Smack Down of Obama Administration on KSM Trial Decision
Posted on November 13, 2009
In case you are wondering, which you probably are not since it is so obvious, the ACLU are cheering Holder’s decision to give the 911 mastermind an American trial in NY. I have a co-blogger ready to go off on this by the end of the night. If they don’t, I’ll go off tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy a few smackdowns.
Speaking at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention, Mukasey described the move, as “a decision I consider not only unwise, but based on a refusal to face the fact that what we are involved with here is a war with people who follow a religiously-based ideology that calls on them to kill us, and to return instead to the mindset that prevailed before Sept. 11 that acts like the first World Trade Center bombing, the attacks on our embassies in Africa and other such acts can and should be treated as conventional crimes and tried in conventional courts.”
Describing a pattern of decisions made since the the Obama administration pledged in January to close Guantanamo Bay prison within a year, Mukasey said that, “What’s followed has seemed in many instances to be a system in which policy is fashioned to fit and proceed rhetoric rather than being thought out in advance with arguments then formulated in support of it.”…
The difficulty of trying terror suspects through civilian courts, he said, is that the discovery process, the public presentation of evidence, and other elements of a trial “could turn a criminal proceeding into a cornucopia of information for those still at large and a circus for those in custody.”
He pointed out that when capturing the enemy combatants, pieces of information “were not gathered, nor was evidence gathered, on the assumption that they would be presented in a federal court.”
There would also be tremendous security issues involved with making sure that courthouses, jails, the judge and jury, were all safe.
Tip: Hot Air
I have never disputed the constitutional authority of the President to convene Article III courts in cases of international terrorism. However, I remain very concerned about the wisdom of doing so. Those who have committed acts of international terrorism are enemy combatants, just as certainly as the Japanese pilots who killed thousands of Americans at Pearl Harbor. It will be disruptive, costly, and potentially counterproductive to try them as criminals in our civilian courts.
The precedent set by this decision deserves careful scrutiny as we consider proper venues for trying those now held at Guantanamo who were apprehended outside of this country for acts that occurred outside of the country. And we must be especially careful with any decisions to bring onto American soil any of those prisoners who remain a threat to our country but whose cases have been adjudged as inappropriate for trial at all. They do not belong in our country, they do not belong in our courts, and they do not belong in our prisons.
I have consistently argued that military commissions, with the additional procedural rules added by Congress and enacted by President Obama, are the most appropriate venue for trying individuals adjudged to be enemy combatants.
“Please spare us talk of the ‘rule of law.’ If that was the primary consideration, the U.S. already has a judicial process in place. The current special military tribunals were created by the 2006 Military Commissions Act, which was adopted with bipartisan Congressional support after the Supreme Court’s Hamdan decision obliged the executive and legislative branches to approve a detailed plan to prosecute the illegal ‘enemy combatants’ captured since 9/11.
“Contrary to liberal myth, military tribunals aren’t a break with 200-plus years of American jurisprudence. Eight Nazis who snuck into the U.S. in June 1942 were tried by a similar court and most were hanged within two months. Before the Obama Administration stopped all proceedings earlier this year pending yesterday’s decision, the tribunals at Gitmo had earned a reputation for fairness and independence…
“Most Americans, we suspect, can overlook the legal niceties and see this episode through the lens of common sense. Foreign terrorists who wage war on America and everything it stands for have no place sitting in a court of law born of the values they so detest. Mr. Holder has honored mass murder by treating it like any other crime.”
As Rudy says this is unnecessary, irresponsible, and dangerous. We are going backwards to where we were before 911. As Krauthamer says, we are putting on a show trial that could very well end with acquittal. How will America react? It is giving the terrorists, propaganda material. We are giving the enemy a pedestal. It opens too many doors. Never in our history have we given enemy combatants, American rights, and it is sickening.
» Filed Under Barack Obama, Democrats, DoJ, Government malfeasance/misfeasance, Islamicfascism, National Security, News, President, Stupidity, Supreme Court, Video, War On Terror, military, terrorism, terrorist appeasement
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7 Responses to “Smack Down of Obama Administration on KSM Trial Decision”
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I have always considered Eric Holder had a soft spot for terrorist as he helped pardon some Puerto rican ones during the Clinton years.
I think the Military courts will also go soft on the Fort Hood shooter as they have not executed a death penalty case in decades while Texas does so regularly.
The decisions of this administration make sense only if you proceed from the assumption that they are a bunch of leftist radicals who hate America and are working for its destruction.
The Supreme Court made a terrible decision to permit trials of Terrorists in civilian courts. This gross error has been compounded by Obama to not only follow thru on this decision but to brings terrorists back to NYC. Criminalizing terrorism is a crime itself. I can only say in my current state of disbelief that there are two motives for this that occur to me: Stupidity
or curruption at the highest levels of government. I truly believe that there is a great deal of cynicism out there in the nation in regards to our government and body politic. This decision is a big one that underlies the reason for it. We are in greater risk of attack ( we have already seen the results in ft Hood ) and there may well be worse and more to come. I place the blame primarily on those Supreme Court Justices who voted to allow terrorists into civilian courts and the Obama administration itself.
“American rights”
So-called “American rights” are universal rights. Or are you the sort of relativist who does not hold those truths to be self-evident?
What are y’all so afraid of? Bringing these terrorists to justice is so long overdue its not even debatable. Your side had years to do so, and didn’t. Preferring instead to keep them as the rallying point for radicals around the world in the most un-American of places – Gitmo.
Trying mass murderers who kill Americans in American courts is the American way. It’s also the way that every other advanced nation in the world deals with terrorist. You and yours inflate their importance and their strength with your most un-American of tactics. You’d prefer to keep them detained indefinitely. If your side is to be believed, Americans right now are dying to uphold the US Constitution and all that it means and to fight the very excesses you seem to advocate. Trial by jury is one of those rights. If you don’t trust the American legal system to handle this matter, you don’t really think much of your country.
All the other terrorists the US has tried have been convicted. This ain’t OJ.
Mabad misses the point. The self evident truths are our natural rights. KSM and his ilk are being given acces to the resources behind our legal system, resources that the average American will never get. KSM will be given a top notch legal team to avoid any hint of impropriety, and this will cause a trial that goes on and on, costing everyone millions of dollars. Being as concerned with natural rights as you are, would it not be better to insist that average Americans be able to access the same resources, at the same level KSM will be, instead of an enemy combatant? You need to set a better straw man if you hope to make your “relativist” garbage stick.
KSM should have been tried by military tribunal and executed as soon as we got what we needed from him. I feel less for that SOB than the deer I kill with regularity.
The truths are self-evident (not that any leftist really believes them) but not everyone in the world is a US citizen. Even more to the point, some people are unlawful combatants who are afforded only minimal rights according to international convention. And wouldn’t it be kind of perverse if the surest way to being granted the full Constitution protection were to commit a terrorist act against American citizens?
To the other leftist poster — what is at risk here is precisely that we have another OJ. It’s the same legal system. If we get a leftist judge and a leftist jury and a skillful leftist defense team, who knows what the outcome might be. Make no mistake, your comrades on the defense will be working hard to find any technicality that undermines the case against KSM — and there will probably be many such technicalities given that he was not read his Miranda rights, and was waterboarded for information, and that the evidence against him was not collected with tweezers and placed in little ziplock bags. Your leftist friends will have a field day trying to decide which argument would be best for springing KSM loose.
If you guys really wanna git tuff with the terrorists, the best thing is to put them before a military tribunal. Then the justice you pretend to crave would be swift and sure. Besides, Obama and the Democrats revamped the procedures to make sure the tribunals are as fair as possible. Sure it would be military courts doing the deed, but you patriotic leftwingers have full confidence in our military folks to do the job right, right? Because you guys really love the military, right?
Yeah, right.