Posted on 11/17/2009 7:25:30 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
So now Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) and five self-confessed 9/11 co-conspirators are to be tried not as war criminals in a military tribunal but rather in civilian court just blocks from Ground Zero.
A civilian format will allow challenges of evidence obtained under duress (ie. water-boarding), question the legality of KSM’s 2003 capture, and even negate confessions extracted without the full protections of the Constitution being first explained to the detainees. And thus do I have a horrible feeling that these trials will degenerate into a case against the Bush Administration as much as the terrorists themselves.
As for demonstrating to the world our righteousness, I do not think that the subtleties of the American justice system will be adequately explained in Arab newspapers. Do you? What WILL be reported as this drags on interminably will be the many claims by the defense of so-called “torture” without any context or pretext of fact-checking. Call it a hunch.
A civilian trial could also provide an intelligence boon to our enemies. Precisely because so much other evidence may not be admissible, prosecutors may have to reveal genuine secrets to get a conviction. As the Wall Street Journal reports:
"Osama bin Laden learned a lot from the 1995 prosecution in New York of the ‘blind cleric’ Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman for the first World Trade Center attack. His main tip was that the U.S. considered bin Laden a terrorist co-conspirator, leading him to abandon his hideout in Sudan for Afghanistan."
Lost in all of this, of course, are the victims of these terrible war crimes and their families. (I know several.) They demand and deserve justice. A conviction that takes years, provides the murderers a megaphone to the world to spew radicalism, grants them the public martyrdom they so desire, and in the process reveals our vital secrets while turning the tables and putting this nation itself on trial, would be anything but.
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Brad Schaeffer is co-founder and CEO of INFA Energy Brokers, LLC. an interdealer broker of complex energy derivatives, a veteran of the commodities markets since 1990, as well as frequent contributor as an energy analyst to Fox Business News. A Chicago native, he lives in NJ.
Bush Hassan...Hasan Bush. The WH must be apopletic over this decision.
Why on earth would THAT be true ?
O wants to put Bush on trial right before the elections to remind everyone of the “torture”. The media will love this as Bush and Cheney are dragged into court to defend themselves.
the left hates bush way more than ksm.
Obama is a victim. He only relates to victims. The US is guilty of crimes against Obama, American minorities, Islam, and dictators throughout the world.
Obama travels to other countries and displays his shame, his being a victim of America. Obama is on a mission to punish America.
That is so, so true.
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