Ramadan Day 4. From Al Jazeera
Somali fighters have vowed to intensify their attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as residents of Mogadishu, the capital, took shelter from mortar fire.
Witnesses said at least four people were killed in fighting on Wednesday, as fighters and the Ethiopian forces backing the Somali government exchanged mortar and heavy machine-gun fire.
Abdirahin Issa Adow, a spokesman for the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) fighters, said the rebels had "decided to redouble attacks against the Ethiopians and their stooges during the holy month of Ramadan", which began on Monday.
He said the Ramadan attacks do not violate the Quran because his fighters are battling "enemies of Allah".
The battles started in the early morning and continued unabated for several hours.
As fighting continued in the capital, pirates seized a French sailing yacht off Somalia's northern coast.
Hassan Alore, the minister for natural resources in Somalia's breakaway Puntland region, said the hijackers had commandeered the boat and were taking it to the village of Eyl, south of Puntland's capital Bossaso.
"The pirates already got seven other ships hijacked off the Somalia coast in Eyl village," Alore added, saying the vessel was currently at Calula village east of Bossaso. Since the end of July, eight ships have been hijacked in the Gulf of Aden, including two Malaysian vessels as well as others from Germany, Iran and Japan.
The waters off Somalia are the most dangerous in the world for pirate activity, with the International Maritime Bureau reporting 24 attacks in the area between April and June this year.

The Times reports that Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, long suspected as being the main al-Qaeda operative behind the bombing of the destroyer, the U.S.S. Cole, that killed 17 members of the American Navy on October 12, 2000, has been referred for a war crimes trial by military commission. The government seeks the death penalty.

Plainly, the military is trying to press ahead with commission trials. Strictly speaking, the Supreme Court's decision in Boumediene, which granted constitutional habeas corpus rights to alien enemy combatants held at Gitmo (meaning, they get to have civilian federal judges review their cases), was limited to detention; it did not directly rule on the propriety of conducting trials for war crimes without civilian judicial participation. But a trial (which can result in death or life-imprisonment) is generally deemed to be a weightier matter than mere detention (which, under the laws of war, terminates automatically when hostilities end), and has thus traditionally been accompanied by more due process.

I understand the government's position — war crimes trials have long been held without U.S. court interference and, after all, as Rich Lowrey's column today points out, in 2006, when the Supreme Court in Hamdan invalidated the president's ordering of commission trials, the justices claimed the problem was that Congress had not approved them, prompting Congress to pass the Military Commissions Act precisely to approve them. But, alas, these were the very arguments that Justice Kennedy and the Court's liberal bloc brushed aside in Boumediene.

The Times reports that, predictably, the war-crimes defendants will now go to federal court and argue the Boumediene's rationale means the commission trials cannot go forward. Expect them to get a sympathetic ear.

Following the Irish rejection of the EU constitution, Poland is demurring.  President Lech Kaczynski's approval is required as a last step under Polish law, and he has determined it would be "pointless" to sign on given the Irish rejection.

By the way, you have to love the dismayed New York Times coverage — at least if you have gotten to the point of being amused rather than infuriated by the Gray Lady's relentless spinning.  It's story does not refer to a new EU constitution that would essentially end the sovereignty of its constituents.  This monstrosity is instead repeatedly called the "Lisbon Treaty" and readers are told its purpose is merely "to modernize the institutions of the 27-nation bloc."  How could anyone possibly be against a "treaty," which connotes agreement and harmony (as opposed to a "constitution" — which, especially when applied to 27 different countries, suggests a radical new understanding)?  And how could anyone oppose something so rational, so enlightened as "modernizing" our "institutions"?

The story adds:  "French officials said Monday that they would use the presidency to try to win over discontented voters in Europe by getting 'back to basics' on matters such as cushioning the impact of soaring food and fuel bills and protecting voters from the impact of globalization." 

Could it be that for ordinary Europeans in France — who are a lot more skeptical about this grand enterprise than elite Europeans in the French government — getting "back to basics" and being protected from "the impact of globalization" might mean remaining, you know, French?

I wrote Tuesday about the ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals from the DC Circuit which presumes to overrule the commander-in-chief's determination that a Uighur detainee — who received paramilitary training from an al Qaeda affiliate — is an enemy combatant.

At the Weekly Standard, Tom Joscelyn fills in the blanks about the close relationship between the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, which trained the Uighurs captured in the war on terror, and Osama bin Laden's terror network.  Tom suggests that the military (that would be the professional fighters to whom we used to entrust the task of recognizing who the enemy operatives trying to kill them are) had very good reason to label the Uighurs as enemy combatants in a war against al Qaeda and its confederates.  It would be interesting to know why the Court decided this wasn't good enough and, again, where exactly the Court believes we should now release these jihadist trainees.  (Because of classified information issues, the decision has not yet been released.)

From Justice Scalia's majority opinion in the gun case:

We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding “interest-balancing” approach [responding to Justice Breyer’s proposal for a new standard for the right to possess a gun].  The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government – even the Third Branch of Government – the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth [his emphasis] insisting upon.  A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all.  Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope is too broad.  We would not apply an “interest-balancing” approach to the prohibition of a peaceful neo-Nazi march through Skokie… Like the First, it is the very product of an interest-balancing by the people – which Justice Breyer would now conduct for them anew.

MEMRI and Instapundit report that a Kurdistan newspaper has published (on its first page) a 2002 letter from Saddam Hussein's office, reaching out directly to al Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman Zawahiri, about the possibility of attacks in Saudi Arabia.  [h/t Mark Eichenlaub of the Regime of Terror blog]

Of course, I cannot vouch for its authenticity.  If it's legit, though, it would be an instance of Iraq collaborating with al Qaeda even after the 9/11 attacks.  We'll see.

Roger Kimball has a few thoughts — more than a few, actually — on "critical thinking."  Perfect for a summer Saturday.

The National Post and ABC News think so.

I have an article up today at NRO explaining why I think the imminent intelligence reform deal, though flawed, is a good one.  It restores critical surveillance authority so that we'll be able to collect intel on our enemies overseas, and it grants immunity to the telecoms to encourage their continued cooperation in our national defense — which is critical because their expertise in how communications networks operate is unparalleled.

Naturally, there is unhappiness on the Left and among those who see no problem with turning our national security issues into legal problems to be resolved by judges insulated from the voters.  Unfortunately, the legal profession reliably lines up in the latter category, and Senator Arlen Specter is one of its ardent supporters.  Thus, Sen. Specter has issued a press release criticizing the compromise bill "because it does not require a judicial determination that what the telephone companies have done in the past is constitutional." (Emphasis added.)  He opines that it "is totally insufficient to grant immunity for the telephone companies’ prior conduct based merely on the written assurance from the administration that the spying was legal."  

Specter elaborates:   

The provision that the bill will be the exclusive means for the government to wiretap is meaningless because that specific limitation is now in the 1978 Act and it didn’t stop the government from the warrantless terrorist surveillance program and what the telephone companies have done.  That statutory limitation leaves the president with his position that his Article II powers as commander in chief cannot be limited by statute, which is a sound constitutional doctrine unless the courts decide otherwise.  Only the courts can decide that issue and this proposal dodges it.  [Emphasis added.]

There are myriad problems with this.  First, the telecoms are not part of the government; the question is whether they acted legally, not constitutionally.  The Constitution limits government action, not the telecoms. 

In reality, the dispute over the NSA program is a battle between the political branches over a political question about a political power:  who controls the use of surveillance, Congress or the president?  Critics of presidential power have tried to convert this question into a legal issue fit for resolution by the courts; they have used the telcoms as a proxy because the administration can't effectively be sued.  Consistent with this tack, Specter conflates the telecoms and the administration as if they were one and the same, with equal "constitutional" standing. 

In fact, (a) the administration acted constitutionally (more on that in a second), and (b) the telecoms could be deemed to have acted legally even if the administration had acted unconstitutionally — if the telecoms relied in good faith on an ostensibly valid request for assistance by the government.  (Do you think the DEA would have many drug informants if the informants could be prosecuted for undercover drug deals they do at the request of DEA agents?  Of course not.  That is why, for example, the federal rules of criminal procedure provide a defense for those who have substantial grounds to believe their actions have been authorized by the government.)

The immunity in the compromise merely ends the litigation against the telecoms who can show they acted based on such substantial grounds.  It does not end the political debate over the extent of presidential power, which Specter and others are fully free to pursue.  What the compromise bill means, though, is that this political issue will be worked out in the normal political process.  It will not be worked out in unrepresentative court cases, where self-described "public interest" groups like the ACLU pretend to represent us and the result is dictated not by the impartial ballot box but by judges, some of whom have shown themselves to be politicized in a most unseemly way.

On the question whether the administration acted constitutionally, Sen. Specter fails to mention that the courts have already weighed in on the question he claims only they can decide.  The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, the court created by Congress in FISA to be the specialized, authoritative court on surveillance issues, explained in 2002 that a statute cannot strip the president's constitutional powers and therefore that the president continues to have authority to conduct warrantless national security surveillance against foreign threats despite FISA's imposition of a court-authorization requirement.  In so saying, the Court of Review was reiterating the rationale of federal appeals court cases decided both before and after FISA was enacted in 1978.

Notice that Sen. Specter concedes the President's Article II argument is "sound constitutional doctrine," yet criticizes the compromise bill, which is premised on the notion that the telecoms had every reason to draw exactly the same conclusion.  That is not only curious; it's untoward.  Like the Congress, the executive is one of three equal branches of government.  Its actions are presumptively constitutional.  When Congress acts, it expects the executive and the courts to respect this presumption of validity — Congress does not assume that the courts will "decide otherwise," especially when its position seems "sound" based on existing precedent.  Why should the president be entitled to less deference?  

So the big six-month treaty between Israel and Hamas has begun. Israel has committed to ease a blockade on Gaza. Hamas continues to be committed to Israel's destruction.

While lots more gnashing of teeth is called for, I think it's extremely important that we push ahead with concrete, practical steps to prevent what could be disastrous fallout from the Supreme Court's catastrophic — albeit entirely foreseeable — ruling last week in Boumediene.  That is what my article this morning is about.

Among many reprehensible aspects of their decision, Justice Kennedy and the Court's liberal bloc have dumped what will be hundreds of habeas corpus petitions by the enemy combatants on the federal district courts — with no guidance to judges about what rules should govern those proceedings.  That is truly outrageous.  Mind you, in civilian criminal prosecutions we do not let the judges make it up as they go along even though their expertise in such judicial proceedings is undeniable.  Pretrial detention law is heavily regulated by Congress out of the well-founded fear that, absent such directives, soft judges would grant bail to dangerous criminals who should be incarcerated.  Even though criminal defendants are presumed innocent, Congress has enacted presumptions in favor of pretrial detention for narcotics traffickers, violent criminals, and defendants whose ties to foreign jurisdictions make them extreme flight risks.

By comparison, (a) alien unlawful enemy combatants are more serious threats to public safety (indeed, to national security) than drug dealers and violent felons; (b) alien unlawful enemy combatants are also not defendants accused of crimes (they're hostile operatives captured in military operations overwhelming authorized by Congress following the mass-killing of nearly 3000 Americans on 9/11) and, therefore, they are not entitled in detention hearings to the constitutional presumption of innocence that applies in civilian prosecutions (by contrast, they do get the presumption of innocence if charged with war crimes); and (c) judges have no institutional competence in determining the status of enemy combatants, a war power the framers committed to the political branches. 

Consequently, how could Congress possibly let federal judges concoct the rules and procedures for combatant detentions, ad hoc and out of whole cloth, when Congress rigorously regulates those same judges in ordinary criminal cases?

Thus, because there is probably not time at the moment for an ambitious project like a national security court (which nevertheless should be created at some point soon), I am this morning proposing a narrowly targeted detention procedure law for combatant cases, modeled on the federal pretrial detention statute (Section 3142 of Title 18, U.S. Code) but with modifications reflecting that we are dealing with enemy operatives and that, because we are at war, it would be utterly inappropriate to permit judges to require in-court testimony from our military and intelligence personnel. 

A solution like this will no doubt face lots of opposition from hard Leftists, including Sen. Obama, who delight in the notion that the politically-insulated courts can vest our enemies with all sorts of protections that Leftist politicians dare not propose lest voters run them out of town.  But that's all the more reason for pushing ahead with it and smoking them out so voters know exactly where they stand.  And more significant than the politics:  The combatants will be raining their habeas petitions on the district courts starting today (if they haven't started already).  To protect Americans lives, it's vital for Congress and the administration to act now.

If this gem from the Minnesota Star Tribune doesn't make you ill, nothing will.  It's from a typical media account about how difficult it is for devout Muslims to endure the trials and tribulations of employment in America — you know, outrages like having to wear a uniform at a job that requires one:

"We have a saying in Somalia that 'he who approaches the lion does not know what a lion is,'" said Abdi Sheikhosman, a professor of Islamic law at the University of Minnesota. "Many Somalis arrive here not knowing the history of racial divide in this country. They don't know the lion they are up against."

Tony Blankley wonders why the mainstream press is ignoring the serious questions about Obama and the radical Left raised by Stanley's important NRO article from June 2.  Blankley, among other things, asks:

[G]iven how much the media has covered both the Pfleger and Wright matters, when a respectable journal, such as National Review, runs an article by a journalist of established credibility, such as Stanley Kurtz, that suggests a different and far more disturbing interpretation of Obama's relationships with Wright and Pfleger, a responsible mainstream media would seek out Obama and, at the minimum, ask him whether the things the 1995 De Sutter article quotes him as saying are, in fact, things he said. They might even ask him to explain himself. Because if the 1995 article is an accurate reflection of what Obama said, then most of what he has said in the past few months about the Wright affair and Trinity United Church of Christ could not continue to be viewed as believable.

A great editorial from the Wall Street Journal this morning on the insanity of legal restrictions on energy exploration and production while prices soar.  For the Arizona Senator who somehow thinks ANWR is just like the Grand Canyon, the Journal closes with a blunt message:

Recent weeks have seen some GOP stirrings on Capitol Hill, but John McCain has so far refused to jettison his green posturings, such as his belief in carbon caps and his animus against offshore development. A good reason for a rethink would be $4 gas. At present, it is charitable to call Mr. McCain's energy ideas incoherent, and it may cost him the election.

I also especially liked this part — for those who forever fret about America's "reputation in the world":

Amid $135 oil, it ought to be an easy, bipartisan victory to lift the political restrictions on energy exploration and production. Record-high fuel costs are hitting consumers and business like a huge tax increase. Yet the U.S. remains one of the only countries in the world that chooses as a matter of policy to lock up its natural resources. The Chinese think we're insane and self-destructive, while the Saudis laugh all the way to the bank.

I have no great brief against Donna Shalala, Sec'y of HHS in the Clinton administration, but a Medal of Freedom?  [Power Line has the story, as does Winfield Myers, who does carry a brief against Sec'y Shalala.]

This is end of President Bush's administration, probably the last Medals of Freedom he will award.  There is also a very good chance a Democrat will be elected president in November, so now may be the last time a Republican gets to grant this honor to deserving recipients for a very long time.  And this is how the President chooses to use his opportunity?  Could you see a President Obama giving a Medal of Freedom to, say, John Bolton or Elaine Chao?  (Toward the end of his administration, President Clinton honored Jimmy Carter, George McGovern and Jesse Jackson, among others.)

By the way, I looked up the list, here.  Judge Robert Bork, now 81, has never gotten one.  Wouldn't that have been nice?

Suggestions?  Sandy Berger may be available ...

Hard to decide what is more maddening in stories like these — the fact that there are ALWAYS stories like these, or the media's stubborn refusal to come to grips with the evidence of sense even as they describe it in real time.

In Indonesia, which sport's the world's largest Muslim population, the Associated Press reports that the government (in yet another of these Islamic "democracies" that "guarantees freedom of religion") has ordered a "moderate" Muslim sect to return to the "mainstream" of Islam or risk imprisonment for debasing Islam.  The Ahmadi — whose persecution I have detailed previously — do not accept Mohammed as the final prophet or jihad as a divine injunction.  Not withstanding the above, the AP blithely reports as fact its opinion that "the vast majority of Indonesia's Muslims are moderate" — as if the term "moderate" actually has a settled meaning and as if, even if it retained its commonly understood meaning, it would be possible for such a thing to happen if "the vast majority of Indonesia's Muslims" were actually "moderate."

Here's the report (italics are mine):

MUSLIM SECT TOLD TO RETURN TO MAINSTREAM ISLAM 

Members of a moderate Muslim sect were ordered by the government Monday to return to mainstream Islam or face possible imprisonment for insulting the country's predominant religion.

Critics may see the step as a failure by the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to uphold the young democracy's secular values as it struggles to define its Muslim identity after decades of dictatorship.

The vast majority of Indonesia's Muslims are moderate, but in recent years an extremist fringe has grown louder. The government, which relies on the support of Islamic parties in Parliament, has been accused of caving in to their demands.

The document signed Monday by two Cabinet ministers and the attorney general "orders all Ahmadiyah followers to stop their activities" or face up to five years in prison.

Indonesia's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but many in the nation of 235 million consider it offensive that the sect does not recognize Muhammad as the last prophet.  [ME:  Must be that darned fringe!]

"Is it still safe for us in this country?" Ahmadiyah spokesman Syamsir Ali said in an interview with national broadcaster tvOne. "Our houses are being targeted and those who don't like us feel it is acceptable to spill our blood."  Ali said he hopes Indonesia doesn't "turn out to be like governments in the Middle East" where the movement is prohibited.  [ME:  "Moderate" governments, no doubt.]

Hard-liners have attacked Ahmadiyah members and torched their mosques since the government said in April it was considering banning the faith. Several dozen religious tolerance activists were beaten at a rally in Jakarta just over a week ago while police stood by.

A spokesman for the radical Islamic Defenders' Front — which has a long record of arson, stoning and vandalism against opponents and Western targets — said the decree falls short of its demands.  "It is not enough. We will keep up the struggle until the president orders the disbandment of Ahmadiyah," he said in a telephone interview.

Earlier Monday, several thousands protesters wearing white Islamic robes and caps gathered outside the presidential palace to demand that the organization be outlawed.

The religion needs to be defended "from people who want to destroy Islam's teachings," said demonstrator Zairin, who like many Indonesian goes by a single name. The use of violence would be justified to force reluctant Ahmadiyah members to renounce their faith and "keep Islam pure," he said.

ME:  Of course, as former Prime Minister Tony Blair learned when Britain's police authorities tried to investigate a Saudi corruption case, and as the EU is learning with Pakistan's "request" that Europe rethink that whole freedom-of-speech thing, no report on such a development in the Religion of Peace would be complete without the extortionate threat of terror:  "Religious Affairs Minister Maftuh Basyuni, one of the ministers who signed the decree, said it 'is not an intervention into someone's faith, but to maintain order and safety.'" 

In other words:  surrender your principles ... for your own good, of course.  After all, you'll otherwise have to deal with the wrath of those "extremists" and "radicals" who, it turns out, are defending "mainstream Islam."

From the Daily Times of Pakistan [h/t:  Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch] (italics mine):

Pakistan to ask EU to amend laws on freedom of expression

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will ask the European Union countries to amend laws regarding freedom of expression in order to prevent offensive incidents such as the printing of blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) and the production of an anti-Islam film by a Dutch legislator, sources in the Interior Ministry told Daily Times on Saturday.

They said that a six-member high-level delegation comprising officials from the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Law would leave Islamabad on Sunday (today) for the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium and explain to the EU leadership the backlash against the blasphemous campaign in the name of freedom of expression.

The delegation, headed by an additional secretary of the Interior Ministry, will meet the leaders of the EU countries in a bid to convince them that the recent attack on the Danish Embassy in Pakistan could be a reaction against the blasphemous campaign, sources said.

They said that the delegation would also tell the EU that if such acts against Islam are not controlled, more attacks on the EU diplomatic missions abroad could not be ruled out.

Sources said that the delegation would also hold discussions on inter-religious harmony during its meetings with the EU leaders. 

Roger Kimball thinks their D-Day headline would look something like this:

Breaking news! US Army pinned down in bungled assault. Huge civilian casualties. Experts fear grave damage to the environment!

Read the whole thing, here.

... and I think he's providing a useful example of why we shouldn't try enemy combatants in the civilian courts, as explained in my article, here.

So Sen. Obama, who is trying to distance himself from the Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, has named to his Vice Presidential Search Committee Eric Holder ... the top Clinton Justice Department official who was deeply enmeshed in the disgraceful pardons granted by President Clinton on his way out the door — pardons which included two Weather Underground terrorists, whose lengthy terrorism sentences were commuted. (And that is to say nothing of Holder's involvement in the infamous pardon of the international fraudster, Marc Rich.)

Congressional Quarterly provides this excerpt from Obama's AIPAC speech:

We knew, in 2002, that Iran supported terrorism. We knew Iran had an illicit nuclear program. We knew Iran posed a grave threat to Israel. But instead of pursuing a strategy to address this threat, we ignored it and instead invaded and occupied Iraq.

In 2002, and thereafter, the Bush administration was touting that the solution on Iran was diplomatic and was to encourage the feckless European negotiations with the mullahs.  Despite the futility of these negotiations, by 2006, the Bush administration jumped from encouraging them from the sidelines to direct participation in them.

What "strategy to address this threat" would Obama have employed?  He wants to negotiate with our enemies, and that's just what Bush was doing.  Of course, Obama preposterously asserts that the U.S. invasion of Iraq is what caused the "flames of extremism" to be fanned in Iran (he might want to check out the history of Iran, 1979 - 2003).  But other than not invading Iraq, what's the Messiah's Iran plan? 

At his arraignment today, upon being advised by the military court of the possibility that he could be executed if convicted, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the jihadist savage who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3000 Americans, explained that this was fine by him because he would like to be a "martyr."  We should be delighted to accommodate him.  I see the makings of a deal here.

From the usual suspects, we're hearing the drivel about how killing him will only "fan the flames" of radicalism (to borrow Obama's vapid phrase).  Do they really think letting him live but keeping him in jail for life would mollify our enemies?  (In 1997, Egyptian terrorists in Luxor brutally murdered scores of tourists in an effort to extort the U.S. into releasing the Blind Sheikh — they seemed fairly upset about his life-sentence, and have continued to be upset as he continues to serve it.)  The flames of radicalism are already on full-time fan, folks.  It's silly to think we can affect them much one way or the other.  We have to forget about them and do what our security requires. 

Captured terrorists acquire great prestige in the jihadist movement.  From their prison cells, they have been known to issue fatwas, plan attacks, direct operations, and assault and maim the American prison authorities, soldiers and sailors who are assigned to guard them.  Let them become martyrs ... and the sooner the better.

Question:

Would you rather:

At Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer reports on the wisdom of DHS's Charles Allen and his objection to the phrase "War on Terror":  “[It] has nothing to do with political correctness[.]...  It is interpreted in the Muslim world as a war on Islam and we don’t need this.”

Earth to Chuck:  Political correctness refers to the resistance from descriptions of reality because of the way they may be perceived by groups to whom our elites have decided to be hyper-sympathetic.  That is, DHS's language purge is classic political correctness.  And to those of us who've been there, it's embarrassing.

If we strike "War" and "Terror," are Muslims comfortable with "on"?  Or does that offend all the moderate prepositions?