the world. Indeed, back in January 2009 Attorney General Eric Holder said the following: “We will carry out our constitutional duties within the framework set forth by the founders and with the humility to recognize that congressional oversight and judicial review are necessary.”

Aside from the fact that this statement and many others like it from Democrats were both insulting to our military (who for 250 years of precedent had run effective and lawful tribunals during the Revolution, Civil War, and World Wars I and II) and factually inaccurate (military tribunals have both congressional oversight and judicial review), we now find that in just 48 hours the president and attorney general have created exactly what they claimed they wished to avoid via tribunals — the notion of a kangaroo court.

Obama’s statement above is sure to feed the perception around the world that Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) cannot possibly receive a fair trial (and won’t his defense team demand a change of venue on day 1?). Similarly, Holder said the following:

“These are cases that have to be won. I don’t expect that we’ll have a contrary result [other than guilty].”

Brilliant! Holder additionally called it the “trial of the century.” The attorney general and president of the United States both confidently all but guaranteeing conviction and death penalty… How do you think that will play out on Al Jazeera? Won’t it sound like a stacked deck? The script already written? You better believe it. There’s no reset button for Islamic extremists.

Aren’t Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder graduates of law school? If so, how could they make the fundamental gaffe of prejudicing the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM)?

The next problem is a total lack of consistency. After bashing military tribunals for so long, Holder now says that other Guantanamo detainees, such as the USS Cole bombers, will be tried in a tribunal, not in federal court! That, of course, is the better place to try them, but no doubt people will ask — including the defense lawyers — why a federal trial is good enough for the brains behind 9-11 but not good enough for his subordinate.

SEN. GRAHAM: Yeah, nor do I. But here’s my concern. Can you give me a case in United States history where a enemy combatant caught on a battlefield was tried in civilian court?

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: [ACM: LONG PAUSE] I don’t know. I’d have to look at that. I think that, you know, the determination I’ve made —

SEN. GRAHAM: We’re making history here, Mr. Attorney General. I’ll answer it for you. The answer is no.

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: Well, I think —

SEN. GRAHAM: … The Ghailani case — he was indicted for the Cole bombing before 9/11. And I didn’t object to it going into federal court. But I’m telling you right now. We’re making history and we’re making bad history.

Indeed. It’s been said that the 2006 Military Tribunals Act passed bipartisianly in Congress, was crafted almost for the sole purpose of trying KSM. That’s out the window now.

Here’s Bill McGurn:

When it comes to terrorists, you would think that an al Qaeda operative who targets an American mom sitting in her office or a child on a flight back home is many degrees worse than a Taliban soldier picked up after a firefight with U.S. Army troops.

Your instinct would be correct, because at the heart of terrorism is the monstrous idea that the former is as legitimate a target as the latter. Unfortunately, by dispatching Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other al Qaeda leaders to federal criminal court for trial, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will be undermining this distinction. And the perverse message that decision will send to terrorists all over this dangerous world is this: If you kill civilians on American soil you will have greater protections than if you attack our military overseas.

“A fundamental purpose of rules such as the Geneva Conventions is to give those at war an incentive for more civilized behavior—and not targeting civilians is arguably the most sacred of these principles,” says William Burck, a former federal prosecutor and Bush White House lawyer who dealt with national security issues. “It demolishes this principle to give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed even more legal protections than the Geneva Conventions provide a uniformed soldier fighting in a recognized war zone.”

We don’t often speak of incentives in war. That’s a loss, because the whole idea of, say, Geneva rights is based on the idea of providing combatants with incentives to do things that help limit the bloodiness of battle. These include wearing a uniform, carrying arms openly, not targeting civilians, and so on.

Terrorists recognize none of these things. They are best understood as associations of people plotting and carrying out war crimes, whether that means sowing fear with direct and indiscriminate attacks on marketplaces, offices and airlines—or by engaging enemy troops without distinguishing uniforms, so that the surrounding civilians essentially become used as human shields. Terrorists reject both the laws of war and the laws of American civil society. To put it another way, they reject both the authority and the obligations their legal rights imply.

None of this seems to bother Mr. Holder. Since he dropped his bombshell on Friday, much commentary has focused on the possibility that KSM might be found not guilty. That, however, is unlikely: Mr. Holder is not a fool, and everyone in the Obama administration appreciates the backlash that would occur if a KSM trial results in an acquittal. Thus, the men he will send for trial will be those against whom he has the most evidence.

The perversity here is that the overwhelming evidence of their war crimes gain them protections denied a soldier fighting in accord with the rules of war.

It even gains them more protections than their associates who attack military targets. This double standard means that the perpetrators of the USS Cole bombing are sent to military tribunals while the perpetrators of 9/11 are sent to federal court.

Andrew McCarthy has a unique perspective on the move to criminal trials. As an assistant U.S. attorney in 1993, he successfully prosecuted Omar Abdel Rahman (the “blind sheikh”) for the first bombing of the World Trade Center. Even though the cases were somewhat different—that plot was conceived, plotted and carried out on U.S. soil—Mr. McCarthy says the experience persuaded him that federal trials are a bad way of handling terror.

“At first, I was of the mind that a criminal prosecution would uphold all our high-falutin’ rhetoric about the constitution and majesty of the law,” says Mr. McCarthy. “But when you get down to the nitty gritty of a trial, you see one huge problem: The criminal justice system imposes limits on the government and gives the defendant all sorts of access to information, because we’d rather have the government lose than unfairly convict a man. You can’t take that position with an enemy who is at war with you and trying to bring that government down.”

By going down this line, says Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Holder has invited any number of dangers: making the Manhattan courtroom a target for terrorist attack, inviting the disclosure of sensitive intelligence, opening the possibility that some al Qaeda operative will be acquitted and released within the U.S., etc.

Worst of all, he says, is turning the laws of war upside down: Why fight the Marines and risk getting killed yourself or locked up in Bagram forever when you can blow up American citizens on their own streets and gain the legal protections that give you a chance to go free? With this one step, Mr. Holder is giving al Qaeda a ghastly incentive: to focus more of their attacks on American civilians on American home soil.

“It is foolish to think that al Qaeda does not train to our system and look for our vulnerabilities,” says Mr. McCarthy. “Remember what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told his captors when we got him, ‘I’ll see you in New York with my lawyer.’ It seems he knows our weaknesses better than our government does.”

The former prosecutor of the 1993 WTC bombers, Andrew McCarthy, argues that the Obama administration has to know that treating KSM and other illegal combatants the same as a U.S. citizen arrested in the country’s borders and formally charged with a crime will have many adverse consequences related to national security and classified intelligence.

Pres. Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, experienced litigators, fully realize that in civilian court, the Qaeda quintet can and will demand discovery of mountains of government intelligence. They will demand disclosures about investigative tactics; the methods and sources by which intelligence has been obtained; the witnesses from the intelligence community, the military, and law enforcement who interrogated witnesses, conducted searches, secretly intercepted enemy communications, and employed other investigative techniques. They will attempt to compel testimony from officials who formulated U.S. counterterrorism strategy, in addition to U.S. and foreign intelligence officers. As civilian “defendants,” these war criminals will put Bush-era counterterrorism tactics under the brightest public spotlight in American legal history.

This is exactly what President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder know will happen. And because it is unnecessary to have this civilian trial at all, one must conclude that this is exactly what Obama and Holder want to see happen.

During the 2008 campaign, candidate Obama and his adviser, Holder, rebuked the Bush counterterrorism policies and promised their base a “reckoning.” Since President Obama took office, Attorney General Holder has anxiously shoveled into the public domain classified information relating to those policies — with the administration always at pains to claim that its hand is being forced by court orders, even though the president has had legal grounds, which he has refrained from invoking, to decline to make those disclosures. Moreover, during a trip to Germany in April, Holder signaled his openness to turning over evidence that would assist European investigations — including one underway in Spain — that seek to charge Bush-administration officials with war crimes (which is the transnational Left’s label for actions taken in defense of the United States).

Now, we see the reckoning: Obama’s gratuitous transfer of alien war criminals from a military court, where they were on the verge of ending the proceedings, to the civilian justice system, where they will be given the same rights and privileges as the American citizens they are pledged to kill. This will give the hard Left its promised feast. Its shock troops, such as the Center for Constitutional Rights, will gather up each new disclosure and add it to the purported war-crimes case they are urging foreign courts to bring against President Bush, his subordinates, and U.S. intelligence agents.

From indictment to trial, the civilian case against the 9/11 terrorists will be a years-long seminar, enabling al-Qaeda and its jihadist allies to learn much of what we know and, more important, the methods and sources by which we come to know it. But that is not the half of it. By moving the case to civilian court, the president and his attorney general have laid the groundwork for an unprecedented surrender of our national-defense secrets directly to our most committed enemies.

The five jihadists in question are alien enemy combatants currently detained outside the United States. They are not Americans and are not entitled to the protection of our Bill of Rights. That means that in a military-commission trial, they would be given only those rights Congress chose to give them.

At Gitmo, they’ve insisted on representing themselves. In a military commission, we can allow them to do that, but we don’t have to. The commission rules provide for the appointment of military counsel and permit the combatants to retain their own lawyers. This is significant because discovery rules require that the defense be given mounds of information for trial preparation. Much of that information is top-secret intelligence. Importantly, however, we do not have to show the terrorists themselves any classified information. Only counsel who have the required security clearances, and are duty-bound not to reveal the nation’s secrets to the nation’s enemies, get access.

The rules are saliently different in the civilian justice system, where, the attorney general has promised, this case will be treated like any other criminal case. In federal court, defendants — even illegal aliens — are vested with constitutional rights that Congress may not alter or reduce.

[Wall Street Journal] Contrary to liberal myth, military tribunals aren’t a break with 200-plus years of American jurisprudence. Eight Nazis who snuck into the U.S. in June 1942 were tried by a similar court and most were hanged within two months. Before the Obama Administration stopped all proceedings earlier this year pending yesterday’s decision, the tribunals at Gitmo had earned a reputation for fairness and independence.

As it happens, Mr. [Attorney General Eric] Holder acknowledged their worth himself by announcing that the Guantanamo detainee who allegedly planned the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole off Yemen and four others would face military commission trials. (The Pentagon must now find a locale other than the multimillion-dollar, state-of-the-art facility at Gitmo for its tribunal.)

Why the difference? Mr. Holder seemed to suggest that the Cole bombers struck a military target overseas and thus are a good fit for a military trial, while KSM and comrades hit the U.S. and murdered civilians and thus deserve a U.S. civilian trial. But this entirely misunderstands that both groups are unlawful enemy combatants who are accused of war crimes, whatever their targets. Mr. Holder’s justification betrays not a legal consistency but a fundamentally political judgment that he can make as he sees fit.

[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.

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?

Here’s Deroy Murdock:

Recently declassified Pentagon data demonstrate that among 530 former detainees released from Guantanamo, “27 were confirmed and 47 were suspected of reengaging in terrorist activity.” These 14 percent who returned to jihad, despite being asked to sign non-violence pledges, are those we have captured. Others surreptitiously may have conducted violence, raised money, or radicalized and trained recruits. After examining news reports and interviewing Pentagon spokesmen, I estimate that among the 74 Guantanamo alumni who evidently resumed terrorism, several have attacked and killed at least 117 individuals and wounded 229 others.

Repatriating terrorists causes endless grief. After Ruslan Odijev and six others left Guantanamo, Russian officials released them in June 2004. Odijev subsequently helped assault the Caucasian town of Nalchik on Oct. 13, 2005, killing 49 and wounding 115.

Abdullah Mahsud departed Guantanamo for Afghanistan in March 2004. He then kidnapped two Chinese engineers, one of whom was killed in a rescue attempt. His Oct. 29, 2004 attack on an Islamabad Marriott hotel injured seven. He assisted an April 28, 2007 attack in Charsada, Pakistan, that killed 31 and wounded 49. On July 24, 2007, he exploded himself with a hand grenade to avoid capture in Zhob, Pakistan.

Chinese-Muslim Uighur detainees at Gitmo protested June 1 that “America is Double Hetler [sic] in unjustice [sic].” This is comical. Guantanamo is as far from Dachau as the sun is from Pluto. Gitmoites are getting brand-new satellite TVs and Sudoku puzzles, reports Jane Sutton of Reuters. They already enjoy soccer, basketball, sketch pads, colored chalk, English classes, Arabic newspapers, USA Today, Islamically correct meals, and Muslim prayers — the latter five times daily.

“I can confidently report that the prison is now run in an efficient, professional manner,” none other than Obama’s own attorney general, Eric Holder, admitted in an April 29 speech. “Detainees are treated humanely.”

Why not jail Guantanamo’s 240 detainees in America? The U.S. Bureau of Prisons “has 15 high-security prisons nationwide built to accommodate 13,448 prisoners,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) wrote on April 3 in the Washington Times. “These prisons currently hold 20,291,” 6,843 above capacity. “The crowding rate for high-security institutions is 48 percent,” BOP public-affairs officer Linda Thomas told me Thursday afternoon.

If detainees were relocated to America, critics who scream today for Gitmo’s closure would shriek tomorrow that terror suspects endure domestic overcrowding.

“So what is our next option?” Senator Hatch asked March 12 on the Senate floor. “Military custody? These detainees are already held in military custody. Why are we bringing them from one military installation to another?” Hatch concluded: “Bringing these detainees to the continental United States is tantamount to injecting a virus into a healthy body.”

Obama’s argument that Gitmo inspires terrorism falsely blames America for jihad. If Gitmo were shuttered tomorrow, and its residents flown home, those who hate America and love oppressing women and decapitating gay people would find countless reasons to arrange the downfall of our country and the destruction of our countrymen. Those who detonate girls’ schools and music stores because they demand female ignorance and mandate silence would not blink if Guantanamo were padlocked.

The 19 hijackers who slaughtered 2,976 innocents and wounded 7,356 on 9/11 were not enraged over Guantanamo. That facility did not exist then, nor when al-Qaeda bombed the USS Cole in 2000, U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, or the Twin Towers in 1993. To expect that closing Gitmo will neutralize Islamofascists’ venom is to believe that had FDR fired Jewish chaplains from the Army, Hitler would have scuttled the Battle of the Bulge.

Likewise, shuttering Gitmo and judging detainees in civilian courts would be like evacuating POW camps and trying SS officers before American juries, even as Hitler plotted our doom. After Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are caught or killed, and five years have elapsed without militant-Islamic terror, America can declare victory in the War on Terror and then prosecute these killers. Until that joyous day, our terrorist enemies should remain at Guantanamo — safely encircled by armed guards, barbed wire, and sharks.

Major Kyndra Rotunda-Miller wrote a great book that separated the facts from the myths of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility. I’m now reading another book, this one by Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu titled Inside Gitmo, is the true story behind the myths of Guantánamo Bay. I’ve just started reading it but already have been provided with an excellent report:

In the opening salvos of the war, Afghan forces, led and advised by American special operation forces and CIA operators, and later joined by American Marines and elite Army units, took thousands of prisoners from the battlefield. Estimates are that as many as 70,000 Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters were captured. More than 10,000 were vetted by American forces in Afghanistan and released, while less than 10% of those screened were moved to Guantánamo. Most Americans are completely unaware of the sheer magnitude of the number of enemy combatants screened and tactically interrogated. Of that rather vast number, a tiny 1/10 of 1% — fewer than 800 captured fighters — were deemed of such high intelligence value or posed such severe threat potential that they needed to be securely confined and thoroughly interrogated. These men considered to be the worst of the worst.

Guantanamo opponents often promote the idea that everyone at Guantanamo is there by mistake, by improper vetting, or victim of unfortunate circumstances, or a cash-for-detainee system gone awry. Lt. Col. Cucullu careful statistics destroys that notion. Persons are not “held indefinitely” from the War on Terror — indeed our 70,000 captures are now just 200 persons whose home countries refuse them. With that logic, that some might be innocent, we may as well empty our entire federal prison system too, for it defies statistical reality.