JINSA Report #602 The Fifth Anniversary, Part II

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September 11, 2006

JINSA Report #602

The Fifth Anniversary, Part II

As we wrote, "We owe them continuance of America's righteous anger until
justice is done," we also owe an accounting of justice done, including
balancing the scales back in the direction of protecting the innocent.
Opinion polls ask, "Do you feel more safe or less safe now?" It is the
wrong question. In the same way the phrase "war on terrorism" doesn't
go to the heart of the issue, neither does a measure of "feelings."
Angst is partly a function of finding out how deep and wide the problem
was before we fought back.

We surely have done better nationally and internationally sharing
information about terrorists, their movements and their finances. We
look more carefully at who is in our country, why and with whom they
share money and information. Polls show the public widely understands
and supports government efforts to track, trail and listen to people
talking to suspect persons abroad. We have arrested people and
uncovered domestic plots. There has not been one coordinated attack on
American soil since 9-11, although individuals have conducted attacks
which if they occurred in Israel or Iraq would be called terrorist
attacks. We have prevented attacks emanating from other countries –
including the horrific plan to blow up ten airliners over the Atlantic
Ocean.

Those who say the U.S. cannot protect the homeland from terrorism while
conducting the war abroad are demonstrably wrong. It can. It has.

We have killed many and captured some of the perpetrators of 9-11 and
their network around the world. Five years is not a long time to work
through legal issues surrounding the status of terrorists and enemy
combatants and it is to our national credit that we work on it. The
Geneva Convention and POW status do not apply; they were made for
honorable soldiers. Neither was designed for people who use airplanes
as missiles to blow up secretaries and stock traders, who shoot from
amid women and children, or who believe the afterlife will be markedly
better it one enters it voluntarily in bloody shreds. American morality
does apply and we have faith in that.

Excuse us for not crying over Khalid Sheikh Mohammad's interrogation by
the CIA. Or Guantanamo prisoners, the 400 worst-case captures from
Afghanistan and Iraq, who have the same medical care as the troops who
guard them; religious freedom; and private visits from the Red Cross,
Congress and various European delegations. Where were the
self-righteous when Olaf Wiig and Steve Centanni were forced to convert
to Islam at the point of a gun? Where is their concern for Gilad
Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev? Spare us the crocodile tears
about Gitmo.

Captured terrorists, including KSM, will stand trial and face American
justice after Congress passes legislation to authorize the military
tribunals the Supreme Court ruled were appropriate if so authorized.
JINSA disagreed with the Hamdan ruling, believing this President, like
Presidents from George Washington to Franklin Roosevelt had that
authority.

But if Congress acts, an additional measure of justice can still be done.

To view this JINSA Report online click on the link below.
http://www.jinsa.org/JINSAReports/3533

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