Treating terrorists as criminals isn't new

Since the arrest of the so-called Christmas Day Bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, there has been the usual and expected chatter from right wingers that terrorists don't deserve the rights and protections of our criminal justice system.

Not surprisingly, they claim that subjecting suspected terrorists to the criminal justice system makes President Obama soft on terror.

On this subject, one of the president's ambassador's wrote "Another important measure we have developed in our overall strategy is applying the rule of law to terrorists. Terrorists are criminals. They commit criminal actions like murder, kidnapping, and arson, and countries have laws to punish criminals. So a major element of our strategy has been to delegitimize terrorists, to get society to see them for what they are - criminals - and to use democracy's most potent tool, the rule of law against them."

Sounds just like another Obama apologist, doesn't it? He may be an apologist, but he wasn't employed by Obama. That statement was written by L. Paul Bremer, who, when he wrote it in 1987, was Ambassador-at-large for Counter-Terrorism for right-wing hero President Ronald Reagan. The same President Ronald Reagan who a year later signed the Convention Against Torture, which specifically prohibits torture of anyone under any circumstances.

Hmmm, applying the rule of law to, and prohibiting torture of, suspected terrorists. Who knew that Reagan was soft on terrorists and terrorism?

Robert H. Fredian

Arlington Heights