MICHAEL WALSH: Fight with Soldiers, Not Lawyers.

When a group of German saboteurs were caught in New York and Florida in June 1942, planning to blow up hydroelectric plants and other loci of American industrial power but ratted out by two of their fellows in Operation Pastorius, President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew exactly what he was not going to do. “I want one thing clearly understood, Francis,” he told his Attorney General, Francis Biddle. “I won’t hand them over to any United States marshal armed with a writ of habeas corpus. Understand?” Biddle understood: this was war. There would be no civilian “due process.” They would get what was coming to them.

* * * * * * * *

Now we’re fighting saboteurs and infiltrators from our own hemisphere, here on our home turf, “Maryland men.” After Pearl Harbor, FDR went before Congress to declare, “No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us. With confidence in our armed forces—with the unbounding determination of our people—we will gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God.”

Now, instead of the chair, our enemies get the best lawyers your money can buy, and laugh in your face.

Read the whole thing.