At Least They Didn't Blow This One Away

Fox News is all atwitter (sorry) about a potential AQ big shot captured near the horn of Africa and kept aboard a Navy ship for two months of interrogation:

A member of an Al Qaeda-linked group was interrogated for two months by U.S. authorities on a Navy ship in the waters off the Horn of Africa, before being flown to the United States over the July 4 holiday to face prosecution in a civilian court, officials say.

Meet the new Gitmo, free from visits by the International Red Cross or media! Wonder if the HIG people were there?

Anyway, it's odd we'd pick up a Somalian named Warsame involved with AQ after prosecuting another Warsame here in the US several years ago--one which the govt wanted to make into a double agent.

Republicans are outraged he wasn't sent to GTMO, as if the administration is saying he's not an enemy combatant (which he surely is). Funny, they justified his trip to federal court by claiming they offered longer sentences even though KSM has been in custody without trial since 2003, as have many other AQ players. Indeed, the US has every right to hold this guy indefinitely so the administration must be trying to make a political point (discussed in this summary, including some questions that need to be asked).

Questions such as where is our policy heading? US forces are spread out fairly thin all over Africa, the Middle East and east Asia fighting the terror war and other various battles yet Obama is bringing a party man in as Secretary of Defense and putting a general at CIA, while making a point to bring this AQ biggie into civilian court. Reading the tea leaves it sounds like they are counting on withdrawal from the big land wars with a resulting cut in the Defense budget while shifting focus to small scale operations working with CIA. And that's not so crazy sounding, at least until AQ grabs hold of another country.