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Yesterday it was Afghan force levels. Today the KSM trial in New York City.
The decision to prosecute terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed through the US court system is being criticized for the national security threat it poses, the damage to intelligence and intelligence-gathering, and the security threat for New York and those involved in the trial. We hear from a number of commentators on these topics, and on the inefficiency and illogical disruption of the military prosecutorial process already started, as well as the political ideology and poor judgment by Obama and Holder that led to this.
Investor’s Business Daily starts a five part series on the housing crisis written by Thomas Sowell.
And the cartoonists go crazy with Obama’s bow to the emperor of Japan.
Peter Wehner posts in Contentions about the upcoming terrorist trial.
The Obama administration is pursuing the prosecution of the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in federal court in New York. In light of this astonishing decision, I was reminded by a friend that, according to the New York Times, Sheikh Mohammed met his captors with cocky defiance at first, telling one veteran CIA officer that he would talk only when he got to New York and was assigned a lawyer. It looks as though Sheikh Mohammed has seen his defiance vindicated. He has now found an administration more amenable to his view of justice than was the previous one. The Holderization of American justice continues. And I suspect that there will be bad consequences all around for this action.
Bill Kristol comments on Holder’s lack of judgment regarding several aspects of the upcoming trial.
Attorney General Eric Holder said yesterday that the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in federal court in New York will be “truly the trial of the century.”
It’s unbelievable that the attorney general would use that phrase in the course of justifying his decision. …
…Leave aside all the practical problems with trying KSM and his henchmen in a civilian court. Doesn’t Eric Holder realize he’s inviting a circus-like “juicy tabloid trial” for men who have the blood of thousands of Americans on their hands? Does he really think such a trial will contribute to “fairness and justice,” as he claims? Does he think military tribunals aren’t fair and just? And did it never occur to him to ask whether giving the terrorists the chance to create a tabloid spectacle is an appropriate way to honor our dead and those who continue to fight the jihadists?
I’m very doubtful a “trial of the century” will serve the cause of fairness and justice. I’m certain it won’t help the cause of victory.
Andy McCarthy comments that Obama’s and Holder’s political agenda is more important to them than national security. He gives some background, then discusses the trial.
…Today’s announcement that KSM and other top al-Qaeda terrorists will be transferred to Manhattan federal court for civilian trials neatly fits this hidden agenda. Nothing results in more disclosures of government intelligence than civilian trials. They are a banquet of information, not just at the discovery stage but in the trial process itself, where witnesses — intelligence sources — must expose themselves and their secrets.
Let’s take stock of where we are at this point. KSM and his confederates wanted to plead guilty and have their martyrs’ execution last December, when they were being handled by military commission. As I said at the time, we could and should have accommodated them. The Obama administration could still accommodate them. After all, the president has not pulled the plug on all military commissions: Holder is going to announce at least one commission trial (for Nashiri, the Cole bomber) today. …
…So: 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.
Turns out David Paterson, NY Governor, also thinks it’s a terrible decision.
Gov. David Paterson openly criticized the White House on Monday, saying he thought it was a terrible idea to move alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspected terrorists to New York for trial.
“This is not a decision that I would have made. I think terrorism isn’t just attack, it’s anxiety and I think you feel the anxiety and frustration of New Yorkers who took the bullet for the rest of the country,” he said.
Paterson’s comments break with Democrats, who generally support the President’s decision.
“Our country was attacked on its own soil on September 11, 2001 and New York was very much the epicenter of that attack. Over 2,700 lives were lost,” he said. “It’s very painful. We’re still having trouble getting over it. We still have been unable to rebuild that site and having those terrorists so close to the attack is gonna be an encumbrance on all New Yorkers.”
Paterson also said that the White House warned him six months ago this very situation would happen. …
Jennifer Rubin joins in the condemnation. She includes a statement from Senator Lieberman expressing his disapproval.
Pete, the decision to transport Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to the U.S. to be tried in an Article III court, presumably with the same rights as common American criminals, is shocking and entirely unnecessary. I would submit that someone in the Obama administration recognizes this. As pointed out to me today by a congressman infuriated by the decision, the president is out of the country. Congress is not in session. It’s a Friday. The ultimate bad-news dump. In this context, it suggests not only a queasy awareness that the American people won’t like this but also, frankly, political cowardice. This is a major decision with long-term consequences. If the president believes what he is doing is right, he should exercise leadership and explain it to the American people. Himself.
But, again, the decision itself is utterly unnecessary. As Sen. Joe Lieberman has pointed out, we have a military-tribunal system designed for precisely these cases. His statement reminded us:
“The military commission system recently signed into law by the President as part of the National Defense Authorization Act provides standards of due process and fairness that fully comply with the requirements established by the Supreme Court and the Geneva Conventions. Earlier this year, when passing the National Defense Authorization Act, the Senate also passed language expressing its clear intent that military commissions rather than civilian courts in the U.S. are the appropriate forum for the trial of these alleged terrorists. I share the views of more than 140 family members of the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks who recently wrote to the Senate urging that the individuals charged with responsibility for those attacks should be tried by military commission rather than in civilian courts in the United States: It is inconceivable that we would bring these alleged terrorists back to New York for trial, to the scene of the carnage they created eight years ago, and give them a platform to mock the suffering of their victims and the victims’ families, and rally their followers to continue waging jihad against America.”
And let’s recall how we got here. An informed legal guru observes that we decided to prosecute KSM in a military commission in part because past trials (e.g., those of the “Blind Sheikh” and Ramzi Yousef) may have compromised intelligence. So now we’ve gone back to the very system that, for legitimate national-security reasons, we had abandoned. …
Writing in WSJ, John Yoo has an excellent article on KSM’s background, how the intelligence information from the trial will be used by Al Qaeda, and the military commission option designed to handle such cases.
…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. …
In the American Spectator, Philip Klein writes about the security issues that former Attorney General Michael Mukasey noted in a talk. Mukasey was the judge in the trial from the first World Trade Center attack.
…There would also be tremendous security issues involved with making sure that courthouses, jails, the judge and jury, were all safe.
“It would take a whole lot more credulousness than I have available to be optimistic about the outcome of this latest experiment,” Mukasey said at the conclusion of his formal remarks.
During a question and answer session that followed, Mukasey was asked if he felt the jails in New York were secure enough to make sure terrorists would not escape, but he said that wasn’t really the issue.
“If you ask the wrong question, you’re sure to get the wrong answer,” Mukasey responded. “Of course it’s secure. They’re not going to escape. The question is not whether they’re going to escape, the question is whether not only that facility, but the city at large will then become the focus for mischief in the form of murder by adherents of KSM, whether this raises the odds that it will. And I would suggest to you that it raises them very high. It is also whether the proceeding, even assuming that it goes forward within the lifetime of anybody in this room, is one where confidential information is able to be kept confidential, and a trial is able to proceed in an orderly way.”
He later added that, “to the extent that they are within prisons, they are a threat there as well. Any of these people would be a virtually totemic figure in a prison.” He argued that “shoe bomber” Richard Reid’s success in challenging his solitary confinement shows that there’s no guarantee that convicted terrorists would stay isolated from the rest of the prison population. …
Rachel Adams, in a Weekly Standard blog, posts on Holder’s arrogance and hypocrisy.
Though it is a piece of superficiality worthy of People magazine, the Washington Post’s account of the process by which Eric Holder came to make his decision to try war criminals in federal court is a remarkable–if inadvertent–revelation of just how much, despite their vastly disparate backgrounds, the attorney general resembles his coolly remote boss, the president. …
“…But I think if people will, in a neutral and detached way, look at the decision that I have made today, understand the reasons why I made those decisions, and try to do something that’s rare in Washington–leave the politics out of it and focus on what’s in the best interest of this country–I think the criticism will be relatively muted.”
And there you have it. The dispassion, the self-reverence, the blindness of the man, are marvelous to behold, and so perfectly reflect the president he so perfectly serves. “Neutral and detached” people shall “understand the reasons why” he made those decisions, shall see he has left “the politics out of it,” and shall recognize what’s right–something the rest of us, benighted and bellicose souls that we are, have never managed to do with respect to the disposition of those committing mass murders of Americans in their ongoing war against our civilization.
Investor’s Business Daily hosts a five-part series on housing from one of our favorites, Thomas Sowell. Today Sowell discusses how government intervention drove the housing bubble.
…In reality, government agencies not only approved the more lax standards for mortgage loan applicants, government officials were in fact the driving force behind the loosening of mortgage loan requirements.
Members of Congress from both political parties have urged federal regulatory agencies to press banks and other lenders to lower mortgage loan requirements, and have passed legislation to that end and to subsidize or guarantee loans made under lowered standards. …
…Despite the widespread assumption that government intervention is the key to making housing affordable to people of moderate or low incomes, history shows that it has been precisely in the times and places where government intervention has been greatest that housing costs have been both highest in absolute terms and have taken a larger share of the average income.
This is true whether we compare different places at the same time or different time periods with one another. If we look back to the beginning of the 20th century, when government played a much smaller role in the housing market and there were far fewer restrictions on building, the average American’s housing costs were a smaller share of consumer expenditures than at the end of that century. …
In the Times, UK, Giles Whittell may be left of center, but he sees the big picture: Obamacare is not about health care; it’s about power.
…Deep down, Barack Obama believes it’s his turn. He ran for President promising change, and won. “Change” could mean anything to anyone. That was its chief merit as a slogan. But this Administration believes in its soul that the many meanings of the word should include a willingness to expand the role of the State itself if nothing else works. On economic management that meant taking controlling stakes in banks and car giants to stop them failing. On healthcare, it means proving that the Federal Government can move into running a nationwide low-cost insurance programme, and not screw it up.
My father-in-law believes a screw-up is inevitable. For his generation of Eisenhower Republicans it is axiomatic that anything the private sector can do, the public sector can do only worse. Dick Armey and the army of Tea Party activists that he informally leads go much farther. They call the slightest expansion of the State a step towards Marxism. They say so politely, seriously, despairingly, on battle buses and in town halls across the country, and it is a great mistake to doubt their sincerity. …
…The insurgents also smell blood. As Mr Armey said, this is about power and political control. Mr Obama has staked his presidency on showing that he can win reforms that eluded Mr Clinton in 1994 and generations before that. He has majorities in both houses. Even the legal tussle for a disputed Minnesota Senate seat went the Democrats’ way, adding a self-important comedian to their caucus in the upper house and giving them, in principle, a filibuster-proof majority. Yet the President seems unable to use it. …
…The Tea Party insurgency has blunted the health crusade from the Right. Democratic infighting over tax-funded abortions may do the same from the Left. Slippage deep into next year is entirely possible. So is complete failure, and if Mr Obama fails on healthcare what remains of the bubble of hope he created in his 2008 campaign will deflate faster than a blood pressure cuff in an overpriced private hospital. He will be, at best, a Clinton facsimile; at worst another Carter, undone by his own naivety and shorn of his unused majorities in next year’s mid-terms. …