NEOAVATARA

The left has pleaded for years to have ‘legitimate trials’ for those held at Guantanamo Bay…something that I myself support.  That said, this week’s decision by Attorney General Eric Holder simply lacks any intellectual consistency or logic.  And in practical terms, is utterly stupid.

Just a few points:

1.  Liberals have argued that the military tribunals set up by the Bush Administration was somehow ‘extralegal’.  That in itself is nonsense.  The current special military tribunals were created by the 2006 Military Commissions Act, which was adopted with bipartisan Congressional support after the Supreme Court’s Hamdandecision obliged the executive and legislative branches to approve a detailed plan to prosecute the illegal “enemy combatants” captured since 9/11.

Then Senator Barack Obama defended military tribunals…with direct mention of KSM.  Watch the video below.

What has changed in the interim?  Well, Obama no longer needs to be a moderate in sheep’s clothing to win the Presidency, that is what.

And what of past trials, such as the conviction of the ‘Blind Sheikh’ for the 1993 WTC bombing?   From the Wall Street Journal:

Andrew McCarthy has a unique perspective on the move to criminal trials. As an assistant U.S. attorney in 1993, he successfully prosecuted Omar Abdel Rahman (the “blind sheikh”) for the first bombing of the World Trade Center. Even though the cases were somewhat different—that plot was conceived, plotted and carried out on U.S. soil—Mr. McCarthy says the experience persuaded him that federal trials are a bad way of handling terror.

“At first, I was of the mind that a criminal prosecution would uphold all our high-falutin’ rhetoric about the constitution and majesty of the law,” says Mr. McCarthy. “But when you get down to the nitty gritty of a trial, you see one huge problem: The criminal justice system imposes limits on the government and gives the defendant all sorts of access to information, because we’d rather have the government lose than unfairly convict a man. You can’t take that position with an enemy who is at war with you and trying to bring that government down.”

2.  Holder and Obama now have certified the legality of those same tribunals by placing other detainees, including Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is accused of planning Al Qaeda’s 2000 bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole in Yemen, in the hands of military tribunals.  Thus, Obama and Holder now accept that the Bush Administration’s policy of military tribunals was just, and they are accepting that legal process.  Of course, with Obama’s now ill-fated promise of closing Guantanamo in one year’s time (a promise that he is now going to break), they will have to find a new place to try these people…outside of the continental U.S.  Another hurdle to cross.

3.  Moreover, Holder’s only reason to try 5 of the detainees in New York is that KSM and others attacked civilians on 9/11. However, this is simply nonsensical, as the attacks also attacked military personnel within the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, and were suspected to target the Capitol and the White House, also pseudo-military installations.

Additionally, this process actually gives more rights to terrorists who attack civilians, including women and children, then those that are attacking our soldiers in foreign lands.  What sense does that make?

4.  We have empirical, historical evidence that data leaked from civilian trials has been used by Al Qaeda in future attacks.  The 9/11 commission referred to this, and James Galyean refers to this in a RedState posting.

Just think about the discovery requirements that could be placed on prosecutors. For instance, in the trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, prosecutors were required to turn over to defense lawyers a large amount of intelligence information. Documents from that discovery production, which were never supposed to be provided to anyone outside the defense team, were later found in an al-Qaeda hideout. Let me say that again, confidential documents from a trial in New York were later found in the hands of al-Qaeda.

John Yoo has a piece in the Wall Street Journal that spells out the problems even better.  He specifically mentions leaked information from the 1993 trial:

Prosecutors will be forced to reveal U.S. intelligence on KSM, the methods and sources for acquiring its information, and his relationships to fellow al Qaeda operatives. The information will enable al Qaeda to drop plans and personnel whose cover is blown. It will enable it to detect our means of intelligence-gathering, and to push forward into areas we know nothing about.

This is not hypothetical, as former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has explained. During the 1993 World Trade Center bombing trial of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (aka the “blind Sheikh”), standard criminal trial rules required the government to turn over to the defendants a list of 200 possible co-conspirators.

In essence, this list was a sketch of American intelligence on al Qaeda. According to Mr. McCarthy, who tried the case, it was delivered to bin Laden in Sudan on a silver platter within days of its production as a court exhibit.

Bin Laden, who was on the list, could immediately see who was compromised. He also could start figuring out how American intelligence had learned its information and anticipate what our future moves were likely to be.

Liberals have pointed to convictions in the 1993 WTC bombing as their ideal for terrorist prosecutions.  However, what information did that trial leak that would help Al Qaeda in their attacks on 9/11?  The 9/11 commission thought there was tangible proof of a connection.  And yet, the Obama Administration is unwilling to even consider the possibility that information from this proposed trial could come back and haunt us.

5.  Ultimately, maybe the most important point of all:  Americans simply are not clamoring for KSM and others to be tried in civilian courts.  Obama and Holder are both trying to make the argument that the public is demanding this…that is simply not the case  A CNN poll just out shows 64% of Americans believe KSM should be tried in a military court and not a civilian one.  Additionally, even a majority of liberals and independents believe that.  So who exactly is calling for a civilian trial?  Only the most extreme of the hard core left.  Americans, by and large, feel more than comfortable with the fairness of military tribunals.

Ultimately, Holder’s reasoning to try these men in civilian court does not come to any legal reason whatsoever.  There is one common factor between all of these men:  they are all enemy combatants.  That is the one and only true link between them.  To differentiate their trials simply based on where the attacks took place is ludicrous, especially considering that KSM were overseas at the time.

This is purely a ideological issue:  extreme liberals, those that belong to 1/5 of the population that call themselves as liberal, want to prove that Bush was wrong on military tribunals.  But most of the country disagrees.  Whether this decisions hurts our national security, well, only time will tell.  But the decision is clearly foolish on political, legal, and ethical grounds.

UDPATE:  Eric Holder blubbering to logical questions by Sen. Lindsey Graham…continuing to show the lack of logic in his decision.  Simple question:  Was there any precedent to trying an enemy combatant in civil court?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG7lm8Sfbo4

UPDATE: Video of Charles Schumer promising no civilian trials for the 9/11 terrorists…how times have changed.