Posted by
Defend America on Thursday, February 11, 2010 9:28:47 PM
A Mistake, Not a Precedent
We need not repeat the mistakes of Reid with Abdulmutallab.
Cooking
the books on the number of terrorists convicted in the civilian-justice
system hasn’t worked for the Obama administration. So now we’re on to
the next red herring: the civilian prosecution of shoe-bomber Richard
Reid. Once again, the Obama team has learned the wrong lesson from the
past while setting the wrong course for the future.
On Dec. 22,
2001, while American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris was cruising toward
the United States, Reid attempted to detonate explosives concealed in
his shoes. He was subdued by passengers and crew. According to Politico’s Mike Allen, who has reviewed the court records, Reid was given Miranda
warnings five minutes after being taken into custody by Massachusetts
state police. FBI agents did not get into the act until about four
hours later, and they Mirandized him too. Within a month he was
indicted for attempting to blow up the plane and kill everyone aboard.
In short order, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life
imprisonment.This, Obama’s
defenders now claim, shows that the Bush administration handled a
perfectly analogous case in the same way the present administration
handled the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Therefore, the argument
goes, conservatives’ criticism of how Obama has treated the would-be
Christmas bomber is a shameful episode of politicizing our national
security.
The comparison is flawed: The factual contexts of
these two incidents are different in important ways. More important: We
made mistakes in the Reid case, and it would be destructive to proceed
as though having made an error in the past obliges us to repeat that
error in the future.
http://article.nationalreview.com/424765/a-mistake-not-a-precedent/andrew-c-mccarthy