The Trouble with the 9/11 Trial
The attacks brought Americans together briefly, but the aftermath is still sowing division–as the decision of Attorney General Eric Holder to try five of the 9/11 terrorists in lower Manhattan brings conflict and confusion.
On the surface, it’s hard to argue with Holder’s logic: “After eight years of delay, those allegedly responsible for the attacks of September 11th will finally face justice. They will be brought to New York–to New York–to answer for their alleged crimes, in a courthouse just blocks away from where the twin towers once stood.”
A New York Times editorial calls the decision “an enormous victory for the rule of law, a major milestone in Mr. Obama’s efforts to close the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and an important departure from Mr. Bush’s disregard for American courts and their proven ability to competently handle high-profile terror cases.”
But the Wall Street Journal focuses on the fear of terrorist reprisal: “Coming soon to a civilian courtroom blocks from Ground Zero: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the four other al Qaeda planners of 9/11. Be sure to get your tickets early, and don’t forget to watch out for the truck-bomb barricades and rooftop snipers.”
Beyond this conflict of idealistic symbolism and realistic fears, there are other uneasy questions:
How can such a trial possibly find an impartial jury?
How can it not be fairly called “a show trial” when the verdict is predetermined or, in the extremely unlikely event of acquittal, the defendants will face a backlog of other charges?
In an event designed to show American fairness and rule of law, how can it not also be a huge media showcase for the defendants’ countercharges of torture and brutality?
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17 Responses to “The Trouble with the 9/11 Trial”
Easily – install a media blackout on the actual trial proceedings.
You know, there are a lot of Americans stuck in various stages of our criminal justice system who would ask the same thing. It isn't a show trial if it rigorously follows the rules of evidence and jurisprudence.
It's possible. You find twelve people who want to make sure that the RIGHT person gets punished. Not just the person who is in front of them.
I think that everyone who is arguing against giving these individuals a trial should remember that the Constitution is, first and foremost, a brake on the power of Government. Meaning that those rights of the accused are not granted to only US citizens…they are restrictions on the government's use of its power.
“It's possible. You find twelve people who want to make sure that the RIGHT person gets punished. Not just the person who is in front of them.”
Could you please amplify.
If they can delay the trial until 12/21/2012, we can relax a bit.
The following is the funniest article I have read in the NYT.
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytim…
Obama is demonstrating to the entire world that an opportunity to publicly let the terrorists and their supporters bash his predecessor is more important to him than national security or justice. These terrorists should have been tried swiftly and executed when and if found guilty, demonstrating to the world that American justice is swift and sure. Instead, we get yet another long delay followed by a media circus in which America itself will be put on trial by the terrorists, accused of all manner of injustices, and followed by an obviously rigged outcome. Nobody thinks Holder/Obama would let them walk free, even if the case is dismissed or they are not found guilty — the political cost would be too high. Indeed, the White House did nothing but evade the question of what would happen.
The only thing driving this charade is the hopes that it will produce some sound bites of aggrieved terrorists pressing their case against America prior to Obama. For that partisan political payoff, Obama is willing to paint a bullseye on the Big Apple and risk freeing those who planned the butchery of Americans as Soldiers of Allah.
The evidence has to link the specific people on trial with the specific crime of which they are accused. It doesn't take much to detach enough to evaluate that.
It amazes me how little faith people have in the judicial system. Rather than use that system, they would prefer that a new system be cooked up from scratch by the executive branch with the only appeal being to the “Executive in Chief.”
Knowing there is corruption in the executive branch, they still trust that branch more than an independent one. If you don't think that the executive branch is corrupt when it comes to punishing terrorists, then look no further than the case of Mr. Luis Posada Carriles. One executive lets him free and a different one arrests him. That's politics where the rule of a man (the President) is more important than a rule of law applied by an independent judiciary.
Yes, there are long delays. Yes, the defendant gets to question his accuser. Yes, he has the right to remain silent. Those are Constitutional rights.
But all the teabaggers that claim to work in defense of the constitution seem to only like certain parts of it. The rights parts, they think, only apply to themselves.
Which Article or Amendment grants these rights to enemy combatants?
As an apparent Constitutional-law expert you are, no doubt, familiar with the case of the German would-be saboteurs who were tried before a military tribunal in 1942, six of whom were executed within two months of their apprehension.
http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/naz…
How would you say the case of KSM differs, other than that his plot was actually carried out?
Anyone who has “faith in the judicial system” to invariably deliver justice must know very little about that system. I don't think there is a better one, but there are a plethora of examples available to both liberals and conservatives where the system has gone awry. But even if the system were perfect, it is not designed to mete out justice to the enemy in a war. Wars are not won by parading the merits of your judicial system and patting yourself on the back. al Quaeda is not going to be won over because the trials are in NY instead of Gitmo. Maybe the Europeans will pat Obama on the head and give him another shiny medal, but they aren't suddenly going to send more troops. The only beneficiaries in this farce are our enemies.
Obama won't preside over the trial, a judge will run the courtroom. Or all the Liebrul activist judges worshiping at the Obamama altar…
“Anyone who has “faith in the judicial system” to invariably deliver justice must know very little about that system.”
There exists a form of government that would guarantee a conviction of anyone. Many of the TMV readers fought against it.
Since you cited that case, I assume you read it? Those fellows were picked up on US land where they came to do do evil. How exactly did the prisoners in GITMO get there? Was it under their own steam? Also, you are aware that none of the saboteurs were simply released? Yet hundreds of people picked up in Afghanistan, by far the majority, were held for years, and then simply released without facing a trial or tribunal.
So, if you assume that all the people being held are guilty, and you assume that all the people that were released without trial were not guilty, what evidence do you have to show either? How would you know that the people released were not guilty?
The correct answer is that you do not know. Sunshine sterilizes many things.
Here's what I do know, as should you, if you have in fact read about the case of the would-be saboteurs: The evidence of their guilt was never presented before a U.S. court of law in a jury trial with full constitutional protections. It was presented before a military tribunal, which sentenced them to immediate execution without appeal.
That is the issue under discussion, and that is the issue to which you addressed your foolish claim that enemy combatants are entitled to full constitutional protections.
It's cheap, PR, a shallow appeal to the emotions of the shallow, and a risky move. I hope ObamaCo doesn't blow this as they have so much else so far now that theyr'e committed to doing it, wherever the trial eventually happens. (Seeking it in New York, which any competent legal defense will promply seek to change, was one of the most stupid emotional gimmick components of this stunt.)
“Obama is demonstrating to the entire world that an opportunity to publicly let the terrorists and their supporters bash his predecessor is more important to him than national security or justice.”
Aside from the very intellectually and developmentally shallow appeal to emotion that this PR stunt constitutes (especially the added decision to hold a show trial in New York City), yes, this does lead to suspicions of pathological politics; this stunt does, indeed, reek of play-pen “atonement for Bush sins” drivel. (As one critic promptly noted, on behalf of Americans, he doesn't care about any sick need to kiss the asses of European anti-Bush protestors or demented fringists here at home, either.)
“How would you say the case of KSM differs, other than that his plot was actually carried out?”
Actually, there is a difference, as I have pointed out, even though I'm not one of the wacky lefties (who actually have yet to be able to justify this civilian trial in any way whatsoever).
The crime, or the act itself, happened prior to our going to war. It's not a war crime but an act of terrorism no different than the earlier World Trade Center bombing, or the Oklahoma City bombing that was performed by domestic terrorists. What's different in the case of “9-11″ was the greater number of casualties as well as the more elaborate nature of the plot (which involved using airliners [with additional victims in the case of the crews and passengers] and hijacking them and using them as weapons).
It was a civilian crime, committed before we were at war. The war criminals would be those who were not official members of the military, but terrorists or ordinary civilian guerrilla “francs-tireurs” in the places where we engaged in warfare (Iraq, Afghanistan).
“The crime, or the act itself, happened prior to our going to war.”
I realize that others will say “it was an act of war” (and “they started it”), but the fact that it happened before we launched the war against Afghanistan (and later, Iraq) is what I've called the “kernel” or the small amount of truth or validity in what is obviously a base appeal to emotion and a clumsy PR stunt by our elitist play-pen crowd running things in Washington. (Kind of like what the “stimulus” was like, too.)
And do you also know why this was done? Two of the spies (George John Dasch and Ernst Peter Burger) tried to defect to the United States by turning themself into the FBI. They were turned away, but Dasch persisted, eventually getting the FBI to take him seriously by turning in $84,000 in cash (supplied by the Germans to finance the operation). With his help, the FBI located the rest of the spies. This was a great success for the United States, but didn't make the FBI look good, so J. Edgar Hoover decide to fictionalize the story.
Dasch and Burger probably could not have been convicted in a civilian court for the simple reason that they were innocent of the charge of conspiring to commit sabotage. They didn't enter the United States with the intent to commit sabotage; they entered with the intent to turn themselve into the FBI.
It is in America's interest to encourage the enemy to defect. Therefore, sentencing defectors to death is bad policy. (The death sentences for Dasch and Burger were commuted by President Rosevelt.) Dasch and Burger were put on trial because Hoover and others were more concerned about politics than about national security.
You write as though the Quirin case were a model to be emulated. For those of us who don't want to convict innocent people, and believe that national security should trump politics, it's not.