…when I heard that the administration actually plans to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York criminal court. But it’s true. Tom Maguire is as flabbergasted as I am. And as the Powerline guys ask:
…suppose that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s trial results in an acquittal or a hung jury. Would the Obama administration really let him go? If so, they are crazy. If not, why are they holding the trial?
It’s a show trial. There are regimes that have show trials. They don’t tend to be democratic.
And will evidence from his own testimony be excluded, seeing as how it was obtained under “torture”?
Madness.
[Update a few minutes later]
Andy McCarthy is appalled as well:
We are now going to have a trial that never had to happen for defendants who have no defense. And when defendants have no defense for their own actions, there is only one thing for their lawyers to do: put the government on trial in hopes of getting the jury (and the media) spun up over government errors, abuses and incompetence. That is what is going to happen in the trial of KSM et al. It will be a soapbox for al-Qaeda’s case against America. Since that will be their “defense,” the defendants will demand every bit of information they can get about interrogations, renditions, secret prisons, undercover operations targeting Muslims and mosques, etc., and — depending on what judge catches the case — they are likely to be given a lot of it. The administration will be able to claim that the judge, not the administration, is responsible for the exposure of our defense secrets. And the circus will be played out for all to see — in the middle of the war. It will provide endless fodder for the transnational Left to press its case that actions taken in America’s defense are violations of international law that must be addressed by foreign courts. And the intelligence bounty will make our enemies more efficient at killing us.
Hey, but other than that, it’s a great idea.
[Update a few minutes later]
Who are they going to find willing to sit on that jury? I sure as hell wouldn’t. No civilian should be expected to. How are they going to find anyone impartial, particularly in that location? I predict, at a minimum, their attorney will petition for change of venue, because he can’t get a fair trial in New York. Just watch.
[Afternoon update]
Why bring KSM to the US? A question by Congressman Hoekstra.
I’m not against a military tribunal, but I prefer a civilian trial. Rightly or wrongly, civilian trials are seen and perceived as more fair. Even the Nuremburg trials were bashed by some as “victor’s justice.” Other thoughts:
1) There are a lot of muslims who don’t like us, but aren’t trying to kill us. Doing things like “being fair” can / may keep them on the sidelines.
2) Some of the terrorists want the ego boost of being seen as supermen who require a special system to deal with. Treating them like common criminals defeats that. The “common criminal” beef was a major problem for the IRA, for example.
If I were an officer at Gitmo, I’d simply shoot the son of a bitch myself, then turn myself in for first-degree murder. Anything is better than letting Chris and the Tolerance Gang get together and set a monster like KSM free.
Well two snipes Chris , I don’t get your link for proving pirates caught in conspiracy to pirate, the 8 people were caught on the ship so they were pirates they weren’t caught on land conspiring to take over a ship. Other than having piracy and conspiracy in the title of the article what your point?
Carl I may be miss reading your point but you saying we only hold trials if we aren’t sure a person was guilty? Other wise its a show trial. Did we not hold a trial For Jack Ruby (other examples sirhan sirhan, and Hinkley) when he was clearly guilty by video tape and caught in the act. (Yes I know the Ruby and others was more a trial/judgment for level of punishment from being Insane to malice or not)
And Speer and Hess were the last two in Spandau, with Speer being released in the ’60’s. Hess committed suicide back in the ’90’s (IIRC) in Spandau. He sure took his time.
Civilian trial in this is total nonsense. He is an enemy belligerent out of uniform, and has not only admitted the fact but boasted about it. Which gives him precisely zero rights, and someone ought to shoot him and feed him to the sharks – or preferably the pigs, but that would be a waste of the good pork you’d have to throw away.
And the same ought to happen to all the others. Live on TV.
“You all say that the Geneva Convention ought to apply to all those imprisoned in this facility. My advisors and I agree. And the relevant cause is hereby invoked. COMPANY – FIRE!”
The Democrats want the trials done in civilian courts so the entire Bush Administration & US Military & US Intel Agencies are available to be called as witnesses or experts.
This is about putting a guy with three well known initials on trial alright. But the letters are GWB, not KSM. It’s a well known fact (among liberals) in the country that Bush was way more dangerous than any poor, misunderstood, Islamic Freedom Fighters ever were.
And just for the tally book, who pays for all this? (I know it’s US) but NY, NYC, USA? Who(m)?
If you really want the Geneva Conventions to have “teeth”, you need to summarily execute your foreign enemies who fight as soldiers yet wear no uniforms and pretend to be “civilians”. Otherwise the conventions are nothing more than pieces of paper that constrain only the West.
Do you notice that the idea that Citizen Rights=Foreigner “Rights” only became an issue in the U.S. after the 1960’s. Looks like the product of the Gramscian “March thru the Institutions”.
Speaking of which:
The MSM, the Universities and public school systems of the modern West reminds me of the Medieval Church. Sort of a “PC Cathedral”.
Just as the Medieval Church performs useful functions such as preserving ancient manuscripts, the PC Cathedral performs the useful function of training the West’s future scientists (hard sciences kind), engineers, technicians, doctors, lawyers (yes, lawyers are sometimes useful), etc. But the Medieval Church also did dubious things such as peddle phony “Relics” and selling Indulgences. The dubious things the PC Cathedral does are such things as, LGBT Studies, Post-Colonial “theory”, Marxist peddling, promoting egalitarian nonsense, etc.
It appears that the delusions of the PC Cathedral is just as debilitating to the West as the Medieval Church’s delusions. It may even be worse.
My guess is that the reign of the PC Cathedral isn’t going to last forever. The threats to its power will be similar to threats to the Medieval Church’s monopoly on Europe so long ago.
I think the same threats to the PC Cathedral that the Medieval Church faced will belong in these catagories:
–External Threats from outside Western Civilization.China, Russia, and ironically, Islam. The Cathedral is shooting itself in the foot by letting masses of Muslims into the West. The Muslims have their own rival “Cathedral” that they are loyal to.
–“King Henry the 8th” type threats from within Western Civ.Just as King Henry used brute force to liquidate the supporters and monasteries of the Medieval Church, perhaps a similar group of beastly thugs will do the same to the members of the PC Cathedral in one of the National States of the West. The very nasty BNP could be an example, it’s even in the same national state as ole King Henry the 8th himself!
–“Martin Luther” type threats within its own clerical ranks.Steven Pinker maybe? A young rapscallion version of James Watson? Any of the scientists working on DNA sequencing and the tracing of the continued evolution of the modern human brain. Hell, Noam Chomsky ironically hammered the first nail when he discovered that humans had a preprogrammed language instinct!
–Gutenburg Printing Press threats. Technological advances that threaten the PC Cathedral. The Internet’s weakening of the MSM, the megaphone of the Cathedral. Intelligence enhancements thru genetic engineering. Further advances in information technology that makes it harder for centralized authorities to control the flow of data. The superempowered individual or the “global guerilla” type.
Some of the Gutenburg threats have already arrived in the form of the Internet. The biggest threats to this ruling class of the West for the near term is heresy within its own ranks. The “Martin Luther” threat.
Oh by the way, the people in the U.S. who call themselves “liberals” are anything but. Another thing, these leftists have advocated policies that restrict the rights of Citizens in the U.S. and various countries of the West but give all kinds of perks to non-Western foreigners. Hmmmm, I wonder why? Just a rhetorical question.
Chris Gerrib said:
And who writes that “Western Moral Code”? The PC Cathedral does.
Odd that this “Western Moral Code” that rewards those who undermine the purpose of the original Geneva Conventions (fighters who pretend to be civilians), didn’t exist prior to the Mid Twentieth Century. Was there no Western Civ prior to the Mid Twentieth Century?
Remember, in accordance with the original Geneva Conventions, soldiers who fight but pretend to be civilians are to be called… Drumroll! “enemy combatents” to be lined up and shot!
R7 – the phrase you are looking for is “unlawful” combatants. Lawful combatants who surrender are POWs. Unlawful combatants may be shot after a review by a competent tribunal. That’s in the original Geneva conventions.
So Chris, do believe that these “unlawful combatants” should be shot after review by a tribunal, such as the Nazi Saboteurs in WWII?
R7 – If we decide to try them as unlawful combatants, yes. I suspect that the US will get more political mileage out of trying KSM in civilian court than at a tribunal. But for folks like Bin Laden’s driver, or people who fought us in Afghanistan, or the Cole bombers, a military tribunal is the better solution.
Chris Gerrib said:
The civil court option for KSM might get political mileage out of the West’s Ruling Elites (PC Cathedral) but it won’t do anything anywhere else. The Islamic World has its own moral code independent of that of the West’s Cathedral. The PC Cathedral’s values aren’t universal, even within the West itself. There are heretics.
“The KSM Trial Will Be an Intelligence Bonanza for al Qaeda”