Would Billary Pardon Terrorists to Garner Votes?
So claims a commentary in the WSJ by Debra Burlingame (linked by James Kirchik in TNR).
Obviously, this is laying the groundwork for destroying Hillary’s credibility on “war on terror” if she does become the Dem nominee. And while this is definitely an issue worth exploring, one part of the article stood out to me even more (bold highlights are mine):
Observed Judge George Layton, who sentenced four FALN defendants for their conspiracy to use military-grade explosives to break an FALN leader from Ft. Leavenworth Penitentiary and detonate bombs at other public buildings, “[T]his case … represents one of the finest examples of preventive law enforcement that has ever come to this court’s attention in the 20-odd years it has been a judge and in the 20 years before that as a practicing lawyer in criminal cases.”
The FBI cracked the cases with the discovery of an FALN safe house and bomb factory. Video surveillance showed two of those on the clemency list firing weapons and building bombs intended for an imminent attack at a U.S. military installation. FBI agents obtained a warrant and entered the premises, surreptitiously disarming the bombs whose components bore the unmistakable FALN signature. They found 24 pounds of dynamite, 24 blasting caps, weapons, disguises, false IDs and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Just to review, a large, well-organized and well-armed terrorist organization that declared war on the US was taken down by law enforcement agents working within existing laws, gathering evidence and using court warrants to pursue suspects, charge them with crimes, and win criminal cases against them.
No one was tortured, jailed without habeus corpus, held in indefinite detention, denied representation, or spied on without warrants. No new “essential powers” were granted to law enforcement or other executive branch agencies just to pursue these criminals. None of these things were done because none of them are necessary to pursue, stop, and convict terrorists.
The “war on terror” is really a war for power and privilege, a war on citizens’ rights.
