Senator Lindsey Graham Weekly Republican Address 02/13/10 VIDEO FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT

Senator Lindsey Graham Weekly Republican Address 02/13/10 VIDEO FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT

Weekly remarks by Sen. Lindsey Graham, as provided by the Republican National Committee.

Hello, I’m Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The Obama administration’s decision to prosecute the mastermind of 9-11 Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and four other co-conspirators in civilian court in New York City makes no sense to most Americans -- including me.

All of these cases were pending before military commission at Guantanamo Bay before the Obama administration suspended the trials and dismissed charges. That was a major mistake in the war on terror.

These Al Qaeda terrorists are not common criminals.

Their attacks resulted in the biggest loss of American life from an act of war on our homeland since the Civil War.

Never before have we allowed non-citizen, enemy combatants captured on the battlefield access to our civilian courts providing them with the same constitutional rights as American citizens.

Al Qaeda terrorists should not receive more rights than a Nazi War criminal. And now is not the time to go back to the pre-9/11 mentality of fighting crime instead of fighting a war. A civilian trial of hard-core terrorists is unnecessarily dangerous and creates more problems than it solves.

Let me explain why.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey was the presiding judge in the 1995 Blind Sheik trial involving....

...the first attempt to blow up the World Trade Center and has warned of using civilian courts in terror trials.
These same concerns were recently echoed by the bipartisan chairman of the 9-11 Commission.

In the 1995 trial, because of civilian court rules, the government was required to disclose the identity of all known co-conspirators to the defense.

One of the conspirators -- relatively obscure at the time -- was Osama bin Laden.

Our intelligence services later learned this list made its way back to bin Laden tipping him off about our surveillance.

A conviction was obtained in that trial, but valuable intelligence was compromised. The rest is history.

Civilian trials create confusion. Our soldiers and intelligence services are already uncertain as to what rules apply.

Case in point -- the Christmas Day bomber. As we all know, this was a failed attempt to blow up an airliner over Detroit by a trained Al Qaeda operative.

After being captured and fresh off the battlefield, he was read his Miranda rights within one hour of questioning and asked for a lawyer.

Days later and only after his parents encouraged him to cooperate did he begin talking again. Can we really rely on the parents of future terrorists to work with the FBI?

And is reading Miranda Rights to terrorists any way to fight a war?

Finally, a civilian trial in New York City will be expensive. The New York City Police Commissioner, Mayor and other leaders have all expressed concern these trials could last for years and end up costing over a billion dollars.

These trials should not take place in New York or any other civilian court. To do so, ignores the fact we are at war.

I believe there is a better way. I have been a military lawyer for almost 30 years and have great confidence in our military justice system.

With the goal of protecting our nation, military law allows us to collect valuable intelligence without reading Miranda Rights to enemy combatants. It keeps them off the battlefield, and where appropriate prosecutes them for war crimes in a manner that adheres to our values.

As one of the chief authors I am proud of the revised Military Commission Act of 2009 which created military tribunals for unlawful enemy combatants – a system not available in 2002 to deal with the Shoe Bomber Richard Reid.

This law was passed after extensive consultation with the Obama administration and received overwhelming bipartisan support.

The military justice system is transparent, well-staffed, subject to civilian review, and protects valuable intelligence. And above all else it is built around the idea that we are a nation at war.

Khalid Sheik Mohammad and his co-conspirators should have their charges reinstated before military commissions and quickly be tried by our military.

These trials will be conducted by the same men and women who administer justice to our own troops.

They are competent professionals with a great understanding of their obligations under the law. It is a system of justice that allows us to move securely forward in this war while upholding our values.

For the good of the nation, I hope the Obama administration will alter their policies.

Military tribunals are the best way to render justice, win this war and protect our nation from a vicious enemy. May God bless the United States and all those who serve to defend our way of life.” ####

Will the Republican Party Get Whigged Out?

Show of hands, how many of you are registered to vote as a Whig? You know, with the Whig Party. Okay, so I can't really see if you're raising your hand, but I'll bet none of you are. And that's my point. The Whig Party became extinct in the mid-1800's when they stopped standing for something, when they began putting party-power above party-principles.

As ending slavery escalated to a hot-button issue, politicians tried to straddle the fence. Whig Senator Daniel Webster said that while he personally opposed the issue of slavery, he was not going to force his morality on others. Leaders in both the Democratic and Whig Parties followed suit. Whig-defector Abraham Lincoln saw opportunity.

Abraham Lincoln approached the "fringe" third parties with a bold idea. Let's join forces. Combine efforts. Create a unified platform grounded in the values to which these fringe groups were committed. He mobilized groups such as the Free Soil Party and the Free Labor Party to form a coalition of people who were more committed to a set of principles than they were a political party. And the Republican Party was born.

And, well, you can guess the rest of the story. The Whigs never won an election after that. The Republican Party emerged as an unstoppable force championing the principles of freedom and limited government on which this nation was founded.

Until now that is ...

It seems the modern Republicans' "Big Tent" has gotten so crowded that the tent stakes popped up and the whole thing is about to collapse. It's often hard to distinguish some Republican voting records from the liberal Democrats'. But the collapse can be prevented if Republican leadership is willing to see the writing on the wall, willing to acknowledge that our true strength lies in candidates who are authentic Reagan Republicans ... eager to fight the suffocating swell of government expansion, eager to fight for a strong national defense, to reign in runaway spending that is bankrupting our nation ... eager to protect these policies that protect the preciousness of human life. After all, that is why freedom is so important.

The outcome of election day 2009 could not have made this message any more clear. Republican candidates who boldly stand for conservative principles won huge, even in the Democratic strongholds. And yet, liberal spin doctors are trying to paint a different picture, especially when it comes to the NY-23rd.

NY-23 is the district in which the Republican leaders backed a liberal Republican, also referred to as a RINO (Republican in Name Only.) In the true spirit of grassroots activism, voters rallied behind a conservative Republican who then ran on an independent ticket. As all three candidates remained neck and neck, the RINO jumped ship and backed the Democrat. Some spin doctors are trying to say that the Conservative was the spoiler in this race.

Huh? Did they not see the same results that I did?

The fact is that Republicans received the majority of the vote in NY-23. The RINO remained on the ballot and took 6% of the vote. The Conservative won 45% and the Democrat won 49%. Last time I checked, 6 plus 45 equals 51 ... the majority. The majority of the voters in NY-23 voted Republican. Had the RINO endorsed the Conservative, I believe the outcome would have been different.

So who's the spoiler now? And what message does that send?

Please allow me to quote a Delaware Tea Party Leader to answer that second question. "Republican Party, you've been put on notice! Have some guts and remember your roots or go the way of the Whigs."

I couldn't have said it better myself. -###-

Christine O'Donnell is a US Senate Candidate in a 2010 Delaware primary race against a RINO.

YEXT CREDIT: Christine O'Donnell for U.S. Senate • PO Box 3987 • Wilmington, DE 19807 • (302) 468-7010

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