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Home Front: WoT

Obama on terror trials: KSM will die

2009-11-18

Hat tip Ace.

Americans who are troubled by the decision to send alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York for trial will feel better about it when hes put to death, President Barack Obama said Wednesday.

During a round of network television interviews conducted during Obamas visit to China, the president was asked about those who find it offensive that Mohammed will receive all the rights normally accorded to U.S. citizens when they are charged with a crime.

I don't think it will be offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him, Obama told NBCs Chuck Todd.

When Todd asked Obama if he was interfering in the trial process by declaring that Mohammed will be executed, Obama, a former constitutional law professor, insisted that he wasnt trying to dictate the result.

What I said was, people will not be offended if that's the outcome. I'm not pre-judging, I'm not going to be in that courtroom, that's the job of prosecutors, the judge and the jury, Obama said. What I'm absolutely clear about is that I have complete confidence in the American people and our legal traditions and the prosecutors, the tough prosecutors from New York who specialize in terrorism.

In another interview, Obama said he had not tried to tell Attorney General Eric Holder whether the case involving KSM and four other alleged 9/11 plotters should be heard in federal court or before a military tribunal.

I said to the attorney general, make a decision based on the law, the president told CNNs Ed Henry. We have set up now a military commission system that is greatly reformed and so we can try terrorists in the forum. But I also have great confidence in our Article 3 courts, the courts that have tried hundreds of terrorist suspects who are imprisoned right now in the United States.

Obama also suggested that critics of the decision are unwisely building the alleged Al Qaeda operatives into larger-than-life figures who require the U.S. to abandon its usual legal processes. I think this notion that somehow we have to be fearful, that these terrorists are possess some special powers that prevent us from presenting evidence against them, locking them up and, you know, exacting swift justice, I think that has been a fundamental mistake, the president declared.

These comments are dangerous, ignorant and stupid in equal measure.

What's the point of a judicial system: to dispense justice according to the law.

In any just system, the outcome of a trial is not pre-ordained. If it is, the system is not just.

So either Bambi is truly ignorant of how our system works, or he's cynical in that he knows the case against KSM is so air-tight that the outcome might as well be pre-ordained (could be), or he's both cynical and conniving and plans to use this to weaken our own legal system.

Which he's already done by moving KSM to the civilian side.

U.S. military tribunals have a long and honorable tradition. These are part of our system of justice, and just as on the civilian side, the outcomes are not pre-ordained -- just ask the lawyers, judge advocates, etc who work on them. What the tribunals had until the liberal-progressive succeeded in gutting and neutering them was precedent.

Yes, precedent, from the Civil War up to recently, tribunals had the experience to understand who was an enemy combatant. Who was legitimately a PoW. What was a war crime. How a solider was to behave in the field. What the responsibilities of an officer were. What the Geneva conventions are and how those are applied. The system wasn't perfect, no system is, but it was honorable.

And just.

Now it's been tossed aside. It was designed to handle not just military law but also the very important issue of who was under its jurisdiction. The German saboteurs who came ashore on Long Island in '42? Military. Civil war southern sympathizers who blew up Union train tracks? Military. Guerillas who murdered civilians? Military.

A military tribunal would have tried KSM properly using its accumulated law and experience. It might have had some procedural issues to resolve, but it would have resolved them. And being in Guantanamo, it would have done so out of the limelight.

All gone now.

Does a federal district court judge have the experience and knowledge base to handle KSM? Does that judge understand the rules of war, the laws of war, the Geneva conventions, and the legal issues surrounding terrorism? Maybe.

But more likely not. After all, we've had some experience with such judges in the last few years as the progressive Left has tried to wreck the tribunal system. We've had a few trials on the civilian side already. The record of those judges isn't encouraging.

Maybe a federal court judge could cut through all the nonsense. Maybe a strong federal judge would prevent the trial from being a circus.

But look at the Lynne Stewart types in this world and ask yourself, how exactly will a judge control that? You mean, like last time?

It will be a farce. It will force the government to reveal information that shouldn't be revealed. It will put our government, particularly our previous administration, on trial instead of KSM.

And if the trial becomes farce and KSM is convicted, then the world will sense that it was, after all, pre-ordained.

What happens to the respect accorded to our judicial system then?

We already know the answer to that.

Posted by:

#11 Where he will be convicted and sentenced to time served, Pappy?

Posted by: trailing wife 2009-11-18 22:49

#10 Nixon made a mistake when he opined that Charles Manson was guilty. This is about ten times worse.

Prediction: KSM gets acquitted on a technicality and then deported to Pakistan to 'face charges'.

Posted by: Pappy 2009-11-18 22:32

#9 O stepped in it this time. The cop in Cambridge was little league. Now he gave the defense a big a$$ed gift.

Posted by: Alaska Paul 2009-11-18 21:30

#8 What is Obama doing, why did he block that and why is he going with the most stupid and dragged out way he could have done this?

That's a rhetorical question, right?

Posted by: Woozle Uneter9007 2009-11-18 20:14

#7 If the President of the United States, formally the most powerful man in the world, declares that "New York will feel better about it when hes put to death" how can KSM possibly get a fair trial in New York City, much less anywhere in the world?

Else, what is the point of the trial?

Posted by: Kelly 2009-11-18 19:47

#6 Its not law enforcement, this is a military matter. Damned scumbag lawyers Obama and Holder.

There go our civil liberties, destroyed by the precedents this case will set by forcing military tribunal techniques into the criminal courts.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed pleaded guilty eleven months ago and asked for the death penalty at his tribunal.

Why did they not accept it and get it over with? What is Obama doing, why did he block that and why is he going with the most stupid and dragged out way he could have done this?

Posted by: Jeager Panda5130 2009-11-18 19:22

#5 And, because someone has to say it: Just imagine if Bush had done that.

Posted by: Angie Schultz 2009-11-18 18:03

#4 I am not a lawyer, but I've watched a lot of TV shows about courts, and I read overlawyered.com.
Seems to me that a good defense lawyer could get the whole case thrown out on Obama's statements alone. How can a jury render an impartial decision when the President of the United States has said that KSM is guilty, and that he will be executed! Talk about influencing the jury pool!

Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2009-11-18 17:20

#3 I didn't vote for the man, but I wanted him to work out.

He's becoming a parody of a bad president.

Posted by: Mizzou Mafia 2009-11-18 16:55

#2 Its a good thing that since the war on terror is now the prosecution for initiators of man made disasters that there is lawyer in the White House, a constitutional lawyer at that, because if lawfare is going to be the new course than it just makes sense...wait what'd he say? Dammit.

Posted by: swksvolFF 2009-11-18 15:36

#1 I think we already concluded---from the actions of the AG that he's appointed, what respect Obama has for your legal system.

Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2009-11-18 14:40

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