[Update: 11/18/2009: See similar and connected thoughts at the Watcher of Weasels blog, listing two sets of submissions from around the blogosphere.]

So, the President campaigns around the world to give away our national pride, at home to give up on our economy, and now he wants to treat war criminals like civilian law breakers and cast our fate to the wind.

The reason I say this: Discovery. Both sides of the legal representing have a right to see what the others have, so the trial can be “fair.”

Military tribunals are fit for those who have declared war on us. The leader of Al Qeada, Osama bin Laden did. The “detainees” in Guantanamo have attacked our nation and others, under the leadership and decentralized command of OBL. bin Laden did not tell us he was turning loose serial murders in the US and abroad in order to see if they could amass a better “body count” as criminal serial murderers. The “murders” that have resulted are collateral damage (when a non-combatant like those in the World Trade Centers and on the 4 flights) of warfare. There are several groups around the world, and even within the US which will gladly accuse the US Government and specifically the national leadership, or being “war criminals” for civilian deaths abroad, even when those officials didn’t even touch a trigger device of any sort. The military deaths the detainees have caused, some directly, are, in the very classic definition, casualties of “war.”

Now consider how the Nuremberg Trials put away the defense of “my leadership made me do it.” Each Nazi Official was tried, militarily, as war criminals based on the immoral acts they personally caused to be carried out.  We are at war with these people.  They are not simple criminals on the streets of America.

The President is now going to give away our national intelligence gathering and analysis capabilities, as now “discovery” is in play, and you can bet the rest of the world will be clamoring for official transcripts of the trial, and full sets of all evidence, so they can discern how we finally caught them after we first let them do their harm to the nation and our society. The men who have cost this nation close to over 7,000 lives (9/11 and the military casualties), not to mention the tens of thousands who were wounded, and on top of all of that, the massive amount of spending to demolish, then reconstruct ships, and structures they destroyed. And don’t forget to add to that the spending, both governmentally and personally, in excess of just flying from one place to another, pretty much anywhere in the world, and the cost of the delivery of goods by shipping. Yes, airport/airline and port security are major costs we have had to bear because a few men think the entire world deserves to return the the salad days of living in the desert with tents and slaves from all other parts of the world they could easily reach, or take by force of arms.

Just as the disclosures by the New York Times regarding the tracking of terrorists by their cell phone signals put out our eyes, followed by the disclosure that the US was tracking money moving to the terrorists in the international electronic banking network put us in the dark again, the discovery process will be a very similar exposure of how we actually keep ourselves protected from mass murdering individuals and groups and other nations.

I guess I just couldn’t expect a lawyer, with no experience with any connection with the military and national defense at any level to comprehend this is something more important, and not about giving these international murderers full Constitutional rights. And, that just dovetails with how we will consider illegal aliens in the future: worthy of all rights of any American citizen, just because the are physically here. I’m aghast that no one on his staff has managed to successfully point this out to the President.

The other fallout is military and intelligence officers who captured these illegal combatants did not do it like law enforcement does. There will be enough pieces of evidence that can’t be produced that the “defendants” (such a nice, unoffensive term, isn’t it?), that there will be no “beyond a shadow of a doubt” to convict them. They will be set free, and even if deported, they will see how they can repeat their actions and know the likelihood of every having to face the consequences will be essentially nil.

You can bet they have access to the most high powered American lawyers our oil money can buy via a Gulf country’s “defense fund.” It may be interesting to hear if any law firms approached will have the guts to say “no,” and even more telling to say they said “no” openly. I’ll bet we won’t hear any of that at all. Some may turn them away, but they won’t talk about it out of fear for the safety of their firms employees and partner’s lives. Bad enough the President can get protesters (who are generally against gun control everywhere) to right in front of the homes and offices of insurance and investment firm employees. the al Qaeda crowd is all about gun control for you and several AK-47s for them – and they know how to use them. Or IEDs in that recently filled pothole down your street….they’re all about the IEDs and EFPs.

To top it all off, know that the media, ours and worldwide, in particular, those who think America needs to be “taught a lesson,” will be happy to give an open microphone to those who have killed thousands and are willing to die if they have a chance to murder many more, or even a few.

We don’t allow our own mass murders this sort of unfettered access to the media, despite them having a Constitutional Right to free speech.

My prediction: The detainees, demoted to common criminals in our systems, will have extraordinary constitutional Rights, so as to make sure the World doesn’t call us hypocrites. It will be the World press’ perception of what the proper application of Constitutional Rights in America that will drive the discussion. Any American stepping forward to explain that’s an overly simplified, or incorrectly applied interpretation will be labeled as some sort of right Wing Extremist Christian, Zionist, bigot, racist, or Islamaphobe, or just a hard line American who just thinks they can have it their way without the rest of the world getting to have their say. Mark my words.

The World will get to see a circus, where those who even put their own fellow Muslims in the line of fire for their power gains, for a purely religious reasoning, will get to say all that they want and all that they say will be repeated as truth, to include descriptions of the horrors of captivity in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, at the hands of those who began the Crusades and who are today trying to wipe Islam from the face of the earth by genocide. All the prior reporting, and the truth of the detainees having just about ever one of their physical needs catered to, while they complained of getting fat from the professionally prepared meals for thier religious beliefs, will be called “propaganda” of the Bush Administration.

The other result, that will take time to notice, and be analyzed for what it was, will be the ability of terrorists and other nations, like Iran and Venezuela and Syria, to bypass and manipulate our intelligence gathering system, and to use our own Constitutional methods against us. One of the only options to prevent this will be to turn the US Military and the CIA into law enforcement mode, and every single person being held to standards of securing crime scenes in foreign lands, and having the forensic collection equipment and methods available worldwide in massive quantities. That won’t happen, so therefore, we will never see convictions of any consequence. we will get the equivalent of the kid on the corner with the nickel bag of grass to sell to his friend, but the people behind that street crime will be completely insulated from capture and prosecution.

For goodness sake, we couldn’t even convict OJ Simspon, because the fitting of a single glove injected “reasonable doubt” into the discussion, not to mention the entire cultural battle that ensued regarding the overall statistics saying a large percentage of the African American population had been charged and convicted, so, OJ needed to be let off as a symbolic gesture of the “correcting” of the system.  If the Federal Prosecutors can’t produce “CSI: Kabul” quality evidence (did you know most police departments do not have access to all the equipment and methods you see in the CSI series?), then there’s doubt, and we already know we’re hyper-sensitive to making sure no one is wrongly accused, unless, or course, it’s a person who said something about someone else’s gender confusion, then we need to make sure they pay for their thoughts right away.

We have just seen a case where over-sensitivity to Islam has led to another 14 deaths and 31 casualties, and yet there are cries not to “jump to conclusions.” That was but 14 deaths. How much more sensitive will we be over the first 2996 that will be mentioned?

The connection mentioned in the title of the post: When John Walker and his brother sold our communications codes to the Soviet Union in the 70s and 80s, we lost our ability to detect and track their submarines, specifically those carrying ballistic nuclear weapons. The Navy had sensor systems, based on the sea floor and aboard ships and subs, that were rendered ineffective as a result of the Soviets knowing exactly what we were detecting on their subs. The for a period of time, the Nation was at great risk, as we could not keep track of the weapons of mass destruction off our shores, and near our carrier and amphibious battle groups. The cost was billions of taxpayer dollars to upgrade major systems, and to develop new ones, just to keep the nation and our strategic assets safe.

In the case of John Walker, John Walker was charged, tied and convicted as a spy. Even the New York Times reported that this had been the most damaging spy ring in history, and one of their journalists, John J. O’Connor reported that, “It’s been estimated by some intelligence experts that Mr. Walker provided enough code-data information to alter significantly the balance of power between Russia and the United States”. John Walker remains in prison today on his 30 year sentence.

President Obama has positioned himself to repeat this act of John Walker, but with our top level anti-terrorist intelligence networks. The anti-Americans of the world, be they individuals, small cells, large and organized extra-national entities, or entire sovereign nations, who use terror methodologies as their means of warfare, will, if they are not already, consider this merciful act of an American that should be better than that, a priceless gift.

This will lead to more unreasonable pain and suffering, something US citizens cannot be subject to by our own Constitution, yet the terrorist, who expect us to be bound and limited by our Constitution, will exempt themselves from the same laws when “dealing” with the US population.

John Walker worked in the dark on night. President Obama is doing this in the light of day.