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Admiral: Indefinite Military Detention Of U.S. Citizens Is A Big Win For Terrorists: “The Enemy Is Just Laughing Over This"
Top counter-terrorism officials have said for years that indefinite detention increases terrorism.
As Huffington Post notes today, the indefinite detention bill passed by the Senate last week hands the terrorists a big win:
A measure that Congress will likely pass this week allowing indefinite detentions of Americans by the U.S. military will mark a significant loss in the war on terrorism, says a retired admiral who ran the Navy legal system.
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To Ret. Adm. John Hutson, who was Judge Advocate General of the Navy from 1997 to 2000 and is dean emeritus of the University of New Hampshire School of Law, the idea that the United States is chipping away at one of its fundamental principles of civilian law enforcement is a win for terrorists.
“The enemy is just laughing over this, because they will have gotten another victory,” Hutson told The Huffington Post. “There’ll be one more victory. There won’t be any bloodshed or immediate bloodshed, there’s not a big explosion, except in a metaphorical sense, but it is a victory nonetheless for the enemy. And it’s a self-inflicted wound.”
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Besides Hutson’s 28 years in the military justice system, he counted himself a conservative and Republican who “didn’t vote for a Democrat for dogcatcher” until he became worried about the direction of the country and backed Obama in 2008.
He thinks Obama should be very concerned about the detainee provisions, and explained why passage of them would be a victory for terrorists, who he argued cannot beat the United States on the battlefield. Instead, he said terrorists have to focus their attacks and violence on getting the United States to beat itself. And infringing on its own liberties is a step in that direction, he said.
“In this war, the enemy doesn’t have to win,” Hutson said. “They can cause us to do things we wouldn’t otherwise do, such as indefinite detentions, in the name of fighting a war,” he said, noting that the country has already subjected itself to invasive scrutiny that would not have been tolerated before Sept. 11, 2001.
In the case of the defense bill, the detention provisions would raise key questions about basic legal concepts that have long underpinned guarantees of freedom in America, including the habeas corpus right to contest being jailed and the Posse Comitatus Act passed after the Civil War to limit the military’s role in law enforcement.
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“As it turns out, our enemies’ greatest weakness is that they are bereft of ideals,” he added. “If we can maintain our ideals, our sense of justice, in the face of this, we can win. What the enemy, what the terrorists want to do — because they know they can’t beat us militarily — [is] they can try to change us. They can cause us to become more like them, and for them, that’s victory.”
The reason why, he argues, is that if the United States cannot portray itself as the holder of loftier ideals, then it is much harder to convince the rest of the world to stay on its side — and it’s harder to fight wars because even allies are less cooperative.
“Who’s going to surrender to the United Sates if they think they’re going to be detained indefinitely without a trial? Is anybody going to give up?” he asked. “Who’s going to say, ‘You know, maybe the United States isn’t as bad as we think it is, and maybe it’s al Qaeda and the Taliban who are the bad guys, and I’m going to side with the good guys?’”
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“It’s going to cost lives.” he said, “it’s going to cost a way of life.”
Instead of doing the things which could actually make us safer, virtually everything the Bush and Obama administrations have done actually increases the risk of terrorism in the long-run .
But that's apparently dandy with our civilian leadership, because the so-called "war on terror" (which Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser calls “a mythical historical narrative”) was planned 20 years ago, and many in government consider terrorist strikes to be a “small price to pay for being a superpower”.
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thank you for being honest and saying "anti-zionism" and not the ADL approved "anti-semitism". Considering what zionism represents I will wear that label proudly.
Proof? How about this? O, i know, they were just there to 'document' the 'event'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OyUoGUV7b8
Then of course there is the Larry Silverstein connection, Paul "loudmouth" Wolfowitz, calling his shot a year early. "The process of transformation, even if it brings about revolutionary change, will be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event... such as a new pearl harbor." PNAC, Sept 2000.
I used to be an Israel cheerleading neocon, caught up in the post 9-11 patriotic mania. Like many others, I have woken up to the truth.
We live in the information age, figure it out...
You can be anti-zionist and not anti-semitic. However, bring up Larry Silverstein makes me wonder why you think you're separate not that I know much about him other than that he's a jew that owns real estate that was blown up. Sorry, can't check youtube where I'm at. And as I said before, there are plenty of people who just pile on biographical craps of jew after jew and somehow decide because they want to believe it that it's all a Zionist act and i dunno, ignore the 15 Saudis who are known I believe as "the fifteen" martyrs in their Saudi region as well as ignoring that Muslims like to blow themselves up and make videos about themselves before doing so. Blaming Jews to some is a lot easier than crediting Muslims for overachieving.
As I said before, it's very easy to put blinders on see a cloudy day and blame "Zionists"
Some Jews aren't Zionists, and some Zionists aren't Jews.
Silverstein is a Zionist who happens to be a Jew. He also happened to take out the 99year lease on the WTC complex and double down on his terrorism insurance months before 9-11...
And then there is the fake conversation he had with unnamed "fire dept. commander" regarding his desire to "pull it".
People obsessed with WTC 'proof' must be stupid.
I have watched those vids, heard that 'pull it' reference conversation and only a moron would think that saying that means:
"Destroy the building and pull it down. Blow it up." etc...
'Pull it', in that context, means 'Get my men out of there now! We are pulling the team.'
"It's gonna blow up" is simply someone under herculean stress trying to find a way to explain what shock has rendered unreal. 'Looks like' it might blow up as the other one appeared to, but those 'looked like' an explosion, only in appearance.
But you lack the intelligence to differentiate between 'looked like' and 'is'.
And assessing some mythical importance to their words due to their position, job, or title, is just some bizarre replacement of God with Government Worker.
As though a Gov't Worker knows all, sees all, and would never make any utterance that is incorrect.
Only a wishful thinker would pretend to examine evidence when their sanity is based upon a lie. Have you seen wtc7 collapse? Do you have a middle-school understanding of physics?
The actual fire department commander from 9/11 denied speaking with Silverstein...
The water lines were cut off and the FD was out of wtc7 long before 5;00 EST...
Several networks reported the collapse premature...
"I lack the intelligence.."
Ok shit for brains. Lets assume I'm an inbred troglodite with the cognitive ability of a retarded chimpanzee... listen to the experts instead. Architects, Engineers, Demolitions Experts, Physicists, Metallurgists, Pilots.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw-jzCfa4eQ
Giving you that link is likely an exercise in futility, you have your small mind made up already.
watching (most) of the republican candidates utterly whore themselves out to the zionist agenda last week was really entertaining. Jon Stewart even did a bit on it. Even setting aside views on zionism, any citizen of a country should feel it odd that all of their politicians seem to need to pledge unwaivering loyalty to the policy goals of some other (little) country, especially since such loyalty carries so many negative and harmful consequences and no real benefits. the old saying still holds true, you cannot serve two masters.
Well don't forget the first thing Barry did was put in IDF reserve member Rahm Emmanuel in his cabinet the first day he could. Barry "unshakable bond with Israel" Obama.
Frankly, I think you're all missing the boat here with your Zionist obsession. The Arab/Saudi Lobby spends way more than the Jews do. The Jews just do it for free or for less and on their own initiative while the Arabs shell out big.
Yup, Barry is another puppet. Establishment D or R makes little difference, read "tragedy and hope" for more on that.
Don't get the impression I think SA should get a pass, but how many of those 19 hijackers were were found to be still alive post 9/11, and how did a passport make it out of the fireball unscathed, landing on the street below to be found by the authorities..? A passport makes it out, but not the black boxes?
I doubt the Arab/Saudi lobby spends more than AIPAC, and last time I checked there are no dual SA/US citizen politicians..
Yeah but its the key to carry NY and FL in November
Not to mention its key if you want any airtime on corporate media.
Is it really the average US citizen that's destroying America? Their apathy and indoctrinated stupidity is making its destruction possible, but they aren't the ones actively destroying it.
www.greedion.com
What exactly are you doing?
It's one thing to know what is going on, and it's another to do something about it. Hard for an average American to fight a revolution after a 10hr day.
Please... The average American doesn't 'know' jack shit about what's going on and that 10 hour day is no excuse for their ignorance. This is the age of the fucking internet.
What we have is a bunch of cowards who think their macho alpha males. IF they accepted something was wrong, they would be required to act upon it or admit they're cowards. Therefore, (and not surprisingly) they refuse to accept the truth. It's much easier and less costly to pretend you're a hero than be a hero.
Well, they DID fall for Obama's BS. But if the best opposition was McCain, then we all helped trash it.
Maybe they don't know everything but they're not stupid.
Once the CONNECTIONS are made (and circulated) ... anyone can begin to put 2 and 2 together...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25080
2+2=thanks dizzyfingers, and
So, you have to ask: What's the point? Eh? Total Control? And, how disgusting is that!