Best of the Web Today
December 4, 2003
By JAMES TARANTO
Terrorists Win Two in Court
Separate three-judge panels of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have issued rulings limiting the enforcement of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, a law President Clinton signed in 1996. In Humanitarian Law Project v. Department of Justice (links to rulings in PDF format), Judges Harry Pregerson and Sidney Thomas held that it violates the Fifth Amendment right of due process to convict someone for providing material support to organizations classified as terrorist by the State Department unless the defendant has "guilty intent."
Part of this is reasonable enough. The court rejected the government's argument that "a donor to a proscribed organization could be convicted under the statute even if he or she was entirely unaware that the organization was designated as a terrorist organization."
But this case does not involve wide-eyed innocents unknowingly giving money to a dubious charity. The would-be donors are a group of savvy activists who brought a civil suit seeking to pre-emptively exercise their "right" to donate money to support propaganda and "humanitarian" efforts of a pair of terrorist organizations. They say they are refraining from doing so "because they fear that they would be investigated and prosecuted criminally." In other words, the law is working exactly as intended--deterring people from financially supporting terrorists--and the would-be donors are asserting a constitutional right to do just that.
The terror groups in question are the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), from Turkey, and the Liberation Tigers Tamil Eelam (LTTE or Tamil Tigers), from Sri Lanka. Judge Pregerson's opinion blithely observes that the two groups "have engaged in a broad range of activities, from terrorist violence to peaceful political advocacy to humanitarian aid." In her dissent, Judge Johnnie Rawlinson fleshes their activities out a bit:
The record in this case reflects that the PKK's terrorist activities have resulted in the deaths of over 22,000 individuals, primarily from bombings. The LTTE has a similar history, engaging in bombings, gun battles, assassinations, and machete attacks, causing widespread death and destruction.
The notion of distinguishing between funding a terror group's terrorist and nonterrorist activities is a fatuous one. Money is fungible; every dollar you give to the Osama bin Laden Day Care Center frees up a buck for al Qaeda to spend on its next massacre. The Ninth Circuit's ruling, if it stands, could make a mockery of efforts to stop the flow of money to terrorist groups.
In the other case, Cheema v. INS, the court on Monday ordered the Immigration and Naturalization Service to release Harpal Singh Cheema, described by the San Francisco Chronicle as "a Bay Area Sikh activist who has been held for six years in jails for aiding terrorists overseas," and his wife, not to deport them to India, and to reconsider their request for asylum in the U.S.
Judge Rawlinson, who dissented in this case as well, outlined the couple's record:
Cheema has acted as a communications link to Bittu and Panjwar by routing telephone calls through his home in the United States, and thereby avoid detection by Indian authorities.
Cheema served as a communications link during the kidnapping of the Romanian ambassador by Sikh terrorists.
Cheema provided food and shelter to terrorists while they were fugitives from the police.
Cheema's wife functioned in his stead during his absence.
But Judges John Noonan and Margaret McKeown held that because the terrorist activity in question was not directed against America or Americans, "neither Cheema nor his wife to be a danger to the security of the United States."
"Contrary to the majority's apparent view," writes Judge Rawlinson, "our country should not become a haven for those who desire to foment international strife from our shores." To that we would add: If our country is going to be such a haven, how can we demand other countries not serve as havens for anti-American terrorists?
In the course of his ruling, Judge Noonan adopts Reutervillian relativism as the law of the land in the Ninth Circuit:
It is by no means self-evident that a person engaged in extra-territorial or resistance activities--even militant activities--is necessarily a threat to the security of the United States. One country's terrorist can often be another country's freedom-fighter.
Oddly enough, Reuters does not seem to have noticed the Cheema case, though it did report on Humanitarian Law Project.
Kerry's Contradictions
John Kerry's presidential campaign looks like a dead letter; a new Zogby poll has the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam, trailing Howard Dean in New Hampshire by 30 points, 42% to 12%, and the American Research Group puts Dean ahead by 32 points, 45% to 13%.
Nonetheless, it's worth looking at the foreign-policy speech he delivered yesterday at the Council on Foreign Relations, a thoroughly disingenuous exercise in trying to have it both ways.
Kerry promises, for example, that "as president, I will not cede our security to any nation or to any institution, and adversaries will have no doubt of my resolve to use force if necessary."
But he also vows to go hat in hand to seek forgiveness from those countries that fought tooth and nail to keep Saddam Hussein in power: "In the first hundred days in office, I will go to the United Nations--I will go in the first weeks--and I will travel to our traditional allies to affirm that the United States of America has rejoined the community of nations." Kerry seems to think that America, rather than Saddam Hussein's Iraq, is some sort of rogue nation.
Kerry says of Iraq: "I fear that in the run-up to the 2004 election, the administration is considering what is tantamount to a cut-and-run strategy." This takes a lot of chutzpah, given that Kerry himself voted to defund the troops, and that he declared, in this very same speech, "I have said before--and I repeat today--that the Bush administration should swallow its pride and reverse course."
Why even bother taking note of Kerry's futile utterances? Well, consider the reason he seems certain to lose the nomination: because he's too hawkish for the Democratic electorate.
U.N. Scholar Warns of NoKo Capitalism
Here's a bizarre item from the London Guardian. It seems that over the past year, North Korea has introduced some market reforms. The paper's Jonathan Watts reports from Pyongyang:
Three months ago, the first government-sanctioned market in the country's history opened. Compared with the dusty, quiet, almost empty state department stores, Pyongyang's Tongil Market is a hive of activity and noise. Shoppers haggle noisily with the 150 or so stall holders for a staggering range of goods; second-hand Japanese TVs, Burmese whisky and Korean dogmeat. Most of the goods are from China. Some--including western diarrhoea pills which sell for 3p [about a nickel] apiece--are kept under the table.
Now get a load of this comment:
Several Pyongyang watchers said they were amazed at the transformation in the past year and concerned about the implications. "The extremes of poverty and wealth are growing as market relations increasingly define the economy," said Hazel Smith of the United Nations University in Tokyo. "Now there is no socialist economy, but also no rule of law for the market. That is the basis of corruption."
Is Smith really more worried about these minuscule capitalist reforms than about the evil Stalinist dictatorship that rules in Pyongyang? Does she actually think "the extremes of poverty and wealth" are worse because somewhat fewer people may be starving to death, while Kim Jong Il is living as lavishly as ever?
'Turkeygate'
Here's a great "report" from ScrappleFace.com:
American military morale hit an all-time low this week in the wake of revelations that President George Bush didn't serve a display turkey to hungry troops during his surprise visit to Baghdad last week. Political experts have already dubbed the episode "turkeygate," and predict that the effect of this latest Bush administration scandal will be even more devastating than the outing of Valerie Plame.
"When I went home after dinner that night, I wrote a letter to my wife about how proud I was to fight for liberty," said an unnamed Army staff sergeant, "but when I learned that not a single soldier ate the display turkey, even though the president was photographed holding it, my faith in democracy was shattered."
Another soldier added, "We suddenly realized that we're risking our lives to defend a lie. He mocked us with the pretty bird, then served us the common steamtable turkey. What good is freedom, if you can't trust your leaders?"
This is satire, of course, but the Angry Left actually is having a cow over the turkey, a "story" the Washington Post broke. "Even Bush's Turkey at the Baghdad Breafast [sic] Thanksgiving Was a Prop," proclaims BuzzFlash.com. "Everything About the Guy is a Lie or Phony."
Josh Marshall acknowledges the triviality of it all but proves unable to control his acid reflux:
On the one hand, who cares? The Clinton-test would lead me to that conclusion.
But you go down into the article and the other malarkey starts to add up. . . .
The explanation is worse than what's being explained. Fake scenes are good becaue [sic] they capture deeper truths about the president "that people know [are] true." That's classic. Sorta like how the Santa Claus story captures the deeper meaning of Christmas or that other story about the Stork.
Maybe professional jealousy is the reason these turkeys are so upset. But hey, we found another
Then there's this Reuters scoop: "Young Terrance Martin could not let President George W. Bush get away with mistakenly saying he was just 6 years old when he was really 7." Bush, who was introducing Terrance at an event promoting adoption, said, "I'll take it up with the fact-checker." But no doubt we'll soon hear calls for a full congressional investigation into what the president knew about Terrance Martin's age and when he knew it.
What Would Zacarias Moussaoui Do Without Experts?
Get a load of this ABCNews.com caption for a photo of the alleged 20th hijacker: "Experts say Zacarias Moussaoui may have been too mentally unstable to have been a part of the Sept. 11 plot." Whereas Mohamed Atta & Co. were the very model of mental health.
What Would We Do Without Polls?
"Poll: Americans Still Wary of Terrorism"--headline, Associated Press, Dec. 3
Where Credit Is Due
Today's Arab News carries an hard-hitting commentary by Mohammad Al-Rasheed that originally appeared in the Saudi Gazette. We noted it Monday: "We have bred monsters," he writes of his countrymen. "We alone are responsible for it. . . . We are the problem and not America or the penguins of the North Pole or those who live in caves in Afghanistan."
Although the Arab News didn't correct Al-Rasheed's ornithological oxymoron, it did, understandably, edit out the passage in the original in which he wrote: "I don't think this will be published in the Arab News, as it should be. If not, I understand their point of view and their perpetual selectiveness." We suppose this was a dare, and we're glad the paper took it.
Funny Business
Yesterday we noted a hilarious anti-Bush screed masquerading as a movie review on Amazon.com. Amazon turns out to be a great place to if you're amused by political obsessives making fools of themselves. Here's a review from one Edward Nilges of "National Lampoon's 1964 High School Yearbook: 39th Reunion Edition," by P.J. O'Rourke:
It gave me a chuckle to revisit this book.
However, it is racist, sexist, and anti-Catholic: Maria Theresa Spermatazoa [sic] may amuse but also represents Catholics as inferior bodies to be controlled by Protestant minds.
Essentially, P. J. O'Rourke's entire career has been devoted to affirming the reality of a class structure which victimized him growing up in Ohio, and demonstrating that in America, there is no escape from the juvenile categories of high-school which enforce, in communities like Dacron, Ohio, the interests of the local "elite."
Because of a defect in our Constitution, local "elites" in the real-life counterparts of towns like Dacron are over-represented in DC and their interests, chiefly the definition of success and worth with property owning, as a result control the political process.
This process had disastrous results in the 1960s as these elites led the football teams into Vietnam, and they've repeated the same mistake in Iraq.
But in both cases, "humor" is used to Manufacture Consent to shattered lives.
I was in other words amused to read of Gilbert "Univac" Scrabbler's career: the local Dacron nerd is now, in this book, living with Mom and Dad.
Well, PJ, my Mom is dead and I took care of my Dad, and yes indeed, the dot.com industry has busted. But basically, the ruination of lives in a country where unprecedented numbers of Americans are in poverty, thanks in small measure to the continual reassertion of racist, sexist, and classist categories in the guise of humor, eventually ceases to amuse.
The message of the humor is that "you are powerless, and your efforts to assert power are without meaning." Fortunately, a critical mass of nerds, women, and other outliers have ignored this message.
We remember reading the original Yearbook as a teenager in the early 1980s (there was also a newspaper parody, the Dacron Republican-Democrat). It was pretty funny, but Nilges's unwitting satire is even funnier.
Chile's Angels
Generalissimo Francisco Franco, who turns 111 today, is still dead, but fellow erstwhile Latin dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet is alive--or so we thought, until we saw this headline in yesterday's New York Post: "Accused Pinochet Killer Sits as Envoy to U.N." According to an Associated Press headline from Nov. 25, Pinochet acknowledges his own death: "Chile's Ex-Dictator Says He's an 'Angel.' " |
