The American Spectator

Political Hay

Does Barack Obama believe it's time for America to apologize to al Qaeda?

Does he share the increasingly vocal calls of his fellow liberals that Americans should not just apologize to Osama and his followers but pay reparations as well? Having cited the U.S. treatment of Nazis, does he now believe the U.S. government should be subjected to a class action suit by his trial lawyer allies on behalf of any surviving Nazi soldiers or their descendants?

You think I'm joking, right? Wrong.

The push has begun among Obama's fellow-liberals for reparations to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda warriors. Look no further than the Los Angeles Times review of the new book by liberal journalist Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals. Mayer's indictment of the Bush administration's fight against terrorism has predictably received glowing reviews from the gatekeepers of liberalism, including a July 15th review from Times staff writer Tim Rutten.

In wonderfully liberal style that is beyond parody, Rutten uses a book review to endorse the idea of paying money to Osama's fighters who, in the eyes of liberals, have been denied their "right" of habeas corpus at Guantanamo. The denial of habeas to non-Americans captured on foreign battlefields is, of course, also a major campaign point for Senator Obama. Obama, restating his long-held position about captured al Qaeda fighters having the right of habeas corpus, was prompted by the recent 5-4 Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush. The liberals on the Court, with the mind-boggling addition of Reagan appointee Anthony Kennedy, held that contrary to Bush administration and congressional policy, not to mention all of American history, the prisoners of war or "detainees" picked up off the battlefields (in this case Afghanistan and Iraq) are in fact entitled to the same constitutional rights as American citizens.

p>Within weeks of this Obama-approved decision, his allies in liberalism have now started lobbying not simply for habeas corpus rights for al Qaeda but reparations as well. They believe American taxpayers should pay monetary damages to bin Laden terrorists, with Mr. Rutten of the Times approvingly citing the liberal editors of the Jesuit magazine America: The National Catholic Weekly . In their July 21st issue these presumed Obama supporters say this : br> /p>

Finally, in the years ahead our country must still come to grips with our national acquiescence to the politics of fear, which has led to the detention and abuse of hundreds of individuals. Among the necessary steps will be restoration of freedom to innocent detainees, accompanied by public apology and some monetary restitution for the years they lost to incarceration. Furthermore, Congress needs to accept responsibility for its complicity with the executive in laws that denied suspects rightful appeal. A national truth commission should be instituted to establish political accountability for the decisions, policies and statutes that placed suspects outside the protection of the law.

topics:
Barack Obama, Books, Constitution, Law, Supreme Court, Military, Iraq, NATO, Africa