Closing Gitmo With Nancy Soderberg

Cross-posted by Gary Fouse
fousesquawk


Nancy Soderberg








It's not a jailbreak. It's just "a more effective war on crime".





Last night, I watched Laura Ingraham (subbing for Bill O'Reilly) exchanging views with Nancy Soderberg on the order by President Obama to close Gitmo and suspend trials against folks like the planner of the attack on the USS Cole. Laura, rightfully in my view, had little patience with Soderberg's definitions of fighting "a more effective war on terror".

Nancy Soderberg, for you unwashed masses, was a high-ranking figure in the Clinton Administration. She was a foreign policy advisor to Clinton, held a high position in his National Security Council and also worked at the UN on behalf of the administration. She is currently a "Distinguished Visiting Scholar" (whatever that is) at the University of North Florida. In addition, she has recently published a book entitled; The Superpower Myth: The Uses and Misuses of American Might. In this book, she describes all the glorious successes that she and Clinton achieved in foreign policy while blasting the policies of the Bush Administration.

Last night, Soderberg argued that closing Gitmo was just another step in President Obama trying to fight a "more effective war on terror" as she took a couple of shots at the Bush Administration. Of course, Ingraham was left dumbfounded at the notion that holding terrorists in custody was somehow "ineffective". Of course, Soderberg had no solution as to what was going to be done with these people. (That will be worked out later.)

Of course, Soderberg has also written on the FISA wiretap issue as well. Her thesis is that investigations and punishment should be directed to the government but not the telecommunication companies that cooperated in good faith. (I'll go along with half of that.)

Ms Soderberg, of course, is entitled to her opinions, partisan as they are. When it comes to national security, however, the Clinton Administration is not exactly a textbook example of how to deal with a terrorist threat (Al-Qaeda). Under Clinton, we saw the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the bombings of our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and the USS Cole. One might ask what the likes of Soderberg and Sandy Berger were doing in those years.

So if closing Gitmo represents fighting "a more effective war on terror", might I suggest a few other ideas. We could fight a "more effective war on drugs" by legalizing them. I have heard that far too many times. In fact, we could expand that to a host of crimes which could simply be legalized as "a more effective way of fighting crime". Just think of how the crime statistics would drop. Prison overcrowding? Just turn em' loose (oops, we're already doing that, aren't we?)