John McCain's national security aides today tried to shame Barack Obama for eluding to the idea that the U.S. should take a strictly law enforcement approach to terrorism and should rely on the justice system to give the terrorists their due.
Calling Obama's remarks on ABC News yesterday "naive," "dangerous," and full of "ignorance," McCain allies say that's more proof that Obama does not have the experience to sufficiently handle that "3 a.m. phone call." Obama is the "perfect manifestation of a Sept. 10 mindset," said McCain foreign policy and national security director, Randy Scheunemann.

The Obama camp called the remarks "scare tactics."
These are the comments Obama made
on ABC News that he's taking a beating for:
"And, you know, let's take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks -- for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated. And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, 'Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.' So that, I think, is an example of something that was unnecessary. We could have done the exact same thing, but done it in a way that was consistent with our laws."
Get the new
PD toolbar!(Obama preceded those comments by saying the NSA surveillance program and other anti-terror tactics can be executed successfully within the constraints of the Constitution, "and there has been no evidence on their part that we can't.")
McCain's camp is assailing the idea that prosecutions after the first WTC attacks in 1993 were completely successful. They say evidence from that bombing was under grand jury seal, and not shared with then-director of national intelligence, George Tenet, or then-President Clinton. (i.e., Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, dubbed the "principal architect of the 9/11 attacks," sent money to the '93 bombers, one of which was his nephew.)
The investigation of the 2001 bombing "certainly made clear that the way the criminal justice system, as applied to the perpetrators of the '93 bombing, the way it operated, was a material cause of the greater tragedy of 9/11 because it was treated as a law enforcement issue," said John Lehman, a member of the Sept. 11 Commission and McCain national security adviser, told reporters on a conference call.
Tenet "personally told me ... that he did not get to see the evidence which would have linked some of the perpetrators of the '93 bombing to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ... [that] would have enabled many of the dots to have been connected well before 9/11 and in my belief, would have given a good chance to prevent 9/11," Lehman added.
Five years later, when the trial was over and evidence unsealed, "Tenet was flabbergasted at what he found in that material."
McCain's camp also pointed out how Osama bin Laden and KSM were indicted in abstentia in the 1990s for their terrorist plots, but they still managed to carry out attacks such as those on USS Cole, the Bali nightclub bombings, and the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001.
"The totally criminal justice approach to dealing with international terrorists, particularly when they're suicidal and are able to pull off plots like 9/11, has not worked," added former CIA Director Jim Woolsey. "It was a miserable failure."
I contacted the Obama campaign for comment. I'll post it here when I get it.
UPDATE: Obama advisers
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke later told reporters in a conference call that Republicans (likely thanks to Karl Rove) were spewing false arguments aimed at scaring the American people and that many terrorists have been arrested, tried, and jailed through the U.S. justice system. They did acknowledge, however, that keeping the 1993 WTC bombing evidence under seal was a mistake.
But it's not the effectiveness of the Bush administration or our antiterror tactics that have prevented another terror attack, they said. "It's Al Qaeda that's decided not to attack the United States since 9/11," said Clarke. "We provided them a place to attack and kill Americans much more conveniently" on Sept. 11.
McCain is also trying to paint Obama as one who would allow even the elusive UBL, if captured, the right to challenge his detention in court. (The Supreme Court
last week ruled that terror detainees at Gitmo have that right.) Obama supporters called that "largely a fake issue."
"This is not Barack Obama, this is the Supreme Court of the United States," Kerry said. "If John McCain were president, he would have to give him [UBL] those rights. This is a phony argument and it's typical of what the Republican playbook is – say anything, just say it, and they'll believe it."
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