CLC Launch (RWC)

The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (I’m the Vice Chairman) opened a Center for Law & Counter-terrorism the other day. Sounds boring but it’s not going to be.  It will be run by Andy McCarthy, who is that rare being, a lawyer who communicates gracefully with the written word.  He can write! I don’t mean subpoenas ducas tecum and turgid and thickly-reasoned motions like most of these legal folks. He can do that.

I mean he writes prose that hums in its simple declarative sentences and makes point after point with clarity and force.

The man is both lucid and wildly prolific: churning our newspaper and magazine columns by the dozens and more commentary than you could shake your swagger-stick at.

And this is one of the preeminent former federal anti-terrorism prosecutors in the country.

Last week Andy and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies held a kick-off symposium at the National Press Club in Washington. It ran all morning and I was in the audience. 

They debated questions about the War in Iraq, and the Global War on Terror, and whether this country needs a National Security Court. My take on that is that it does.  And this IS a war, with combatants in civilian clothes, posing as normal citizens, hiding among the populace like the dangerous creeps that they are.

As someone said at the symposium:” Why is it a war?” The answer is,  we have an enemy with motive, with evil intent and enormous resources. We need military means to protect ourselves and our country.

How is this different then fighting the Mafia?  Uh, it is totally different. We don’t send the US Air Force, or remote controlled armed-drones with rockets, to fly over Sicily or parts of New Jersey to take them out, now do we?

Traditional criminal law won’t effectively address the problems of crazed terrorists.

Steward Taylor, the lawyer and writer from the National Journal and Newsweek spoke. He was excellent, smart and nuanced as always

Dave Rifkin from Baker and Hostetler, spoke as well.  He is a very good guy who knows a whole lot about foreign policy and international law as does Roger Pilon

From the Libertarian-minded Cato Institute. Roger runs the Center for Constitutional Law there and was in the panel mix. They were joined by a federal judge from New York, Michael Mukasey and by George Terwilliger, longtime former US Deputy Attorney General, you might remember him because he ran the federal response to the racial riots in LA in 1992; and Professor Mordechai Kremnitser from the Democracy Institute in Israel. Even the legal director of the ACLU, Steve Shapiro participated.  His outfit drives me crazy with their politics but on some issues they can be great.

In my view, both those who lean right and those who lean left, as good US citizens, have a vested interest in the civil liberties accorded each and every one of us, and we must keep them protected.

Andy McCarthy is running the Center.  It intends to be in the forefront of the debate that addresses both civil liberties and national security that surround the Global War on Terrorism.

They will testify before congress.

They will particulate in litigation if it is likely it will be of significant consequence to our national security –and our ability to prosecute the war successfully.

They will write and speak out, both widely and often, on any major legal disputes that arise in the effort to counter terror.

In short, led by Andy McCarthy they intend to Raise Hell and Do Good Works….

My kind of guys.