Terrorists Get Miranda Rights, Prison Made Easier for "Shoe Bomber"

In June, U.S. Representative Mike Rodgers (R-MI) came back from visiting troops in Afghanistan. He reported discovering that captured foreign terrorists in that country, on foreign soil, are now being mirandized with U.S. Constitutional Fifth Amendment rights by our soldiers before they can be questioned.

Rodgers, a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, told the media and his peers in Congress that he witnessed it himself. Apparently, his discovery was "news" to Congress. Many members on both sides of the aisle objected to mirandizing foreign terrorists, and sought confirmation from the White House. The Obama Administration admitted it was true...that our soldiers have been instructed to read suspected terrorists their "rights" (see an interview with Assistant Attorney General David Kris).

Within four weeks, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) introduced Senate Amendment #1661 to prevent Miranda rights from being given to suspected detained terrorists. Did only Republicans favor this? NO. On August 17, the Amendment was approved by a vocal vote and placed in the Defense Authorization bill, which then passed the Senate 87 to 7. It's unknown at this point whether the Amendment will be retained in the full and final House-Senate version of the Defense bill.

The Miranda Act was created for U.S. citizens. We hear it on TV police shows: "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense." So much for gathering intelligence about terrorist plots to kill Americans!

Most "mainstream" news stations did not pick this story up, or at least didn't tell it for very long. However, ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper blogged about mirandizing terrorists at his ABC Blog. Tapper says the Obama administration claims Bush did it too, but officials did not offer instances.

I submit that, if President Bush ordered it too (and I could not find any reports confirming so), it was only after he got so much heat for how poorly the sweet, nice terrorists were being treated by our big, bad soldiers. Did the mistreatment go overboard? Maybe. But the U.S. Rules of War and the international Geneva Conventions regarding prisoner treatment apply only to those captured from organized armies of countries - i.e., soldiers and other combatants who are armed by their country's formal military organizations - not guerilla terrorist groups acting on their own.

Terrorists are not a country's soldiers. They are independent criminals who cut off peoples' heads. They are barbarians who cut off peoples' fingers in Afghanistan just for voting, as AC writer Carol Bengle Gilbert recently reported. They are brainwashed madmen who walk up to restaurants and Armed Forces bases to throw grenades and bombs at both soldiers and civilians, or who torture and kill U.S. soldiers and drag them through the streets.

Now my more liberal readers may be saying, "Oh but look at the horrible things our soldiers did in Vietnam. And civilians in Iraq are dying." Consider this article from the U.S. Rules of War:

Section I, Article 21: "...The citizen or native of a hostile country is thus an enemy, as one of the constituents of the hostile state or nation, and as such is subjected to the hardships of the war."

Although this law is old and has never been changed, we didn't know who the enemy was in Vietnam, and we don't in Iraq or Afghanistan. Whole villages of citizens, even children, were and are trained to kill Americans. Therefore, we must look on the citizens as hostiles. On the contrary, what many people forget is that the innocent American victims of 9/11 did nothing to provoke the terrorists.

In Related News: Prison life's been made easier for the "Shoe Bomber":
The Obama Administration's Justice Department has removed special prison security measures from Richard Reid, the "Shoe Bomber," a self-confessed jihadist. Reid, who tried to blow up a civilian trans-Atlantic flight in December 2001, went on a hunger strike in his Colorado prison because he wasn't being afforded all his civil rights, like participating in group prayers. So the Obama Justice Department has eased his restrictions. Aren't prisoners supposed to lose some of their civil rights?

Being in jail and losing some rights is not torture. We've already decided to put guerilla terrorists and admitted jihadists in our nice American prisons and give them three squares a day, air conditioning, TV and exercise equipment. Next will come the freedom to earn college degrees at American expense. We're giving them better lives than some of our own kids have. Oh wait a minute...I almost forgot...that's the reason for Miranda rights! Because we're going to start giving them civilian trials, not military! Obama's "terroristcare" has gone too far.

Sources:
-Terrorists Being Mirandized:
Vet Voice: http://www.vetvoice.com/viewRating.do?rateCommentId=19177;
"Congressman: Soldiers Mirandizing Enemy Combatants," Dave Eberhardt, 6/11/09:
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/miranda_enemy_combatants/2009/06/11/224193.html?s=al&promo_code=815D-1; and
"Give Terrorists Constitutional Rights..." editorial 7/8/09:
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_terrorist_rights/2009/07/08/233133.html?s=al&promo_code=82FF-1;
Miranda Rights for Terrorists, Stephen F. Hayes, 6/10/09:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/06/miranda_rights_for_terrorists.asp;
-Senate Vote: "Senate Votes to Prohibit Reading Miranda Rights..." Guy Rodgers, 8/17/09: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2318438/posts, and http://www.chronwatch-america.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=60487&sid=fc55a0aed9b0e8a2d3b6a7f34f979c69.

-Obama's Assistant Attorney General Tells Senate: Terrorists Captured on Battlefield Have Constitutional Rights, Penny Starr, CNS News, 7/08/09: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/print/50681.
-ABC News Jake Tapper's Blog: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/06/obama-administration-says-some-detainees-overseas-are-being-mirandized.html.

-Taliban Cuts off 2 Afghan's Fingers... Carol Bengle Gilbert, 8/22/09: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2092595/taliban_cuts_off_2_afghans_fingers.html?cat=62.

-Shoe Bomber's rights eased (multiple sources included within this link):
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_shoe_bomber_reid/2009/07/30/242053.html?s=al&promo_code=847C-1.

-Laws of War: Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field, prepared by Francis Lieber, LL.D. Originally Issued as General Orders No. 100, Adjutant General's Office, 24 April 1863, Washington 1898: Government Printing Office.