Scott Spiegel

Last summer, NBC’s Brian Williams wrote a piece called “The Hurt Locker: Hurting for a Fact-Checker” regarding one of the top two contenders for Best Picture at this weekend’s Oscars.  Williams noted, “I found a slew of technical inaccuracies based only on my few trips to Iraq during the height of the conflict.  Seeing the movie made me go back over many of the positive reviews I read…  [I]t is now clear none of them was written by anyone who had spent any time with U.S. armed forces in Iraq.”

Williams suggested that the filmmakers botched the following minor details: the vehicles, the armor, the armaments, the helmets, the uniforms, the communications technology, the military jargon, the unit structure, the command procedure, and the mission logistics.

On the plus side, Williams noted that the filmmakers accurately portrayed soldiers’ fingernails being dirty and their eyelashes being covered with dust.  Score one for cinéma vérité!  Williams also praised the film’s lovely desert scenery.

Williams ended, “I’d like to watch ‘The Hurt Locker’ with a combat veteran, but my layman’s eyes found way too much to quarrel with.”

Fortunately for Williams, many combat veterans have already seen the film.  Unfortunately for director Kathryn Bigelow, their criticism of the film is even more scathing than that of Williams.

Paul Rieckhoff, Founder and Executive Director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, recently concluded in Newsweek that “Hollywood’s latest attempt to define the Iraq War and the American troops who have fought in it is just as disappointing as all the others produced so far.”

Rieckhoff, while pointing out additional and more nuanced inaccuracies than Williams, argues that the snowballing accumulation of gaffes in the movie is not trivial, but rather reflects an unforgivably sloppy rendering of the military that reveals profound ignorance and amounts to great disrespect on the filmmakers’ part.

For example, Rieckhoff criticizes the depiction of the highly specialized Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) group at the center of the film as casually putting on other military hats in their spare time, expertly carrying out sniper missions and kicking in doors and checking buildings for insurgents, jobs for which they would never have been trained.

Rieckhoff writes, “The scene with Jeremy Renner’s character sneaking off base to chase a boy he is worried about is as fictional as Jason Bourne…  The men in my platoon followed rules and orders, and they stuck with their fellow soldiers…  They don’t run around on their own unless they want to be court-martialed—or killed.”

The L.A. Times’ Julian Barnes cites EOD team members in Iraq who damn “The Hurt Locker” with faint praise: they call it “a good action movie if you know nothing about defusing roadside bombs or the military.”  (How about that sound editing!)

Barnes quotes EOD technician Sgt. Eric Gordon: “I would watch it with other EOD people, and we would laugh.”  (Then again, many people I know have had the same reaction to fellow Oscar nominee “Avatar.”)  Gordon compared one soldier defusing a bomb using wire cutters to having “a firefighter go into a building with a squirt bottle.”

An even more sobering criticism of the movie involves its portrayal of the main character, Sergeant William James, as a danger-loving, adrenaline-addicted, protocol-shredding commando who wantonly disrupts unit cohesion and endangers unit members with irresponsible, tough-guy playacting.

The Washington Post quotes Iraq veteran Ryan Gallucci stating that he had to keep turning the movie off “or else I would have thrown my remote through the television.”  Gallucci admits that he kept wanting to see James “blown up…  I wanted to see his poor teammates get another team leader, who was actually concerned about their safety.”

In an essay for The New York Times subtly titled “How Not to Depict a War,” EOD team videographer Michael Kamber adds that the film’s many factual errors “are mere details compared to the way Sergeant James repeatedly swaggers up to bombs…  [T]he chances of recklessly approaching even a single command-detonated bomb and surviving are quite small.  Yet we are made to believe that Sergeant James has disabled over 800 bombs in this reckless, cowboy-like fashion.”  (Yes, but will the film win Best Sound Mixing?)

The most damning indictment of the film, however, comes from American-Israeli journalist Caroline Glick.  As she notes, “There is no plot.  We don’t know anything about these soldiers.  We don’t know why they joined the US Army.  We don’t know how they feel about Iraq…  All we are given are GI Joes who defuse bombs.  Supposedly by watching them, we are supposed to achieve some deeper understanding of the war.  But really all we see is context-free violence which teaches us nothing about war.  Supposedly James is a hero.  But we don’t have any idea what he’s fighting for.  So why should we care about him?”

So why is “The Hurt Locker” nominated for a gazillion Academy Awards?  My theory is that the movie was made for people who either (1) know nothing about war, and are curious about what it would be like to be embedded in an Army unit, or (2) care nothing about war, and are delighted to see it depicted as a meaningless, nihilistic exercise that illustrates the futility of picking up arms to fight for one’s country’s security interests.

As far as the latter group, Glick writes, “The Hurt Locker works for them because its post-modern, context-free rendering of the war is a picture-perfect far-left portrayal of war.  No, the Americans aren’t terrible, they are nothings…  War is futile.  There is no purpose to war except staying alive.”

Glick counters: “[S]oldiers aren’t two-dimensional and war isn’t about nothing.  And the war in Iraq is neither futile nor meaningless.  The Hurt Locker was a two-dimensional film about a meaningless war and nothing soldiers.”

In other words: par for the course for Hollywood war films these days.

Recently the mainstream media was howling with derision over the fact that Sarah Palin had written a few words on the inside of her hand to remind herself of the key themes she wanted to address in her speech at the Tea Party Convention in Nashville last week.

Admittedly, one would have expected subjects such as Energy, Tax Cuts, and Lift American Spirits to be top-of-mind for Palin, who has consistently and admirably embodied these stances throughout her career, including her 2008 vice-presidential run.

What the MSM did not explain was how Obama’s ubiquitous reliance on his TelePrompTer, including at a recent pep talk with sixth-graders in Falls Church, Virginia, somehow reflected a greater skill at extemporizing or a more masterful command of facts on his part.

The Associated Press chided Palin for relying on a memory aid after having mocked Obama’s use of his TelePrompTer.  It’s true: Palin did jot down a few notes to help her stay focused during her 40-minute Tea Party Convention keynote address, the second-most important speech of her career.  Was Obama’s five-minute chat with 11-year-olds at Graham Road Elementary School so important to his legacy that it required twin, six-foot-tall TelePrompTer monitors to help him get every word right?

Meanwhile, Joe “Gaffe-tastic” Biden has continued to demonstrate his propensity for committing more blunders in any given week than Palin has made in her entire life.  Appearing on Larry King last week, Biden stated that the Iraq War “could be one of the great achievements of this administration.”

This is the same Iraq War, you’ll recall: (a) that Obama voted against, (b) that Biden voted for but later turned against, and (c) whose troop surge Obama and Biden voted against and denounced throughout 2008, even after it had demonstrably worked.  In 2007, Biden condemned General David Petraeus as “dead flat wrong” for wanting to go through with the surge rather than immediately withdrawing our soldiers and partitioning Iraq into three ethnic regions.

It would be one thing if circumstances had improved dramatically in Iraq since Obama took office, and the administration had acted quickly to remove troops ahead of schedule, thus saving the U.S. time and money and improving relations with Iraqis.  But the drawdown of 90,000 troops currently taking place was spelled out in 2008, according to a George W. Bush-negotiated arrangement, the Status of Forces Agreement, and is unfolding exactly as written.  So Obama doesn’t even deserve credit for “ending” the war in Iraq.

Saying that Iraq could be one of the great successes of the Obama administration is like saying that the stagehand who pulled the curtain on the debut of Così Fan Tutte is responsible for one of the great successes of the Metropolitan Opera House.

Then there’s Biden’s nutty defense of the Justice Department’s decision to read Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights after just 50 minutes of questioning.  Biden noted that the Bush administration gave the same treatment to shoe bomber Richard Reid in 2001.  Unfortunately, Biden is blissfully ignorant of the fact that the military commissions to detain Islamic terrorists had not even been set up by the time the shoe bomber had struck.  Reid attempted his attack three months after 9/11, whereas Abdulmutallab attempted his attack eight years and three months after 9/11.

Let’s not forget that Biden was one of the chief opponents of the Afghanistan surge Obama reluctantly ordered in late 2008.  Biden had argued behind the scenes for increasing drone attacks to pick off Al-Qaeda members, and against sending more troops to fight counterinsurgents.  Fortunately, Obama didn’t listen to Biden, and the surge is already demonstrating results, as in Tuesday’s apprehension of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the most significant Taliban capture in over eight years.

This has been the pattern for a year-and-a-half now: Palin makes true statements—that the Vice-President is the head of the Senate, that the health care bill would require panels of bureaucrats to ration care—that are denounced as “gaffes” and “lies,” while Biden regularly weaves twisted fantasies out of cotton candy and is heralded as the voice of wisdom and experience.

The clincher that the MSM held Palin to a higher standard than Biden throughout the 2008 presidential campaign is that they constantly compared her record to Obama’s, not Biden’s.  (“The Republicans’ #2 doesn’t have that much more executive and business experience than the Democrats’ #1!”)

It takes a serious degree of intellectual dishonesty for Democrats to claim we are safer with Biden as Vice President than we would have been with Palin.

Discouraging military service, bean counting minority group members instead of evaluating achievement, injecting irrelevant sexual undertones—sound like conservative stances to me!

As Miss Manners once wrote on sexual orientation, the important distinction these days seems to be not gays vs. straights, but people who think other people’s sex lives are open for scrutiny vs. those who don’t.

A rapidly dwindling number of conservatives have been arguing that the military should preserve its ban on gays serving openly in the military.

The U.S.’s highest ranking military official, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, happens to disagree.  In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, he declared in no uncertain terms that “allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.”  Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the nation’s other top defense official, testified alongside Mullen in support of repealing the ban.

Just before President Obama took office, 104 retired admirals and generals had signed a statement urging the next president to overturn the ban.

Apparently all of this wasn’t good enough for Senator John McCain, who had categorically stated in 2006, “The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, ‘Senator, we ought to change the policy,’ then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it.”  Last week McCain told Mullen and Gates that he still opposes lifting the ban.

I can understand some conservatives’ suspicion regarding overturning the ban on gays in the military, when the last president who tried to do so (Clinton) had nothing but contempt for the military and aggressively eroded its capabilities every year he was in office.

But those opposed to lifting the ban have offered a lame series of unrelated, “they doth protest too much”-sounding excuses more befitting liberals’ shifting defenses of their misguided and unconstitutional policies.

For example, there’s the argument that we shouldn’t “experiment” with the military while we’re in the middle of two wars.

I notice that we weren’t in the middle of any wars in 1993, when President Clinton first proposed lifting the ban.  If anything, we need more recruits now, due to the notoriously long and repeated tours of duty our soldiers have had to undergo in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the need for specialized recruits such as Arabic translators.

The notion that our current roster of troops could do their jobs better if they weren’t distracted by the presence of the estimated 65,000 gay U.S. troops helping them out is ludicrous.  The more soldiers who are trained and willing to fight our wars, the better.  One of the best conservative arguments for the greatness of the U.S. is that we are able to get so many highly qualified people to volunteer for our military, and that so few leave due to conflict or dissatisfaction.

The necessity of maximizing troop strength during wartime is also reflected by the fact that the number of troops discharged for being gay decreased almost every year from 2001 to 2009, even though general military enlistment was up after the September 11 attacks.

For what it’s worth, we did experiment with this policy in recent history, and during a war at that: the ban on discharging gays was suspended during the Persian Gulf War, with no adverse consequences.

Then there’s the highly objective and verifiable suggestion that homosexuality is “incompatible” with military service.

This flimsy proposition is torn to smithereens by the inconvenient facts that gays: (1) currently serve honorably in the military, (2) have served honorably in the military since our country’s founding, and (3) already serve openly in the military in 30 major countries around the world, including nearly every NATO member and other U.S. allies such as Australia and Israel.  American soldiers serve alongside openly gay soldiers in these armies, and I haven’t heard about any mass defections on their part over fellow gay soldiers’ unprofessional conduct.

Conservatives generally reject affirmative action, correctly viewing the policy as amounting to reverse discrimination.  Why are so many conservatives hell-bent on discriminating against gays in the military?  It is true that some conservatives probably fear the day when gay rights groups start pushing for loosened standards for gays in the military to promote diversity or to right historical wrongs.  But just because the same thing happened with race and gender doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have granted equal rights to African Americans and women.

Violent felons, card-carrying Marxists, and radical Islamists may all happily serve in the U.S. army.  What sense does it make that, say, an Episcopalian Log Cabin Republican can’t?  Even a gay person who never utters a word about his sexual orientation in the military can be discharged for the act of getting married in one of the five states that allow it.

There’s also the contention that unit cohesion would be disrupted.  Yet the same claim was made regarding racial integration of the military in the 1950s.  This assertion slanders dedicated service members by purporting that (1) gay soldiers can’t do their jobs without making sexual advances toward their peers, and (2) heterosexual soldiers can’t do their jobs without dwelling on the possibility of advances from their peers.  Here I thought conservatives were the ones who held our military in such high esteem.

Admittedly, gays are asking for a tall order from the military: namely—nothing.  Nothing needs to be done to allow gays to serve openly, except for our Commander-in-Chief or Congress to declare that it be so.  Gays already serve.  Heterosexual service members claim they already know who many of their gay unit members are and don’t care.  If heterosexual soldiers can discern the most obvious cases and aren’t uncomfortable around these people, I think they can tolerate the existence of cases so undetectable they otherwise wouldn’t have guessed if they hadn’t found out.

All the military needs to do now is stop wasting time and resources sniffing out gays like contraband and axing them after having spent millions of dollars to train them.

Leftists are usually the ones infusing sexual undercurrents and lurid motives where none exist—pointing out latent homoeroticism in “Winnie the Pooh” or condemning “heteronormativity” in Jane Austen.  Why are some conservatives so intent on insisting that the seething, passionate impetus undergirding military service is… gay lust?

When conservatives correctly pointed out that one disastrous terrorist attack and another potentially catastrophic but thwarted attack both happened during President Obama’s first term in office, because his agencies overlooked the perpetrators’ jihadist intentions or failed to act on relevant intelligence, liberals responded with an argument that was discredited nearly a decade ago: “But 9/11 happened on George Bush’s watch!”

Obama supporters mocked Rudy Giuliani’s recent claim to George Stephanopolous, “We had no domestic attacks under Bush,” stubbornly avoiding Giuliani’s obvious implication that he was speaking post-9/11.  Until last week, Democrats loved to excoriate Giuliani for making endless references to the terrorist attack that occurred while he was mayor of New York; now they claim he forgets it happened.  Which is it?

Conservatives’ point is that Obama has forgotten the lessons of 9/11, which Bush did not have available to him until, surprisingly—9/11.  The Ft. Hood and Flight 253 attacks happened in the first year of Obama’s administration, and 9/11 happened in the first year of Bush’s administration, but Obama had the example of 9/11 to learn from, and Bush did not.  (Even if you count the thwarted attack by the shoe bomber in December 2001, that bomber tried to strike just months after 9/11, when fully revamped security procedures were not running as smoothly as they are now; also, the bomber used the novel, unprecedented technique of wearing the bomb on his person so that it would not be detected by luggage screeners.)

Obama not only had the example of 9/11, he had seven years in which to witness and debate and vote on the implementation of the policies his predecessor devised that kept the country safe in the years after 9/11.  Obama denounced and campaigned against these tactics every chance he got.  He hasn’t revoked all of the Bush policies—upon assuming the Presidency, he must have received access to hair-raising intelligence that made him realize the suicidal folly of reversing Bush on everything—but he has slackened up enough, rhetorically and policy-wise, that our security standards have slipped and our enemies have become emboldened.

It is not enough to say that Obama has forgotten the lessons of 9/11.  He has actively rejected them.  He has argued that doing the opposite of what Bush did will keep us safer.  We are seeing how well the Obama Doctrine is working out in his first 11 months in office.

Another error in the “Bush-was-bad-so-Obama’s-off-the-hook” argument is that Bush did not do anything to actively facilitate the occurrence of 9/11.  In contrast, the Ft. Hood shootings were aided by the politically correct refusal of the U.S. Army—under Commander-in-Chief Obama—to recognize murderous jihadist sentiments expressed by Major Nidal Hasan openly and repeatedly while in medical school and residency, and the promotion Hasan received despite his poor performance reviews.  The Flight 253 near-attack was made possible by the Obama administration’s failure to act on numerous warnings available to it, such as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s father having called the U.S. Embassy to report him, Abdulmutallab’s not having a passport or luggage, and his having bought a one-way ticket with cash.

But there’s an even more damning flaw to the contention that Bush should have been able to prevent 9/11, and is therefore as bad as or worse than Obama on national security.  Namely: just what would Bush opponents have preferred that he do in his first eight months in office to prevent terrorist acts, when they now scream bloody murder at the slightest suggestion of profiling at airports, call Bush Big Brother for trying to monitor terrorist communications, and express their clear disapproval of any war Bush started abroad to target Al-Qaeda?  Are liberals implying that they would have been fine with Bush doing all of these things in a pre-9/11 world?  They’re not even fine with The One doing these things in a post-9/11 world.

The left have been digging up examples of localized attacks carried out by truly isolated (not Abdulmutallab-style “isolated”) loonies—such as Bruce Ivins’ anthrax-laced letters to news broadcasters in September 2001, Hesham Hadayet’s shooting of two Israelis at LAX in July 2002, the Beltway sniper attacks in October 2002—as proof that Bush didn’t keep us safe.  Ignore for the moment that when each of these incidents happened, the same people criticized Bush for using these events to “hype” the threat of terrorism to justify extra security measures.  Instead ask: what level of government intervention into our lives would have been necessary to prevent every one of these attacks?  And how likely is it that liberals would have supported Bush’s carrying out such interventions at the time?

So much for the lie that poverty causes terrorism.

Despite the mainstream media’s refusal to accept it, there is one factor more reliable than any other in predicting whether an individual will engage in terrorist acts against the United States and its allies:

(1) It’s not whether he lives in third world poverty and resents being overshadowed by the Imperialist West.  Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day, was the son of a prominent, wealthy Nigerian bank chairman.  Abdulmutallab attended the British School in Togo and University College London, the latter of which cost as much as Obama shells out for his daughters to attend a semester at Sidwell Friends.  Abdulmutallab’s college dorm was a $6 million apartment in London’s West End.

If poverty caused terrorism, then a corollary of this argument is that a country’s efforts to relieve poverty should prevent terrorism.  Yet the U.S. provided Arlington, VA-born Major Nidal Malik Hasan with a free medical education worth tens of thousands of dollars, which apparently did not console him enough to keep him from murdering fellow soldiers on his military post in Ft. Hood, Texas.  Indeed, Hasan planned and carried out the attack after having been promoted from captain to major, despite miserable performance reviews.

John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban,” grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland and San Anselmo, California and attended a “California Distinguished School” in the Tamalpais Union High School District.

If poverty caused terrorism, then poor people the world over—rice farmers in China, untouchables in India, non-flat screen TV owners in the U.S.—would be rising up en masse to wreak havoc in hijackings and suicide bombings.

(2) It’s not post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, or any garden-variety psychological malady.  If it were, we would expect suicide bombings from Vietnam vets, or from the New York Times staff after the public option was dropped from the health care bill.

(3) It’s not whether we’re currently at war with the place where the individual resides.  I don’t recall any recent U.S. incursions into Nigeria, Arlington, or San Anselmo.

The most reliable factor in predicting whether an individual will engage in terrorist acts against the United States and its allies is: whether the individual adheres to an ideology that encourages engaging in terrorist acts against the United States and its allies.

Never mind that the ideology in question always happens to be Islamist.  At this point, even I would be fine with overlooking this fact if we would just do something about these threats when they surface.

If the warning signs sent by would-be terrorists were densely coded and difficult to decipher, delayed action by our national security officials might be understandable.  But a PowerPoint presentation urging Muslims to cut off the heads of infidels and pour burning oil down their throats is not subtle.

Nidal Hasan delivered a now-infamous lecture to an auditorium of army psychiatrists in which he imparted charming Koranic admonishments for the nonbeliever such as “Seize him and drag him in the midst of the blazing fire.  Then pour over his head the torment of boiling water” and “We shall burn them in fire.  As often as their skins are roasted through, we shall change them for other skins that they may taste the punishment.”  This is not exactly the Venona cables.

Abdulmutallab’s high school teacher reported that, when he wasn’t busy captaining the water polo team, he repeatedly defended the Taliban’s tactics in classroom discussions and endorsed the 9/11 attacks.  Abdulmutallab disappeared in October, cut off ties with his family, and moved to Yemen to learn Arabic, all of which prompted his father to call the American Embassy in Nigeria to warn that Umar was a likely threat to the U.S.

John Walker Lindh began studying Islam in high school and converted when he was 16, moved to Yemen to study at a madrassa when he was 19, and wrote his family letters, not asking for money, but praising the bombing of the USS Cole by Sudan-funded terrorists.

Yet regarding the motivations of these attackers, the current Democratic administration warns us not to jump to any conclusions, or at least any that might interfere with the bestowal of glory upon Allah.  I can sooner conceive of stubborn liberals going after Nigerian bankers as a suspect class before I can imagine them pointing the finger at Islamists.

If we can throw an American in jail for joking that he’d like to shoot the president, can we please add a militant, well-funded Islamist with terrorist connections to the crummy no-fly list?

Perhaps it’s not surprising that President Obama would think nothing of subjecting Manhattan to the spectacle of a civilian court trial against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.  This is the administration that thought having an F-16 trail Air Force One around Ground Zero on a workday morning was a good idea.

On the other hand, perhaps we should view KSM as Obama’s consolation prize for failing to secure the 2016 Olympics on U.S. soil.  (How much tourism revenue will KSM’s trial bring to lower Manhattan?)

To try KSM and his four co-conspirators in federal court, New York will have to create a de facto Guantanamo Bay—one that is smaller than but as secure as the real thing.  The city will need to spend millions of dollars ensuring extra protection for the courthouse, the densely populated neighborhood—indeed all of downtown Manhattan—including shipping in hundreds of U.S. marshals from other jurisdictions.  They will have to make special efforts to protect the judge, prosecutors, jury, federal agents, and witnesses, all of whom will receive death threats and will need armed protection.

As Rudy Guiliani noted, trying those who planned 9/11 in a civilian court in lower Manhattan is like trying those who planned Pearl Harbor in a civilian court in Hawaii.

The trial will drag on for years and New York will face extra, unnecessary risk during every day of the circus.  Manhattan will be placed in the international spotlight and will become a prominent stage for jihadists to stage a suicide or car bombing.  Would-be attackers won’t have to do it right in front of the courthouse—anyplace in Manhattan would capture headlines and give encouragement to the Islamist cause worldwide.

Defenders of Obama’s decision claim that isolated individuals are unlikely to engage in a spectacular attack in Manhattan without long-term planning and financial support from an embedded terrorist cell.  Tell that to soldiers lining up for eye exams who survived Nidal Hasan’s shooting spree at Fort Hood last week.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, and other city officials all assure us that New York’s Police Department can handle any potential disruption.

Let’s see: in 2000, in the same court in which KSM et al. are to be tried, bin Laden aide Mamdouh Salim, awaiting trial for his role in the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa, blinded a prison guard by squirting hot sauce in his face, then plunged a comb sharpened into a dagger deep into the guard’s eye, nearly killing him and causing permanent brain and sight damage.  Salim’s plan, later discovered in notes stored in his prison cell, involved taking hostages and helping co-defendants escape.

Another al-Qaida suspect, Wadih El-Hage, pounced on the judge during the middle of a pre-trial hearing and had to be wrestled to the ground by federal marshals.  El-Hage got within several feet of the judge, who had shielded himself with his chair.

Zacarias Moussaoui’s hearing in lower Manhattan was enough of an exhibition, and that was just a six-week sentencing trial.  His initial prosecution in Virginia took four years, mostly due to wrangling over rules of evidence, and ended only because he finally confessed his role in the 9/11 hijackings.  In addition to being verbally abusive to those involved in the proceedings, shouting curses at the jury, and gloating aloud when he didn’t get the death penalty, Moussaoui had demanded that captured al-Qaeda members appear as witnesses in his trial, a request prosecutors could not deny according to the rules of the game they had agreed to play.

Even if the terrorist suspects bring no physical attack to fruition, a trial in civilian court in Manhattan would be, as Charles Krauthammer labeled it, “the second half of the terror attack,” in which the perpetrators loudly justify their ideology and actions to the world and delight in the suffering of their victims.

If the prospect of welcoming KSM and company to the Big Apple isn’t enticing enough, there’s also the little matter that these terrorists have no right to a trial in civilian court—in fact, they have no rights at all.  Only U.S. citizens and resident aliens have constitutional rights, such as the writ of habeas corpus, because only they have sworn to uphold the ideals of the Constitution and abide by its rules.  Not only do radical foreign Islamists not support the Constitution, they actively use it against us to shield themselves from the consequences of atrocities they commit.  As Tim Sumner and Debra Burlingame noted in a letter to the president, “It is incomprehensible… that the same men who today refer to the murder of our loved ones as a ‘blessed day’… should be the beneficiaries of a social compact of which they are not a part, do not recognize, and which they seek to destroy: the United States Constitution.”  As Neil Cavuto noted, the 9/11 terrorists used our planes as weapons against us; now they plan to use our justice system for the same purpose.

The ridiculous thing about all of this is that the only reason Obama wants to try KSM in New York is to further the goal of shutting down Guantanamo Bay.  Had he not made such a promise and signed an executive order to enforce it on the first day of his presidency, even Obama might have been sane enough not to bring these terrorists to a courthouse four blocks from Ground Zero.  As noted by Michael Mukasey, George W. Bush’s Attorney General, “What’s followed [from Obama’s campaign promises] has seemed in many instances to be a system in which policy is fashioned to fit and proceed rhetoric rather than being thought out in advance with arguments then formulated in support of it.”

Champions of the president’s decision counter: “Of course New York can handle these trials—New Yorkers are tough!  New York courts handle all kinds of dangerous defendants.”  The question isn’t whether New York can put up with this, but why New York should have to put up with this.

The problem with hate crime legislation is that it creates special classes of minorities who receive greater protection from harassment via harsher penalties for their would-be assailants.  One upshot is that groups perceived as chronically threatened because of their identity are given greater benefit of the doubt in bias-motivated crimes they commit against other groups.

If there were ever a group that U.S. law should consider shielding through hate crime legislation, it would be: Americans.  The U.S. should be uniquely interested in protecting its citizens against attacks for being residents of this country, in the same way it protects its citizens against foreign attacks and its soldiers against enemies on the battleground.

If there were ever a setting in which pro-American hate crime protections should be enforced, it is in the military.  American soldiers, more than any other group, actively display dedication to pro-American ideals.

If there were ever a cultural group in modern times that has demonstrated persistent, widespread hostility toward and willingness to engage in violent attacks against Americans, especially Americans in the military, it is radical Islamists.

Naturally, army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, who adhered to extremist Islamist ideology, sought connections with Al Qaeda, and shouted “Allahu Akbar!” as he massacred 13 soldiers and wounded dozens at Fort Hood last week, is being portrayed by the mainstream media and the present administration as a guy who needs OSHA counseling.

Muslim apologists have been telling us to not jump to conclusions (except that the killings were caused by stress), that the murders weren’t related to Islam, that it’s “speculation” that the military ignored warning signs regarding Hasan.  We get clueless gems like this from the New York Times on Monday: “It is unclear what might have motivated Major Hasan.”  Wusses like Lindsey Graham don’t help by claiming that the murders were “not about his religion—the fact that this man was a Muslim.”  (Wait—isn’t that a conclusion?)  It takes a hawk like Joe Lieberman to initiate hearings into Hasan’s conduct and the military’s failure to eject him for anti-American actions in which he engaged for years.

In the interest of preventing future attacks, I propose that we learn from the following warning signs:

•    Hasan identified as an Islamic fundamentalist, advocated for Muslims to “rise up and attack Americans” in retaliation for war against Muslims abroad, and espoused anti-Semitic views.

•    Hasan rejoiced over the murder of an army recruiter in Arkansas in June by an American convert to Islam.  According to Colonel Terry Lee, who worked with Hasan at Fort Hood, after the attack Hasan helpfully suggested, “Maybe people should strap bombs on themselves and go to Times Square.”

•    In 2003 Sergeant Hasan Karim Akbar—another American convert—slaughtered two U.S. soldiers and wounded 14 more in a grenade and rifle attack on a base in Kuwait in retaliation for the war in Iraq.

•    Classmates in Hasan’s master’s program complained of his anti-American views and his insistence that sharia outweighs U.S. constitutional law.

•    Fellow psychiatrists reported that, at a Grand Rounds talk during his residency, Hasan lectured his audience on Koranic justice, including the proscription to behead nonbelievers or pour hot oil down their throats and set them on fire.  Hasan defended suicide bombers, a position he has taken in postings on jihad-themed websites.

•    Hassan called the war on terror a war on Islam and said that military service for the U.S. is incompatible with Muslim beliefs.  (He may be on to something!  About 0.6% of the country identifies as Muslim, compared to only 0.25% of the military.)  Hasan argued that Muslim soldiers should be exempted from combat as conscientious objectors.

•    At Fort Hood, Hasan received warnings from supervisors for attempting to convert his patients to Islam, though he maintains it was entirely their choice whether to receive castor oil or hot oil for their remedies.

•    The FBI had been investigating Hasan since 2008 and was aware that he had sent dozens of e-mails to Al Qaeda spiritual leader Anwar al-Awlaki.  Hasan and his family attended the mosque in Falls Church, Virginia where al-Awlaki served as imam in the months leading up to September 11 and where two of the 9/11 hijackers worshiped.

Even if Hasan’s admonitions to slaughter infidels were not evidence enough to convict him of some kind of crime, he should have been ruled unfit for his position by military officials.

Hate crime legislation has been justified as necessary due to specious defenses offered for crimes against minority groups, such as the claim by lawyers for Harvey Milk’s assassin that junk food contributed to his inability to control his actions, or the “homosexual panic defense” that some who feel threatened by advances from a gay person enter a state of irrationality that prompts them to murderously strike out.  Hate crime laws have also been offered to cover minority groups whom police might not adequately protect due to racial bias.  The solution to specious legal defenses and lapses in police enforcement is to treat members of all groups equally, not some groups better than others.

As a consequence of this inverted mentality, we are warned by our political leaders to ignore the cause of obviously jihad-motivated killing of U.S. soldiers and accept spurious explanations for the massacre such as stress over anticipated deployment in Afghanistan or the inability of a trained psychiatrist to listen to stories from combat veterans.

The latest enlightened word, from Fort Hood base commander Lieutenant General Robert Cone, regarding the military’s plan to prevent future violence: “What we’re looking for is people with personal problems, not at all related to their religion—not at all.”

I hear the sugar rush from the Halloween candy civilians sent in care packages can lead soldiers to do some crazy things.

On matters such as whether to spend $800 billion on “stimulus” projects, $1 trillion on health care “reform,” or billions of dollars to build stadiums in the “city” of Chicago, President Obama is all about the now.  When it comes to approving a months-old request from his beleaguered general in Afghanistan to increase troops in an eight-years-and-running war to support the dying soldiers already there, Obama engages in leisurely stargazing.

Never mind that only a wee percentage of funds are seeping out eight months after the stimulus bill was passed, health care legislation wouldn’t start until 2013, and the 2016 Summer Olympics don’t take place for seven years.  Those items were all at the top of Obama’s to-do list.

The war in Afghanistan just entered its ninth year.  Obama formulated his grand strategy for Afghanistan in March, and replaced his former commander there with General Stanley McChrystal in June.  McChrystal, as requested, made his assessment of what was necessary to implement Obama’s counterinsurgency strategy, including adequate troop levels, and has been waiting since August for Obama to give him what he needs.

Now Obama tells us that before troops can be approved, we need to make sure we have a strategy.  As George Will recently asked, didn’t Obama formulate his strategy in March?  Has it changed since then?  If not, then why the delay in sending troops to carry it out?

For one, we are told that discontent is brewing among Congressional Democrats over sending more troops, and that Obama wants to take into account their diverse opinions.  Yet discontent is always brewing among Democrats over sending any American troops anywhere, unless the mission is purely humanitarian and serves absolutely no U.S. security interest.  People who think it’s always wrong to go to war or escalate a conflict cannot be trusted to give strategic advice on troop levels in any specific conflict.

Even Hillary Clinton is sane enough to realize that if we follow Vice President Joe Biden’s preferred plan of stepping up surgical strikes and predator attacks against Al Qaeda leaders, maintaining current troop levels, and allowing the Taliban to retake large swaths of Afghanistan, Al Qaeda will return to the region before we know it.

Now, as a red herring, senior Democrats are criticizing McChrystal for “violating” the chain of command, simply because after a speech he gave last week he honestly answered a question on strategy by referencing the need for more troops in Afghanistan.

To remind Obama: McChrystal was brought in to replace General David McKiernan due to Obama’s stated intent to implement the new counterinsurgency strategy that General David Petraeus had successfully used in Iraq.  McChrystal privately requested 30,000 to 40,000 additional troops in August, a detail that was leaked to the press.  Last week, he obliquely reiterated the need for more troops in his factual response to a question.  How was he supposed to know that Obama had gone all mushy and was reconsidering his already committed to strategy?

To satisfy critics’ demand that he say nothing precise without clearing it with our commander-in-chief, McChrystal’s response to questions about strategy in Afghanistan would have had to have been, “We’re going to win in Afghanistan.  As for details, please ignore everything I’ve said before and the report and troop request I issued in August—all of that may or may not be true and reflect my honest assessment of the situation and the reason I was hired, but I have to speak with Obama to see if his strategy has changed in the last five minutes.”  (This would have been an especially interesting standard for McChrystal to live up to, inasmuch as Obama had had exactly one phone conversation with the general since he took command before last week.)

The most infuriating aspect of having to listen to all this dithering over troops is that we just went through this whole process in Iraq several years ago—and the “troop dilemma” was conclusively decided in favor of the surge option.  George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld mistakenly ignored the advice of then-General Eric Shinseki to implement massive troop increases in 2003.  The war bumbled along for several more years, until General Petraeus sent more troops and began his counterinsurgency operation in 2007, and by 2008 we were hardly hearing a peep from Iraqi insurgents.

In other words, we learned what to do in Afghanistan from what we finally did in Iraq.  General Petraeus now supports General McChrystal’s counterinsurgency operation in Afghanistan.  Why do we have to learn this bloody lesson the hard way all over again, just because Obama wants to appear “thoughtful”?

One eerie possibility is that Democrats actually believe all that nonsense they were spouting in 2008 about “many factors” being responsible for quelling the violence in Iraq, such as: cooperation from the nice Iraqi people, efforts made by the efficient Iraqi government, Sunni-Shiite compromises, the weather, oh—and also some super-helpful troops that were sent over at the last minute.

Some have suggested that Obama may listen to his inner Zen and take the “middle way”—that is, approve a modest increase, such as 10,000 troops, but not meet McChrystal’s full request.  This solution would offer the twin advantages of putting more U.S. soldiers in harm’s way and not giving McChrystal enough troops to succeed in his mission.  Sounds like a winner!

As Senator John McCain recently noted, half-measures in war “lead to failure over time and an erosion of American public support,” as in Iraq.  Or, as Ike Shelton, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, more succinctly put it, Obama had better not “half-ass it and hope.”

President Obama said last week that he doesn’t want the U.S. to be seen as “meddling” in the recent Iranian presidential election.  In his view, vocally supporting the protesters is comparable to the CIA’s coup against Mossadeq in 1953.

That old bald eagle Zbigniew Brzezinski believes Obama has struck the “perfect tone”: Zbig thinks we should refrain from antagonizing the Iranian leadership and avoid a showdown.

Joe Klein’s thoughtful message for John McCain, who has been requesting that Obama take a tougher stance on Iran: “Be quiet.”  According to Klein, supporting the protesters is mere “self-indulgence.”

Joe Scarborough thinks it’s ridiculous that we know what’s best for women’s rights in Iran.  Peggy Noonan writes, “America so often gets Iran wrong…  So modesty and humility seem appropriate stances from which to observe and comment.”

What planet are these people from?  The would-be appeasers’ argument seems to be thus: We should not offer clear, unwavering, forceful encouragement to the Iranian protesters.  If we do, Iran’s leaders will accuse the U.S. of being behind the demonstrations—you know, the ones that no one in the West predicted, the ones that happened after the election results no one foresaw, the ones that few Western journalists are close enough to eyeball, let alone instigate.

My question for the ersatz pacifiers: So what?  Who believes the mullahs?  Nations of the free world don’t.  The protesters who spontaneously organized don’t.  The mullahs don’t—they were already making their misstatements long before our Equivocator-in-Chief changed his mind this week and raised an eyebrow over the carnage.

Memories of the 1979 Revolution, including citizens’ taking to the streets and rooftops to chant, are having a greater impact on present-day protesters’ behavior than anything any American has said.  Iran’s leaders are paying more attention to circumstances in the U.S. than are protesters—as in their specious comparison of Iran’s election to the 2004 Bush-Kerry contest.  (It was Ahmadinejad who co-opted Obama’s “Yes, We Can” slogan for his reelection campaign.)

So if the mullahs blame us no matter what we do, why is it mandatory that we shut up?  Are we afraid that if we support the protesters, the mullahs might despise us even more viciously and biliously than they do now?

The “Let’s stay out of this” argument also seems to be based on the premise that a first-world country’s expression of support for the protesters is condescending and makes the Iranians look backwards and childlike.

I’ll tell you what’s condescending: believing that Iranians aren’t smart enough to figure out that (1) 39 million votes cannot be counted in two hours, (2) Ahmadinejad did not crush Mousavi by the exact same percentage in every demographic group in all 30 provinces, (3) Mousavi-leaning urban centers did not have enough ballots sent to them on purpose, and (4) Iranian elections have been rigged to within an inch of their lives for the past 30 years.  All of that I think the Iranian citizenry is capable of figuring out on its own.  Thousands of Iranians were savvy enough to bring pens to the voting booth out of fear that the ones supplied by the government would be filled with disappearing ink.

The Iranian protest movement has been brewing underground for decades, mostly among college students and graduates, and women’s groups.  I don’t recall any accusations of our having meddled in Iranian universities’ gender studies curricula recently.

The “Mind your own business” line of reasoning is reminiscent of the old charge that we shouldn’t go to war against Iraq (in 2003) or Afghanistan (in 2001), because we’ll only stir up anti-American sentiment; or the notion that we shouldn’t help Israel, because jihadists’ real hatred of America stems from our support for that country.

In fact, we should vocally support the protesters in Iran, because that stance gives us credibility when we fight our own battles.  When fools like Ahmadinejad (and Obama) declare that we have no right to decide which countries get nukes and which don’t, we must be able to respond confidently, “Yes, actually, we do—it should be free nations that support individual rights and aren’t run by lunatic dictators, which includes the U.S., Britain, Israel, and our allies; and not Iran, North Korea, Syria, or any other place of our choosing.”  If we support movements for freedom where they occur, rather than ignoring them, then our stance gains consistency and credibility to reformists in hostile regimes who are potentially open to our ideas.  Those are the only people we should even dream of catering to.

Critics of supporting the protesters are right about one thing: one does not “impose” democracy on a nation.  Consequently, I think if protesters in Iran actually objected to American ideals more than theocratic values, we would have heard more people chanting “Death to America” than “Death to the Dictator” these past two weeks.  Protesters would presumably not have embraced Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube with the same gusto if they had felt that the country that invented these tools were hampering them with “cultural imperialism” or some other made-up crime.  (Undoubtedly there is a minority crackpot fringe arguing that YouTube’s relaxing of its restrictions on videos with graphic content is “inciting” the Basij to commit more acts of violence.)

Certainly it is helpful that this is a homegrown revolution, and yes, statements against the Iranian government carry more weight when they come from Iranian citizens who could be jailed or killed than from Americans safely speaking half a world away.

Here’s how we actually did encourage the protesters in Iran—by turning their next-door neighbor, Iraq, into a democracy.  Our transformation of Iraq has given Iranians hope that a government that protects liberty can work in an Islamic country in the Middle East.  So yes, we did influence the protesters—in a phenomenally helpful, productive, and material way, at great cost to ourselves.  Why shouldn’t we underline our message by supporting the protesters?

Around the time President Obama was delivering his speech “A New Beginning with Muslims” in Cairo, Governor Sarah Palin was making introductory remarks for main speaker Michael Reagan to an audience in Anchorage.  Though Obama’s oration was approximately 17 times longer than Palin’s and focused on Middle East foreign policy, Palin’s informal comments embodied more understanding of the nature of Islamic extremism and the forces that motivate it than Obama’s entire homily.

In one speech, Obama managed to apologize for:

•    The Cold War, “in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations”—as opposed to the aspirations they fruitfully pursued under a leader such as Saddam Hussein

•    Western “colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims”—as opposed to the rights they have under a leader like former colony Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad

•    Not having enough “mutual respect”—as opposed to the fawning respect Islamists shower on women, Jews, Christians, gays, and Westerners

•    Not letting women wear hajibs—as opposed to Islamists’ insistence that gays always be allowed to wear nooses

•    Not saying “openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors”—as opposed to the constant warmongering that glides so effortlessly off Obama’s tongue

•    Believing in “any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another”—rather than viewing those who uphold liberty the same as those who stone women for being gang raped

•    Having nuclear weapons and putting other countries at great risk—like when the Soviets whupped our butts in the Cold War and turned the rest of the world Communist

•    Defining our relationships with terrorist-sponsoring regimes by our “differences”—we say tomato, they say tomahto; we say Israel has a right to exist, they say dropkick Israel into the sea

•    Having the gall to use our military—Obama quotes Thomas Jefferson: “The less we use our power the greater it will be”; note to Obama: not using it at all does not mean we are therefore infinitely powerful

In the meantime, Palin said, “Those of us so proud to be Americans acknowledge that no, we’re not a perfect nation, but never, never do we have to apologize for being proud of our country.  When [Reagan] fought socialism and any sort of tyranny that he knew would ruin us, he stood strong on his knowing that the framework for positive change was freedom.  America is the greatest nation on earth, because our foundation is freedom.”  Sometimes simpler is better—ya know?

Obama scolded us for:

•    Viewing Islamic countries as hostile to American ideals—he added that the dancing in the streets after 9/11 was actually their version of Cinqo de Mayo; “Once de Septiembre,” I think we’d call it here

•    Citing verses in the Koran that incite violence against nonbelievers—as opposed to the ones that talk about Bambi and blue jays

•    Seeing Iraq as a “patron” rather than a “partner”—because Iraq was on the brink of ousting Hussein and establishing parliamentary elections just as we sent our foot soldiers into Baghdad and got in the way!

•    Believing that some forms of government are superior to others—though admittedly, I haven’t noticed too many ethnocracies or kleptocracies flourishing lately

•    Believing we should have a say in “which nations hold nuclear weapons”—because Nicolas Sarkozy could turn out to be as crazy as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; who knows?

Meanwhile Palin snapped, “Screw political correctness.  Be loud and strong.  [Don't] shy away from the tough issues.  Reagan’s ideas were the right ideas, and all we have to do is look back at his national security record to know that.  Remember how refreshing it was with his outrageous directness that Americans loved and praised and deserved?  His vision for the Cold War?  We win, they lose.  Why, today, do we feel we have to pussyfoot around our troublesome foes, the terrorists who still seek to kill Americans and destroy our allies?  Terrorists are still dead set against us and are set on destroying Israel.  It is war over there so it will not be war over here, and it had better still be our mission that we win, they lose!  Some in the press want to put anybody who dares speak up back in their place.  Those are the folks that want to tell me, want to tell you, to siddown and shuddup.  We will not do so.”  Drill, baby, drill!

Over on camel terrain, Obama lectured us with a straight face that America and Islam share principles of “tolerance and the dignity of all human beings”; that “throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality”; and that “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance”; all of which is kinder than what Al-Jazeera regularly has to say about the religion in their nightly broadcast.

Up in moose country, Palin mused, “What we’re being fed today, it seems, is a steady diet of select, misrepresented news.  Why is it, considering how fast the world is spinning, and world-changing events that go on all over the globe, that it’s the same, big three, supposedly competing networks that have the same news content every night, and virtually the same exact viewpoint being spewed night after night after night?”  Go Aces!

Given the choice between (1) off-the-cuff remarks in an Anchorage auditorium by a hockey mom and former VP candidate who understands that rejection of liberty precludes our enemies’ being on the same moral plane as us; that courage in recognizing and labeling evil is needed to fight it; and that tossing around flowery language won’t reform an opposition who refuses to change; and (2) a scrupulously photographed, eloquently written (by someone else) bag of what could generously be called bromides, clichés, and chestnuts if they weren’t so blatantly wrongheaded—I know which I’d choose.