Never Quitting

So the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals--the most liberal in America--has overturned a Seattle judge's 22 year sentence for "Millennium Bomber" Ahmed Ressam. Perhaps that should tell us something:

A federal appeals court says a 22-year prison sentence is too lenient for an al-Qaida-trained terrorist convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport at the turn of the millennium.

A divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out the sentence Tuesday. It also removed the Seattle trial judge from the case and assigned the re-sentencing of Ahmed Ressam to another judge.

By the way, it's still puzzling as to what Sandy Berger removed and destroyed from the National Archives on this matter. Anyway, last year terrorist Ali al-Marri--sent by KSM to be a sleeper and wreak havoc with poisons on American cities after 9/11--gained a plea deal and will be getting out in less than 8 years. Bush was holding him as an enemy combatant along with Jose Padilla, but pressure from civil liberties groups forced their release into the criminal system. Those groups are ecstatic about his deal. Part of the upholding of our values, apparently.

Meanwhile, our number two federal lawyer says this about terrorists on trial:

"Our federal courts have a long history of safely and securely handling international terrorism cases and we are committed to bringing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the other alleged 9/11 conspirators to justice," Grindler said.

Well yeah, but he left out the "suffering for it" part. Like when bin Laden gained a list of un-indicted co-conspirators in the "Day of Terror" trial; or when Ramzi Yousef managed to kite out messages to KSM from the same Manhattan holding facility KSM would be housed in if his trial comes to NY; or when sympathetic civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart helped the Blind Sheikh send missives to his Egyptian followers; or like the ridiculous case of Ali Mohammad; or the circus act trials of Richard Reid, Zacarias Moussaoui, and now Aafia Siddique.

These terrorists can easily see reality--Yousef claimed he was a proud terrorist at the end of his trial and Reid bragged that he was "at war with your country". They have no trouble seeing the hole where the World Trade Center used to stand.

As does the average man or woman on the street. Only when politics is added does the picture get murky. In the 2004 elections John Kerry lamented about an America when terrorism was just a 'nuisance'. Such denial is rooted in the fact that if mom and pop are worried about their family getting blown to bits by some fanatic unafraid to die they don't have much patience with the domestic socialist Utopian policy sales pitch, which is all about protecting them from everything but terrorists.

So the liberals turn to denial...like ignoring a Muslim convert trained in Yemen who murders an Army recruiter in Little Rock; or a Muslim Army Major corresponding with a radical Imam in Yemen then yelling 'Allahu Akbar' while massacring fellow troops at one of the most strategic Army bases in America; or a Nigerian trained in Yemen, whose own father warned the US Government about his radicalization, who almost destroys an Airbus 330 on Christmas Day--the holiest of all days in Christianity.

But Obama doesn't quit! The war on the war on terror will apparently continue on, come hell or a hole in the ground. The important work of upholding values to make way for change takes no backseats.

MORE 2/2/10

In case you missed it, this is a must-see. Thiessen lays it out better than most but he should--he was there.

LET'S MAKE A DEAL 2/2/10

Abdulmuttalob is now singing according to the Feds after an apparent deal involving his parents. The left is using it to push back on the partisan firestorm from the right and middle about the handling of this case. Olbermann was highlighting it as getting info without using torture. Apparently he doesn't believe Thiessen.

But don't we have an unwritten rule against making deals with terrorists?

BTW, here's a recent exchange between Chris Wallace and Robert Gibbs on Fox News Sunday, before the reported deal got him singling, about the interrogation practices:

GIBBS: No. Again, he was interrogated. Valuable intelligence was gotten based on those interrogations. And I think the Department of Justice and the — made the right decision, as did those FBI agents.

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: And let me just press one last question. You really don't think that if you'd interrogated him longer that you might have gotten more information, since we now know that Al Qaida in Yemen...

GIBBS: FBI — well, FBI interrogators believe they got valuable intelligence and were able to get all that they could out of him.

WALLACE: All they could.

GIBBS: Yeah.

WALLACE: Thank you very much. Thanks for coming in.

So "all they could" was apparently just an approximation?