Bill O'Reilly
The terror tactics of the ACLU
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
It would be hard to imagine a better friend to Al Qaeda and
other terrorist outfits than the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). If
that statement shocks you, please allow me to back it up with facts.
A few days ago, the ACLU announced it will sue Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld on behalf of eight foreign nationals who say they were
abused by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The ACLU contends that
the ultimate responsibility for the physical and psychological injuries
sustained by the men lies at the highest levels of the U.S. government.
Thus, Rumsfeld is their poster boy. By the way, the word "alleged" is not
mentioned by the ACLU in their brief.
The suit is a farce and will go nowhere, I predict. The terror
war is now three and a half years old, there are more than 300,000 American
forces deployed around the world, and the allegations of torture against
those forces number about 300. That is very, very low. The ACLU is simply
blowing far left smoke, doing what it usually does: undermining policies it
dislikes.
There is no question the ACLU opposes just about every
pro-active measure taken to fight terror. Consider the following:
- The ACLU opposes the Patriot Act. But, in 2003, when asked
by liberal Senator Dianne Feinstein to produce examples of government abuse
under the act, the ACLU did not produce one.
- The ACLU opposes the "No Fly List" complied by the
Transportation Security Administration to keep known bad guys off American
airliners.
- The ACLU has sued to stop federal authorities from giving
information about illegal aliens to state and local police agencies. You
read that right. The ACLU does not want local authorities to know who is
illegally living in their neighborhoods.
- And the ACLU believes that terrorists captured wearing civilian clothing are entitled to the rights legitimate soldiers receive under the Geneva Convention. Thus, no coercive interrogation.
Now I ask you, who is Al Qaeda's best friend in the USA? Am I
wrong here? I tried to find out just what anti-measures the ACLU did support
but was told that was not the organization's mandate. They are committed to
the protection of rights. Well, what about the right to live, ACLU, a right
Al Qaeda denied 3,000 Americans on 9/11?
I am angry about this. The ACLU is making the war on terror much
more difficult to wage. Under the guise of protecting the liberties of
Americans, the ACLU combs the world to find foreign guys who say they were
treated badly. Maybe they were and it shouldn't happen. But I believe
exploiting the situation to embarrass the Bush administration is the ACLU's
goal, not protecting the little guy rounded up in Kabul.
One final example. Mohammed Atta most likely loved the ACLU. The
dead 9/11 hijacker was in the USA illegally and roamed around planning the
deadly attack. If the feds had information on Atta in a database and a local
Florida cop had managed to pick him up, the ACLU says the cop had no right
to know any federal information about the illegal alien Atta. That extreme
position sums up just how much the ACLU is looking out for all of us.
And that is not at all.
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JWR contributor Bill O'Reilly is host of the
Fox News show, "The O'Reilly Factor," and author
of, most recently, "Who's Looking Out for You?" Comments by clicking here.
