Throughout the 2008 election season, I cringed inside every time I heard a candidate wax philosophical about how terrorists ought to be treated. My hope was that the candidates spouting opposition to Guantanamo bay or grandstanding about how military tribunals were insufficient to support America’s ideals were cynically spoon-feeding nonsense to the radical leftist base. My fear was that we were returning to the pre-9/11 mindset when acts of terror were acts of criminals, not acts of war.
This week, Attorney General Holder proved my fear – all of that liberal pandering has become policy. Confessed terrorists are going to be put on trial – in civilian court, in New York no less.
I am furious. Justice may not have a price, but that’s no reason to spend millions unnecessarily. Can you imagine the enormity of the security costs that will be spent to keep Khalid Sheik Muhammad and the judges, jurors and other court staff safe? Congress has already authorized tribunals that can be conducted on military installations without closing off streets , paying for round-the-clock police or other expensive measures. This is a perfectly suitable solution at far less cost and infinitely less risk to Americans.
I admit that 9/11 is very personal to me. A friend of mine, John Farrell, was murdered that day. John was a man of immense energy and joy. He was a fine athlete, and no better man to hang around with and have a beer.
His death haunts me.
I may not always be rational in my thoughts concerning the cowards who attacked us that day, but I always will be honest. Khalid Sheik Muhammad and his co-conspirators deserve to answer to God for their crimes - in person. Their guilt is well-established in any rational mind. The thought of giving such monsters extra protection, extra rights, any consideration at all, just makes my head swim.
These murderous cowards are not common criminals. They are not warriors entitled to Geneva Convention protection. They are war criminals. There is no excuse for refusing to treat them as the moral equal of a Nazi who ordered the deaths of civilians during World War II.
The magnitude of their crime should not be matched by the magnanimity of our justice. American citizens are afforded lavish protections in which the prosecution has substantial restrictions. Every day, damning evidence is thrown out over process errors allowing guilty men to go free. Barely tolerable under normal circumstances, it is a foolish indulgence in matters of war.
A military tribunal may offer Spartan rules of evidence, discovery and cross examination, but it has served our nation for generations. I am confident in the judgment of sober-minded soldiers who will carry out their duty to both justice and the country. If it is enough for our own servicemen to be tried under this system, it is more than enough for confessed terrorists.
Khalid Sheik Muhammad and his co-conspirators are confessed villains. Their only hope is to convince 12 jurors that somehow their crime should be negated by some dubious failure of the Americans who captured them. You can bet that it is America that will be put on trial by the herd of over-educated vermin who have been preening and primping, flocking to Guantanamo bay to paddle every complaint, no matter how small, into an indictment of our military and our nation. Considering that inevitably a trial will both judge the defendant’s guilt or innocence, but also weigh those found facts against mistakes the state may have made in the gathering of evidence, there is a non-zero chance one or all of them may walk.
This administration has proven itself to be quick to indulge their high ideals when someone else is at peril and taxpayers are footing the bill. This is an inexcusable failure on the part of this administration as it pursues symbolism over justice. And EVERY leader who does not howl in outrage is complicit.
Footnote:
For More information on Military Tribunals visit Wikipedia’s entry on the 2006 legislation.
I completely agree. As someone who was in NYC on that fateful day and who lost many friends. I find it offensive that these confessed murderers will be tried less than a mile from ground zero. Forget about the added costs what about the safety and well being of an entire city? What purpose will this trial serve except to emperil the lives of a city that has already lost enough?
My name is Joseph Sneddon and I have served 5 years as an active duty Marine including 1 deployment to Iraq. I gave an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, against all enemies foreign and domestic…
Our Constitution allows Congress under Article I sec 8 to “…define and punish Offences against the Law of Nations…” within the confines of the Due Process and Equal Protection required for all PERSONS, not only citizens, under our jurisdiction. Using the Necessary and Proper clause, we have codified the Due Process and Equal Protection required for prisoners of war through the Uniform Code of Military Justice. At a minimum enemy combatants must be afforded notice and an opportunity to be heard. However, since there has been no declaration of war against any foreign sovereigns, nor Letters of Reprisal issued against persons or activities, then the prisoners we are currently holding have been denied notice of their legal jeopardy as potential prisoners of war rather than as civilian criminals. The other critical element of Due Process is an opportunity to be heard. Yet to date barely a handful of the Gitmo detainees have received a trial. Due Process is always able to be provided so long as the law which underpins it has not itself been broken. We must then be very careful when weighing the arguments of those responsible for the breakdown in the enforcement of our law for to concede that we are not capable of providing Due Process is to admit that we have broken our own law. Providing these things, to the worst of humanity, is what separates the law abiding from the pirate and the terrorist.
Guantanamo Bay is a stain upon our National Honor. Within its walls we denied other human beings the same Due Process we gave to Nazi’s guilty of genocide. Within it’s walls we committed torture in the name of convenience. Within it’s walls our government abandoned the Ethics of Liberty for the cheap bauble of expediency. It must be closed and what went on there must never be repeated.
“it is easy to make light of insistence on scrupulous regard for the safeguards of civil liberties when invoked on behalf of the unworthy. It is too easy. History bears testimony that by such disregard are the rights of liberty extinguished, heedlessly at first, then stealthily, and brazenly in the end.” Justice Felix Frankfurter
Mr. Sheddon, your post is thoughtful and I think it deserves a thoughtful response. However, I would like to point out that due process does not require all the bells and whistles that have slowly crept into our legal system over the decades.
The fact that there has not been a series of formal declarations by Congress is not a result of any oversight by Congress, but due to the relative novelty of these offenses. Terrorist organizations may be non-state actors against whom letters cannot be served but they carry out the sort of crimes that were only possible by states in the not too distant past. This fact ought not be used to afford them MORE rights than war criminals. Just the opposite. By being barbaric, they deserve little more than to be squeezed dry of information, given five minutes to make their peace with whom they will soon meet, and be hung from a yardarm.
Today, there is no advantage to obeying the laws and traditions of land warfare as there was when the Geneva protocols were accepted. Today, engaging in terrorist actions with the specific intent in inflicting civilian casualties will not net you a cursory but fair review. Not at all, murdering civilians while complaining bitterly about America will get you get a full-blown circus trial complete with highly-educated lawyers stuffed full of self-righteousness who are bound by code to do ANYTHING to secure acquittal.
If then there is no advantage to confining your warfare to those customs intended to protect civilians, we can expect more of the same.
I would not deny an incapacitated combatant accused of a war crime due process, but a military tribunal system was in fact authorized by Congress. These particular killers had already agreed to plead guilty under that system. KSM and his fellow war criminals would already have had their day in court, and we would have ended their days by the numbers were it not for this administration’s desire to turn this into a show trial.
Dear Mr. Warren, I appreciate your response. It was less that a year ago that would’ve agreed with you. Obviously I don’t condone the actions of the terrorists, but murder is murder. It doesn’t matter if I kill because they’re American, British, white, black, male, female, Christian, or Muslim it’s still the same crime, murder. Do we really believe in what our Declaration of Independence states? “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL MEN are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.?” or is that just rhetoric now? What’s the point of having a Constitution if we get to pick and chose who it applies to? These murderers are not worth throwing out the Constitution over.
“Every bad precedent originated as a justifiable measure.” Sallust
Today Law enforcement agencies are starting to use anti-terrorism laws to profile US citizens right here in Missouri. (http://www.scribd.com/doc/13290698/The-Modern-Militia-MovementMissouri-MIAC-Strategic-Report-20Feb09-) The Department of Homeland Security has done the same thing on a national level. (http://www.gordonunleashed.com/HSA%20-%20Rightwing%20Extremism%20-%2009%2004%2007.pdf) If a few terrorist can get us to violate our own Laws, can we still claim to be a nation governend by Laws? The State of NY does have the authority to try KSM for the crimes he commited in the State of NY. Also I’m not a fan of the military judicial system. During my time in the Marines, I saw several marines get charged with crimes just because the commander didn’t like them. Our service men and women deserve better that our military’s system of “justice.”
I think we fundamentally disagree on what “violating our own laws” means though I believe I have the better part of the argument. If Congress has the authority to decide what constitutes a court – and they do – then the process under the Military Commissions Act of 2006 is a perfectly legal way to try a case. Given this, I think your assertion that only a full-blown civilian trial is a trial consistent with lawful justice fails under the rules you set forth – Congressional authority. If Congress authorizes it it is by definition lawful and employing those courts so authorized for such defendants is perfectly legitimate.
Whether or not a court is just is a philosophical issue, not a legal one, and these philosophical debates are the very type we expect our representatives in Congress to cope with. If you think the MCA is unjust, that is a matter to take up with Congress. Perhaps it is unjust (I do not think it is neccessarily) but that debate has happened and a conclusion drawn. There is no reason for the state to not take advantage of it, at least not in this case.
Further, the Commander in Chief, along with his Attorney General have guaranteed that these defendants will be found guilty, an amazing – and disgusting – assertion from lifelong civil libertarians. If the state has purposed to never let the defendants go free no matter the outcome of the court’s decision, how can this be anything but a show trial?
I’m not fooled by this, and I think on reflection few will be, certainly not our enemies. The only clear purpose of this trial is to put George W. Bush on trial. The Supreme court has made it clear that civilian defendants have an absolute right to see all evidence that will be used against them without regard to any claims by the government that revelations might imperil state secrets, such as sources and methods. Evidence will either be suppressed to protect our national security, or things will be revealed that will be an intelligence boon to our enemies.
On a side note, I recall dimly from a relative that a uniformed serviceman had the option of requesting a civilian trial when accused of a crime. I know that they can request civilian counsel, though not necessarily at the government’s expense.