'Willful Blindness' to the Jihad

davidlimbaugh.com ^ | 05/01/08 | david limbaugh

[lancer256]

You might expect the lead prosecutor against the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to tout the criminal justice system as the premier strategy to fight terrorism. If so, you're wrong.

It is precisely because of Andy McCarthy's experience in that capacity that he understands -- in a way others can't -- the crippling limitations of law enforcement and criminal prosecutions in combating global terrorism.

Though he led the Justice Department prosecution team that convicted Omar Abdel Rahman, the "Blind Sheik," McCarthy is painfully aware that "as a class, baby-boom attorneys know nothing of war. Prosecutors included." Even this successful effort left way too many militants in place and encouraged the idea that they could attack us with impunity.

The entire orientation of the criminal justice system is to protect the rights of innocents, affording the accused due process and a litany of other constitutional protections. But we are at war with an enemy who doesn't fight wars according to conventional rules. If we continue to treat them as criminal suspects rather than enemy combatants, they'll always be many steps ahead of us in a war that only they are fighting. While our government frets over their constitutional rights -- rights to which enemy combatants have never been historically entitled -- it abdicates its duty to protect American lives.

Before the 9/11 attacks, we simply did not understand that Islamic terrorists had declared war against the United States and that to have any chance in this war, we'd have to engage them militarily.

[happinesswithoutpeace]

“Before the 9/11 attacks, we simply did not understand that Islamic terrorists had declared war against the United States”

Those of us who read the Fatwa in 1998 did understand this all too well.