War Planning by the Obama Administration

In the latter months of the Bush Administration, the liberal mainstream media outlets and Democratic politicians liked to repeat RUMORS that Bush and Cheney were planning to attack Iran before leaving office to assure that Iran's nuclear program would be stopped. When John McCain broke into an impromptu song of "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann" during the 2008 Presidential election campaign, the YouTube video of his brief attempt at poorly chosen musical humor was replayed by left wing media types over and over to suggest that, if elected, McCain would also be inclined to start war with Iran, if Bush did not follow through with the rumored attack before he left the White House.

Well, it is now clear that neither Bush, Cheney nor McCain have the ability to start war with Iran; so the left wing can now rest easy that they helped elect a President who would never do such a terrible thing! However, even though many of President Obama's domestic policies are clearly far left wing (and have become the pride and joy of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other Democratic officials, as well as MSNBC and other liberal media outlets) when it comes to national security, he has apparently learned through regular national security briefings that he gets, as well as the Fort Hood shooting, the failed Christmas Day bombing and the Times Square bombing attempt, that there really is a serious terrorist threat to the country.

This week there have been reports of two significant developments in military preparations pursuant to Obama's approval that could actually lead to war, not only with Iran, but also with our apparent ally in the war in Afghanistan: Pakistan.

On May 24, 2010, the New York Times reported that:

"[A] secret directive, signed in September by Gen. David H. Petraeus, authorizes the sending of American Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to gather intelligence and build ties with local forces. Officials said the order also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions escalate.....

The seven-page directive appears to authorize specific operations in Iran, most likely to gather intelligence about the country’s nuclear program or identify dissident groups that might be useful for a future military offensive. The Obama administration insists that for the moment, it is committed to penalizing Iran for its nuclear activities only with diplomatic and economic sanctions. Nevertheless, the Pentagon has to draw up detailed war plans to be prepared in advance, in the event that President Obama ever authorizes a strike." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/25military.html

In today's Washington Post, it is reported that:

"The U.S. military is reviewing options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan in the event that a successful attack on American soil is traced to the country's tribal areas, according to senior military officials. Ties between the alleged Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, and elements of the Pakistani Taliban have sharpened the Obama administration's need for retaliatory options, the officials said. They stressed that a U.S. reprisal would be contemplated only under extreme circumstances, such as a catastrophic attack that leaves President Obama convinced that the ongoing campaign of CIA drone strikes is insufficient."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/28/AR2010052804854.html?hpid=topnews

Whether these two reports get more attention in the coming days than they would have if George W. Bush were still in the White House depends on how much these developments are even noticed in view of other pressing news, including the continuing oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico (being handled so incompetently by the current Administration), the recent admission by the White House Counsel regarding Congressman Joe Sestak that he was indeed offered some type of position to drop out of the US Senate race in Pennsylvania and the ongoing controversy over the Arizona immigration law that President Obama continues to inflame with unfounded claims that the law encourages racial profiling. See my post of May 23, 2010 for a discussion of the bogus nature of these claims of discrimination. Sphere: Related Content

Dereliction of Duty

John T. Morton, the assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune last week that his agency (ICE) may not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities because he does not think that the new Arizona immigration law is the appropriate way to address immigration problems. Later on the same day, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that federal homeland security officials will await a US Department of Justice examination of the civil rights and other implications of the new Arizona law before deciding how to approach the problem of illegal aliens crossing the border from Mexico into Arizona.

So we have a high ranking federal law enforcement officer, who has sworn an oath to enforce the laws of the United States, which - of special importance to his particular agency (ICE) - includes federal immigration laws, saying that he will not work with law enforcement officials in one state due to his disagreement with that state's new law. Since the new Arizona law was passed to encourage and facilitate cooperation between Arizona officials and federal officials in enforcing laws designed to secure the country's borders, Morton's position amounts to gross malfeasance and a dereliction of his duties as director of ICE.

This is particularly odd since the ICE website states that "ICE's mission is to protect the security of the American people and homeland by vigilantly enforcing the nation's immigration and customs laws... ICE combines innovative investigative techniques, new technological resources and a high level of professionalism to provide a wide range of resources to the public and to our federal, state and local law enforcement partners." http://www.ice.gov/about/index.htm

John Morton's statement to the Chicago Tribune appears to make it clear to Arizonians that he will not be very "vigilant" nor very "professional" in providing any assistance to state law enforcement "partners" in Arizona.

It is very strange for the leader of ICE to take the position Morton has since the new Arizona law only requires state law enforcement officers to inquire about immigration status whenever "any lawful stop, detention or arrest [is] made by a law enforcement official" and a "reasonable suspicion exists that the person [stopped] is an alien and is unlawfully present in the United States". Even without any statute, it would seem that such an inquiry would be a logical approach for any law enforcement officer to take in any state in the country.

Morton's refusal to cooperate with Arizona state officials in carrying out his responsibility to help protect the citizens of Arizona seems to be based on the objection to the law that has been expressed by the President, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security. All of these high ranking federal officials (of whom the latter two admitted in Congressional testimony last week that they have NOT even read the new law) have indicated publicly their concern that the law could potentially cause "racial profiling". However, the Arizona statute expressly provides that law enforcement officers "may not consider race, color or national origin in implementing" the law.

Before any person detained pursuant to the Arizona law can be released from custody that "person's immigration status shall be verified with the federal government" pursuant to Section 1373 of the federal immigration law. [Arizona Senate Bill 1070 enacted as Law 2010, Chapter 113 of the Arizona statutes can be found at http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/SB1070-HB2162New.PDF.]

Section 1373 of the federal law cited above (that John Morton swore to uphold) says that no state or local government may be prohibited, or in any way restricted, from sending to ..... ICE information regarding the lawful or unlawful status of an alien in the United States. It would be presumptuous to assume that Morton's statement to the Chicago Tribune is actually an attempt to "restrict" Arizona officials from sending information to ICE. That would be a violation of the federal law Mr. Morton was sworn to uphold!

Besides, if Morton and the other higher ranking federal officials in the Obama Administration were really concerned about racial profiling (rather than just making political points with some favored bloc of the voting public), ICE could help prevent any such affront to American values of fairness by cooperating with Arizona under the ICE Secure Communities Program which is designed to assist state and local law enforcement personnel in protecting their communities from criminal illegal aliens.

The ICE website describes the Secure Communities Program as follows:

"When someone is booked into local custody, their fingerprints are taken. Those fingerprints are checked against the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) for criminal history.... [and] against the Department of Homeland Security’s database, the Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) for immigration records. When fingerprint submissions match immigration records, local ICE officers are automatically notified and can promptly determine if enforcement action is required. Criminal history and immigration information can also be shared with state law enforcement agencies.

......

Secure Communities is a color blind system and reduces the opportunity for allegations of racial and ethnic profiling because the fingerprints of every individual arrested and booked into custody are checked against immigration records, not just those manually submitted by local officers." http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/factsheets/secure_communities-facts.htm

It seems that Mr. Morton would want Arizona officials to report suspected illegal immigrants to ICE so that the ICE, DOJ and DHS databases could be used to assure that any decisions made about a detainee's immigration status would be based on the federal system that is designed to be "color blind" and reduces the potential for racial profiling.

The fact that DOJ has to study an 18 page state law (for at least one month as of this writing) before DHS and ICE can determine whether to work with Arizona to help solve that state's illegal immigration problems and protect its citizens from criminal acts by illegal aliens rather than to use the existing programs and databases established to enforce immigration laws based on factual information, without any racial profiling, demonstrates the utter lack of sincerity in the objections being made about the Arizona law.

The outrageous claims being made by Obama Administration officials regarding the potential of Arizona's law enforcement officers to ignore the express requirements of their state law that bar any racial profiling in the law's implementation even led to the President of Mexico expressing his opposition to the Arizona law for the same reason at a joint session of Congress last week for which he received a standing ovation by the Democrats in the hall. In effect, this event could be seen as our own government inviting a foreign leader to accuse Arizona's officers of the law of being prejudiced bigots willing to ignore their state's legal requirements. Law enforcement officials everywhere in the US should consider this an insult of the highest order.

The public protestations by the Obama Administration of the potential for racial profiling in Arizona are purely political posturing and those federal officials responsible are failing to carry out their sworn Constitutional duties.

Perhaps President Obama and his team want the news media distracted by bogus claims of racial profiling in Arizona so the spreading oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico being watched by impotent federal officials making ineffective threats against BP does not receive more attention in the news.

Sphere: Related Content

The Bizarro World of the DC City Government

On the same day and in the same city that the Attorney General of the United States, the US Secretary of Homeland Security, the FBI deputy director and the New York City Police Commissioner were announcing the arrest of a Pakistani born US citizen for an attempted terrorist attack in Times Square, the DC City Council passed a bill to legalize medical use of marijuana (a federally banned drug) and proposed a bill to prohibit the DC Police Department from reporting arrests of illegal immigrants to the US Department of Homeland Security. In the very city where Congress enacts federal law, the city government acted on two measures that permit or require actions in contravention of federal law.

The medical marijuana bill is the result of a DC public referendum passed in 1998 (during the Clinton administration) and action taken by Congress last year (during the current Democratic administration) that allowed the DC City Council to adopt a law in accordance with the 1998 referendum results. During the Bush administration, Congress did not take action to allow DC to pass the medical marijuana law.

The proposed bill to bar the DC Police from informing the federal authorities of illegal immigrants arrested in the nation's capital was, of course, introduced in reaction to the Arizona law recently enacted to permit law enforcement officers to inquire into a person's immigration status when detained or questioned about potential violations of any state law unrelated to immigration status. This means that if an illegal immigrant is arrested for breaking a law in Arizona that the police there (many of whom are Hispanic Americans) may determine that the arrested person is in this country illegally and report this information the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. However, if the DC proposal becomes law, the police in the nation's capital that arrest an illegal immigrant (even if from Pakistan) will not be allowed to report this information to ICE!

This sure seems to be a strange situation, but such are the consequences of the liberal PC world that now rules in Washington, DC.

Sphere: Related Content

Kudos to Law Enforcement on Times Square Bomb Attempt Investigation

The system worked! As in the case of the Christmas Day bomb attempt on a jetliner landing in Detroit, the Times Square bombing attempt was stopped due to alert civilians acting quickly to prevent a disaster. On Christmas Day, it was a Danish passenger on the plane who jumped on the Al Qaeda trained terrorist trying to ignite explosives hidden in his underwear. On Saturday evening in Times Square, it was two street vendors who alerted police officials nearby to a suspicious SUV left running in the crowded area near the Broadway theater district.

The investigative response following these two recent incidents of attempted terrorists' attacks, however, do not follow a similar pattern. In New York, experienced and highly trained NYPD and FBI investigators promptly cleared civilians in the area of the SUV to safety, disarmed the bomb, protected the evidence in the SUV loaded with explosives, thoroughly combed through the clues provided by the abandoned vehicle, identified the suspect, Faisal Shahzad (a Pakistani born naturalized US citizen) and arrested him on board a plane bound for Dubai after about 53 hours. The only slip in the process was the failure of the airline to prevent Shahzad, who had been added to the "no fly" list on Monday afternoon, from boarding the plane. Fortunately, Customs and Border Protection personnel matched the passenger list against the "no fly" list in time to stop the plane and take Shahzad into custody.

These outstanding law enforcement professionals in New York did not have the culprit in custody right away after being caught red-handed with smoking pants at the scene of the crime, as the Detroit authorities did on Christmas Day. Furthermore, the New York team of local and federal law enforcement officials were quick to utilize the public safety exception to the Miranda Rule after capturing the Times Square suspect and questioned him without benefit of a lawyer long enough to learn more about his training, travels and possible associates. In Detroit on Christmas, the Nigerian terrorist was given his Miranda rights and a lawyer after only 50 minutes of questioning.

Not only are the fine men and women of the NYPD, FBI, Customs and Homeland Security due congratulations in the handling of the Times Square investigation and arrest, but it would only be proper to conclude that the Obama administration learned from their admitted mistakes in the Christmas Day incident and made appropriate corrections to their approach in responding to potential terrorists' attacks.

It is also appropriate to recognize that alert civilians really are an essential part of an effective system of preventing horrible acts of terror. As many have noted, the citizens of New York City are well aware of the critical rule that if you "See Something, Say Something".

Sphere: Related Content