Bloody Bill Kristol thinks that the embassy closing in Yemen "has been a victory for Al Qaida". No Bill, the neocons like yourself taking over the U.S. government giving them excuses to fuel extremism has been a "victory for Al Qaida". Bill was also not done crying about the Underwear Bomber being "lawyered up" and not being tortured in case there's more information we could have gotten from him. So nice to see Kristol has absolutely no faith in our criminal justice system.
WALLACE: Bill, is that -- as Brit frames it, is that the issue, that it’s a choice between getting tough or doing things, whether it’s on decisions about Guantanamo, decisions about criminal defendants, that may appeal to the rest of the world and that -- and the Obama administration is coming down on one side of that?
KRISTOL: I’m not even sure it appeals to the rest of the world, of course. I don’t think the rest of the world would be shocked if we treated him as an enemy combatant in -- consistently -- consistent with President Obama’s rules of interrogation -- no enhanced interrogation techniques -- but still try to interrogate him.
Mr. Brennan said to you that we are very worried that there are other Abdulmutallabs out there. This Abdulmutallab was there for four months. He might know who the others are. He might know their names.
We let him lawyer up, and right now he’s probably thinking, “Gee, maybe I could use that information to bargain with to get a reduced sentence.” That’s what Brennan seemed to indicate when he kept talking about how, “Well, we’re going to work with his lawyers, and we have some incentives to offer him.”
But this is operational intelligence in real time, and we are not treating it as a war. I mean, if this -- incidentally, when he said there’s no smoking gun, this is the smoking -- he is the smoking gun. Right?
His father comes, gives the CIA station chief in Africa his name. He -- a month later, he goes to Yemen, says he’s in Yemen. He’s in Yemen. He’s with this cleric whom we’re monitoring in Yemen, trying to kill in Yemen, Awlaki, who’s the same guy who’s been in touch with Major Hasan.
He goes to an airport using his own name, no disguise, no alias, buys with cash a one-way ticket to the U.S.
HUME: No luggage.
KRISTOL: No luggage. That -- he is the smoking gun. And frankly, for Mr. Brennan to say, “Well, no smoking gun,” that itself shows a kind of not-serious-about-the-war mentality.
And I would add one last thing. Closing the embassy in Yemen last night -- I mean, I don’t -- you know, no one wants State Department officials to be put at risk and all that, but that is a sign of weakness.
Closing the embassy? We can’t protect our own embassy in Yemen, a place we have Special Operations forces, a place we say we’re working with the government on the front lines of the war on terror, and there’s a terror threat and we close the embassy? That’s a victory for Al Qaida.
