Feinstein on Gitmo, Harry Reid's stunt, etc.
Diane Feinstein, Harry Reid, George Galloway, and other scoundrels.
by The Scrapbook
The Weekly Standard
07/30/2007
Feinstein's Guantánamo Prison Blues
Dianne Feinstein is sponsoring an amendment to next year's defense authorization bill that would force the president to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, within one year and restrict the executive's authority to transfer the detainees to brigs outside the United States. The California Democrat and her 15 cosponsors in the Senate--including Nebraska Republican Chuck Hagel--would also require that the president submit to Congress a report providing "legal justification" for detaining "any individual" under the new, congressionally mandated policy.
You can expect a flurry of litigation and strengthened demands to treat terrorists (including those who are not U.S. citizens and are captured outside the United States) as common criminals--enjoying full Miranda rights and other constitutional protections--if the Feinstein amendment were to pass.
What THE SCRAPBOOK finds interesting is that just a few years ago, Feinstein had a different idea of how to deal with America's jihadist enemies, who are members of no army and who wear no uniform in battle. In interviews with reporters in early 2002, Feinstein voiced full support for the president's detention, interrogation, and Guantánamo policies. The Guantánamo detainees "are people, if you release them, they're going to go out and kill again," Feinstein told ABC News on January 28, 2002. The next day, in an article in the Alameda Times-Star, Feinstein said, "It's very important to be able to interrogate these prisoners."
The Times-Star reporter noted: "Feinstein also gave support to the Bush administration on the question of whether the prisoners [at Guantánamo] should be classified prisoners of war and covered under the Geneva Convention."
And then a day after that, the New York Post quoted Feinstein saying, "I'll be very candid with you. I would much rather be here"--that is, in Guantánamo--"in an 8 by 8 [foot] cell with a breeze, than locked down in Folsom prison in California. This is not an egregious situation."
Of course, the Feinstein amendment would require the president to move the detainees to places like Folsom prison--places that, five years ago, Feinstein thought were actually worse than the prison where the detainees are held currently. So what happened?
Feinstein said in a statement to THE SCRAPBOOK,
<<< "My comments were made in January of 2002, shortly after the facility was opened."
"It was a very different time, and the comments are now out of date. The problem now is that many detainees have been held, in most cases without charge, for over five years under a lesser system of justice and with no hope of having their status clarified." >>>
Yes, January 2002 was a very different time. It was back when most Democrats were still serious about fighting the war on terrorism.
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Harry Reid's Pajama Party
As political stunts go, Harry Reid's forcing the Senate to stay in session all night long July 17-18 to debate the Levin-Reed Amendment to the Defense Authorization Act was an uncommonly empty one. The amendment, which called for a precipitous withdrawal of troops and would hamstring the president's ability to fight the war in a responsible manner, was destined for failure and the majority leader knew it. But the Nevada Democrat was going to force every senator he could to come to the floor and debate the issue!
Except that he didn't. The debate started at 3 P.M. on Tuesday and ran through 11 A.M. Wednesday, but for most of that time the Senate floor was virtually empty. There was always at least one Republican and one Democrat on the floor in order to keep the "debate" from ending, but that was usually it. The pages and aides who lined the walls of the Senate waiting for the intermittent quorum calls outnumbered their bosses by a ratio of six or seven to one for almost the entire night.
And those quorum calls were very intermittent. After holding one around midnight, Reid then announced to the rest of the members of the Senate that there would not be another until 5 A.M. THE SCRAPBOOK's personal experience in all-nighters is fading, but if we recall our college years accurately, midnight to 5 A.M. would have counted as a good night's sleep. Those cots ostentatiously wheeled in by the leadership for a photo-op were unnecessary.
The only genuinely interesting moment was one Reid probably wishes he hadn't agreed to. Just after 9 P.M. he and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and a few other Democratic colleagues made their way from the steps of the senior chamber to Upper Senate Park, a small patch of grass hosting a rally sponsored by MoveOn.org, where they were shouted down by Code Pink and assorted other leftists. ("Impeachment on the table!" "It was about oil!" "It's not enough!" went the cries.)
Finally, Reid had had enough: "Be quiet!" he snapped. And they did shut up. One has to wonder: After seeing the "debate" watched by no one but the six members of the press who stayed all night (including THE SCRAPBOOK's heroic colleague Sonny Bunch), and getting shouted down by his supporters, does Reid wish he had called it a night a few hours earlier?
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George Galloway, Scoundrel for Hire
Over the years we've leveled all sorts of charges against jihadists--murder, malevolence, stupidity, and even cowardice. But no jihadist ever has been found wanting in principles--wicked principles, yes, but principles, nevertheless.
Enter George Galloway, British MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, who seemed to be an ordinary, if flamboyant, brute. In 1994, in his unofficial capacity as Saddam Hussein's court jester, Galloway slobbered to the tyrant:
<<< "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability. And I want you to know that we are with you until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem." >>>
And Galloway did stick with Saddam--not until Jerusalem, but at least until the Iraqi dictator was hanged. As jihad's podium patriot, Galloway traveled the world doing his best to inflame terrorists and incite suicide attacks. On Al Jazeera TV in 2005, he announced to the Arab world:
<<< "Two of your beautiful daughters are in the hands of foreigners--Jerusalem and Baghdad. The foreigners are doing to your daughters as they will. The daughters are crying for help, and the Arab world is silent." >>>
But it seems, more and more, that Galloway is not an authentic rebel for the terrorist cause--which would be bad enough--but a mercenary out for a buck. This son of Dundee, Scotland, has been putting his mouth where the money is.
Last Wednesday the House of Commons suspended the MP for "concealing the true source of Iraqi funding" for the Mariam Appeal, a Galloway "charity" founded in 1998 to combat U.N. sanctions placed on Saddam's Iraq. The decision confirmed the 2005 findings of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Minnesota senator Norm Coleman, which found that Britain's no-blood-for-oil dove had actually received the profits from 23 million barrels of oil from Saddam Hussein, who had skimmed it from the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Program.
Galloway remains in denial, saying that "these highly damaging allegations have caused my reputation severe damage which needs to be repaired." There are few things that would damage a jihadist cheerleader's reputation, you might think, but an allegation of prostitution may well be one.
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