Great Minds Think Alike

I’ve always liked smart people who are able to take seemingly complex issues, then break them down to arrive at common sense solutions. The best of this type often possess this rare combination of abilities: they can use big words artfully, and express big ideas succinctly.

This could explain what I saw in William F. Buckley, Jr. before I even knew what a “pundit” was. During the late 80’s and early to mid 90’s, when I had the disposable time and energy to make punditry a regular spectator sport, my favorite commentator was George F. Will. The pairing of Mr. Will against Sam Donaldson on This Week with David Brinkley was a weekly mismatch. From the mid 90’s until Mr. Obama’s election, I mostly took my eye off the punditry ball – things like making a living and raising a family had a way of consuming more and more time and energy with each passing year. But when the abuses heaped on the republic by BHO and the Progressives reawakened my interest in punditry, it was easy to see that the head of the punditry class in 2009-2010 is Charles Krauthammer.

A quick aside on George Will. Am the only one noticing he is lately showing less patience with his liberal foils? It’s almost as if Mr. Will understands the stakes for the republic now outweigh his need to maintain a pretense of civility to protect his insider status inside the beltway. I encourage Mr. Will to continue unceremoniously dressing down liberal fools as he did on this panel. The republic needs his considerable intellect fully deployed to hold back the foolishness of the Progressive hoards.

But I digress. The inspiration for this post was a column written by Mr. Krauthammer, in which he applies his considerable intellect to a topic I’ve been thinking about in my spare time lately (hence the post title).

Now, far be it for me to suggest my “mind” is as “great” as Mr. Krauthammer’s. Nor will I suggest my prose is anywhere near as polished as this master’s prose. I will, however, give myself credit for seeing the same *^%$#!!@!#!!* policy problem the previous administration left us with, and the current administration has only made worse.

The obvious problem is the total lack of a coherent national policy for dealing effectively with Radical Islamic Jihadism. Mr. Krauthammer, in his opinion piece, aims at the more difficult target of giving useful advice that has a chance of being implemented by the current administration (pearls to swine, good luck with that). I will simply describe my view of the correct policy (just because I can).

The root problem, as I see it, is the legal and national defense assumptions we have inherited need some reformation. Now, to my conservative mind, “reformation” means “slight tweaking,” not “fundamental transformation.” Let’s just get that straight before proceeding further.

During most of our history, we made two assumptions that were generally mostly true: (1) citizens would be loyal to the nation, and (2) threats of war would originate from outside our national borders. Yes, we had Benedict Arnold, Alger Hiss, and other occasional traitors – but these were the exceptions that proved the rule.

The uniquely new problem presented by Radical Islamic Jihadism is twofold: (1) the threat (for the most part) is not presented by standing armies, and (2) the enemy’s foot soldiers are trans-national. It is, in fact, a war with a profile that is at least as legal as it is military. That is what’s new and unique.

Up until now, the choice between treating the issue of Radical Islamic Jihad as a war, or as a legal problem, has been presented as choice between two distinct models. I’ve made no secret my position given this “either/or” choice can be summarized as “it’s a war, stupid” – because with the legal approach you are effectively required to wait for the bomb to explode to make the arrest, and that is just an unacceptably defenseless position to be in.

But I’ve come around to realizing we need something new that combines the military and the legal poles. My policy recommendation, in summary, is to aggressively prosecute a clandestine offensive war and a technological defensive war abroad, while also implementing a well-defined legal prosecution program domestically.



The War Abroad

Mr. Bush’s decision to pursue regime change in Iraq through invasion can be debated. It was debated at the time and the Congress approved it with the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. After much expense of American blood and treasure, the laudable result might still be a functioning Arab democracy – but that outcome still remains in question for the long haul. The current administration’s policies do not bode well for the future of this fragile democracy. Military action in Afghanistan was initially seen as an unmitigated success in 2002. Yet, we still have troops there today, and the current administration’s bumbling practically guarantees Afghanistan will return to chaos when we finally withdraw. Predator drones and other ordinance dropped from the air often create collateral damage and unintended victims, which probably does create more terrorists to kill or capture later (as some Lefties claim, and now Mr. Faisal Shahzad declares).

These observations only make more concrete a position I’ve espoused over the past 9 years or so – “it just needs to be about capturing and killing terrorists.” Recent mulling over the matter brings me to the more precise declaration “we need make it about precisely one bullet for each terrorist.”

Offensively, we need to dispatch small Special Forces units and trained assassins to specifically target individual terrorists. The CIA human intelligence function should be full bore on collecting foreign intelligence abroad. The NSA technical intelligence function should be set up to tap into every inch of the global communications network as necessary. Every Radical Islamist Jihadi in every foreign country should live in constant fear of black helicopters spilling out Green Berets, or Navy SEALs emerging from the nearest body of water, to kill or capture them.

Defensively, we need to aggressively pursue anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defense shields for ourselves and our allies, to protect us from rogue states with terrorist connections and nuclear ambitions (like Iran).

Large conventional force deployments abroad for years at a time are simply too divisive to our body politic, and – if we pursue my recommendations – just plain unnecessary.

My policy will still require a place to hold enemy Prisoners of War (POWs) until the enemy ceases hostilities. I defy anyone to demonstrate there is a more perfect solution than the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.


Domestic Legal Prosecutions

Domestic legal policy needs to effectively deal with foreigners abusing our freedoms to operate inside our borders, as well as citizens who decide to become traitors.

First – the border with Mexico must be secured. In its current state, it can be too easily exploited by terrorists with evil intentions.

Second, the naturalization process must be able to weed out the Jihadis who are abusing the system to become citizens for infiltration purposes (e.g. Faisal Shahzad).

The common denominator connecting objectives one and two is the necessary death of Political Correctness (PC). This is, of course, a topic that could fill an entire treatise in itself. Let it be sufficient here to say PC proscriptions against “profiling” should be no impediment to doing the work and reaching the logical conclusions to keep illegal immigrants out, and to deny citizenship to Jihadis who seek it only to prosecute their war.

The linchpin is a transparently defined system for law enforcement (primarily FBI) to demonstrate reasonable suspicion to a judge, so that a warrant can be issued to slap the cuffs on a guy like Mr. Shahzad before he lights the SUV up in the middle of Times Square.

If the suspect is a foreign national, he or she should get a one way ticket to Guantanamo for a speedy military tribunal. Conviction should result in indefinite detention as an illegal enemy combatant POW under the Geneva Conventions.

If the suspect is a citizen, he or she should be charged with treason and tried in a civilian court. Conviction should result in execution per existing US law.

Comments from loyal US citizens welcome.


Addendum –May 10, 2010


I should fill in a hole in my policy recommendations. What should we do with American citizens who join the Jihad and go operational overseas? Take, for example, Anwar al-Awlaki. Easy – try and convict them of treason in absentia. They then become eligible to receive justice from a hellfire missile or one of our assassins – and with due process, too.