An American Lion

Have we reached day 100 of the magical, delightful, altogether wonder-riffic Obama administration? Because I would like to know something--why haven't there been any arrests of former Bush administration members? Why are many of them enjoying their retirement or their new positions outside of the government realm? Why are so many of them walking around free as a jaybird? Where are the paddy wagons? Where are the perp walks? Where's the beef, sir? Where is it? Now, I'm not going to say I told you so, but I'm going to write it and publish it here. What we now understand to be real is this: the world is full of bad people, and no matter who is running the government of the America, those bad people have to be dealt with, and a bunch of liberals with wooly-headed ideas about how they want things to be is about as dangerous as a bunch of conservatives with the same misguided sense of entitlement, only slightly less so. When I read this, it reminded me to ask the question--where are the indictments?

Abu Zubaida's case presents the Obama administration with one of its most difficult decisions as it reviews the files of the 241 detainees still held in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Abu Zubaida - a nom de guerre for the man born Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein - was never charged in a military commission in Guantanamo Bay, but some U.S. officials are pushing to have him charged now with conspiracy.

The Palestinian, 38 and now in captivity for more than seven years, had alleged links with Ahmed Ressam, an al Qaeda member dubbed the "Millennium Bomber" for his plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve 1999. Jordanian officials tied him to terrorist plots to attack a hotel and Christian holy sites in their country.

And he was involved in discussions, after the Taliban government fell in Afghanistan, to strike back at the United States, including with attacks on American soil, according to law enforcement and military sources. Others in the U.S. government, including CIA officials, fear the consequences of taking a man into court who was waterboarded on largely false assumptions, because of the prospect of interrogation methods being revealed in detail and because of the chance of an acquittal that might set a legal precedent.

Instead, they would prefer to send him to Jordan. Some U.S. officials remain steadfast in their conclusion that Abu Zubaida possessed, and gave up, plenty of useful information about al Qaeda. "It's simply wrong to suggest that Abu Zubaida wasn't intimately involved with al Qaeda," said a U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much about Abu Zubaida remains classified.

"He was one of the terrorist organization's key facilitators, offered new insights into how the organization operated, provided critical information on senior al Qaeda figures ... and identified hundreds of al Qaeda members. How anyone can minimize that information - some of the best we had at the time on al Qaeda - is beyond me."

Until the attacks on New York and Washington, Abu Zubaida was a committed jihadist who regarded the United States as an enemy principally because of its support of Israel. He helped move people in and out of military training camps in Afghanistan, including some men who were or became members of al Qaeda, according to interviews with multiple sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

He was widely known as a kind of travel agent for those seeking such training.

Either we are, or we are not, going to have a reckoning about this subject. Something happened when the Obama took over--and I suspect that it was a crushing realization of the shocking fact that the Bush administration didn't shred the Constitution and commit horrific war crimes. Or does someone have a better explanation for why the jails aren't lined with Brooks Brothers suits and hangdog-looking Republicans? Here's my explanation: liberals, you're nothing but a big pantload.