Gross.
Via NRO:
I’ve spent a lot of the last week, including in today’s column, debating U.S. combatant detention policy with Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.). Last week, during the debate over the McCain-Levin amendment to the defense authorization bill, Sen. Paul seemed to call for a return to pre-9/11 counterterrorism policy — meaning bringing our wartime enemies into civilian court where they would be given all the rights of American citizens. When I pointed this out, Sen. Paul claimed that I was misrepresenting his position. He was really only going to bat for U.S. citizens alleged to be enemy combatants, he said.
If that is the case, I wonder if he’ll join me in expressing concern about today’s announcement by the FBI that the Justice Department has filed a civilian indictment against Faruq Khalil Muhammad ‘Isa in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. ‘Isa is a Canada-based Iraqi who belongs to an international network of jihadists that recruited suicide bombers to conduct deadly terrorist attacks targeting United States military personnel fighting in the war in Iraq.
Specifically, the indictment charges ‘Isa with the murders of five American soldiers in a suicide bombing attack on the U.S. Army’s forward operating base in Mosul on April 10, 2009 — Staff Sergeant Gary L. Woods (age 24), Sergeant First Class Bryan E. Hall (32), Sergeant Edward W. Forrest Jr. (25), Corporal Jason G. Pautsch (20), and Private First Class Bryce E. Gaultier (22). The indictment also charges ‘Isa with conspiring to kill Americans abroad and providing material support to terrorism.