Terrorist trials in New York – Revisited
Just over a week ago, United States Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he would be bringing five of the suspects in the 9/11 attacks to New York to stand trial in federal civilian court. These suspects are Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Waleed bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali. At the time, I wrote an article that was actually in favor of the decision, as I felt it was important for these suspects to be punished if they are guilty. I felt it was just as important for the punishment to be seen as fair by the rest of the world. In that article I wrote the following paragraph.
Some may not agree that these men should be moved to the United States. While it may be risky doing so, I would ask this question. If these men are guilty, and they most likely are, and if our interest is to administer justice to them for their crimes, where else would we expect them to be tried? The crimes they are accused of happened on American soil and mostly against civilian targets, with the exception of the Pentagon. If anyone has a better suggestion of where they should stand trial, please speak up.
After doing extensive reading and giving much thought to this issue, I must say that I stand corrected. I no longer believe it is a good idea for these terrorists to be given access to our criminal court system and the Constitutional rights that come with that access. Let me see if I can explain.
These men are not American citizens and seem to exist for only one purpose; their desire to destroy America and our way of
life is paramount above all else to them. Because they are enemy combatants, there is no precedent that I can find for bringing them to trial in a civilian court. As far as I can tell, it has never been done before and I see no extraordinary circumstances that would warrant changing that precedent. I still want them treated fairly, but just because they may have been tortured at Guantanamo Bay does not give them the right to a trial in our civilian court system.
I can not speak for Eric Holder’s intention or how he made his decision, but I now believe that decision was the wrong one for him to make. If we start the precedent of bringing these people to our country to stand trial, where will it stop? If Osama bin Laden is captured, will he be brought to trial in New York? I do not have the perfect answer for this dilemma, but bringing them to New York for trial would give them the possibility of walking on a technicality, due to the Constitutional constraints of our civilian courts. It would also grant them a measure of respect that they most assuredly do not deserve.
I heard a Democratic pundit earlier today saying this case would NOT set legal precedent in that the American Taliban, John Walker Lindh was captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan and returned here and tried in Federal Court. That is true, but he was an American citizen. The German spys and would be sabators who were even captured in N Y State in WWII were tried by Military Tribunals as best I can recall—I could be wrong on this, but I think that was the case. As Lindsay Graham said recently at the Senate hearing this would be ground breaking precedent. If its so vital to have these civil trials why then well some still be tried by military courts—Eric Holders answers just don’t wash. Something else is afoot here.
On a personal note Larry, I use to live in OK, in the small town of Medicine Park just outside of Lawton, had a small stone house there on the side of Wolf Mountain and guess what I also raised pigeons, but not the homing kind, rather the cooking kind—-squabs were great. That, however was many years ago.
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The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that these terrorists should not be tried in our civilian court system. They simply do not deserve the rights and privileges that go with such a trial.
I didn’t know you used to live in Oklahoma, Ron. It is truly a small world. As for eating some of my birds, my wife says she has eaten squabs before and that they are very good. I wouldn’t want to eat mine, but I mentioned it to my daughters once and I thought I was going to get scalped. They said it would be like eating our Poodle.
Glad to see the reversal Larry! These people are not American citizens and were caught on the battlefield fighting against us, I don’t understand how anyone can legitimize giving them the same rights as American citizens. It has never been done before and we shouldn’t start now.
This opens up the possibility that evidence agaisnt them could be thrown out because of waterboarding and let us not forget that they were not read their rights. There is a possibility, while minute, that these people could walk on a technicallity.
And even if they are found guilty how will it play to the extremeist Muslims if we hold a trial in which the president assured the American people that the defendents will be found guilty and executed before the trial even began. They will use Obama’s words in defense of this decision to claim that the trial was rigged and that justice was not served. It seems to me that this could be used as a recruitment tool.
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I still feel these terrorists could have been handled differently than they were by the Bush administration. The waterboarding and such tactics should have never been used. However, the more I looked at the situation, the more I came to believe that our civilian court system is simply no place for these men to receive their justice.
I think they could be retried in a military tribunal if the government thinks that a retrial is merited. I wouldn’t worry about state secrets being revealed during a trial either. As far as I know, an American citizen would not have access to that information, so why should an exception be made for these guys? The point is moot though, they’re going to New York.
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