9/11 Terrorists Get Civilian Trial

In one of the most shockingly dumb and naive -- or is it dangerous? maybe both -- moves of his already shockingly dumb and naive Presidency, Barack Obama has ordered that five Gitmo detainees be brought for a civilian trial in New York.  Among them is Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind.

Self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court, an Obama administration official said Friday.

The official said Attorney General Eric Holder plans to announce the decision later in the morning. …

Bringing such notorious suspects to U.S. soil to face trial is a key step in President Barack Obama's plan to close the terror suspect detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama initially planned to close the detention center by Jan. 22, but the administration is no longer expected to meet that deadline.

My first reflexive response is something I've blogged about before: a trial in civilian courts is a total warping of the U.S. justice system.  These guys aren't American citizens, thus they do not get the rights and protections of the American Constitution.  They have not legally earned the rights and protections of the Geneva Conventions, either, because their terrorist actions violated those, too.  These guys were picked up on the battlefield actively trying to kill American soldiers, and admitting to mass murder of American citizens.  Legally speaking, they have no rights or protections beyond the basic decency of human rights.  In past decades, they would have been rounded up and held without trial, and dealt with swiftly (both FDR and Abe Lincoln did that).  Of course, they were patriotic Americans who had courage and leadership skills.  Obama is oh-for-three there.

Part of the conflict here is that while these guys go for a civilian trial, several other high profile terrorists are simultaneously going through the military tribunal process that we've used for a very long time to deal with enemy combatants.  Why the disparity?  As with everything Obama does, it's pure political expediency:

That's almost shameful, by the way. The President undermines the legitimacy of the military commissions, but doesn't have the stones to replace them or end them. There is no guiding principle here, no brave and historic philosophy of governance. It's mere electoral practicality.

The President knows he can't merely sit and do nothing this time. He made a bunch of nice words about closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and sending these guys to criminal trials. His minders probably pulled him aside twenty minutes after sitting down in the Oval Office and explained that if he did that, he'd never see a second term. As a result, we have this bifurcated prosecution. Some go to criminal trials, some go to military commissions and not a rhyme or reason to it except the President wants to be reelected.

In fact, it looks suspiciously like a show trial:

So, the man who blew up New York gets a civilian trial and the guy who blew up the Cole gets a military tribunal.

Perhaps Obama is banking on a jury of New Yorkers intent on hanging Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, but remember, if he goes to a jury in New York, he gets to wind his way through the system claiming he got no right to a fair trial.

If we're talking show trials, this is more and more evidence of the Obama Administration developing all the characteristics of a third world kleptocracy or totalitarian regime.

A third world kleptocracy or totalitarian regime?  Hm, it seems we're seeing a pattern here.

But there's another aspect of this New York show trial that is profoundly disturbing:

What do we get from having the 9/11 plotters tried in criminal court in New York City?  Well, we get to have the city painted as a big, bright target for terrorist action during the entirety of the trial.  Thanks to press coverage, which should be an order of magnitude more obsessive than the OJ Simpson trial in LA fourteen years ago, jihadists will come out of the woodwork to make a big international splash, or more likely a boom.  We also give KSM and his cohorts a big, juicy media platform for their bile.  That was one of their motivations for conducting the attack in the first place, and we finally get to deliver it to them.

And don't forget that all of this circus is being paid for by tax dollars - yours and mine.  Which do you think costs less:
1. a confidential military tribunal held out of the country and out of the public eye in a short period of time
2. a very public months-long primetime media event being watched by the entire world

And what happens if the judge boots some key evidence because of the way it was gathered?  Do you think that Marines in a pitched firefight really have time to do the things that are required to get a civilian conviction, like gather shell casings and do ballistics analysis?  What then, Mr. President?  Do you release these guys?

Andy McCarthy points out that these terrorists have readily (and proudly) admitted to these atrocities, and the fact that this show trial will take place at all is pure farce leading to pure danger:

KSM has no defense. He was under American indictment for terrorism for years before there ever was a 9/11, and he can't help himself but brag about the atrocities he and his fellow barbarians have carried out.

So: 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.

While you and I probably can't identify with it, there are plenty of people in this country who actually want to blame America and reveal this information to the rest of the world in order to hamstring the War on Terror.  Given that New York is one of the most liberal places in the country, it's a good bet some of them will be on the jury itself.  Bad news.

I think the President has placed himself in a literal no-win situation.  If these terrorists are convicted and punished, it'll enrage the radical Muslim community and the Left around the world, and the U.S. will be condemned for holding a show trial with no substance (not that they wouldn't hate us anyway, but this will just make it more fervent).  If they're found not guilty, they'll be released to commit further atrocities against us, not only putting Americans in further danger but also making us a global laughingstock in the process.  I mean, seriously, if this happens, think about it:
1. terrorists wage religious jihad and kill 3,000 American citizens
2. the U.S. captures the terrorists responsible
3. the U.S. grants these terrorists the same rights as the American citizens the terrorists murdered
4. the U.S. provides top-notch legal representation for these terrorists at the expense of the taxpayers
5. the U.S. finds the terrorists not guilty and releases them into America

Does this depress/enrage anyone else, or is it just me?

I think it's safe to say that the American public will truly go ballistic about that if it happens.  As Michelle Malkin put it:

If this White House thought Tea Party activists were an "angry mob," wait until they see the backlash from 9/11 family members and their supporters nationwide. We're not going to sit down and shut up about the reckless, security-undermining Obama 9/10 agenda and conflict-of-interest-ridden AG Eric Holder.

And boy, if that happens, Obama's presidency will go into the crapper faster than you can say 'hope-n-change'!  Barack Obama will become so toxic to patriotic, red-blooded Americans that anyone with any attachment to him will risk the most thorough electoral thrashing imaginable.  Can you just see the campaign commercials now?

"Barack Obama: the man who campaigned against American troops, surrendered in Afghanistan, and released the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks..."

He'll become the first President to become a lame duck before the halfway point of his first term because Democrats -- who are already leery of what he's doing -- will sprint away from him in an attempt to save their own political careers.  This cannot end well for anyone, not even Obama.  It is literally beyond me to comprehend this course of action.

On a related note, terrorists love the American justice system:

Back at the safehouse [in Queens] again that evening, the jihadists talked about future operations they hoped to carry out if the present plot [to bomb the UN complex and the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels] went well. In addition to the George Washington Bridge and the [the FBI's Manhattan headquarters], Siddig Ali, Amir Abdelgani, and Tarig Elhassan discussed scouting a U.S. military base on Staten Island—which Siddig apparently sensed might be a more promising target than the Manhattan armory he had surveilled back in the spring.

 

The plotters then engaged in a breathtaking conversation, castigating the United States with the exception of the one thing they really liked about our nation:  the criminal justice system. 

Amir Abdelgani advised his confederates that, if arrested, "Nobody talk until seeing his lawyer."

 

"You understand," Siddig echoed.  "Tell them, 'I don't know.  I'm not talking to you.  Bring my lawyer.'  Never talk to them.  Not a word. 'My lawyer'—that's it!  That's what's so beautiful about America."

I rest my case.

There's my two cents.