DID SOMEBODY REMEMBER TO READ SADDAM HIS MIRANDA RIGHTS?

Perverted priorities (Daniel Pipes, Jerusalem Post, March 2nd, 2005)

For a free people in the age of terrorism, what is the proper balance between civil liberties and national security?

This debate wracks every Western country. Looking at the United States, the "united we stand" solidarity that followed September 11, 2001, lasted just some months, after which a much deeper divide emerged as conservatives proved far more profoundly affected by the atrocities than did liberals. The result has been the growing political acrimony of the past three years.

Many examples illustrate this divide. For the most recent, take the argument concerning Ahmed Omar Abu Ali between the conservative Bush administration and its mostly liberal critics.

Born in the US to immigrant Jordanian parents, Abu Ali, 23, was indicted last week of plotting the assassination of President George W. Bush. The prosecution asserts he was in touch with al-Qaida and in 2002 discussed ideas of eliminating Bush by getting "close enough to the president to shoot him on the street" or by deploying a car bomb. [...]

Conservatives focus on the hair-raising news that an al-Qaida affiliate had plans to kill the president of the United States. Liberals hardly note this development, focusing instead on the question of whether, while in Saudi custody, Abu Ali was tortured (Justice Department officials call this an "utter fabrication").

Note the editorials in four northeastern papers:

The New York Times: This case is "another demonstration of what has gone wrong in the federal war on terror... In an undisciplined attempt to wring statements out of any conceivable suspect, American officials have worked with countries like Saudi Arabia."

The Washington Post: "The courts need to ensure that no evidence obtained by torture – with or without the connivance of the US government – is used to convict people in US courts."

The Baltimore Sun writes (dripping with sarcasm): "By unsealing a federal indictment against Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, the US government garnered headlines about an alleged terrorist plot, instead of the unexplained imprisonment of an American citizen in Saudi Arabia... it portrayed Mr. Abu Ali [as] someone other than a victim of torture. The government may think its secret is safe. But it isn't."

Newsday's editorial is titled "Shame on Bush for rights violation."

These liberal analysts evince no concern that an American citizen trained by the Saudi government in Virginia will stand trial for plotting to assassinate the president. They decline to explore the implications of this stunning piece of news. They offer no praise to law enforcement for having broken a terrorism case. Instead, they focus exclusively on evidentiary procedures.

Mark Steyn asked a few days after 9/11 (paraphrase): “Why do some people react by imagining vividly the unspeakable horror of an innocent secretary incinerated by a photocopy machine, while others see nothing but a vindication of their thesis on Kyoto?” In this case one might ask why so many liberals are determined to equate terrorism with shoplifting and to fight to the last American to treat them so.