The trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: a 9/10 approach to 9/11 justice
The Obama justice department has made a very poor decision: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 planners are to be tried by the civilian criminal justice system in New York. They will be detained in federal prison in New York starting in a few weeks.
Speaking from Japan, Obama says Mohammed “will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice.” But that’s exactly the problem.
President Obama is referring to the criminal justice system in this country, which affords defendants all the protections that US civilian citizens enjoy. But if we’ve learned one thing from the errors of the pre-9/11 mindset, it is that the criminal justice system in the US is wholly inadequate to try conspiratorial terrorists of the Islamicist variety, and that’s exactly who the current crop being transferred to NY are.
If anyone is an illegal enemy combatant, it would be Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and he should not be afforded the benefit of liberal rules of discovery designed to protect civilian defendants but which allow other al Qaeda terrorists to obtain valuable information about our methods of intelligence gathering: what we know, how we learned it, and about whom we know it. This decision also puts the entire city of New York at risk again by forcing it to house these terrorists and making their trial the proverbial three-ring circus, as well as giving them a bully pulpit for more attention.
I can hardly imagine a worse decision by the Obama Justice Department on these issues, except to let the terrorists go free and set them up in penthouses on the upper East Side.
This is not about protecting us. Nor is it about protecting the city of New York. This is about pleasing Obama’s Leftist base, and fulfilling his campaign promises to them. It is one of the worst decisions of his presidency, and that’s saying quite a bit.
[NOTE: The article also mentions that, “Five other detainees held at the prison, including Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, alleged to have planned the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, will be tried in revamped military commissions, the Justice Department announced.” It didn’t say why these five were considered suitable for military commissions whereas the 9/11 planners’ trials were not (nor does the NY Times article on the subject go into it). But I will speculate for now that the difference may be due to whether the attacks occurred on American soil or not, although this should be irrelevant. It also may be due to the fact that Mohammed is the main Guantanamo detainee who was subjected to waterboarding, so that trying him in civilian courts will afford Obama (and defense attorneys) the opportunity to rake the Bush administration over the coals, always a tremendous temptation and an opportunity not to be missed.]
[ADDENDUM: Andy McCarthy—prosecutor in the 1993 WTC bombing trial—agrees that this is an attempt to get Bush and put his administration on trial:
We are now going to have a trial that never had to happen for defendants who have no defense. And when defendants have no defense for their own actions, there is only one thing for their lawyers to do: put the government on trial in hopes of getting the jury (and the media) spun up over government errors, abuses and incompetence. That is what is going to happen in the trial of KSM et al. It will be a soapbox for al-Qaeda’s case against America. Since that will be their “defense,” the defendants will demand every bit of information they can get about interrogations, renditions, secret prisons, undercover operations targeting Muslims and mosques, etc., and ”” depending on what judge catches the case ”” they are likely to be given a lot of it. The administration will be able to claim that the judge, not the administration, is responsible for the exposure of our defense secrets. And the circus will be played out for all to see ”” in the middle of the war. It will provide endless fodder for the transnational Left to press its case that actions taken in America’s defense are violations of international law that must be addressed by foreign courts. And the intelligence bounty will make our enemies more efficient at killing us.
Obama and Holder are despicable. There is no possible rationale for this move other than these destructive impulses. And believe me, they know precisely what they’re doing—they are both lawyers.]
“I can hardly imagine a worse decision by the Obama Justice Department on these issues, except to let the terrorists go free and set them up in penthouses on the upper East Side. ”
Funny. That’s exactly the kind of outcome I’m expecting from the trial.
In my judgement (not reallly worth much, but…) you have sniffed this one out: waterboarding.
What a great showcase; and if these folks get off because they were waterboarded…hey, that’s better than convicting them!
After all, these folks are victims of our bigoted, racial, religious… ugh… I guess they haven’t yet perfected the narrative on that yet or I would know it. Don’t worry, with so many highly compensated folks working on that narrative, it will be ready by trial time. Then we will all know it, ad nauseum.
I guess the only venue that would have been worse would be Deerfield, Michigan. I wonder what a jury of terrorist peers will look like.
sorry that should have been “Dearborn”…..
Couple of questions:
Can prosecutors dismiss Muslim juror candidates?
What if, after an acquittal, a Muslim juror says, “I don’t care about the facts. I will never vote against a Muslim.”?
What will be the security arrangements for the cops, the prosecutors, the jurors, and the prosecution witnesses? How long will they have to last?
Will the defense call for classified material? If they get it, how long until the NYT publishes it?
Does the prosecutrion have enough non-classified material for a good case, and can they demonstrate that the stuff they use was gathered without coercion?
How many bomb threats will there be?
It does increasingly seem as though the whole world has gone insane, stark raving mad. Or is that me?
Occam’s Beard: Well, we tried sanity for a while, but it entails work, learning, thinking things through, and sacrifice.
In other words, not much fun. And — here’s the kicker — even then things may not work out.
So forget that. I want me a unicorn.
and he should not be afforded the benefit of liberal rules of discovery designed to protect civilian defendants but which allow other al Qaeda terrorists to obtain valuable information about our methods of intelligence gathering: what we know, how we learned it, and about whom we know it.
Try as I might, I simply cannot escape the thought that this is exactly what he wants, and is why he is doing it this way.
I don’t want to believe this, but there it is, and it will not go away.
–
Just a way for President O’Dumbo to get his Arab relatives into the U.S., release them, and provide millions of dollars in compensation. The America hater are now guarding the hen (white) house. Too bad american military pilots were not trained/brainwashed to scream ‘god is great’ and bore a plane load of white house nuts into the side of a mountain.
Thanks Neo K for this and for your PJ article.
I wake up to something hideous coming from the Obama Administration every day. Every d***n day!
Paul_In_Houston, you are dead on. The terrorists used what they learned during the trial of the blind man (1993 terrorist attack) to complete planning for 9-11. They had enough U.S. intel provided by the media, NYSlimes, to make it work.
It seems obvious that the waterboarding issue, as a legal “technicality”, at the very least, should effectively neutralize any fully successful prosecution, while turning them, effectively, into surrogate show trials against Bush and company (us). The left and the islamists are consummate manipulators, Obama may well go down in history as the greatest con man of all time; but this is going to turn some heads, finally, especially taking place in New York…
http://69.84.25.250/blogger/post/Hand-to-heart-for-Russian-Anthem-but-not-American-one%21.aspx
I think the possibility of these um “defendants” getting off with something less than they deserve is actually pretty good. These men have not been treated as criminal defendants of the U.S. justice system, with all the inherent privileges, up to this point. Now they are to be treated as such. Is there anyone who thinks that their prior treatment meets these new standards? What is to prevent even an only adequate defense attorney from taking the prosecution case apart?
Not much good can come from these proceedings. That is, unless the public outcry from a botched trial seals the deal on Obama as a one-term President.
Yes, this is one of the worst decisions to emerge from the Obama administration and it will cause enormous mischief in the months and years to come.
Some of it is to appease his leftist base, which has never stopped rooting and snorting for this payback to the Bush administration.
But much of it, I believe, really does reflect Obama’s own convictions and intentions.
I also believe that this will boomerang badly on Obama and the Democrats. Americans got fed up with bleeding heart liberals when it came to ordinary criminals. Americans are eventually going to go after, not Muslims, but the politicians and policies that go to absurd lengths to protect terrorists.
Occam
do a search on that… you will find others saying the same thing, and the saying famous…
you realize that this all has its sources in who lenin chose to make his state organs from…
Terror by quota: state security from Lenin to Stalin : an archival study By Paul R. Gregory
http://tinyurl.com/yem4q9w
the insanity keeps the good and the reasonable off center and they dont act. the chaos and pain and such doesnt bother the sociopaths, they like it.
why?
because they are liberated by this.
another to read (that might interest neo) is
“punitive psychiatry in the soviet union”
[its why shock treatment takes place with a doctor of a mental institution coordinating everything. LOOK WHAT I DID TO MY ID… is about what the US did to itself]
anway.
the crazyness, and such is planned.
it prevents people from mounting any kind of ordered anything. if you can get ourder out of chaos, your an enemy for your potential
i guess you didnt read that ANC article i put up more than once.
so when obama starts talking and his freinds agbout how these people are mental. they are only copying what we dont know
Psikhushkas had been already used since the end of the 1940s (see Alexander Esenin-Volpin) and during the Khrushchev Thaw period in the 1960s. One of the first psikhushkas was the Psychiatric Prison Hospital in the city of Kazan. It was transferred to NKVD control in 1939 under the order of Lavrentiy Beria. [2] On April 29, 1969 the head of KGB, Yuri Andropov, submitted to the Central Committee of CPSU a plan for creating a network of psikhushkas.[3]
The official Soviet psychiatry allegedly abused the diagnosis of sluggishly progressing schizophrenia (вÑÐ»Ð¾Ñ‚ÐµÐºÑƒÑ‰Ð°Ñ ÑˆÐ¸Ð·Ð¾Ñ„Ñ€ÐµÐ½Ð¸Ñ), a special form of the illness that supposedly affects only the person’s social behavior, with no trace of other traits: “most frequently, ideas about a struggle for truth and justice are formed by personalities with a paranoid structure,” according to the Moscow Serbsky Institute professors (a quote [4] from Vladimir Bukovsky’s archives). Some of them had high rank in the MVD, such as the infamous Danil Luntz, who was characterized by Viktor Nekipelov as “no better than the criminal doctors who performed inhuman experiments on the prisoners in Nazi concentration camps” [4].
The sane individuals who were diagnosed as mentally ill were sent either to regular psychiatric hospitals or, those deemed particularly dangerous, to special ones, run directly by the MVD. The treatment included various forms of restraint, electric shocks, electromagnetic torture, radiation torture, entrapment, servitude, a range of drugs (such as narcotics, tranquilizers, and insulin) that cause long lasting side effects, and sometimes involved beatings. Nekipelov describes inhuman uses of medical procedures such as lumbar punctures.
At least 365 sane people were treated for “politically defined madness” in the Soviet Union, and there were surely hundreds more [4].
socielism inverst everything.
till the asylum is the world, and the outside is your home. later when totalitarian, the outside is inside your head.
it becomes normal to be schizophrenic and hold conflicting ideas. you can murder and torture during the day, and come home and be a loving father and mate…
the terror and such is needed… its required to the process… but unlike peoples fanatsies in movies…it is us that does the violence to each other while they watch… the ideologies tenets delivered to us will cause us to fight each other and not fight them.
my wife and i were attacked by a spanish man who yelled how i was a racist… we were in flushing china town… i was with my indonesian wife, i am not asian… and yet, he is galling me a ni**er, and all kinds of things.
were did he get teh idea to attack my wife by slaming door on her purposefully, then attacking me (but having to back down once he realized that the suit wasnt an easy mark and was 6’3 and over 230lbs. but my wife was petrified)
it was this logic: “I feel that ‘man-hating’ is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them.” — Robin Morgan
and thats where the crazy ness comes from
way back when… maybe you remember.
i siad they were going to turn on every burner in the kitchen and make it so hot and nutty.
well.. now we are here.
[edited for length by neo-neocon]
occam… since i know you like to read i went out and went searching.
and i found it.
Planned Chaos
by Ludwig von Mises
mises.org/books/plannedchaos.pdf
The characteristic mark of this age of dictators, wars and revolutions is its anti-capitalistic bias. Most
governments and political parties are eager to restrict the sphere of private initiative and free enterprise.
It is an almost unchallenged dogma that capitalism is done for and that the coming of all-round
regimentation of economic activities is both inescapable and highly desirable.
History will call our age the age of the dictators and tyrants. We have witnessed in the last years the
fall of two of these inflated supermen. But the spirit which raised these knaves to autocratic power
survives. It permeates textbooks and periodicals, it speaks through the mouths of teachers and
politicians, it manifests itself in party programmes and in plays and novels. As long as this spirit
prevails there cannot be any hope of durable peace, of democracy, of the preservation of freedom or of a
steady improvement in the nation’s economic well-being.
Although capitalism is the economic system of modern Western civilization, the policies of all Western
nations are guided by utterly anti-capitalistic ideas. The aim of these interventionist policies is not to
preserve capitalism, but to substitute a mixed economy for it. It is assumed that this mixed economy is
neither capitalism nor socialism. It is described as a third system, as far from capitalism as it is from
socialism. It is alleged that it stands midway between socialism and capitalism, retaining the advantages
of both and avoiding the disadvantages inherent in each.
anyone want to do a search on th democrats and their third way? the third way is fascism…
There are two different patterns for the realization of socialism. The one pattern–we may call
it the Marxian or Russian pattern–is purely bureaucratic. All economic enterprises are departments of
the government just as the administration of the army and the navy or the postal system. Every single
plant, shop or farm, stands in the same relation to the superior central organization as does a post office
to the office of the Postmaster-General. The whole nation forms one single labour army with compulsory
service; the commander of this army is the chief of state.
and this paragraph should make those who think we are not doing the german model…
The second pattern–we may call it the German or Zwangswirtschaft system [4] –differs from the
first one in that it, seemingly and nominally, maintains private ownership of the means of production,
entrepreneurship, and market exchange. So-called entrepreneurs do the buying and selling, pay the
workers, contract debts and pay interest and amortization. But they are no longer entrepreneurs. In Nazi
Germany they were called shop managers or Betriebsfé¼hrer. The government tells these seeming
entrepreneurs what and how to produce, at what prices and from whom to buy, at what prices and to
whom to sell. The government decrees at what wages labourers should work, and to whom and under
what terms the capitalists should entrust their funds.
Zwangswirtschaft – command economy
lets compare that to obama and the auto industry..
he nationalized it, but did not seize it.
[nazi was slang for nationalizers]
the owners kept owning it..
but he has a union as a major owner to run it.
in germany they were called “shop managers or Betriebsfé¼hrer”, today here they are called “shop stewards”.
since they changed the word from manager to steward that must mean that they changed the whole thing. after all, thats what we belive with socialism, communism, progressivism, neo liberalism, pragmatism, etc.
and “The government tells these seeming
entrepreneurs what and how to produce, at what prices and from whom to buy,”
oh.. you mean like telling them how much to pay the boses, and that they will make green cars? (did i mention that the nazies were the first green party? that the green libertarian party is what the nazi party became? that the runic symbol for life inverted is the peace symbol?)…
Government spending cannot create additional jobs. If the government provides the funds required by
taxing the citizens or by borrowing from the public, it abolishes on the one hand as many jobs as it
creates on the other. If government spending is financed by borrowing from the commercial banks, it
means credit expansion and inflation. If in the course of such an inflation the rise in commodity prices
exceeds the rise in nominal wage rates, unemployment will drop. But what makes unemployment
shrink is precisely the fact that real wage rates are falling.
all this is long known… and free to read..
cogent and whole, it is full of merit and argumetn you can understand.
[edited for length by neo-neocon]
Perfected Democrat hits the important point, and Paul in Houston and scrapiron might consider that possibility. It is not who Obama wants to help that is the issue, it is who he wants to hurt. He wants one more forum in which the American image can be tarnished, under the guise of enormous nobility of spirit. The old, bad America, symbolised by Bush, can be morally upstaged by the new, noble America, symbolised by Obama. We don’t do any violent vindictive things to grouchy old terrorists anymore. We are more elevated.
It is not that Obama wants the consequence of KSM or the others to be released, or AQ to know our methods, it is that such consequences don’t matter to him very much. He is willing to take the risk of endangering us because the payback is status for him. This is true of liberals in general. Their concern is their relative status within our society, and all energy is devoted to that. Risks to the country itself – security, economy, culture – are not that important to them.
What amazes me is that BO is spending so much of the the goodwill of his presidency in vindictive and vengeful attacks on Bush. It started with his inauguration speech and has not let up. In the meantime, Bush is looking more and more sympathetic and certainly more the gentleman. Some on the left are alr3eady expressing regrets that he is no longer our president. The idea that the terrorists should be tried as criminals is the latest BO attack on Bush. What kind of crap was he absorbing in Reverend Wright’s church to make him so vindictive?
I think BO is relying on the MSM to help him make the case that Bush was evil, that water boarding is torture, and that our country was at fault for defending itself in Iraq and Afghanistan. But every day, from now until well after the trial ends, people will remember that Bush kept the country safe during his presidency and that BO is putting us at increased risk. One question is whether the MSM will go along and try to protect BO from himself. At some point in time even they must begin to have questions about whether BO is the really smart guy they believe he is.
We are far enough into BO’s presidency to be able to gain some insights into his policies. But, I am just perplexed. He is the leader of the greatest power in the world and is acting to make us a second rate power, thereby reducing his influence in the world. He has not made any attempt to reconcile the differences between the Democrats and Republicans as he promised but instead deliberately takes pot shots at his political opponents. (“I won.”) His foreign policy has alienated our traditional allies who are now moving as fast as they can to enter into new mutually protective alliances that will exclude us. He is leaving me with the impression that the USA will not come to Israel’s assistance if it is attacked and I’m sure the Israelis are way ahead of BO on what they must and will do to protect themselves. He has imposed tariffs to protect his union supporters but at the risk of isolating us in regard to world trade. (You don’t have to enact a Smoot-Hawley Act to end up creating barriers to free trade.) He has refused to enter into trade agreements with Columbia and South Korea, thereby forcing them to look elsewhere for trade partners. I think Canada is picking up some of this trade. He is sticking his finger in the eyes of China and Japan by continuing to print money. Now that he is visiting China and Japan he will, if experience is a guide, act boorishly with their leaders (probably he will refuse an invitation to dinner or something just as silly) and leave us with two more less friendly countries to deal with. Perhaps he will give the leaders of these countries ipods with all of his speeches as gifts from the people of the USA.
Just remember. It will be worse tomorrow!
Thanks, Art!
One the other hand, if they are put to death after they proudly proclaim their guilt/victory in the name of Allah, then Obama’s gamble pays off and the Gitmo puzzle is solved. His campaign promise is fullfilled. That’s all that really matters to him.
The show trial will begin soon and, as you stated, these men and their handlers are despicable. Our nation cannot afford representatives who hate it. President Obama should be impeached for reasons and justification are too numerous to mention.
SAB, I frankly don’t think Obama is bright enough to make that calculation. I suspect he just babbled about Gitmo (and Iraq) back when because his leftist handlers urged him to, and to give himself a way to break out of the pack.
Now, of course, he’s stuck with all the stuff he said back then. Having painted furiously for the past two years, he now finds himself in the corner surrounded by some very slowly drying paint.
A better politician would have said something such as “Gitmo is perceived internationally (i.e., in Europe) as a stain on our (i.e., American) national character. One of my first acts as President will be to convene a blue-ribbon panel (always with the blue ribbons) to make recommendations to address those concerns.”
Now that commits him to virtually nothing, while mollifying the Reds, and yet not infuriating loyal Americans. It’s what Clinton would have said.
But now, in the YouTube era, Obama’s past injudicious utterances will come back to haunt him. If KSM is convicted of a capital crime, Obama either has to let him swing (enraging Dems and other terrorist sympathizers) or pardon him (enraging loyal Americans). If he’s acquitted and released, Obama again enrages loyal Americans, and hands them a club to beat him over the head with in 2012. And if/when there’s another terrorist attack, Obama will be wearing his prayer rug that KSM wasn’t involved, or he’s done.
But much like the Skip Gates fiasco, with a little higher IQ Obama could seen the rake in his path and avoided treading on it so heavily.
Make that “wearing out.”
This is an act of extraordinary wickedness that shows the blackness at Obama’s core.He is openly wishing harm on his country and AFAIC, he’s my enemy.
He’s just pure evil.
This is a despicable decision and amounts to treason.
That said, huxley’s right.
NOTHING could reaffirm the danger of Islamic radicalism, its threat to our very way of life, better than giving these terrorists a public forum.
NOTHING can open the eyes of independents and the many millions of moderate democrats fooled for so long by the MSM, than giving these terrorists a public forum.
NOTHING will turn Americans away from liberalism faster and more deeply than giving these terrorists a public forum.
Because FOX and the blogs are going to expose every single ‘price’ that revealed defense and intelligence secrets will impose upon the American people.
Obama and radical liberals are going to own the responsibility for whatever happens from this point forward. It’s true, give them enough rope and they’ll hang themselves.
The charge of treason will stick because they will have earned it.
Obama and Holder are despicable. There is no possible rationale for this move other than these destructive impulses.
I agree it’s a terrible decision, but it is also a part of a larger scheme to close down Guantanamo, for which Obama has already taken a great deal of heat.
If they can process KSM through the justice system, the rest of the detainees ought to be child’s play.
The decision is part of wider announcement planned on how to bring to justice detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay prison. It’s the first set of decisions before a Monday deadline on how to deal with the more than 200 prisoners remaining at the facility, which President Barack Obama has ordered closed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/us/14terror.html?hp
The Obama people better hope that this trial reaches a swift guilty verdict and doesn’t become a circus or hemorrhage intelligence information. But have they thought it through?
This trial will be expensive, bizarre, likely to produce another batch of Dancing Itos, and due to the worldwide media circus any verdict other than “never mind” will be thrown out on appeal.
It will be what THEY have been demanding since John Kerry threw his medals over the wall. ‘Bout time they got it.
I am sick, really really sick of the “bring them to justice” formulation. Bush used it, early and often, about Osama bin Laden, and we have heard it repeatedly since then, as recently as today. Somehow–and these are sort of off-the-cuff, newly formed thoughts–the victors in WWII made a terrible mistake when they thought that the thing to do with the defeated enemies in that war–and, by extension, in any war, was to put them on trial to answer to conjured-out-of-whole-cloth, never-before-contemplated charges of “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes.” There are no war crimes; there is only war, which has historically been insular and self-defined, and has no external limits that could rule out something called “crime.” There is no justice in war, there is only the battle. Scruples in war are an indulgence, a luxury, a momentary distraction from the objective. Sometimes these scruples are cost-free, but their observation is a risk. The victors extract vengeance from the defeated, and the process is not subject to rational, disinterested, peace-time judicial review. The standards are different because they should be; the difference is inherent to the endeavor. We need to face it: We are in war. The enemy is waging war against us, whether we deign to recognize it or not.
Obama is constitutionally and ideologically incapable of recognizing it.
To the victors belong the spoils, and the spoils include extraction of vengeance against the defeated. It strikes me as fatuous to attempt to impose any sort of civilized standards on combat, assuming that victory is (and should be) the unqualified objective. “Crimes against humanity” is marginally more valid, but only marginally and only to the extent that humanity may agree on what is permissible. But there is no such general agreement. If we pretend there is one, we design the enemy’s weapons for him and deliver them to him, for his use against us.
It’s happening now. These purported trials will be a joke, and we will be trying ourselves, not the enemy. We have in fact declared that there is no enemy, there are only criminals, and the whole exercise is ad hoc. It pretends that we can congratulate ourselves on our style of combat–but this very much not true.
However, we are now a subject people. We should take note of this. We are subject by our own government–which now rules, rather than governs, us. We can take cold comfort in the knowledge that we have voted for it.
There will be worse to come.
This decision on the part of the Obama administration is absolutely reprehensible. There is no excuse for this.
All of you are wrong. KSM should be transported to Manhattan to meet with his publicly funded attorneys in an atmosphere of comfort. I propose a C47-Skytrain, unmothballed from Wright-Pat. I will personally fuel it. The E on the gage stands for excellent, right?
Terrye: There is no excuse for it, you are correct. But there is an explanation. I have given the ones that occur to me: getting back at Bush, putting our government on trial, showing how much more civilized Obama is. If this course of action increases the intelligence the enemy can get, affords them a bully pulpit, puts New York at risk for violence, and even runs the risk of letting the perpetrators (who have already confessed) go free, then so be it. Obama considers the risks well worth it.
For quite some time now, we’ve been faced with a single question about Obama: fool or knave? I go for the latter, but I don’t think they are mutually exclusive.
For quite some time now, we’ve been faced with a single question about Obama: fool or knave? I go for the latter, but I don’t think they are mutually exclusive.
Exactly and on a daily basis I calculate the percentage of the former versus the latter differently.
I hate this. Sometime earlier betsybounds said that this was an Obama strategy. I can’t tell whether it is his intention or a happy side-effect of his secretive, bizarre processing.
Maybe, just maybe, this will wake up enough of the somnolents who voted for this wacko to undermine his creditability to the point congress will act to curtail his decision making power, as they did with J. Carter.
And the news came when he was out of the country, I wonder why?
We all must be wondering what he has planned for an encore? My guess a stamp intended for international mail with the words “WE’RE SORRY” on it. Or an offer of negotiations to Bin Laden, maybe a prisoner swap, KSM and friends for the lone GI being held by the Taliban.
To all you historians out there, do you know of any leader who did so many things wrong in so many different areas in such a short among of time? Aktenaten around 1800BC maybe. I really wonder if O is trying to set a record.
This could blow up in Obama’s face. Obama and Holder hope to show that the Bush Admin goofed up by using “torture” to extract confessions and were cruelly derelict in holding KSM and others at the ghastly gulag in Gitmo. Yes, it will be their way of showing how depraved Bush and Co. were compared to their enlightened respect for criminal law.
Obama and his supporters are expecting a show trial in which they get their licks in at Bush after which, KSM and his cohorts are expected to plead guilty and ask to be executed. But what happens if KSM suddenly realizes that he can throw a monkey wrench into the process by lawyering up and using every legal technique in the book to show that he was:
1. Not Mirandized?
2. Tortured to get a false confession?
3. Not brought to a speedy trial?
4. Not provided with legal counsel in due course?
5. Not handled in accordance with the U.S. Criminal Code?
6. Innocent of all charges?
Could a good lawyer use all of this to create doubt as to whether this man, KSM, should be convicted? I don’t dismiss it as a possibility.
If KSM was released because of violations of his “rights,” Obama and Holder could say that it was all Bush’s fault. However, I believe it would blow up in their faces. Certainly no average citizen could overlook how this had made us less safe.
So, IMO, this is not only a stupid decision on their part, I don’t think they have any idea how it could inflict a major blow to their credibility and the safety of the U.S..
Before becoming AG, Eric the Holder was a senior partner in a law firm that is defending 17 Gitmo detainees. As ASST AG under Clinton, he worked to pardon Marc Rich and the Puerto Rican FALN terrorists (pardons were granted). Follow the $$, people….The first entity to benefit from Paulson and the bailout was (gasp) Goldman Sachs, Paulson’s old firm.
The best thing that can happen in NYC is that all judges at risk, all jurors, refuse to serve, with credible fear of Muzzy reprisal as their motive.
The next best thing, should the 2010 election miraculously occur honestly, will be that Baraq, Holder et al. be tried for sedition. Or a coup….
Gen. Casey and his diversity worship aside, there are surely some fairly high-ranking officers thinking how and when to intervene. I hope so. But the longer the wait, the greater the damage. Perhaps you, dear readers, have noted the just-discovered intent of the Baraq crowd to weed Repubs out of the Civil Service.
Baraq is following in Allende’s path.
He has reduced the even-tempered Neo to near-apoplexy: “Despicable”, she calls them. Amen, but add Evil.
Bob from Virginia,
Israel can tell you something about the efficacy of prisoner swaps.
Tom,
Yes, I have seen the recent news of the attempted (and, so far as I know, uncontested) purge of Republicans from the Civil Service.
This is the sort of thing that makes me skeptical of Huxley’s faith that the Constitution will save us. If these guys can subvert our institutions in this way, there is nothing much to prevent them from subverting them in other ways as well, and we are in any case ruled more by regulation these days than by law. And we know who controls the regulatory apparatus.
Well, we’ll see, won’t we. I wish I were more optimistic. We have enemies both foreign and domestic, and it’s not that easy to tell either the difference or the differential motive–which is worse? I don’t know the answer, I only know the question is valid.
We will see the AG of the United States of America apologize for the sins of Western Privilege from the steps of the courthouse where KSM has been acquitted.
Acquitted, but not before Obama has used him and his allies to destroy the counterintelligence apparatus of the United States, as well as any public faith in the institutions of the Republic.
Watch next week in Asia. China will flatter The One, the media will proclaim success, and the mantle of super power will quietly slip from the United States and head … elsewhere.
ARTFLDGR,
you speak of Chaos as a weapon. I remember watching a video a couple of years ago on U-Tube where this British guy was speaking out against this organization called “Common Purpose”. He alleged that ‘Common Purpose” , which was at least partially government funded, was working to destroy the last British Nationalist resistance to the EU. Basically it was a shadow government that enrolled existing government employees, politicians etc into the cause. At the beginning of his speech he spoke of the appearance of ghoulish type art in the public areas as part (only a part mind you) of psychological warfare of the organization against traditional British people.
You might note that when Ted Kennedy endorsed Obama early in the campaign, there was a reference to “common purpose”, not specifically as an organization, —but I still had to wonder. I had seen at that time, on the organization’s own web site, that “Commom Purpose” was now operating in the US.
This is the sort of thing that makes me skeptical of Huxley’s faith that the Constitution will save us.
betsybounds: It’s not just the Constitution, it’s the American people as well as other power-holders who would lose if Obama were to win absolute power.
There is much feedback in our system. Plus however one apportions Obama on the fool/knave scale, he is not very competent.
This KSM trial is likely blow up on Obama much worse than the war on Fox News.
Folks, I keep asking myself this: As rancidly treasonous as Ovomit is, WHY did our fellow citizens vote him in?
That’s our (enormous) problem. The Left’s Long March through the institutions and takeover of the Fourth Estate have been triumphal indeed. And every citizen of this nation who considers himself a “patriot” and voted for this filth, should be horsewhipped and put in the stocks for public vilification.
Huxley, I’m with you in feeling, but I don’t see ANYthing this freak does as ever “blowing up on Obama.” He has the perfect tarn cloak in the slavishly obsequious Fourth Estate.
It’s incredible, really.
Huxley,
Yes, you are right that there is enormous feed-back built into our system. We shall see how much difference it makes.
As to Obama’s competence–well, he’s managed to get to the top spot, no?
I’ve read for a good number of years about Whittaker Chambers’ Witness, and its remarkable quality, by some reviewers such as W.F. Buckley. I decided last week it was time for me to pick it up, and just the first chapter pretty much blew me away. Have a look, if you have a moment:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/chambers.html
It pretty much nails the difficulty we face, and is not a pretty picture. I think it is a realistic look at what we face. I was interested to note that Chambers uses, almost by-the-way, the notion of “change.” Among much else.
Did Khalid Sheik Mohammed commit a crime?
From available information I would have to say he committed numerous crimes. They were crimes before Sept. 11th 2001, they remained crimes after Sept. 11th 2001. Were they acts of war strictly speaking? No, when they occurred, well before our intervention in Afghanistan, they were crimes and only crimes.
Can he be denied a fair trial because he’s a non-citizen? I say no, and I say no because I will not tolerate any establishment of a precedence that has any potential to justify denying me a fair trial. That’s what it comes down to, for if we were to deny Khalid Sheik Mohammed the right to a fair trial because he’s a non-citizen, we open the way to deny anyone a fair trial for some reason or another.
The defendant gets his trial and we live with the consequences. To do anything else is to betray our ways and those who put their trust in us all those generations ago.
This is all performance art. A big show to declare how badly we, a nation of jingoistic, xenophobic empire-builders, suck.
Of course it’s to embarrass Bush, and maybe even have the trial judge issue subpoenas for he and Cheney.
It’s a sham, and the terrorists will walk. No doubt in my mind.
As to Obama’s competence—well, he’s managed to get to the top spot, no?
betsybounds: Obama was elected by doing the one thing he does well — campaigning — in a year that was freakishly weighted for a Democrat to win.
But even so and even though he outspent McCain 3:1, Obama only won by six points and to do so he had to bait and switch by presenting himself as a pragmatic tax-careful moderate who would unite the country across party and racial lines.
There are a few in here who still underestimate Obama, and further, perhaps his handlers. Stop doing that.
Forget any and every opinion you have ever heard. Just research all you can about everything HE has said and everything HE has done. Just the facts that can be nailed down.
Believe me, that is way more than enough.
Alan,
Your logic fails at two points:
While KSM may have committed crimes prior to 9/11, on 9/11 he committed an act of war and therefore became an enemy combatant. For you to deny this is to equate Pearl Harbor to a mere “crime”. It doesn’t matter that he wasn’t in the direct employ of a state; he still committed an act of war.
Second, how does denying a non-citizen trial rights in any way endanger the rights of regular citizens? The non-citizen, by definition does NOT have those rights.
Side-note: none of this surprises me. As I said many times before this atitude is exactly what exists in academia today. What the administartion is doing is exactly what I would expect if the faculty of any college was put in charge of the government. The rest of America nows gets to “enjoy” the experience I’ve had for over 20 years.
I’ve figured out a description for Obama and every other modern liberal….Masochistic Bigots.
Alan wrote, “Did OJ Simpson commit a crime?
From available information I would have to say he committed numerous crimes.
🙂 Just one partial juror and we have an enemy combatant given the same opportunity for a hung jury or acquittal as OJ. And with sympathetic enemy combatants interested in freeing KSM or killing – we can have a situation where New York citizens are harmed and terrorized during this circus because of your misplaced principles.
Alan wrote, “The defendant gets his trial and we live with the consequences.”
You can take your high minded principles and have your own family and neighbors throats slashed by enemy combatants.
I have confidence in our military (the one I served in) and I have confidence that the military tribunal would’ve been fair – yet it would’ve produced no circus and the base that proceedings went forward on would’ve been much safer than the streets of New York.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/166222
5 Reasons
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/loss_for_america_nxkrr7XdjXIJ1ngqXVO8nL
Off topic but interesting.
The first two sentences of Peggy Noonan’s column this morning give away her game.
“The president has been taking time thinking about Afghanistan. I cannot see why this is bad.”
The article actually continues but nothing that follows can make any more sense than this looniness. Obviously, she does not have a son or relative serving in Afghanistan.
American patience for Obama’s bizzare and careless decisions has to reach a breaking point. I actually fear what this man child will attempt to do when his public approval is down to the 20% leftist radicals.
Last night on Fox’ Bill O’Reilly my wife and I watched Congressman Wiener (couldn’t have picked a better name for him myself) diatribe about how bring the Terrorist to trial in NY will show the world (yawn) real American justice at work and NY and America will be a better place for it and blah, blah, blah (or some other such nonsense) and this is what is best for America (doing a rather whimpish General Bullmoose). I turned to my wife and said, “I hope he remembers what he said when he sees several dozen New Yorkers writhing on blood drenched sidewalks in front of the Courthouse with their arms and legs blown off”. “You think that could happen”, she replied. So I related the story of Sacco and Vanzetti, the Italian anarchist who were arrested on September 11th 1920 for the murder of a paymaster at their place of employment. 5 days later on September 16th a horse drawn cart containing 100 pounds of TNT and 500 pounds of scrap iron stopped in front of 23 Wall Street, the headquarters of J.P. Morgan Bank; it was just as lunch hour was beginning and the street was filling with mostly secretaries and tellers. The explosion tore 36 people apart and injured 400 others. “So you think the Terrorist will try something like that?” My Wife asked. “More likely a dozen or so men dressed as lawyers carrying large file cases on wheels filled with explosives.” I said. “Don’t these people realize that they may be putting peoples’ lives at risk?” She asked. “I don’t think they care, their hatred of Bush and Cheney and the CIA and Military has insulated them from whatever sense of caution they may have had.” I said. “And besides I wouldn’t doubt they think they can cut a deal with the Brotherhood or some other such group to ensure nothing happens.” “Kind of like paying protection to the Mob.” my Wife added. “Well the Italians were paying off the Taliban to leave them alone over in Afghanistan, too bad they didn’t tell the French that took over for them.” “So you think Obama has paid off whomever to make sure that nothing goes wrong during the trail?” “Wouldn’t be the first time.” I said. “The CIA has used bribes and contributions to get protection and information for years, even in Iraq. But I don’t think it will stop these thugs, they’ll take the money and blow up NY anyway because they hate us.” “Wow.” My Wife exclaimed. “What do think guys like Wiener will do if that happens?” “The honorable thing for him to do would be Hari Kari, but since he has no honor, he’ll blame Bush and the war for creating all these terrorist, maybe he’ll use the Twinkie defense.” My Wife looked puzzled, “What in the heck is the Twinkie Defense?” “Oh,” I said, “that’s another time and another place, Is Dancing with Stars on?”
Alan Kellogg: Your argument is deeply flawed for a number of reasons. I will just take a couple of them here.
Since “war” does not exist only through the mechanism of a country declaring war on another country, Mohammed qualifies as an illegal enemy combatant in a war against this country. It is a pre-9/11 mentality (and very dangerous) to consider otherwise. He is not a criminal. Mohammed was part of a conspiracy to wage war on the US, but his crimes (planning 9/11) were not committed on US soil, and he is not a citizen. For all these reasons (and the ones discussed in my original post) the general criminal justice system is a highly inappropriate venue in which to try him.
The slippery slope argument can be used to argue against almost anything, and at a certain point it becomes an absurdity. You have certainly reached that point—-unless you are planning to join a terrorist conspiracy, become a non-citizen, and plot in a foreign country with other co-conspirators to wage war against Americans and slaughter thousands of them, as well as to disrupt the economy of our nation, in order to advance your own political cause, I think you’re pretty safe.
SteveH: Baraq’s decisions are deliberate; far from careless. What is bizarre is the citizenry, Alan as example, that puts boundless faith in judicial process, and in the Constitution, though it is overwhelmingly clear that checks and balances have been utterly swept away.
The Constitution is being ignored, trampled, by Democratic control of the legislative and executive branches. The Supreme Court has become totally irrelevant in the speedy destruction of the American Republic.
I really see no alternative to an American Pinochet for our salvation.
I agree this is a 9/10 approach.
Unfortunately, the 9/10 approach is what made 9/11 possible.
The concern I have is this: what happens once, if you create the same circumstances, can happen again.
Alan,
If we are wrong, a non-citizen enemy combatants “rights” have been violated – by going through the military justice system. ooooooh scary….
If you are wrong:
1) New Yorkers are terrorized
2) Justice system staff are killed
3) Classified evidence cannot be brought forward
4) KSM gets a public forum to say awful things not to just one victim or two (as in a rapist or murderer) but to the entire country who was the victim of his war.
Look at item 3 Alan. Classified evidence cannot be brought forth in this venue.
And here is item 5) He has the possibility of being an OJ – Acquitted
Alan, you are against Debra Burlingame. You are against justice. You are for more victims.
I would have to say he committed numerous crimes. They were crimes before Sept. 11th 2001, they remained crimes after Sept. 11th 2001. Were they acts of war strictly speaking? No…
This is an unsupported assertion, with a weasel-word qualifier. Who decides how strictly we apply the definition of war?
I say the acts were the same before and after 9/11. What changed is the label we put on them. In the mind of KSM, they were always acts of war. When he killed 3,000 people one morning, some of us began to appreciate that the aggressor is the one who defines when war begins.
This is not some abstract statistical operation like defining the beginning of a recession. The better test is to determine something like “mens bellator”. Capone or the Bloods or MS13 are not organized to bring down the US. They have only mens rea.
War began with the first attack by a self-declared warrior. KSM, by his moral set, does not have mens rea, he has mens bellator.
And, yes, this might mean some notorious criminals are, in fact, warriors.
…we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies–civilians and military–is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it…
Bin Laden et al. (1998)
— http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm
Alan: That’s a declaration of war. 9-11 was an act of war. There is no other face to be put upon it.
My European friend has a take on the KSM trial that may interest the pessimists here:
The KSM trial is laying the groundwork for a war crimes trial of Bush and his administration next year.
My friend’s reasoning is that everything that Obama has tried so far has fallen apart — the stimulus, cash for clunkers, cap-and-trade, healthcare, Afghanistan — and nothing coming up looks any better, so all the Obami has left is the ultimate blame Bush.
br549 Says:
November 14th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Just research all you can about everything HE has said,
What HASN’T he said, at one time or another?
and everything HE has done.
Could be the shortest, quickest search on record.
Just the facts that can be nailed down.
Like nailing jello to the wall. 🙂
–
This could blow up in Obama’s face.
If only the above were to happen … but I don’t think it is going to happen. The MSM controls opinion and the MSM will not allow this decision to “blow up in Obama’s face.” Whatever negative things flow from this decision will be resolutely blamed on Bush/Cheney. And the public will buy it because the public gets its opinions from the MSM.
The trial will occupy much of the public’s consciousness which might otherwise be focused on the economy and other bothersome issues for Obama and the Progressives. Create a diversion. Smart.
There may be other diversions ahead, maybe … trials for CIA interrogators ,,, which, as others have noted, could ultimately lead to a trial of Bush and Cheney – either in a real court or in the public opinion court of MSM editorials. Gives them another excuse to bloviate righteously about Bush/Cheney. A new headline, a New Angle: BUSH/CHENEY ADMINISTRATION MISTAKES SETS 9/11 MASTERMIND FREE!
If the defendants are let go it will be Bush/Cheney’s fault. If they are convicted Obama also wins. It’s a win/win situation for Obama.
Dear New Yorkers,
Let this be the last time you vote for ∅bama and the leftist agenda of a lack of national security.
This Democrat party is not the Democrat party of Pat Moynihan, Zell Miller, Lieberman, etc.
This is the Democrat party of giving citizens rights to enemy combatants.
This a going to be the clusterf..k, the macabre circus of all times, and a deliberate one at that. It is hard to even count all of the evil and destructive effects, the fallout that will radiate out from this decision. Here are just a few off the top of my head:
The precedent will be set that terrorists/guerrillas–“enemy combatants” who waged war against the United States and who are not part of any recognized national army or in uniform and who, as a consequence, have very explicitly and by design no claim to rights under the Geneva Conventions–will now have such rights, thus negating what was a central, deliberate distinction in these Conventions between regular national armed forces who had certain delimited ‘rights and protections,” and un-uniformed, guerrillas or terrorists, who had no such rights.
Terrorists, captured on the field of battle outside of the United States, who the Geneva Conventions and the Rule of War stipulated could be executed without trial, are now to not only be given the protections of American citizens, but also tried in our criminal courts.
These terrorists will now be defended by lawyers who will have the ability to use the discovery process to lay bare all of the secrets, the names of witnesses, the “sources and methods” that our military and intelligence agencies use, be able to call agents and sources as witnesses, demand production of documents, and use all of this as leverage–as has been done by defendant’s lawyers in many other cases involving extremely sensitive national security information–to get their “clients” some sort of a deal, or even to get them off the hook entirely, and will, in the process, do enormous, possibly irreparable harm to our efforts to combat the Islamic Jihad and its terrorism.
There is enormous scope for all sorts of mischief and maneuver in a criminal trial–jury selection (and with it the chance to insert a Leftist/Muslim hold out juror or two), will likely be determinative, there could be requests for “summary judgment” or dismissal, change of venue requests–where are they going to find an “unbiased” jury in New York city?, delays because of all sorts of reasons, including change of counsel–a favorite delaying tactic of my law school teachers, opportunities to challenge all sorts of evidence, procedures and witnesses and above all, in this instance, enormous propaganda to be manufactured for the Left and Islam.
The trial will drag out for many months, if not years, with the possibility of a hung jury and another trial, jury nullification, or even an acquittal; the OJ trial comes to mind.
The New York city venue will serve as a focus for Jihadist activity and to rally their base, exponentially increase the possibility of a new terrorist attack on New York city, and cost the city–already in deep financial trouble, as is New York State–an incredible amount of money for security, and be a massive diversion of scarce resources from the city’s other critical anti-terrorist activities.
The trial will serve as a platform for the defendants to espouse their Islamic Jihadist ideology, and serve as both a justification for their terrorism and a recruiting and radicalization tool, both among Muslims and non-Muslims in the U.S. and around the world.
This trial will be used–and very deliberately so by Obama & Co.–as a way to further destroy the U.S. image around the world; an anti-U.S. propaganda show of vast proportions.
The trial will also serve the purpose, and very deliberately so, of being a piece of sleight of hand, a riveting “distraction” that diverts attention from Obama & Co.’s enormously destructive policies at home and abroad and is, at the same time, a major component of that multi-pronged destructive project.
This trial will also be very deliberately used as a club with which to beat on him and to perpetuate the excuse that every failure of Obama & Co. can be blamed on former President Bush.
You cannot tell me that Obama & Co. do not see and recognize all of vastly harmful results of this trial enumerated above and perhaps a lot more as well.
Whether Obama & Co. will be able to pull this off and attain the multiple malevolent, destructive ends they seek, or whether this will blow up in their faces is for the future to decide but, any way this turns out it, one way or the other it will be very damaging to the U.S. and, again, very deliberately designed to be so by Obama & Co.
I used to believe ∅bama had good intentions… but inexperienced and without economic or historical knowledge…
Now, I don’t know what to believe.
He is an extreme idiot for sure.
This a going to be the clusterf..k, the macabre circus of all times, and a deliberate one at that. It is hard to even count all of the evil and destructive effects, the fallout that will radiate out from this decision.
And this is a best case scenario.
Remember Obama’s remark to the little girl?… “America is no longer what it could be”.
Think about how nonsensical that really is.
This mythical America where we treat enemies like citizens is a very dangerous fantasy in the modern liberal mind.
SteveH Says:
Not only that, but Obama, Holder, and Napolitano seem to consider citizens as potential enemies. Remember the warnings about Tea Partiers, gun owners, returning veterans, folks with suspicious bumper stickers, etc.?
Wolla Dalbo Says:
November 14th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Great comment, Wolla. I would just add that the purpose of the Geneva Conventions was to protect civilians in combat zones; thus the requirements for armies to wear distinguishable uniforms and insignia. Soldiers who masqueraded as civilians could be dealt with very harshly under Geneva. Geneva was an attempt to ‘civilize’ war as much as practicable.
If Islamic jihadis can dress as civilians without penalty, then why should our soldiers continue to wear uniforms? It only makes them targets. So yet another consequence of this trial could be the breakdown of the Geneva system.
Warfare in a post-Geneva world would be savage indeed. We have already seen that Palestinians and Iraqi terrorists have no compunction whatsoever about using their own civilians as human shields.
I see that this grave mistake and deliberate, calculated, enormously destructive travesty is trying to be sold by Democratic spokesmen as an exercise in “fairness,” as a demonstration of the glories of our judicial system, and as an example of how Obama is trying to be a “different” kind of President and repair the errors of the Bush administration when, in fact, it is a manifestly “unfair” attempt to get these Jihads–who have already proudly confessed their guilt–off the hook, all the while slandering and damaging the U.S. and ex-President Bush, and–in the process–re-traumatizing all of the relatives and friends of the victims of 9/11, New York city and America, and exposing them and America to a greater chance of a repeat attack; might as well be thorough.
As Rudi Giuliani said in an appearance on Fox yesterday–where he made a great deal fo sense, “this trial will be the second part of the 9/11 attack”
Great comments, Wolla and rickl.
This whole mess does make one wonder: how can anyone with an opposable thumb possibly be this stupid? This is weapons-grade stupidity, or world-class malice, or…both.
Never mind wanting W back, or Clinton (either one!). At this point, I wish Carter were President again.
I never thought those words would pass my lips, but there they are.
Add to Wolla’s brilliant compendium that Baraq could easily use a jihadist event in NYC as the opportunity to declare a national state of emergency (martial law). He likely welcomes the chance to do so. Reichstag Feuer, anyone?
Tom, possibly, but I doubt it, for a number of reasons.
Not least is that Obama doesn’t strike me as having the cojones for that sort of thing. It’s so confrontational and decisive, and let’s face it, those are not his long suits.
More objectively, to pull that off he’d have to have the support of the military, and so far he has evinced precisely zero efforts to curry favor with them. Quite the contrary. There’s a reason why Dems (e.g., Gore) try to exclude military absentee ballots. I suspect Gore had popularity with the military that Obama could only dream of.
There’s a scenario in which the left could make the national emergency work, but I don’t want to go there.
At some point though the majority of Americans just become sick and tired of all this nonsense of Democrats bashing America, contriving bizarre excuses for our enemies, let the economy rot, and weakening US security.
I don’t know precisely where that point is but America threw out Jimmy Carter and elected Ronald Reagan for less.
Already polls show independent voters deserting Obama by large margins.
I suspect that quite a lot of Americans didn’t buy for a minute all the official contortions to avoid explaining Nidal Hasan as jihadist.
If the KSM becomes a circus and leads to an acquittal, the left may buy “It’s Bush’s fault” as an explanation but 60% of the voters will be thoroughly outraged.
For this farce to make it very far KSM and his “co-defendants” must first make it to NYC. It would be a real shame if somehow they managed not to do so–who knew so many people could have simultaneous “accidents” such as choking on halal chicken bones or slipping while washing their feet for prayer?
If the sentiments expressed above sound thuggish to you, award yourself a prize–you have a functioning moral compass. But while doing so consider that thuggish actions in the face of thuggery may be an ugly necessity for a greater good–the whole “Dark Knight” concept. And faced with a Joker in the White House we may need a few Dark Knights. This would not come without some sort of price; nothing really does. As Wretchard over at The Belmont Club once stated, do not be surprised to see yourself sprouting whiskers after battling werewolves in the dark–you can’t win a battle like that without becoming a little bit like your enemy.
The average citizen may not fully understand that, but those same citizens are the same ones Bill Whittle referred to in “Tribes”–the ones who can’t really tell the difference between sheepdogs and wolves.
The wolves ar howling and circling now, and the time will soon come for the sheepdogs to bare their fangs and join the battle tooth and claw. It may need to be done in the dark, when the sheep are peacefully asleep. But when it’s over the sheepdogs and wolves will still know who is who, even if the sheep don’t….
“Obama and Holder are despicable”
Ditto that.
Andy McCarthy nails it too. This trial is going to be a circus, and the joke’s on us.
KSM was only waterboarded to extract information about possible new attacks not to confirm what he already did.
At least that’s the only justification I’ve heard from the right.
So, there’s no problem, is there. Nope.
We’ve plenty of trials that are linked to violence and destruction (Rodney King), or threat to individuals (gangsters old and new, Mafioso). Heck, the mob has caused more wanton destruction to America than Al-Q could ever do in our lifetime.
Conservatives are afraid of the American justice system and health care for the uninsured. Who knew? What a bunch of wimps and losers.
American justice at home(TM) will only eviscerate Bush & Cheney and their policies if they deserve it. Hope it does.
Psychological projection.
As an ancillary issue of the question as to why Obama would make such a wrongheaded decision as to allow KSM and his bretheren to be afforded a civilian criminal trial, this seems to present a numer of procedural concerns. Will a federal grand jury be convened to sift through the evidence? Will KSM et al be charged by indictment with conspiracy to commit some 3,000 murders; if not conspiracy to commit murder, with what charges will they be charged? KSM, in the past, has seemingly stated that he is guilty and would like to be executed. Is he not to be afforded the right to plead guilty, but to be afforded all other constitutional rights guaranteed to citizens in a criminal trial?
As a state prosecutor, these are just a few of the procedural issues that seem to me to abound in this decision . . . and I’m sure a U.S. Attorney would spot many more.
Occam, please detail your scenario.
Armed forces’ respect is not key to Baraq. As CIC, his orders will be followed as long as they do not include Kent States writ large. He seeks rule of a crippled nation. Crippling through artifice is fine. Will the National Guard round up Tea Partiers for “preventive detention”? You betcha.
He is tyrannical. Let’s just accept that. The good guys want to play by the rules, but we’ve gotta start growing Wretchard’s “whiskers” or all is lost. We’ve had to shave before, but only when the job is done.
ipw533 Says:
November 14th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
I’ve said elsewhere that we don’t lower ourselves to our enemy’s level by adopting their tactics. Only by adopting their ideology can we do that.
logern:
Wow. Deep Thoughts (TM).
logern is best ignored. He hates that.
Getting back to the idea that our enemies could be bought off for the duration of the trial, I find this the scary part. Our enemies are willing to work in two ways: One is the carefully planned and controlled attack. The other is the encitement of lots of loose cannons who aren’t a part of the larger strategy. The latter could independently decide to attack a shopping mall or try for a Beslan II. I think such spontaneous attacks would be very attractive to loosers seeking to prove their jihadi creds, and I think they would be very hard to spot in advance.
AVI– I agree with your analysis of Obama’s motives.
Huxley– I have always said that our hope lies in the cussedness of the American people. I pray that they will see that waddling, quacking feathered creature for what it is and insist that it go back to the farmyard (or should that be Harvard Yard?).
I have always said that our hope lies in the cussedness of the American people.
That’s what my wife (who’s not an American) thinks too. As she said re the Tea Parties, when Americans are unhappy, they do something about it. Americans don’t take crap lying down.
Huxley— I have always said that our hope lies in the cussedness of the American people.
expat: So far indications are good: the Tea Parties, the record-setting decline of Obama’s poll numbers, the astonishing exposes of ACORN and Van Jones, the revolt against ObamaCare and cap-and-trade, the failure of Obama’s war against Fox, the huge leap in viewership for Fox, the gubernatorial wins in New Jersey and Virginia, and the decline of the MSM, not to mention the stalwart samizdat opposition in the blogs.
Knock on wood Huxley, knock on wood.
betsybounds, thanks for the link to the forward from Witness. A very good read indeed.
Additionally, Huxley’s friend is not that far off in suspecting that..
While I do not think that the ultimate intent here is to lay the groundwork for war crimes trials of Bush and those in his administration as Huxley’s friend thinks, I am convinced that because of their loss of majority public approval on all other fronts, the Obama administration will do its level best to distract the public’s attention away from its many failures and try to focus on the Bush administration’s prosecution of the War on Terror.
By doing this they additionally prepare the psychological groundwork of rationalizations (and public acceptance) for their upcoming abandonment of Afghanistan, Iraq and ultimately Israel.
Dark times ahead indeed.
Allen, you supercilious douchebag. Why don’t you toddle over to Pam Geller’s and watch KSM personally beheading Daniel Pearl one more time? Perhaps it will help you to concentrate your very feeble thoughts.
A, he’d just get hard watching that, assuming he’s got the guts. Don’t show Leftists violent porn. Or at least, make em pay for it ahead of time.