Trying terrorists: some facts (Dana Perino)

When it comes to trying terrorists on American soil since 9/11, let's all work from the same set of facts. This morning we've heard three people in the Sunday shows talking about the "hundreds" of terrorists that we have tried in US courts and hold in US prisons - as if KSM was just some regular Joe terrorist. Some facts:

First, the only civilian trial of a 9/11 terrorist was Moussaoui who was arrested before 9/11 had even happened and before the President had authorized detaining terrorists as enemy combatants.

Second, Moussaoui had his trial while the entire military commission system was under sustained legal attack by left-wing lawyers, which put all military commission trials on hold. So he couldn't have been tried by military commission back then any way.

Third, the trial was a circus largely because the defendant was uncontrollable and used the attention to spout hate against the US; the prosecutors were unfairly accused of misconduct, though the judge gave some credence to the accusations; and they couldn't even get the death penalty even though he eventually admitted he was supposed to be the 20th hijacker. The Moussaoui trial is hardly viewed as a model of success.

Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, never had a trial, as he pleaded guilty. And his arrest was just one month after President Bush authorized detentions of enemy combatants - the system was still being set up. He also could not have been tried by military commission because of the left-wing legal assault on the system.

As for the "hundreds of terrorists" -that figure encompasses every type of terrorism charge DOJ brought in 8 years and have nothing to do with 9/11, nor were any of those people foreign terrorists captured overseas as part of the war on terror. Those terrorists were held at Guantanamo Bay as enemy combatants with the intention of eventually trying them in military commissions.

My former colleague and I, Bill Burck, wrote extensively about the situation yesterday - read that post (below).

January 30, 2010 3:00 P.M. About (Saving) Face - Eight reasons why KSM will be tried by military commission.

Bill Burck & Dana Perino

###

Excerpt:

The end is near for the Obama administration’s plan to try KSM and four other 9/11 conspirators in federal court in downtown Manhattan. The handwriting was on the wall for weeks as the extraordinary costs of the trial — as much as $1 billion in security expenses alone over four or five years — became apparent and the Underwear Bomber reintroduced the American public to domestic terrorism.

Then, Mayor Bloomberg told the administration that it should find someplace else to hold the trial. Now, me-toos have come from New York senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, both of whom had previously supported the NYC trial.

It is a remarkable turn of events for Attorney General Eric Holder, who, the White House has said for months, made the decision alone and was running the show.

The White House tired, far more quickly than many expected, of the AG’s bungled plan and realized that public opinion had turned decisively against the trial.

Maybe the White House grew frustrated with the AG’s mistakes on national-security matters, from releasing the CIA interrogation memoranda last spring over the vociferous protests of former CIA directors who served under Presidents Bush and Clinton, to commencing a criminal investigation of CIA interrogators who had previously been informed by career prosecutors that they would not be subject to prosecution, to deciding to Mirandize the Underwear Bomber without consulting the intelligence services and charge him as a criminal defendant with all the rights of an American citizen.

The attorney general assured the White House that releasing the CIA memoranda would result in popular condemnation of Bush-era interrogation practices; instead, the American public met the memos with a collective shrug. Polls show that a majority of Americans support even the most aggressive enhanced interrogation techniques that the CIA uses.

Investigating the interrogators thoroughly undermined the intelligence services’ trust in the administration, being as it was a betrayal of the president’s promise to our intelligence professionals to look forward, not backward.

The decision exposed the new Justice Department leadership as nakedly partisan and more than willing to overrule the prosecutorial decisions of career prosecutors as a sop to the Far Left.

The White House realized it was staring another self-created disaster in the face and decided to pull the plug on the KSM trial before it was too late. The Justice Department is now scrambling to find an “alternative” venue; the administration continues to say that the president supports a civilian, not military, trial.

But the “alternative” venue won’t be in the United States. It will be Guantanamo Bay. And the trial will be by military commission, not civilian trial. After the jump are the top eight reasons for this, in no particular order:

1. Attorney General Holder, not President Obama, will take the fall. The White House hid behind the attorney general when the KSM trial was announced last November. The president said the decision was the attorney general’s alone, and the attorney general asserted he didn’t even consult the president before making it. It was hard to imagine the White House playing virtually no role in such an important policy (and political) decision, but it’s more plausible in light of the Justice Department’s unilateral decision to Mirandize the Underwear Bomber and charge him as a criminal defendant.

Rest HERE.

~~~~

February 23-August 16, 2001: Moussaoui and 9/11 Hijackers Engage in Parallel Conduct

After entering the US, Zacarias Moussaoui engages in activities that appear to mirror those of the 9/11 hijackers. Both Moussaoui and the hijackers do the following:

Take flight training (see February 23-June 2001 and July 6-December 19, 2000);

Physically import large amounts of cash (see October 2000-February 2001 and January 15, 2000-August 2001);

Purchase knives with short blades that can be carried onto airliners (see August 16, 2001 and July 8-August 30, 2001);

Take fitness training (see August 16, 2001 and May 6-September 6, 2001);

Obtain several identification documents (see April 12-September 7, 2001 and August 1-2, 2001);

and

Purchase flight deck videos from the same shop (see November 5, 2000-June 20, 2001).

In addition, Moussaoui is supported by some of the same al-Qaeda operatives as the 9/11 hijackers:

Ramzi bin al-Shibh (see July 29, 2001-August 3, 2001 and June 13-September 25, 2000) and Yazid Sufaat (see September-October 2000 and January 5-8, 2000).

At Moussaoui’s trial, the prosecution will cite these parallel activities in its argument that Moussaoui was connected to 9/11, rather than some follow-up plot.

There is also one reported meeting between Moussaoui and two of the lead hijackers before 9/11 (see August 1, 2001), but this will not be mentioned at the trial (see March 6-May 4, 2006). [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/9/2006]

~~~~

These FACTS need to be blasted everywhere to undo the outright lies and perverse propaganda of the Obamites. Bless you, Dana Perino!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.