Fred Thompson, in a conference call organized by the McCain
campaign, blasted the U.S. Supreme Court decision granting habeas
corpus rights to terrorist suspects, and criticized Barack Obama
for advocating a law enforcement approach to foreign policy.
"Senator Obama would do well to stop apologizing to the rest of
the world for America's attempts to protect itself during the time
of war," Thompson said.
He also criticized Obama for citing the prosecutions of the 1993
World Trade Center bombers as a model for how he would fight
terrorism.
"That was the best example of why we can't treat these terrorist
cases as ordinary criminal cases," Thompson said.
Thompson called the recent ruling by the Supreme Court on
terrorism cases a "monumentally bad decision" that was "another
example of the Supreme Court making policy."
McCain campaign foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann, who
also joined the call, went after Obama surrogate Bill Richardson,
who in arguing for more detainee rights declared, "We have to
protect our country from terrorists but we don't have to be like
them by abridging our own freedoms."
Scheunemann said it was "a really shocking statement if you
think about it, because we are not being like them by giving the
detainees the rights they had prior to the Supreme Court decision.
The terrorists behead captives on television, they fly planes into
buildings, they recruit teenagers for suicide bombs, they use car
bombs to blow up innocent men women, and children, most of whom are
Muslims. It's really shocking that a representative for Senator
Obama would say somehow we are being like the terrorists."
Scheunemann also went after Obama for stating that he wouldn't
want to make Osama bin Laden a martyr. Noting that the definition
of a martyr is somebody who dies for a cause, he said, "It seems to
be that Senator Obama is ruling out capital punishment for Osama
bin Laden were he to be captured alive and under U.S. jurisdiction.
And I think that's another reversal of a position he previously
stated…I think we've seen yet another series of confused and
indecisive and troubling statements from Senator Obama and his
spokesperson about how to prosecute this struggle against violent,
radical Islamic extremists that wish to attack America and American
interests again."
topics:
Foreign Policy, Trade, Barack Obama, Television, Islam, Law, Supreme Court, NATO
