New York Times embarrasses itself (again)

In their Sunday editorial, The New York Times laid out for the world an appalling lack of understanding about what we're facing (via LGF). Called "The Must-Do List", the case for far-left hippies is presented. Each item can easily be defeated by comparing the socialist utopia The Times is pining away for and the actual reality in which we live.

I'll focus on one: Ban Extraordinary Rendition.

To destroy this argument, I'll rely on Dr. Michael Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris, which is an anti-war, anti-Bush book that I happen to own. Scheuer is the former head of the "bin Laden unit" for the CIA; he has credentials that are second to none on the issue of rendition.

Scheuer published an op-ed piece in The New York Times on March 11, 2005, where he said:

The rendition program has been a tremendous success. Dozens of senior Qaeda fighters are today behind bars, no longer able to plot or participate in attacks. Detainee operations also netted an untold number of computers and documents that increased our knowledge of Al Qaeda's makeup and plans.

Read that again: one of the foremost experts on al-Qaeda, the hunt for OBL, and -- get this -- a rabid Bush hater, says "the rendition program has been a tremendous success."

"The rendition program has been a tremendous success."

Get it?

The Scheuer story is the gift that keeps on giving. I've quoted it numerous times over the years, and will probably keep doing so as long as wilfully ignorant people continue to advocate for shutting down something so obviously beneficial for national security.

Of course, Dr. Scheuer isn't the only person who has successfuly battled the hippie mindset. The case for rendition was made quite effectively by Charles Krauthammer, writing for The Weekly Standard, Dec. 5, 2005:

Let's Take An Example that is far from hypothetical. You capture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Pakistan. He not only has already killed innocents, he is deeply involved in the planning for the present and future killing of innocents. He not only was the architect of the 9/11 attack that killed nearly three thousand people in one day, most of them dying a terrible, agonizing, indeed tortured death. But as the top al Qaeda planner and logistical expert he also knows a lot about terror attacks to come. He knows plans, identities, contacts, materials, cell locations, safe houses, cased targets, etc. What do you do with him?

We have recently learned that since 9/11 the United States has maintained a series of "black sites" around the world, secret detention centers where presumably high-level terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed have been imprisoned. The world is scandalized. Black sites? Secret detention? Jimmy Carter calls this "a profound and radical change in the . . . moral values of our country." The Council of Europe demands an investigation, calling the claims "extremely worrying." Its human rights commissioner declares "such practices" to constitute "a serious human rights violation, and further proof of the crisis of values" that has engulfed the war on terror. The gnashing of teeth and rending of garments has been considerable.

I myself have not gnashed a single tooth. My garments remain entirely unrent. Indeed, I feel reassured. It would be a gross dereliction of duty for any government not to keep Khalid Sheikh Mohammed isolated, disoriented, alone, despairing, cold and sleepless, in some godforsaken hidden location in order to find out what he knew about plans for future mass murder. What are we supposed to do? Give him a nice cell in a warm Manhattan prison, complete with Miranda rights, a mellifluent lawyer, and his own website? Are not those the kinds of courtesies we extended to the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, then congratulated ourselves on how we "brought to justice" those responsible for an attack that barely failed to kill tens of thousands of Americans, only to discover a decade later that we had accomplished nothing--indeed, that some of the disclosures at the trial had helped Osama bin Laden avoid U.S. surveillance?

One simply doesn't combat inhumane monsters who behead people, kill children, and commit numerous other atrocities on a daily basis, with the childlike fantasies put forth in The Times editorial.