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Just over a week ago, the Supreme Court struck down a bipartisan agreement governing the treatment of terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay. Defying the will of the executive branch and Congress, the court ruled that those detained in custody can challenge their status in American courts. Writing for the 5 to 4 majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy opined, “the laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”

Justice Antonin Scalia fiercely dissented, arguing that the United States was “at war with radical Islamists,” and that the ruling “will almost certainly cause more Americans to get killed.”

“The nation will live to regret what the court has done today,” he warned.

So Andrew McCarthy is nothing if not timely with the publication of his new book, Willful Blindness: A Memoir of a Jihad. Within its pages he wrestles with the legal issues surrounding the war on terror.

McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, is perfectly suited to make the case that the criminal justice system is not designed to handle terrorism cases. Having contributed to the government’s case in some of the most well-publicized terror trials of the 1990’s – including the plot to destroy New York City landmarks, the embassy bombings, and the planned Millennium attack at Los Angeles Airport – he should well know.

Willful Blindness is part McCarthy’s recollection of the terror trials (primarily the Landmark plot, for which he was lead prosecutor) and part tour of radical Islam. Readers will find both aspects enlightening.

McCarthy berates the government and the general public for failing to take the first World Trade Center bombing seriously. Considering that 120,000 people were milling about the area on that infamous Friday in February 1993, he terms it a “miracle” that only seven lives were lost in the attack. The downside to the low fatalities, though, was that few people recognized the bombing for what it was: The opening salvo in a war with Islamist terror.

Instead, the Clinton administration treated Islamic jihadists as it would treat a domestic terrorist or terrorist group, responding to attacks with indictments and subpoenas. In the eight years between the World Trade Center’s first bombing and its ultimate destruction, there were convictions of exactly twenty-nine terrorists. Twenty-nine. If the jihadists were viewing the conflict as a war, the Justice Department treated it like an episode of Matlock.

The terrorists were – and are – savvy to exploit this intellectual divide. McCarthy quotes one jihadist instructing another on how to act if taken into custody. “Tell them, ‘I don’t know. I’m not talking to you. Bring my lawyer,’” he said. “‘My lawyer’ - that’s it! That’s what’s so beautiful about America.” Continued...