Terrorist lawyers already call for gaming our system
by Bob Hoig, Publisher
Midlands Business Journal
Americans didn’t have to wait long for lawyers for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other alleged terrorists to begin working our legal system against us.
One announced on Nov. 24 that KSM, arrested abroad for masterminding 9/11, will plead not-guilty as a way to use his federal court forum in Manhattan to put the U.S. on trial.
This assures Americans of what could be years of unending attacks on America, our CIA, the military, and, most especially, former President George W. Bush, who seems to be in the sights of both al Qaeda and the Obama White House.
Every “torture” allegation against the United States, every procedural motion — granted or denied — will translate into inflammatory headlines and television and radio broadcasts beamed abroad.
As for our own top lawyers, Obama and Holder, they early on rushed themselves into a legal dead end.
First, they guaranteed convictions, in effect, teeing-up themselves to be early witnesses in court – for the defense. They also quickly got behind the idea that a criminal trial in federal court in Manhattan as opposed to a military tribunal at Guantanamo is just the way to show off our legal system to the world.
Ruling out acquittal obviously bloodies any image of justice.
The president and his attorney general went wrong in making foreign terrorists captured on foreign battlefields, in effect, into U.S. citizens as far as their rights to a criminal trial under the U.S. Constitution.
From there, logic goes haywire. Even the Geneva Convention does not shield terrorists.
KSM reportedly offered to plead guilty and accept execution as a holy warrior of radical Islam when it appeared he was to be (correctly) tried by a military court.
The goal of military procedures is attaining justice. Before Holder’s and Obama’s interference, we were on that path. The sheik’s end would have been as close to a one-day story as such matters can be. We could have drawn a line under it.
Now, a virtual unending soap opera of indeterminate length may unfold, with grim possibilities for national security, for respect for law and for al Qaeda recruitment worldwide.
A movie clip of police beating anybody will be worth several battalions in Tehran.
As a poster, the first terrorist filmed with arm raised and fist clenched in the direction of Ground Zero will raise an army for al Qaeda recruiters.
The obvious disadvantage of a civilian trial for mass killers is that “rights” and not justice is the standard. “Justice” actually stands far back in the modern U.S. courtroom. A single holdout juror easily thwarts justice.
Rather than stigmatizing Guantanamo, this writer would use it and invite the world press to see how inordinately well we treat even the worst of our enemies. Much better than having mass media swarming over the six blocks bookend-ed by the federal courthouse and the un-rebuilt Ground Zero site, for which every photo and live broadcast will cheer our enemies.
Gitmo is a state of the art facility. It is secure. It does not lend itself to theatrics and other enemy propaganda. It is clean. Prisoners have been shown to have good food there, decent clothing, better than adequate exercise facilities.
Seeing armed guards at a military post is nothing out of the ordinary. Conversely, armed men on Manhattan rooftops will feed al Qaeda’s storyline of fortress America for months, even years.
Gitmo also has the advantage of not having to mingle deadly terrorists into our federal prison population, now or later.
We have called for congressional action, either by censure of the president and Holder or by cutting off funding for the hundred million dollars the New York trial is forecast to cost taxpayers.
Obama has put the U.S. in a horrible position. Hundreds of things can go wrong in the Manhattan setting.
He talks a lot of “teachable moments.”
Hopefully, one for him and us will not be, “It is easier to get into things than get out of them.”
December 1, 2009
