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The Obama administration is apparently trying to negotiate with attempted Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in order to obtain important intelligence information regarding his terrorist training and links to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The Washington Post reports government authorities are now “inching toward an agreement that would secure cooperation from the suspect in the failed Detroit airliner attack.” The Obama administration wouldn’t have had to start negotiating for information if they didn’t make the “myopic, irresponsible, and potentially dangerous” decision to read this terrorist the Miranda rights. 

It’s no wonder Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) blasted the Obama administration in this week’s Republican address, saying “the Obama Justice Department unilaterally decided to treat this foreign terrorist as an ordinary criminal. Abdulmutallab was questioned for less than one hour before the Justice Department advised him that he could remain silent and offered him an attorney at our expense.”  Furthermore, Collins notes:

President Obama recently used the phrase that ‘we are at war’ with terrorists. But unfortunately his rhetoric does not match the actions of his administration.  The Obama administration appears to have a blind spot when it comes to the War on Terrorism.  And, because of that blindness, this administration cannot see a foreign terrorist even when he stands right in front of them, fresh from an attempt to blow a plane out of the sky on Christmas Day. There’s no other way to explain the irresponsible, indeed dangerous, decision on Abdulmutallab’s interrogation.  There’s no other way to explain the inconceivable treatment of him as if he were a common criminal.  This charade must stop. Foreign terrorists are enemy combatants and they must be treated as such.  The safety of the American people depends on it.

Instead of questioning the suspect on future attacks or training, President Obama was willing to sacrifice valuable intelligence information by treating Abdulmutallab under “a knee-jerk default to a crime-and-punishment model.”  Now our authorities are forced to negotiate intelligence from a terrorist.