KSM Trial: A Confederacy for Dunces
(AP Photo/www.muslm.net)
-Andrew McCarthy, writer for the National Review, in an editorial on CBSNews.com, Nov. 16.
"One of the most irresponsible [decisions] ever made by a presidential administration"? Really? More irresponsible than blowing off warnings in August 2001 about al Qaeda attacks within the United States using planes? More irresponsible than starting a war against Iraq based upon faulty intelligence information? More irresponsible than letting Osama bin Laden escape from Tora Bora? More irresponsible than authorizing the torture of terror suspects in contravention of domestic and foreign law? More irresponsible than insisting upon unfair military tribunal rules despite Supreme Court decisions to the contrary?
Conservatives like McCarthy had their chance to prosecute the legal war on terror and America is still cleaning up the mess they have left. For example, the Bush administration and its supporters in Congress had several opportunities to formulate fair trial rules for men like Mohammed. Instead, the executive and legislative branches tried over and over again to force a series of patently unfair procedures down the throats of the federal judiciary. The argument that the "jihadists were prepared to end the military case" before the Obama administration went the federal civilian trial route ignores the legal chaos and inertia that surrounded the tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Having failed miserably to accomplish the job of prosecuting and convicting terror suspects via tribunal, and being unable to argue against the track record created by the federal courts in trying terrorists, the Right now wants you to believe that there is a great conspiracy afoot. The argument is that President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and their apparatchiks are gleefully going to permit or encourage the Mohammed trial to degenerate into a trial of Bush-era torture policies and practices. The premise is that current administration officials would rather punish their predecessors than the man who openly boasts of planning the worst terror attack on American soil. "This will give the Left its promised feast," McCarthy cries.
You need only consider the alleged co-conspirators to this plot to understand how much of a fable it really is. Federal prosecutors will be conspiring with criminal defense attorneys, who will be conspiring with veteran federal trial judges, who will be conspiring with intelligence officials, who will be conspiring with trial witnesses and experts and the media, who will be conspiring with the judges of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who will be conspiring with the most conservative Supreme Court in a generation, all to the benefit of al Qaeda and to the detriment of former government officials. In other words, the very same justice system which is designed to encourage conflict and contest in a test of evidence and a search for truth suddenly is going to coalesce around a plan to incriminate Bush officials and help al Qaeda.
It gets worse. McCarthy also is selling the canard that administration officials have brought the Mohammed trial to America, to open court, so that White House allies out of government can "gather up each new disclosure and add it to the purported war-crimes case they are urging foreign courts to bring against President Bush, his subordinates, and U.S. intelligence agents." So you can add civil rights groups to the list of co-conspirators and maybe Spain and a few other countries as well. Pretty soon, the number of conspirators in the fantasy plot will rival the number of conspirators federal prosecutors say were involved in the 9/11 attacks.
The truth is that the Obama Administration has had plenty of opportunities to more fully expose any misfeasance attributed to men like John Yoo and David Addington and Dick Cheney and Jay Bybee. And, in almost all circumstances, Democratic officials have protected their Republican predecessors. Yes, the White House released certain embarrassing memos a few months ago that gave us more information about the formation of Bush-era torture policies. But Obama has consistently refused to authorize a "truth" commission to look into the matter, has invoked privileges to protect evidence, and has left his former colleagues in the Congress to publicize their own investigations into how we became, for a few years, a nation that tortured people.
There is no more an active conspiracy to indict the past regime than there is, necessarily, an "unprecedented danger" to our security brought about by the Mohammed case. The mayor of New York, who will be in office when the trial gets underway, says the City is ready for the challenge. So does the police commissioner. Both before and after 9/11, Manhattan has been a secure venue for terrorism trials and a good many of the 300 foreign and domestic terrorists currently sitting in our prisons came through the Southern District of New York.
Classified material? Critics of a civilian trial say it will give Mohammed and his colleagues all sorts of secrets—another form of the security argument. But federal judges have long used the Classified Information Procedures Act to govern the use (or not) of classified information at trial. Holder on Wednesday morning reminded the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Congress "recently adopted" standards for the military commissions based upon the CIPA rules themselves. The idea that the civilian trials are going to be sieves while the tribunals were going to be sealed tight just doesn't fly.
"For eight years," Holder told the Judiciary Committee in prepared remarks, "justice has been delayed for the victims of the 9/11 attacks. It has been delayed even further for the victims of the attack on the USS Cole. No longer. No more delays. It is time, it is past time, to act. By bringing prosecutions in both our courts and military commissions, by seeking the death penalty, by holding these terrorists responsible for their actions, we are finally taking ultimate steps toward justice."
You tell me if those are the words of a man who is part of a treasonous government conspiracy to aid our sworn enemy for political gain. You tell me if bringing Mohammed to a capital trial near Ground Zero is an overt act toward fulfilling some plan to embarrass the evidently un-embarrassable Dick Cheney. The only confederacy in play here exists in the minds of those who are angry and frustrated at having blown their own chance to see Mohammed get the justice he deserves under their watch.
Popular in Politics
- IRS' Lerner: "I have not done anything wrong" 413 Comments
- Officials on Benghazi: "We made mistakes, but without malice" 438 Comments
- Anthony Weiner comeback try begins: Running for NYC mayor 116 Comments
- Major immigration overhaul passes first big test
- Christie: Keep politics out of Oklahoma disaster relief
- Obama to view Oklahoma tornado damage Sunday
- Will tornado relief funding escape politics?
- Top IRS official to invoke 5th Amendment at congressional testimony 218 Comments
Or perhaps a lawyer determined to split hairs, in a vain effort to whitewash history.
Go read the Presidential Daily Briefing yourself - from August 6, 2001(36 days before 9/11) and read about al Qaeda, attacking the US, and planes and hijacking for yourself. There's a few pieces redacted, but not enough that you can't clearly discern the gist of it.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0409041pdb2.html
If you're feeling ambitious, you can look over what the POTUS and his staff did in the 36 days following that briefing. Let's just say that their approach to the warning was not "pro-active".
He leaves out the fact that the Holder Justice Department has potential conflicts of interest by employing lawyers who have been involved with defending terrorists for free.
He leaves out the fact that Mr. McCarthy never used the word "conspiracy." It is an opportunity for terrorist defenders to use against us, and they will. It gives KSM a huge opportunity in a national media market to focus on his treatment.
He leaves out the fact that information was obtained from KSM under the assumption that he would be subjected to a military tribunal, not the kind of proceeding that Mr. Cohen so adamantly cheers.
Mr. Cohen further writes:
"More irresponsible than blowing off warnings in August 2001 about al Qaeda attacks within the United States using planes?"
Those warnings contained no specific intelligence. Mr. Cohen knows that.
"More irresponsible than starting a war against Iraq based upon faulty intelligence information?"
No war was ever fought on the basis of perfect intelligence.
"More irresponsible than letting Osama bin Laden escape from Tora Bora?"
Bin Laden was reported to be in several other places as well, at that time.
"More irresponsible than authorizing the torture of terror suspects in contravention of domestic and foreign law?"
Waterboarding is close but definitely not torture. Gang rape in prison is torture. mr. Cohen never writes about that.
"More irresponsible than insisting upon unfair military tribunal rules despite Supreme Court decisions to the contrary?"
By what standard is this called unfair?
I will keep this column on my desktop for a few years. We will see if the concerns that Mr. Cohen dismisses are indeed real.
In the meantime, go defend the AGW alarmists from their own words, you baldheaded fart.
I believe that the effect of allowing these individuals to be subject to our criminal court system will hog tie our Soldiers in the theater of battle. They will not be able to make life saving split second decisions without the threat of being dragged into court. Police Officers have to appear in court all the time for criminal cases.
The existing military court system is capable of handling these cases. The politicians on both sides in this country have made a mockery of our judicial system in order to satisfy the blowing winds of public opinion. What do we gain by prosecuting these individuals in a regular criminal court except to satisfy our need for justice. The military courts already in place can try these cases. The politicians need to get out of the way so we can process these individuals in the way that our system of Government already has in place.
One last thing. Since KSM was not read his rights under our constitution does that mean everything he has said or admitted to will be inadmissible in our court system? Also how many re-trials or challenges will our brilliant politicians allow these individuals?
You are right. He was not read his Moranda rights. All his alledged testimony will not be allowed in court. Any confesseions as well due to waterboarding not admissable. The fact is now that Obama has made this a civil criminal case, we have abused his rights under the Constitution. He /they have been held for over 6 years WITHOUT CHARGE. Obama knows what he is doing. They will walk and all the blame can be focused on the Bush administration. THEY PROBABLY WILL WALK NOW. Good post!
To be honest, I stopped reading your op-ed at that single line of BS.
Logic has failed you. Worse than that, ethics has failed you. For a supposed intellectual, is this the best you can do??? How very sad.
For two reasons:
1) People will have to REMEMBER something they've obscenely tried to forget or excuse; the murder of thousands at the hands of these terrorists.
2) Hopefully this will end those ridiculous lunatic "conspiracy theorists" (such a term's too good for them). Can't you just SEE them trying to prove
that KSM and Cheney were friends?
It doesn't matter if they confessed if their Moranda rights were not given. Any lawyer can get them off that one. Only Now cause it is civil. In a military tribunal theeir confessions would stand.
It?s kind of funny some of the things that Fox & Friends are saying about this. They?ve been suggesting that KSM will end up with a mistrial or found innocent (As if?) and then be freed. Freed in downtown Manhattan, were he can cause even more damage to America.
Right? Go GOP! Go Fox News.