Terrorism

Army Chief of Staff George Casey took to the airwaves Sunday to warn the public not to overemphasize unconfirmed reports about anti-American and religious statements allegedly made by alleged Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Hasan.

"I think we need to be very careful here about speculating based on anecdotes like that," Casey said on ABC's This Week, "We all want to know what happened and what motivated the suspect, but I think we need to be very, very careful here in these early days to let the investigation take its course."

He warned that any effort to prejudge Hasan as a terrorist or as having religious motivations could cause unnecessary and harmful effects for the 3,000 plus Muslims currently serving in the military.

"I think the speculation could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here," Casey said.

Meanwhile, Senator Joseph Lieberman, I-CT, was on Fox news talking all about Hasan's motivations and warning that the attack could be a new model of terrorism on U.S. soil.

"It's clear that he was, one, under personal stress and, two, if the reports that we're receiving of various statements he made, acts he took, are valid, he had turned to Islamist extremism," Lieberman said, "And therefore, if that is true, the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11."

Lieberman stated that the evidence was not all in, but he went on to detail each and every reported allegation of Hasan's anti-American behavior, including reports that he compared suicide bombers to U.S. soldiers who have sacrificed their lives in war and that he shouted ‘Allah Ahkbar' during the attack.

"The fact that he did that at the moment of these murders - if that's confirmed, of course - raises genuine concerns that this was a terrorist act," Lieberman said, ""There's concern from what we know now about Hasan that, in fact, that's exactly what he was, a self-radicalized home-grown terrorist."

He promised to start an investigation in his Homeland Security Committee as to Hasan's motives. The Army declined to comment Lieberman's investigation.

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The administration is pushing back against the latest Congressional effort to thwart their plans to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and try the prisoners on U.S. soil.

The Senate will start debate today on the Commerce, Justice, and Science spending bill, and there will definitely be a vote on an amendment by Senator Lindsey Graham, R-SC, that would prevent any money from being spent to try detainees who had a hand in the 9/11 attack in federal civilian courts.

Among the most famous of these is Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the attacks, who is sitting in Guantanamo now.

Graham's long-held position, with the support of John McCain, R-AZ, and Joseph Lieberman, I-CT, is that military commissions are preferred. For one thing, if a prisoner is acquitted in a civilian trial, he could be set free, Graham argues. The Senator is a former Air Force lawyer.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Attorney General Eric Holder wrote a letter  last week to Senate leaders Harry Reid, D-NV, and Mitch McConnell, R-KY, with their opposition to the Graham amendment.

"Our departments are currently involved in a careful case by case evaluation of the cases of Guantanamo detainees... to determine whether they should be prosecuted in a [civilian] court or military commission," the officials wrote, warning it "would set a dangerous precedent, for Congress to restrict the discretion of either department to fund particular prosecutions."

Of course, Congress has been doing just that repeatedly since Obama took office. A whole host of last year's spending bills included language restricting the transfer of detainees, often with Democratic support. A previous amendment offered by Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-HI, garnered 90 votes, showing just how reluctant Senate Democrats are to be seen as weak on the Guantanamo issue.

McConnell has also been skilled in helping to craft such amendments to pass easily and it's in his interest to have the Guantanamo issue debated as much as possible because it plays for the GOP politically. As such, Republicans expect the Graham amendment to pass by a wide margin.

The Democrats' defense for yielding to Republicans on Guantanamo has been that they are awaiting a detailed plan from Obama on how he plans to close the facility. There is widespread acknowledgment that Obama's promise to get it done by January will not be fulfilled.

An administration official, speaking on background basis, told The Cable that "much progress has been made and more details on plans to close the facility are expected in the coming weeks."

The official also touted the reforms to the military commissions process that were signed into law last week as part of the fiscal 2010 defense policy bill.

There are some signs that Democrats are beginning to toughen on Guantanamo.

The Homeland Security Department funding bill that cleared Congress at the end of October had a provision that would allow the transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to U.S. soil, only for prosecution. Many Congressional Republicans had wanted a complete ban.

Because of that, some on the Hill believe the Graham admendment won't go through.

We don’t expect that members will vote to further tie the hands of the Administration as Graham amdt would do," said one senior Democratic Senate aide, "We do not expect it to pass."

Meanwhile, alleged embassy bomber Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani  has already been transferred to the U.S. to stand trial in a federal civilian court.

Obama himself defended the practice in a May speech at the National Archives.

"When feasible, we will try those who have violated American criminal laws in federal courts - courts provided for by the United States Constitution," he said, "Some have derided our federal courts as incapable of handling the trials of terrorists. They are wrong. Our courts and juries of our citizens are tough enough to convict terrorists, and the record makes that clear."

UPDATE: The Senate voted to table the Graham amendment late Thursday by a vote of 54-45. That pushes off consideration indefinitely.

Kansas Senator Sam Brownback is preparing yet another maneuver in his fight to thwart any rapprochement between the United States and North Korea.

Brownback, who carries the banner for those who believe confronting the North Korean regime is preferable to engaging it, is planning to offer a new piece of legislation aimed at pressuring the State Department to put the hermitic Stalinist state back on its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The legislation, which he will introduce this session, aims to kick the chair out from under the State Department's official explanation as to why the administration can't relist North Korea, even though North Korea didn't live up to the bargain it struck with the Bush administration, which delisted the country in 2008.

"The administration is saying that legally they do not have the authority to [relist North Korea], but we want to give them back the authority to do it so it will be clear that this is a choice they are making," Brownback told The Cable in an interview. "This would be so they can't hide behind the lawyers."

In fact, that is State's explanation, as laid out by spokesman Ian Kelly in a May press briefing.

"In order to be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism, the secretary of state must determine that the government of North Korea has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism. The United States will follow the provisions of the law as the facts warrant," Kelly said.

Brownback discussed his upcoming bill with Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, who gave no response, Brownback said.

This is only the latest bill Brownback has offered in his mission to influence North Korea policy. He introduced a bill in July that would have reimposed sanctions and put North Korea back on the list, but this one is more "realistic," he said.

He'll try to attach his language to a bill that's already moving, but actually passing the legislation is unlikely. In the end, it's not all that important whether it passes or not.

Brownback is making a policy point and continuing his ongoing feud with the EAP Bureau at State, which included him holding up the Campbell nomination this summer.

But Brownback's fight with EAP goes back much further than Campbell. He held up the nomination of Kathleen Stephens in 2008 to become ambassador to South Korea in order to get concessions from then Assistant Secretary Chris Hill, including getting Jay Leftkowitz, the oft-ignored human rights envoy on North Korea, a seat at the table.

The Kansas senator then held up Hill's nomination to become ambassador to Iraq because Hill failed to deliver on any of the promises he made to Brownback during the Stephens affair.

Brownback makes no secret of his ultimate goal, to stop any new talks with North Korea before they start, in light of Pyongyang's saber-rattling and nuclear brinksmanship.

"Now we're going to engage with them?" he said, "Now's the time to be much more strong against them."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in June that she wants to see "recent evidence of their support for international terrorism" before she would relist them. That's not likely, because North Korea's suspected nuclear and missile exports to dictatorial regimes don't technically qualify as terrorism.

What did qualify was North Korea's abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, which has never been resolved, but that's an entirely separate issue.

File Photo: AFP/Getty Images