Legal Justification for Drone-Launched Missile Strikes

I just recently returned from a month in the Caribbean (which explains the paucity of posts in March).

While I was there, I had the opportunity to speak to a variety of audiences, including people in the host nations' media and military. In several instances, the issue of American drone-launched missile strikes in Pakistan and other countries was raised, asking what right the United States has to kill people who have not been found guilty of a crime. Many international human rights organizations and international law specialists consider them to be illegal assassinations.

Coincidentally, the Obama administration has for the first time explained its legal rationale for the strikes. I find it rather ironic that the State Department lawyer, Harold Koh, who now justifies the strikes on behalf of the Obama administration was the dean of the Yale Law School during the Bush presidency and was extremely critical of these same policies.

President Obama has dramatically increased the number of missile strikes against al-Qa'idah terrorists in Pakistan as well as limited strikes in Yemen and Somalia. These strikes have been effective in killing al-Qa'idah members as well as disrupting the group's operations. Nevertheless, the strikes have been criticized as somehow being illegal or unjust.

I am not sure why using a drone to kill the enemy is any different than using a rifle. The argument misses the point - it's okay to kill people using rifles, artillery and air strikes in Afghanistan, but not using a drone in Pakistan? One set of people have rights and another does not? They're the enemy, regardless of venue, and should be hunted down and killed whenever wherever however.

As for the Obama administration's rationale, Koh states, "The U.S. is in armed conflict with al-Qa'idah as well as the Taliban and associated forces in response to the horrific acts of 9/11, and may use force consistent with its right to self-defense under international law." He further explained that a state engaged in armed conflict or legitimate self defense is not required to provide targets with legal process before using lethal force.

Works for me.

Others are not convinced. According to Notre Dame law professor Mary Ellen O'Connell, "It really is stretching beyond what the law permits for this very extreme action, killing another person without warning, without a basis of near necessity, simply because of their status as a member of al-Qa'idah...."

Why would you give warnings to the enemy? They are the enemy, Professor - remember September 11, 2001? How much warning did the 3000 Americans have that day?

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Jameel Jaffer says he will file a lawsuit to obtain the Justice Department document laying out the full legal rationale for these strikes. Rationale for striking the enemy? Or maybe the ACLU does not consider al-Qa'idah the enemy....

They're the enemy. Where they are or how we kill them should not be an issue.

President Obama in Afghanistan - why are we there again?

President Barack Obama made a secret six-hour visit to Afghanistan last weekend to lecture Afghan President Hamid Karzai and visit American troops. Both reasons for the trip were absolutely necessary, however, the actual conduct of the trip was poorly handled.

Afghanistan is one of, if not the, most corrupt countries on the planet. It has probably always been that way, but now there are 100,000 American troops present in the country ostensibly helping Karzai establish a representative government by defeating the Taliban. Much American treasure is being expended to develop infrastructure as well as funding combat operations, treasure that we can ill afford given the economic situation at home. It is essential that the money be used effectively and wisely, as opposed to lining the pockets of a few dozen warlords and corrupt government officials.

President Obama was right to stress to his counterpart that American patience has about run out over the corruption in the country. Whether Karzai will take the message to heart, or whether he can do anything about it even if he does get the message, is another issue. In any case, the Afghans are on notice that U.S. largesse is not endless.

While in Afghanistan, the commander in chief met with American troops - certainly the duty of any president, and it appears his visit was well received. The troubling aspects of the visit were the absolute secrecy and the fact that the entire visit was carried out during the hours of darkness.

It is unseemly for the "leader of the free world" to move about in secrecy and darkness like a coward. The President of the United States should be seen exhibiting the same courage as his troops. Of course, the Secret Service calls the shots on security, but at some point, the President needs to stand up and take charge of his image. Scurrying about in the darkness is not the image we need of the commander in chief.

That said, my biggest issue with the President's visit is his insistence that American troops are in Afghanistan fighting al-Qa'idah. Obama has perpetuated this myth since he made the decision to mount a counterinsurgency in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban rather than focusing on his successful counter terrorism campaign against al-Qa'idah - the real enemy - in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. He gets my criticism for the former and my praise for the latter. His decision to increase the drone-launched missile strikes was exactly the right thing to do.

On Saturday, he said, "We are going to disrupt and dismantle, defeat and destroy al-Qaida and its extremist allies."

All well and good, but there are little if any al-Qa'idah remaining in Afghanistan. If the mission is to nation build, starting with the defeat of the Taliban, say so. Continuing to insist that America is confronting al-Qa'idah in Afghanistan is incredulous.

Iyad 'Alawi - the right choice for Iraq

The recent election of Iyad 'Alawi's al-'Iraqiyah bloc is a significant step in Iraq's move to a more representative and hopefully more stable government. It is also a rejection - albeit by the slimmest of margins - of the almost theocratic Shi'a domination of the Iraqi government under current Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. 'Alawi's alliance includes both Arab Sunnis and Shi'as.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have ties to Iyad 'Alawi. In 1996, after the United States government began to distance itself from the Iraqi National Congress led by prominent Shi'a banker Ahmad Chalabi, the Central Intelligence Agency started to work closely with Iyad 'Alawi's British-supported Iraq National Accord (the "Wifaq") to try to effect the overthrow of the Saddam Husayn regime. I was part of that effort, codenamed DBACHILLES.

In 1996, I was part of the CIA team that deployed to the region to work with "Dr Iyad," as we called him, and his group of exiled Iraqi military officers and other leaders. In the end, the effort failed, but I developed great respect for the physician turned politician and opposition leader. I think 'Alawi possesses the traits necessary to unify Iraq's Arab population, which up until now has been split into distrusting Sunni and Shi'a camps. This is in stark contrast to the divisive current al-Maliki government which has alienated the Sunnis.

Of course, 'Alawi's first challenge will be to form a government, not an easy task with such a small margin of victory. Al-Maliki will not quietly depart the scene - he is too fond of what he believes is his rightful place in Iraqi politics, and he has allies. Since the adage "politics makes strange bedfellows" certainly applies to Iraq, there are rumors that the third-place group, the Iraq National Alliance, will ally with al-Maliki's party to challenge an 'Alawi government.

There are also supporters of radical Shi'a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the INA, once again making al-Sadr a power player in Iraqi politics. Although 'Alawi has expressed a willingness to continue to improve relations with neighboring Iran, Iran would clearly prefer an Iraqi government headed by al-Maliki, or even better, al-Sadr. Al-Sadr has been in Iran studying to acquire the title of ayatollah to better improve his chances to emerge as the future leader of Iraq.

Iyad 'Alawi is the right choice for Iraq at this time. I hope he is able to form a coalition government that does not include the likes of Nuri al-Maliki. It is the only way to bridge the divide between the Sunnis and Shi'a in the country. Unless that happens, the internal dispute will continue and possibly expand. If the Sunnis do not feel invested, they will work against the government, not with it.

"But I only support the charitable branch of Hamas...."

...or Hizballah - fill in the name of your favorite terrorist organization.


There are arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court over whether it is legal to provide money or other material support to specific subgroups of organizations that have been designated as terrorists by the American government. Although the specific case before the court involves the Kurdish Workers Party, known more commonly as the PKK, the issue applies to Hamas and Hizballah as well. Both Islamic organizations have branches that build schools, operate hospitals and provide public services - in addition to militias that kill Israelis.

There is a problem with providing money or support to the charitable branches of terrorist organizations. It's the same fiction when the U.S. government provides "non-lethal" support to a liberation or opposition group. For example, at one time, we provided this so-called non-lethal support to Iraqi opposition groups (that later was changed to include lethal support).

Here is how it works. The United States gives a particular group a sum of money with the proviso that the money can only be used to buy non-lethal items. That group then uses money from other sources to buy their weapons, and uses the money from the United States to buy other supplies. If the United States had not provided the non-lethal aid, the group would have had to spend the other money on the non-lethal supplies. It is pure fiction - money is a fungible commodity. To later claim that "no American money was used to buy weapons" is ludicrous.

The same holds true for terrorist organizations. If you give money to Hamas or Hizballah for their charitable work or public service programs, the money they would have spent on those programs is freed up to buy weapons or finance terrorist operations. Again, money is a fungible commodity and it is fiction to believe that you can support only a part of a terrorist organization.

U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan has it exactly right - her brief contends that any support the given to a terrorist group allows the group to put more of its own resources into violent activities.

Sending money to any branch of a terrorist organization is supporting a terrorist organization. It is that simple.

Iran developing a nuclear weapon? I am shocked, shocked...

According to a report just issued by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, there is "extensive evidence of past or current undisclosed activities” by Iran’s military to develop a nuclear warhead.

In the words of Claude Rains in the movie Casablanca, I am shocked, shocked!

Finally, the IAEA has said what it has refused to say for years. This comes just after the naming of a new director general for the agency. Yukiya Amano, from Japan, replaced Egyptian Muhammad al-Barada'i in November 2009 - a refreshing change. Al-Barada'i seemed to be unable to find nuclear weapons programs anywhere, especially in the Middle East.

The new report concludes that Iran has been working continuously on a weapons programs for years, despite a U.S. intelligence community National Intelligence Estimate published in 2007 that assessed that Iran had stopped work on its program in 2003. Most sane observors and analysts have rejected that report - in fact, both candidates in the 2008 Presidential race stated they believed that Iran was working on a nuclear weapon.

Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has seen the light, but the Administration continues to downplay the threat from Iran. Officials say there is no concrete evidence that Iran has renewed its program. This is not a court of law and we do not need the rules of evidence for intelligence analysis. Intelligence analysis is by its nature attempting to figure out what someone else is doing with only pieces of information.

According to the IAEA, not only is Iran enriching uranium, it is testing methods to detonate a nuclear device and researching a warhead design small enough to fit their ballistic missiles. That should be of real concern to the American intelligence community.

Former Iranian President Akbar Hasemi Rafsanjani called the IAEA report politically motivated and influenced by Western governments. It was hardly the American government pushing the IAEA - the U.S administration seems to be bending over backward to avoid stating that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. Why? Easy - if they admit it, then they have to do something about it.

President Obama has yet to unequivocally state, as his predecessor did, that the United States will not permit Iran to have a nuclear weapon. It is becoming quite clear that he has no intention of preventing them from doing so. Mr. President, now that even the usually feckless IAEA has gone on record that the Iranian program is likely a weapons program, what do you intend to do?

I am afraid I already know the answer, and in this case, I will not be shocked....

Three Afghan Taliban leaders captured - a shift in the ISI?

The recent arrests of three senior Afghan Taliban leaders in Pakistan may just signal an important shift in the Pakistani intelligence service's willingness to engage the Taliban. The three include the Afghan Taliban military operations chief, second only to Mullah Omar himself, and two provincial Taliban leaders.

These are significant blows to the Taliban and may indicate a new willingness on the part of the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate to actually take on the Taliban. It is important to note that the Taliban was created largely through the efforts of the ISI recruiting Islamist Afghan refugees in Pakistan in the late 1990's. Almost all of the Taliban are Pushtuns, which not coincidentally is the the major ethnic group that makes up the ISI. The arrests in Pakistan also highlight the fact that the Taliban's senior leadership must use Pakistan as a safe haven - evidently it is too dangerous to remain in Afghanistan. There are reports that other Taliban leaders departed Afghanistan for Pakistan when an impending offensive in Helmand province (the current Operation Moshtarak) was announced. I guess it was that or use women and children as human shields....

Another factor that comes into play here, and I am willing to bet that this factor was engineered by American intelligence officers working with the Pakistanis. The arrests were initially kept secret - this makes sense. When you capture a senior leader, you want to exploit whatever he knows before his organization realizes that their operations have been compromised. As soon as the Taliban realized that 'Abd al-Ghani Baradar was in Pakistani and American custody, they would have taken immediate steps to cancel any pending or imminent operations, change communications methods and move out of locations of which he was aware. Holding him incognito as long as possible preserved the value and extended the longevity of any information extracted during interrogation.

After a few weeks, the arrest was widely publicized in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the rest of the world. In part, this has an psychological effect on the entire Taliban - that's good. I suspect the CIA officers working with the ISI wanted this made public also to prevent an "escape" of the detainees. The ISI has many members that are sympathetic to both the Taliban and al-Qa'idah, most of them are of the same ethnic group, and maybe even of the same tribal groupings. I am reminded of the "imminent surrenders" of both Mullah Omar and 'Usamah bin Ladin in 2001 - then all of sudden, they "escape." What happens/happened? Money changes hands, tribal loyalties come into play, etc - and they escape.

Pakistan has become a key battlefield in the war against al-Qa'idah and the Taliban. CIA drone-launched missiles have taken a real toll on the al-Qa'idah leadership over the last two years - these attacks have been stepped up under President Barack Obama. These three arrests are significant in that they target the Afghan Taliban leadership, not that of al-Qa'idah. This will no doubt have an effect on the war in Afghanistan by taking senior Taliban leaders out of the picture.

Hopefully, these arrests indicate that the Pakistanis now realize that the Taliban are a threat to them as well as to Afghanistan - and that can only help in our efforts to kill any al-Qa'idah left in Pakistan. That's where we need to focus - al-Qa'idah is not in Afghanistan. They've moved - so kill the ones left in Pakistan, then move on to Yemen....

Obama to "engage" Syria - why not?

Photo: US Embassy - Damascus, Syria

President Barack Obama has nominated a career diplomat to be the U.S. ambassador to Syria, a post that has been vacant for five years. The Bush Administration withdrew the ambassador after the 2005 Syrian-engineered murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri in Beirut.

Obama's spokesman stated that the appointment was "President Obama's commitment to use engagement to advance U.S. interests by improving communication with the Syrian government and people. [The] ambassador will engage the Syrian government on how we can enhance relations, while addressing areas of ongoing concern."

At first blush, Obama's critics - I am generally in that camp, as his Middle East policies thus far have been abject failures - will jump on the words "engagement" and "engage" since these are the exact words used to describe his attempts to influence the actions of Iran. Of course, we now how that has worked out so far. The Iranians have not changed their policies in the slightest - they continue to enrich uranium in defiance of virtually the entire world in what has become a fairly transparent effort to develop nuclear weapons.

Syria and Iran are, and have been for decades, close allies - they have a mutual defense pact and are the sponsors of Lebanese Hizballah. Without Syrian cooperation, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods Force would have problems providing the money, weapons and training that allow Hizballah to remain the most potent political force in Lebanon. Hizballah provides Tehran with leverage with the Israelis - a not-so-transparent proxy force to cause problems for Tel Aviv virtually anytime the Iranians wish.

Without doubt, Iran is the world's largest state supporter of terrorism - it has been on the U.S. State Department list since 1984. Their clients read like a who's who of that particular ilk - Hizballah (which they created in 1982), Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Muqtada al-Sadr's jaysh al-mahdi (with American blood on its hands) to name but a few.

Syria is a close second, being on the State Department list since 1979. Not only is the regime of Bashar al-Asad a sponsor of terrorist organizations, it continues to meddle in the internal affairs of Lebanon, and has developed an arsenal of chemical weapons and the North Korean-designed and/or provided ballistic missiles with which to deliver them.

Even more troubling are recent indications that Syria is in the initial stages of a nuclear weapons program of its own. In 2007, the Israelis bombed a nuclear reactor, most likely provided by North Korea. The facility was an exact copy of the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, the birthplace of Pyongyang's nuclear program. North Korea also reportedly has provided Damascus with the technology to manufacture maraging steel. Maraging steel is used almost exclusively in the production of ballistic missile or isotope separation centrifuges. See my earlier article, North Korea resumes military assistance to Syria.

Does this sound like a nation that we want to "engage" and improve relations?

Well, surprisingly, yes.

Hear me out. Syria, despite its abysmal policies, is a key player in the Middle East. It is a critical piece of the Middle East peace process, which is currently all but dead. Yes, part of the blame for that is the Obama Administration's heavy-handed treatment of Israel, believing that they could force the Israelis back to the negotiations. However, without a Syria-Israel agreement on a resolution of the decades-old issue, there will not be, there cannot be, a lasting Middle East peace. There is an old adage we Middle East specialists learned long ago, "No war without Egypt, no peace without Syria."

If - and that is a huge word here - the United States, and right now that is the Obama Administration, can bring Syria and Israel into some form of negotiations, that would be an immense first step towards a solution. The two parties have to be serious when they come to the table, and therein lies the problem. There will be preconditions. Even if they say there are no preconditions, there are preconditions.

First and foremost for Syria is the return of the Golan Heights. Without that going in, there is no need to even meet. No Syrian president would survive any agreement that does not include the outright return of Syrian territory. Could that be nuanced to allay Israeli security concerns? Possibly - Syria might allow the presence of an early warning station on the heights.

Tal Abu Nada / Har Avital

Israel's signals intelligence site and observation facility atop Tal Abu Nada (or Har Avital as the Israelis call it) provides Israel with a capability to monitor Syrian troop movements toward the border. Man it with American contractors, have American and Russian technicians jointly run it, remote the sensors - come up with some out-of-the-box proposal, whatever. The bottom line, however, is that the territory must revert to Syrian sovereignty and control.

There may even be negotiated demilitarized areas. The Israelis will also likely demand that Syria commit not to alter the water flows on the Golan Heights - the area is home to the headwaters of the Jordan River, a critical lifeline for Israel.

The Israelis will also have other demands. One of the key requirements they will demand of Syria is that Damascus cease allowing Iran to use its airspace, airports and roads to resupply Hizballah in Lebanon. Virtually all of Iran's support to the terrorist organization flows through Syria, most of it through Damascus International Airport.

Is this difficult? Of course. Is it possible? Maybe, but the first step just might be to get an American ambassador back in to the U.S. Embassy in Damascus and at least start talking to President Asad. If - again that huge word - we can convince Damascus to restart talks with Israel and in the process break the Tehran-Damascus axis, it's worth the risk. Perhaps Asad can be convinced with the right incentives. Solving the Syria-Israel issue will go a long way to resolving many of the other issues in the region.

We have an embassy in Damascus, we might as well have an ambassador. While we may not be able to talk to the Iranians, you can talk to the Syrians.

Chinese support for sanctions? What about the Russians?

In light of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's February 11th announcement that his country is now a "nuclear nation" - which he has claimed before - there has been a renewed call for sanctions from the Obama Administration. The two actions are telling - Iran was supposed to have delivered "a punch" to the West on the 31st anniversary of the Iranian revolution, and it appears that the U.S. administration has finally woken up to the fact that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has long talked about new United Nations sanctions against Iran, all to no avail. The sticking point has been securing the cooperation of United Nations Security Council permanent members - with veto power - Russia and China. The other three members, the United States, United Kingdom and France, have been on board for some time.

There have been claims from the Russians that they do support sanctions, especially as Iran continues to thumb its nose at the world over demands that it halt its uranium enrichment program. On the other hand, the Chinese have been consistent in their position that diplomacy needs to be given more time before the imposition of another - there have been three thus far - round of sanctions. There does not appear to be any change in the Chinese position.

A closer look at the claimed Russian support reveals some positive spin on the part of the administration, particularly Mrs. Clinton. Although Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov makes the right noises about sanctions, the Russians still have an active contract to complete the Bushehr nuclear reactor. Granted, that reactor falls under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, but the fact that a nation - Russia - still willing to provide assistance to a country that is under sanction for a uranium enrichment program - Iran - should be troubling.

It goes further. While the world is concerned about Iran's nuclear program, Russia has no intentions to stop selling advanced air defense systems to the Islamic Republic. The Russians believe that the sale of the S-300 missile system is not prohibited by the current sanctions protocols. Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Vladimir Nazarov clarified that the sale of the S-300 "is not restricted by any international sanctions, because these are merely defensive weapons." Deliveries are to begain soon. (See my earlier, New sanctions on Iran? The Clinton spin....)

The Russian angle is interesting. Secretary Clinton would have you believe that she and Lavrov have some sort of special relationship that will further the aims of the international community when it comes to Iran. The reality appears to me to be far removed from that. Remember Mrs. Clinton's much-publicized "reset button" debacle with Lavrov - incompetence beyond belief. (See my earlier article on another forum, Does the State Department have any competent Russian linguists?)

The China situation is even more problematic, and confusing. Vice President Joe Biden said during his Sunday talk show propaganda sessions that the United States expects to gain China’s support for sanctions on Iran. His words - “We have the support of everyone from Russia to Europe. And I believe we’ll get the support of China to continue to impose sanctions on Iran to isolate them, to make clear that in fact they cannot move forward.”

Why would Biden say that? There has been no indication that Beijing has moderated its position. Mrs. Clinton has just visited Saudi Arabia, hoping to get Saudi assurances that they would offer oil supplies to China to convince them to support the American position. No such luck - our closest Arab ally has balked at taking a stance that would help convince the Chinese to go along with sanctions.

So, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Clinton want us to believe that they will be able to bring China to the sanctions table. Meanwhile, the Russians continue work on the Bushehr reactor and are committed to delivering advanced weaponry to Iran.

Biden and Clinton can't even deliver the Russians, let alone the Chinese.

Al-Qa'idah in federal court or military commissions?

For the most part, I try to provide analysis on this forum about events in or about the Middle East. On occasion, I will venture into the realm of opinion or editorializing when I feel strongly about a particular issue, but always in the context of the Middle East. Like everyone, I have opinions on the entire range of issues, but on this forum, I mainly focus on the Middle East.

The issue of trying al-Qa'idah terrorists in federal/civilian court trials or by military commissions straddles that definition. It deals with American jurisprudence and the disposition of hundreds of al-Qa'idah detainees in U.S. custody, most held at the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It also deals with some of the most hardened Islamic radicals captured on battlefields and other venues in the Middle East - it is hard to separate the two.

Almost all of these detainees - their exact status is still in limbo, thanks to semantic ambiguities of the Justice Department - are enemy combatants. Enemy combatants have normally been tried by military courts, military tribunals, military commissions, or whatever term was in vogue, at the time going back to the Civil War. The Military Commission Act of 2006 provides for that today, following a Supreme Court ruling. It affords detainees the right to challenge their detention by U.S. forces or authorities - basically it answers the Supreme Court's ruling that you cannot indefinitely detain people without recourse.

Given that ruling, at some point in time we have to address holding these al-Qa'idah thugs. I will be impolitic here and go on record as saying that I was against moving these detainees to Guantanamo in the first place. I would have interrogated them thoroughly (make your own determination on what that means) and left them in graves in Afghanistan. These vile creatures - by their own admission - planned and supported the slaughter of over 3,000 innocent people, mostly Americans, on September 11, 2001.

What I see now is the current administration wanting to put on a show on the world stage, to showcase American justice. Why? A band of thugs murders 3,000 people in an act of war - remember the 'Usamah bin Ladin fatwa of 1996 declaring war on us - and we are supposed to respond with a criminal prosecution? Call me cynical, but I do not think Attorney General Eric Holder nor President Barack Obama really means to try these killers - they are more intent on putting the previous administration on trial.

For whatever reason, Obama and Holder believe that embarrassing former President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will improve America's standing in the world. While that might play well on the upper west side of Manhattan, it has no real effect in the real world. Does anyone really think that the people who want to kill us will have their minds changed by the fact that we have a federal trial in New York as opposed to a military commission in Gitmo? Or that someone on the fence will say, "Wow, they tried our brothers in civilian court before they executed them - maybe they really are the good guys." As my niece says, PAHLEEZE.

There are a host of other concerns about using the federal court system. There is the defense's arguable right under our system to have access to a lot of classified information. In the case of Shaykh 'Abd al-Rahman, often called "the blind shaykh," the government was compelled to disclose the true identities of more than 20 intelligence assets. Because of the criminal actions of one of the defense attorneys, much of that information was passed to al-Qa'idah. We in the military call this "shooting yourself in the foot."

I am also concerned that some federal judge - bound by what he or she perceives to be the norms of criminal law - would dismiss many of the charges or throw out much of the government's evidence as "fruit of the poisoned tree" because of the means obtained. Despite Holder's prejudgment that the defendants will be found guilty - which raised legal issues of yet another dimension - there is no guarantee of a conviction.

Then there is the time and money - do we really need this type of kabuki dance going on in lower Manhattan for three years, with the price tag of maybe a billion dollars. You can buy a lot of JDAMs (GPS-guided munitions) for that kind of money. Rather than motion them to death in a court in New York, let's put some American steel on al-Qa'idah targets in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia etc. - but that's just me....

A military tribunal should have the same result as a federal court - executions with no release of classified information with no security/logistics nightmares and no grandstanding.

I was surprised - pleasantly - that most Americans wanted "Christmas bomber" 'Umar Faruq 'Abd al-Mutalab moved to Guantanamo and water-boarded. They get it - Holder and Obama don't.

Hizballah - A Greater Threat To Israel Than Ever

From Basil & Spice Opinion

The Shi’a Islamic fundamentalist group Hizballah has emerged as the key power broker in Lebanon. It has been fully re-armed by its Iranian and Syrian sponsors after its war with Israel in 2006, its militia has been legitimized by the Lebanese government, and the group has veto power over any legislation introduced in the Lebanese parliament.

Hizballah, instead of being marginalized by the 2006 war and the resultant United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, is now a greater threat to Israel than at any time in its 28-year history. UNSCR 1701 required that the Lebanese government prevent the re-arming of Hizballah, and that Beirut deploy the virtually useless Lebanese army to the country's southern border with Israel to keep Hizballah fighters out of the area south of the Litani River. The resolution also expands the mandate of the largely ineffective United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon - "interim" since its creation in 1978. Hizballah is now back in the area in force.

In a December 2009 vote, Lebanon's newly-formed government granted Hizballah the legal right to maintain its militia forces, and the authority to employ those forces against Israel. This action confirmed an existing policy which authorized the army and "the resistance" (the Lebanese idiomatic term for Hizballah) to liberate what Lebanon and Syria label as the Israeli-occupied Shaba' Farms. It is fiction - the Shaba' Farms are part of Syria (Israeli occupied), not part of Lebanon, but it provides a “fig-leaf” to justify Hizballah’s militia.

The major threat to Israel from Hizballah is its replenished rocket inventory. Despite the passage of UNSCR 1701, the Syrians and Iranians have not only completely re-equipped Hizballah to levels in excess of the inventory prior to the war in 2006, but, but have also increased the quality of the group's arsenal. The older short-range rockets have been replaced with longer-range rockets capable of carrying larger warheads. When there are future Hizballah rocket attacks on Israel - and there will be future attacks – the warheads will reach much farther into the Jewish state, this time not only threatening the areas just south of Haifa, but probably Tel Aviv as well.

This new reality, thanks to the ineffectiveness of the United Nations and the duplicity of Syria and Iran, must be taken into consideration by the Israelis. They have to be prepared to defend the northern half of the country should for any reason Hizballah decide to launch rockets at Israel.

Like an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear research facilities, perhaps?