Obama Versus Terror
I’ve never been a supporter of Barack Obama, but I have no patience with those on the unhinged Right who claim the president is pro-terror or a secret Muslim or a weak-kneed pacifist. No wonder liberals consider conservatives to be low-information whistle-brains who get all their information from talk radio.
As terrorism expert and bestselling author Peter Bergen wryly puts it in The United States of Jihad, his new expose of America’s homegrown terrorists:
[A]s commander in chief, President Obama presided over or launched more military operations in Muslim countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen) than any previous president. The most conservative estimate of drone strike fatalities under Obama comes to more than three thousand, and that figure includes much of the leadership of al Qaeda. Obama was the first American president since the Civil War to authorize the assassination of a fellow American, the Muslim cleric and al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011. This is not the record of a president with any secret proclivities for sharia law.
Eli Grossman
(Via E-Mail)
Comey And Clinton (I)
Re “The FBI Director’s Press Conference” (editorial, July 8):
I share your concerns about Mr. Comey’s findings and conclusions. Although the FBI director gave a logical presentation of the strong evidence against Mrs. Clinton, he denied that criminal charges were justified. In my opinion, he surprisingly and illogically concluded that such charges were not warranted.
Yet I agree with you that at the very least he should have recommended that this compelling cornucopia of evidence be reviewed by a grand jury.
In addition, I would point out that although Mr. Comey stated that “no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case,” former U.S. attorney general Michael B. Mukasey, former prosecutor and New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, and sundry lawyers and judges strongly disagree.
Furthermore, Mr. Mukasey noted in the Wall Street Journal that “it is a felony for anyone entrusted with lawful possession of information relating to national defense to permit it, through ‘gross negligence,’ to be removed from its proper place of custody and disclosed. ‘Gross negligence’ rather than purposeful conduct is enough.”
Dr. Mel Waldman
Brooklyn, NY
Editor’s Note: The writer, a psychologist, is the author of I Am a Jew.
Comey And Clinton (II)
FBI Director Comey, in his 15-minute press conference, launched a devastatingly effective tactic of listing in detail Hillary Clinton’s presumed violations of law (to which she had consistently declared her innocence) – and then presented the mind-boggling decision not to pursue criminal charges.
His abrupt departure without allowing routine questions from reporters might have been indicative of Comey’s discomfort with the charade in which he sadly was complicit.
Is it inconceivable that political correctness has driven both Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch to swim in the Clintons’ toxic pool?
Fay Dicker
Lakewood, NJ
Comey And Clinton (III)
The FBI determined that Hillary Clinton made some seriously poor decisions, describing her handling of classified information as secretary of state as “extremely careless.” But despite the violations of the law, the FBI determined no “intentional and willful mishandling” of classified information, and thus decided that an attempt to prosecute probably would not succeed.
How lucky for her. If only the same could be said for the rest of us. The Clinton case can be seen as an example of the concept of mens rea in action. Mens rea is the legal concept that in order to convict somebody of a crime, prosecutors should be required to show that the defendant knew he or she was doing something wrong.
The FBI’s analysis may well be accurate: Maybe there was no intent to willfully mishandle information. But it’s important to understand that there are many federal laws where mens rea is not considered when prosecuting somebody for violation of the law. Clinton is getting the mercy of a Justice Department that, in her case, cares about her intent. The rest of us don’t get such of a pass, even in somewhat similar situations.
Brian J. Goldenfeld
Woodland Hills, CA
State Department Double Standard
How strange that State Department spokesman John Kirby should save his strongest words of condemnation for Israel while downplaying or denying some of the Palestinians’ worst duplicities and depredations.
What elicited Kirby’s condemnation this time was Israel’s announcement of new construction in Ma’aleh Adumim and eastern Jerusalem. As if reciting Palestinian talking points, Kirby decried a “systematic process of land seizures, settlement expansion, and legalization of outposts.”
None of that is true. No land is being expropriated. No outpost is being legalized. Settlement expansion is entirely internal, with one striking exception: 600 units of Arab housing in Givat Hamatos.
Why, then, the tough talk? Enveloped in a cocoon of moral equivalence, and faced with two antagonists with radically different moral profiles, the administration must grossly magnify any peccadilloes of the moral one while dramatically diminishing the crimes of the immoral one.
So, using bricks for building becomes worse than hurling rocks through moving vehicle windshields. Mildly offensive election campaign statements are blasted, but Abbas’s blood libel address to the European Parliament, met with a standing ovation, is ignored.
Questioned about that by a reporter, Kirby struggled to find a satisfactory non-answer and was ultimately reduced to incoherent stammering.
Any assertions of Jewish rights are typically met with scorn, while Palestinian media praise for the “martyr” who stabbed to death a sleeping child merely brings the most perfunctory acknowledgement that she was a dual Israel-American citizen.
Richard D. Wilkins
Syracuse, NY