Yet another Monumentally Bad Idea from the Pope of Hope....
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Right now, there are soldiers out there at remote firebases and FOBs with a roll of "Tape , Pressure Sensitive Type 1" in their hands and they are going to hold a formation to decide who is going to start wrapping their heads first, so that others will not be hurt by flying brain shrapnel when their heads explode.
It started this morning when I read what I already knew was going to happen with captured detainees taken from the battlefield and I am certain I have editorialized here about it.
...the Obama Justice Department has quietly ordered FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high value detainees captured and held at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan, according a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “The administration has decided to change the focus to law enforcement. Here’s the problem. You have foreign fighters who are targeting US troops today – foreign fighters who go to another country to kill Americans. We capture them…and they’re reading them their rights – Mirandizing these foreign fighters,” says Representative Mike Rogers, who recently met with military, intelligence and law enforcement officials on a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan.
Rogers, a former FBI special agent and U.S. Army officer, says the Obama administration has not briefed Congress on the new policy. “I was a little surprised to find it taking place when I showed up because we hadn’t been briefed on it, I didn’t know about it. We’re still trying to get to the bottom of it, but it is clearly a part of this new global justice initiative.”
Does anyone else feel like someone just spit in their face?
To say this complicates things for soldiers looking down the barrel of a gun deciding whether someone lives or dies in the heat of battle is an understatement. When I told everyone here on this blog so long ago what I was tired of in this war, I said that treating this conflict like a law enforcement problem and conducting the equivalent of SWAT raids and "collecting evidence" was the camel's nose in the tent and now we are seeing the result of the this policy.
I know that if Representative Mike Rogers, who has a house on both sides of this fence, thinks this is a bad idea, then maybe the oxygen thieves over at Justice ought to have a listen. I think this is such a horrible idea that I don't know if I can find the words to describe how bad it is. I know that having read Miranda rights to suspects in my life, I know that there is a universe of difference between some drunk wife beater cuffed in the back of my patrol car and an IED maker that I have captured and have the barrel of my M-4 nestled in the base of his skull.
Our court system was never designed to deal with bad actors of this nature. It will be impossible to maintain any chain of evidence in regards to suspects and the fruits of the "crime" found on the battlefield. It will be impossible to subpoena "witnesses" who can testify to what was or wasn't happening (Afghans don't have house numbers on the sides of their compounds). There will be no way to introduce "evidence" collected using intelligence gathering methods, Predator or Raven footage, or using informants known only to HUMINT teams. It will be impossible to cooperate with FBI Agents because the ROE will not both permit me to engage and destroy the enemy and still provide for time, space and opportunity for them to conduct "investigations."
Preserving evidence in not at the top of my list when engaging in running gun battles and calling down the thunder from above. Not much to collect after a 2000 pound JDAM "detains" them.
Our enemies are laughing at us because at every turn, our Commander in Chief continues to show what huge pussy he is who is overly defensive and supremely concerned with the feelings of others, at the detriment to those that defend this nation. The terrorists know they are winning the most important battle, the propaganda one. Our civilian leaders and the morons in the Justice Department continue to bend over and spread 'em for the people that are beheading us, strapping explosives to themselves and lighting them off in a crowded market place, and striving through death and destruction to get closer to God.
And the men and women who are charged with keeping us safe now face greater danger and be more restricted in how they conduct the battle.
I know my solution to this problem is that I will emphasize the "kill" portion of the "kill or capture" portion of the Mission paragraph of the OP-ORDER. We will just zip up the bags and call the meat wagon.
Zzzziiiipp... Case Closed....