Jeff Addicott, director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas, feels Sen. Lindsay Graham’s (R-SC) pain in the wake of the latest New York City bombing attack.
Addicott said he’s just not sure Graham's suggestion that the suspect in the bombing being treated as an enemy combatant is truly in the best interest of the country in its fight against terrorism.
“We are at war, and this war started at 9/11,” Addicott said during a recent appearance on “Chicago’s Morning Answer” radio show on WIND. “It’s an unusual war, because the enemy doesn’t wear uniforms and they don’t come from one country.”
Sen. Lindsay Graham
"Chicago’s Morning Answer" is co-hosted by Dan Proft, who also is a principal of Local Government Information Services, which owns this publication.
Addicott said a better option for dealing with the situation would be the continued use of domestic criminal law, which he said dates back before the days of 9/11.
“The policy has come down to if you commit a terror act in this country, rather you could qualify as an unlawful criminal combatant or not, we are going to use federal criminal law to prosecute you,” he said. “Graham is technically correct, but I don’t think it’s prudent. I think we should go back to using domestic criminal law.”
Akayed Ullah faces federal and state charges after allegedly walking into one of the state’s busiest subway terminals with a homemade bomb that at least partially detonated. Five people were treated for minor injuries following the explosion, with only Ullah suffering serious injury.
Several news outlets have since reported the 27-year-old Bangladeshi posted “Trump you failed to protect your nation" on Facebook shortly before the incident.
Addicott countered, “the good news is Donald Trump has bombed the living blank out of these people and in this year we have destroyed ISIS geographically. They’re no longer waving their flag above the ground and beheading people, abusing women, they’ve been obliterated under President Trump.”
According to CNN, Ullah has indicated he was prepared to die and his ISIS radicalization dates back to 2014, when he began researching how to build improvised explosive devices.
“We know that there is radicalization occurring,” Addicott said. “I think the right thing to do is using domestic criminal law. I think Graham is expressing a frustration.”
Trump has pointed to the attempted terrorist attack as yet another example of why his proposed immigration policies are so critical to keeping suspect individuals out of the country.
Addicott added that it also serves as yet anther reminder of how politicized everything has become, including the upper chambers of law enforcement as the Russian meddling campaign probe plays to a conclusion.
“The hard work is done by agents on the ground,” he said. “No doubt the FBI has been politicized and they’ve done it themselves. To me that is repulsive. We didn’t elect the pope as the president. I think it does a lot of damage to the institution. As you look at these things, there is zero evidence against the president. They’ve got to bring this to a conclusion or produce something.”
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