Tacking in a Storm

The war on terror is going to be a generational conflict, especially given the way Islamists have been preparing the fields of battle - from mosques to the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq to Lebanon, Israel, and Gaza. Today had a bunch of major news releases while I was away from the keyboard.

Funny how that happens.

The first bit came early this afternoon, as it was announced that a number of high value detainees were being transferred to Gitmo from locations around the world. What was the purpose behind such a move?

That became clearer when President Bush made an important speech later in the day. The full text is here. Hot Air has the video, and a live-blog of the speech.

He’s asking Congress to:
1. List specifically which interrogation procedures will violate the War Crimes Act.
2. Make clear that interrogators are authorized under Article 3.
3. Prevent terrorists from using Article 3 to sue interrogators.

Ace thinks the President has Bushwhacked the opposition once again. I think he's on to something. Democrats have been playing up the anti-war card for quite some time, and have been saying that the President has been acting unconstitutionally under Hamdan. Well, now the President is telling Congress to put up or shut up. Specifically, that means that Democrats have to come up with something that passes muster, and actually defends the country against terrorism by enabling investigators to interrogate and procure information from detainees in a manner necessary to disrupt terror plots and/or uncover other terrorists before they could strike.

Congress is being told to set the rules. Expect laundry lists of activities to go into the acceptable and unacceptable columns. The trick will be figuring out which ones are not mentioned at all, and how those are treated. Will Congress provide that any items or techniques not specifically mentioned be treated as legal? If it does, then the Administration will have surmounted and circumvented the issues in Hamdan.

Michelle Malkin notes, among other things, that Sen. Mitch McConnell has introduced the legislation.

Macranger thinks Bush had a winning combination with today's speech. John at Powerline notes that the AP is already spinning furiously by claiming that Bush admits that high value terrorists were being held in secret detention facilities overseas. Here's a newsflash. That isn't news. We've known for a couple of years now that certain terrorists, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were being held somewhere other than Gitmo.

The AP also thinks that terrorists ought to be given the right to look through the classified information that was gathered in order to capture those terrorists in the first place. The Administration position, and indeed the position of anyone seeking to defend this country from terrorists, should be against allowing terrorists access to classified information at trial.

The Moderate Voice notes that the war will be a major issue in the November elections, but that potential voters are still processing information coming from the battlefront and much can change their view between now and then. You can be sure that the Administration knew this implicitly when they went ahead with this policy speech today.

Dan Riehl discusses the speech at length, and thinks that the lawyers outsmarted themselves and thinks this will be painted as a total reversal by the Administration on the issue of detainee rights under the Geneva Conventions). There may be something to that, but I think his concern might be mitigated by the fact that people will realize that the Administration is doing what it thinks is right, and that by putting the matter in Congress' hands to circumvent Hamdan, that he's not only pushed his agenda forward, but has shortcircuited some of the criticism coming from the Left over the Administration's handling of detainees in general.

The Democrats who have brayed loudest over the treatment of detainees will now get to set forth what they think is acceptable, and the country will see for themselves just how Democrats seek to protect us from terrorists during a time of war when terrorists themselves have absolutely no inclination to treat their enemies with Geneva Convention protections - note that they invariably attack civilians and seek to inflict maximum casualties on civilians, and will exploit any and all laws to their advantage - including our freedom of speech, and rights granted to citizens of the US.

Others blogging: Babalu Blog, Jeff Goldstein, Stop the ACLU.

UPDATE:
Confederate Yankee was busy churning away articles of impeachment of President Bush for giving away the farm, but that was because he was busy relying on AP and other wire reports. Seems that reading further, and you'll find that the Administration did anything but cave on the issue of detainee rights under the Geneva Conventions.

One thing I can't help but wonder about is why it took the Administration this long to craft a policy that simultaneously defangs much of the Democrat talking points, and takes the judiciary (via Hamdan) out of the equation. Then again, this could be crafty Karl Rove showing his impeccible timing to provide the GOP with an issue to hammer home the failure of the Democrats to craft a national security policy.

Technorati: hamdan, gitmo, geneva convention, bush, war crimes act, war on terror, terrorism, terrorist.