Fire John Brennan - (Homeland Security Advisor)

FamilySecurityMatters.com

There has been much debate whether or not Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should have been read his Miranda rights when he was captured aboard the Detroit-bound Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day after attempting to explode a bomb he hid in his underpants. Proponents and critics alike make it appear that once someone has been Mirandized there is no turning back; that it’s an all or nothing proposition. How wrong they are.

In a USA Today Op/Ed piece last week, John Brennan, the Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, defended the FBI’s decision to Mirandize Abdulmutallab after only 50 minutes of “interrogation.”

Mr. Brennan wants you to believe that the FBI dispatched its most highly skilled interrogators to verbally work over Abdulmutallab, and that the agents gleaned highly actionable intelligence that the military can use to kill or capture other terrorists around the world. In reality, if you’re the new guy right out of the academy at the local FBI office, you will be the on-call duty agent on Christmas. The more senior agents are enjoying the holiday. New agents pay their dues by working on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day and other federal holidays as well as long boring stake outs after midnight. Mr. Brennan and pundits don’t seem to realize this.

Mr. Brennan cites the federal civilian trial of Richard Reid, the so-called “shoe bomber,” who was given his Miranda rights “five-minutes after being taken off a plane he tried to blow up,” as evidence why military tribunals are unnecessary. He fails to mention that Reid pled guilty in federal court, so we will never know what the outcome of trial would have been.

Considering the training all FBI agents receive, it’s no wonder the newbie agent read Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights. That’s what he’s trained to do. FBI agents are not trained to be military strategists or military intelligence analysts. Mr. Brennan wrote, “It’s naive to think that transferring Abdulmutallab to military custody would have caused an outpouring of information. There is little difference between military and civilian custody, other than an interrogator with a uniform.” This is probably the most incredibly naïve statement a presidential advisor for Homeland Security could make. How could the FBI agent possibly tell if Abdulmutallab was lying to him or not about high interest targets and locations? How would the FBI agent recognize a high interest target or location if he was given the information? Only a military interrogator, with access to military intelligence, could corroborate Abdulmutallab’s information.

Weeks after the event, Mr. Brennan said that Abdulmutallab was now cooperating after the FBI went to Nigeria and asked his father to travel to the U.S. to convince him to cooperate. Why was this necessary if Abdulmutallab already told FBI agents all that he knew? Obviously Mr. Brennan’s first version of the story was fantasy.

As I have written before, Mr. Brennan’s idea of an effective interrogation technique is to offer a terrorist a lesser prison sentence in return for actionable intelligence. The Bush administration thought it was better to confine terrorists overseas and use enhanced interrogation techniques, like waterboarding, to extract information to prevent future attacks and save American lives. There is no better illustration of how Democrats and Republicans differ on their approach to fighting the war on terror – wimpy vs. iron fist.

Mr. Brennan wrote, “Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda.” No, Mr. Brennan, being a wimp and silencing administration critics serve the goals of al-Qaeda. On February 13th, the case to fire him was enhanced when he told an audience that a 20 percent recidivism rate of released Guantanamo Bay detainees “was not bad” compared to the 50 percent recidivism rate of federal convicts. He fails to understand that no federal convict wants to kill all Americans, but all terrorists do, so recidivism among terrorists is unacceptable.

It’s not too late to transfer Abdulmutallab to Gitmo where military interrogators with intimate knowledge about Yemen and al-Qaeda can have a crack at him before he’s tried by a military tribunal. Only then will the American public think this administration is serious about winning the war on terror.

Mr. Brennan doesn’t have the stomach for the job.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Gregory D. Lee is a retired DEA Supervisory Special Agent. He writes a weekly syndicated column for North Star National and can be reached through his website: http://www.gregorydlee.com/.

Obama's P.R. Helps Terrorists

Townhall.com
by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

When President Obama's leading counter-terrorism staff member, John Brennan, says that "politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaida," he has it exactly backward.

It is the president's efforts to crow about how effective he is in fighting terrorism that are helping al-Qaida. What kind of policy is it to announce to the world that Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the Nigerian terrorist who attempted to blow up a plane as it approached Detroit this past Christmas, is talking to investigators and giving them much valuable information?

Obama's people put the story out to counter accusations that their decision to try Mutallab in a civilian court and to permit him access to an attorney jeopardized efforts to interrogate him. Stung by the charge that they were blowing a chance to learn about subsequent al-Qaida plans, they told the media that Mutallab was being very cooperative, especially after a visit from his family.

While releasing this information may help Obama politically and certainly pushes back those of us who criticized him for handling the Mutallab case civilly, it provides al-Qaida with a timely warning that we are on to their plans and that Mutallab has explained to us what they have up their sleeves. In counter-terrorism, knowing your enemy's plans is key to thwarting them. And, if al-Qaida knows that we are prepared, they will, obviously, change their plans

Incumbent politicians always have to balance their need to get re-elected against the need to keep many of their intelligence successes private. The Bush administration, for example, took great pains not to reveal how it used wiretaps to stop al-Qaida from blowing up the Brooklyn Bridge because it did not want to make the taps public lest al-Qaida realize the FBI was listening in.

Winston Churchill made the ultimate sacrifice early in World War II when, alerted to German plans to bomb the city of Coventry, he chose to let the attack proceed without any evacuation of the city lest the Nazis realize that the British had cracked their code. Thousands were killed, and Churchill had to take the lumps for it politically. He could have grandstanded, like Obama is doing now, and bragged about how effective his counter-intelligence was, but it would have aided Germany in the war.

So, likewise, Obama's efforts to bolster his own credibility in fighting terror are helping our enemies.

The rest of Brennan's quote is also interesting. He said: "Terrorists are not 100 feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill." This line of argument finds its apogee in Michael Moore's famous quote that the chances of being struck by lightning are better than those of dying in a terrorist attack.

The burden of this view, popular in Europe, is in effect to tell the American people to get over it. Sure, we lost 3,000 people on 9-11, but Britain lost 50,000 in the blitz and France suffered the death of 3 million men in World War I. They ask that we put the attack into perspective.

But we take the loss of those 3,000 people quite seriously and refuse to treat it as a mere crime. We see it as a declaration of war and are responding accordingly. That the counter-terrorism point person in the Obama administration is, in effect, asking us to tone down our fear of terrorism is both disappointing and quite alarming.

Below:

Comments to this article

Turophile Location: WI

on TOWNHALL.COM

Reply # 1
Date: Feb 14, 2010 - 2:29 PM EST

:

Solution to Jihadist Islam

There is a solution to Islamist terrorism. In 1911 General John J. Pershing was having problems in the Philippines with an Islamist group known as Moros.

"In 1911, when Gen. John J. Pershing was in command of the American garrison in Mindanao, the Moros led a series of bloody attacks on the American Marines. In response these numerous Islamic terrorist attacks, "Black Jack" as Gen. John J. Pershing was known informally, told his boys to catch the Moros and teach them a lesson like one they had never learnt ever before.

He forced the captured Moros to dig their own graves, the Moro terrorists were all tied to posts, execution style. The US soldiers then brought in pigs and slaughtered them, rubbing their bullets in the blood and fat. Thus, the terrorists were terrorized; they saw that they would be contaminated with hogs' blood. This would mean that they could not enter Heaven, even if they died as terrorist martyrs.

All but one was shot, their bodies dumped into the grave, and the hog guts dumped atop the bodies. The lone survivor was allowed to escape back to the terrorist camp and tell his brethren what happened to the others. This brought a stop to terrorism in the Philippines for the next 50 years."

Source: http://www.historyofjihad.org/philippines.html

If we did this, even just once, and posted the video on the internet, terrorism against us would stop.

Ray Location: TX

Reply # 2
Date: Feb 14, 2010 - 10:56 AM EST

The Cost of the War on Terrorism

The Liberals are always quick to rant about the Cost of the War on Terrorism and how we haven't paid for it through higher taxes or some other Liberal means. What they refuse to take into account is the cost of not fighting the War. The actions of 9/11 itself and the rebuilding of New York City has been in the hundreds of billions. The cost of Homeland Security to try to prevent more such attacks is also in the Billions. The increased cost of airport security around the world is in the Billions.

Now with Obama in office we're playing footsy with Radical Islam as if we are going to negotiate some friendly agreement with them. We will not! Our only choice is to eradicate the terrorists themselves, their training camps and their support systems including their funding. Regardless of the cost or how we pay for it, we cannot afford to do any less. Until we come to this realization the terrorists will not stop. The cost will not stop.

The cost of the War if far cheaper than not fighting the War.

.

Obama official accuses GOP of using terrorism as 'political football'

By Peter Nicholas

February 8, 2010

John Brennan, deputy national security advisor, says Republicans' criticisms about the handling of the airplane attack suspect are 'not anchored in reality

Reporting from Washington - President Obama's deputy national security advisor accused Republicans on Sunday of using national security as a "political football" and of being disingenuous in criticizing the treatment of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the suspect in the Christmas Day airliner attack.

On NBC's "Meet the Press," John Brennan was asked about GOP criticism that the Obama administration was treating the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound plane as a routine criminal case rather than a terrorist plot.
Brennan said he was "tiring of politicians using national security issues such as terrorism as a political football. They are going out there. . . unknowing of the facts, and they're making charges and allegations that are not anchored in reality."

Republicans have said that Abdulmutallab, 23, should have been treated as an enemy combatant.

Administration officials say he spoke to FBI agents for about 50 minutes, then received medical treatment for burns suffered when he allegedly tried to ignite explosives hidden in his underwear. Afterward, they say, he refused to keep talking, so authorities advised him of his right to remain silent and that anything he said could be used against him in court. Since then, Abdulmutallab has reportedly begun cooperating again.

That has not interrupted Republican criticism, however. The GOP objects to the Obama administration's policy that all terrorism suspects go through the civilian judicial system.

On Sunday, Brennan described a private briefing he delivered to four senior Republican lawmakers Christmas night. He said he told them Abdulmutallab was in FBI custody -- a status, he said, that meant Abdulmutallab had been made aware of his legal rights, including the Miranda warning.

"None of those individuals raised any concerns with me at that point," Brennan said. "They didn't say, 'Is he going into military custody? Is he going to be Mirandized?' They were very appreciative of the information. We told them we'd keep them informed, and that's what we did."

But at least two of those Republicans -- Sen. Christopher S. Bond of Missouri and Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan -- disputed Brennan's version of events.

A statement by Hoekstra's office said the congressman had "a brief, nonsecure conversation with Brennan. Brennan only informed him that Abdulmutallab had severe burns and was being treated. Contrary to what he attempts to imply, he at no time informed Hoekstra that Abdulmutallab had been Mirandized, nor did he seek Hoekstra's consultation or provide any sort of meaningful briefing."

In an interview Sunday with CBS's Katie Couric, Obama noted that Abdullah was read his rights only after he stopped talking, and that under the George W. Bush administration, shoe bomber Richard Reid was read his rights five minutes after his arrest.

Asked if the practice of Mirandizing terrorism suspects should be reviewed, Obama said, "Absolutely, everything should be reviewed."

peter.nicholas@ latimes.com