Torture Debate.
The Obama administration decision just announced to transfer 9-11 Devil KSM to New York to stand trial for mass murder in a Federal court looks to be laden with risks. The Justice Department states that it will seek the death penalty. Right away, how does KSM get a fair trial in NYC? Also, in a court, KSM is presumed innocent,and he has already confessed several times to his conduct without representation: Will this confession to a military tribunal authority remain in place, will KSM change his plea, will KSM be permitted to confess presumptively without counsel in the Federal system? Then there is the torture debate. POTUS and Attorney General Eric Holder have both on several occasions remarked that KSM was "tortured," when he was subject to the so-called enhanced interrogations at GITMO. I will wait on the full thinking of the massively shrewd lawyer pool in the nation, but as an amateur reader of US history, I am confounded to think of a model for trying in a Federal court a prisoner who has been tortured to confess his crimes. It sounds like lynching. It is lynching, until someone shows me how it is acceptable to torture a man to confess and then to sentence him to death upon his confession?
GITMO Politics
The fresh partisan news is that the GOP has immediately seized on the KSM decision to highlight the differences between the parties re national security. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calls it a "Step backward." John Boehner asserts that the White House was "reverting to a dangerous pre-9/11 mentality." The major blast comes from Joe Liebermann, who uses WMD rhetoric: "It is inconceivable that we would bring these alleged terrorists back to New York for trial, to the scene of the carnage they created eight years ago, and give them a platform to mock the suffering of their victims and the victims' families, and rally their followers to continue waging jihad against America." Lieberman's point will be a rallying cry for his colleagues John McCain and Lindsey Graham. It is a fair guess that all New York lawmakers in Washington and Albany will contribute to the hissing and shrieking. Why does the Obama administration want to pick this fight? Is it because there is no one of weight in the White House from New York City? Can POTUS and his political advisers, chiefly Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, be ignorant of New York and its pols? The 9/11 families live here and exercise overwhelming political moxie. The trial will make NYC the center of the known universe for legal, moral, political, spiritual and historical firefights? Everyone can imagine the security problem. Foley Square (right) as target uno for the world's do-I-feel-lucky jihadist cell. Then there are the sicko Hasans of the planet, some of have been known to visit New York.
NYC Risk.
There is the additional puzzle as to why the process of military tribunals, which was underway for KSM as recently as December 2008, did not answer the Obama administration's concerns? KSM admitted to the court that he is guilty. He did so the last time he faced a military judge in GITMO. He was ready to be sentenced. So were his four conspirators. The Obama administration chose last January to set all that aside and proceed to this mysterious ten month review (after saying it would require six months), and the result is this confusion. Eric Holder asserts that he is confident that the prosecution will be successful in obtaining a guilty verdict and the death penalty. But this is a Federal courtroom. Anything can happen, including especially treating the accused as not guilty and then risking a failure to convict. Perhaps KSM will do us a favor and interpret his life as martydom, insisting he is guilt, shunning lawyers, and asking to be executed. I cannot now answer (because I am an amateur historian) if a court is permitted to permit a defendant to insist upon guilt and execution without examining how the evidence provided by the prosecution was obtained. That would be the torture defense. Ed Hayes has told me repeatedly that he does nto see how you can get a conviction in Federal court based upon torture or even with torture as part of the process of detention since 2002. I am eager to learn how the prosecutors maneuver through an obstacle course that is immediately crowded with three centuries of jurisprudence about the accused and with every civil libertarian alive and dead. Then there is the death penalty part. How can Uncle Sam execute a man who POTUS has declared a victim of torture by Uncle Sam? This alone will be law school debate for the next several centuries. Look at how the 1865 Federal court treated the Lincoln conspirators. Who does not squirm at reading the abuse of the prisoners -- the hanging of Mary Surratt?
GITMO Forever.
There is still the lingering problem that there are cases at GITMO that will not be tried in Federal Court and that have yet to be adjudicated. The question remains, what is to be done with a convicted terrorist who remains dangerous and cannot be jailed forever? Also, closing GITMO is a partisan political chip for the Obama administration. What of the detainees at Bagram airbase outside of Kabul, which the Obama administration has been using as a catch-all. It is filling up with terror suspects, many of whom we do not know nor will likely ever learn of. What is to be done with the New GITMO? Leave it to the next Attorney General? Is that what Greg Craig said before he was fired? We will get the story, but for now it looks that the Obama team over promised and now under delivers -- and Greg Craig was the fall guy.
Keywords- Civilian Court under Military Commission Rules
Once again, a blizzard of contradictions swirls around a decision reached by the current administration. It is difficult to see any upside to anything that might result from trying KSM in a NYC Federal Court.
In mathematics, any inconsistencies and/or discrepancies can always be resolved from the reach of the next higher dimension. So too, POTUS’ reasoning can be discerned by asking, “Why?” Already we see red flags emerging in watching Obama comment on the decision from oversees havens, essentially saying, “No comment. Eric Holder is handling it.” This means that, should anything happen to warrant blame, Holder becomes the guy who will be asked to fall on his sword.
Why, indeed! To me it’s quite consistent with what’s been happening from the start of this presidency. Many people, particularly the MSM, are not quite ready to admit it yet lest they get egg on their Botoxed faces – which just goes to prove that the Himalayan sage was right when he proclaimed that ego is the last thing that one gives up when faced with certain death.
Obama wishes first and foremost to destroy America. He is well on his way to having accomplished just that with regard to America's economy. He is working on the destruction of representative governance; education; private industry, energy; strategic (foreign) alliances… there are others I could list. The big item remaining, however, is the military which would include the intelligence services.
A public trial will bring out the inner workings of the CIA and make them public. It will also rekindle the debate about waterboarding and torture - all of it, designed to make the military look bad and ineffective. There are those who suggest it will outright destroy the viability of the CIA. It will also spur the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld haters to renew their demand to put the entire Bush administration on trial for war crimes. And ultimately it will give the blame-America-first Left a platform from which to spew their venom which may just be enough to result in a “not guilty” verdict.
KSM has already admitted guilt. He has asked to be martyred. Why we need a (circus) trial at all is a mystery. Unless, of course, it's to put the U.S. on trial and establish guilt there as well. It then becomes a game of deciding who bears the greater guilt. Would the death penalty apply to the U.S. as well?
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, self-described mastermind of the attacks, and four others will be tried in New York federal court.
Indirectly, 1600 wants to put Bush 43 and the CIA, DIA and other agencies on trial. Waterborading will also be ion trial. GOP=Waterborading Dems=Good guys (in their twelver vision)
AG just said he "informed" the president on NewsHour. AG was part of Clinton Clemency/Amnesty for the Puerto Rican Terrorists.
Since it is NYC, you know there will be some liberal rear facing orifice on that jury that will vote too acquit. It'll be like OJ, but without the Bronco chase. May be Ron Kuby will defend him. What a circus.
JB, while I sympathize with your philosophical query, may be you can go and talk to KSM and get the real story and one more question: If not in federal court, then where? And if not on trial, what then? May be they should have interrogated him in the mariana trench.
Up to this point, I've tried to give the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt in the face of mounting evidence that they are trying to destroy the nation from within in order to rebuild it as a "social democracy." But I can find no reason for Obama to force this KSM circus EXCEPT to neuter the intelligence and military services. If he wanted to end the use of waterboarding, he could forbid it (which he did); if he wanted to prove to the world that he was changing the way the US does things, he could have simply purged the CIA. He wouldn't have had to force the trial of KSM in a NY federal court.
I dunno. Anecdotally speaking, I can tell you there are still a lot of pissed-off people in NYC who want to see this guy get the chair. I would sit on that jury. I don't think they'll stack the bench too easily unless they bring in a lot of the new transplants who have moved here since 9/11 (thanks for the condos and all the new yuppies, Bloomberg, some of us bohemian lifers liked it the way it was) who have no personal connection to the day--let alone awareness of the first attempt in the '90s--and no deeper understanding of the deeper issues. This is a town which loves its cops and firemen, and is much nicer to its neighbors than reputation would suggest. I don't think it's a right/left thing for those who were here, it was murder and death and it was in your face. Even for the simpering apologists, it's hard to argue vague abstractions with the towers on fire. It becomes a concrete issue at that point. Yes, these are the bad men who intend to kill us where we live.
On a related note, does anyone here have a link to an article which analyzes the rate of terror recidivism on the part of the Gitmo prisoners so far released? I've heard there is some measured percentage of the thus-far released prisoners who have been known to have gone right back to the same old thing. It'd be good to have the article if it exists.
Thanks as always for your hard work, John.
pulp, there are some Pentagon data here, though this is from earlier in the year, so might not be the most recent numbers: they estimate 14% recividism rate:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/05/26/gitmo.recidivism/index.html
Thanks, JR. I wonder how the 14% recidivism rate compares to the regular criminal class?
- The families of 9/11 Safety and Security For US-Assorted NY departments were organizing a petition against the Federal court- Original determination date was Monday 11/16 -Did Holder opt to beat the mounting pressure against it? YUP
- I really do not like this move - and I didn't like for the Blind sheik case in 93 WTC bombing any better - These are acts of War and should be tried by Military tribunal. There is no win to be had in taking this to the civilian court. The Arab St that cares about these 5 dogs will not acknowledge justice at work in either format., and truth be said it is much harder to intimidate a military tribunal in Cuba then a federal court judge and jury & the center of the financial capital of the world.
- What was the reasoning for dropping the military tribunals anyway? -Transparency? Ha . . .Tell that to the Uihgers.
Here's a cheery thought: if KSM (or his lawyers) decide not to "play" the civilian trial "game"--i.e. declare 9/11 was an act of war. Acts of war are outside federal court jurisdiction (or so I believe). Then what? Also is there not on-going tribunal (currently suspended)? Does being accused in two different fora create problems? I actually don't know the answer, but am asking the question. I see years of nutty questions just like mine.....
Obama clearly does not believe in American exceptionalism, but he fervently believes in Obama exceptionalism. ONLY HE can do what has previously been held to be, or even proven to be, impossible for mere mortals. Obama's approach to the war on terror—aptly characterized by Andy McCarthy as even more blindly ideological than the original "September 10th mentality"—is a double-barreled case in point. Not only has Obama expunged the very word "terror" from his policy lexicon, he is now hell-bent on doing away with resort to war as one of America's policy tools. In the Age of Obama, America and the world will make war no more, opting instead for an ostentatiously Not George Bush internationalist regime of diplomatic process for its own sake and strictly police-and-courts responses to whatever acts of violence (or "man-made disasters") as do occur, however horrendous. Allegedly, even in the face of common sense, this will somehow create "peace."
As his Administration transfers the cases of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his murderous colleagues from military jurisdiction to civilian court in New York, Obama surely must know the very real risk of acquittal on a variety of possible grounds or at least the years of interminable appeal of any guilty verdict, AG Eric Holder's pseudo-macho invocation of the death penalty notwithstanding. In fact, acquittal seems likely, and to hell with the memory of the 3,000 victims of 9/11, not to mention their survivors, friends and neighbors, etc. After all, like any other ideological visionary, Barack Obama accepts that one cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs.
In the Age of Obama, the American people, with their wealth, their jobs, their access to energy resources, even their right and ability to defend themselves against murderous enemies foreign and domestic are so many eggs for Obama’s personal recipe for a new world order omelet in which a deservedly chastened USA is reduced to just one more Third World-level ingredient. Demonization of George W. Bush, repeal of the Reagan Revolution in both domestic and foreign affairs, indeed repeal of the American Revolution altogether, accurately explain Obama’s radical policies. As his latest historically absurd declaration in Asia proves—“I’m America’s first Pacific President”—made even as he bows abjectly to the Japanese Emperor, Barack Hussein Obama is not about America but all about himself, being at the same time self-referential and self-reverential to an alarming and sickening degree.
no longer perplexing and alarming this occupant of 1600 is an avowed enemy of many of the facts and truths of american
history, american exceptionalism and american dynamism. he is clearly seeking to reshape this nation into a diminished and neutered "utopian" paradise for the benefit of his allies and our enemies alike. reparations for slavery , colonialism imperialism and capitalism are right now in the process of being conceived,planned and extracted from the american people. this trial , here in NYC
is another example of the clever sideways manner in which he is accomplishing this feat of historical revisionism. Almost like a classic
soviet leader atoning for past sins to the world. doesnt anybody with any integrity in the msm get it?
Obama believes in an America that is less than even first among equals. His bowing to Akihito shows that. If you want to understand why, look to whom he sought for counsel. Ayers, Wright, even the ideology of his parents. This is a guy, while benefitting from the best we have to offer, pisses on it every chance he gets. Don't be surprised after he gets through tearing American down, that he goes for the head UN job.
The Bureau of Justice (Dept of Justice's statistics arm) figures say that US Federal prison recidivism rate is 32 percent. Appears that Gitmo's rate is quite favorable then---interesting does this mean that harsh methods work better or is that Federal prison is the more harsh environment or is it apples and oranges?