Saturday, November 14, 2009

Add My Voice...

... to the incredible outrage over yesterday's announcement that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed & Co will be tried in New York for the 9/11 atrocities.  I can't say I was surprised at AG Holder's announcement yesterday... no, I was merely sickened, most especially with all his bullshit about "faith in the American justice system" and the like.  Me and about 150 million others, including the editors of the Wall Street Journal:

Please spare us talk of the "rule of law." If that was the primary consideration, the U.S. already has a judicial process in place. 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 Hamdan decision obliged the executive and legislative branches to approve a detailed plan to prosecute the illegal "enemy combatants" captured since 9/11.

Contrary to liberal myth, military tribunals aren't a break with 200-plus years of American jurisprudence. Eight Nazis who snuck into the U.S. in June 1942 were tried by a similar court and most were hanged within two months. Before the Obama Administration stopped all proceedings earlier this year pending yesterday's decision, the tribunals at Gitmo had earned a reputation for fairness and independence.

As it happens, Mr. Holder acknowledged their worth himself by announcing that the Guantanamo detainee who allegedly planned the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole off Yemen and four others would face military commission trials. (The Pentagon must now find a locale other than the multimillion-dollar, state-of-the-art facility at Gitmo for its tribunal.)

Why the difference? Mr. Holder seemed to suggest that the Cole bombers struck a military target overseas and thus are a good fit for a military trial, while KSM and comrades hit the U.S. and murdered civilians and thus deserve a U.S. civilian trial. But this entirely misunderstands that both groups are unlawful enemy combatants who are accused of war crimes, whatever their targets. Mr. Holder's justification betrays not a legal consistency but a fundamentally political judgment that he can make as he sees fit.
A political judgment indeed.  The far left now has its retributive sop for the Bush-Cheney "war crimes" and the show is only just beginning.  Andy McCarthy of National Review sums up the situation quite nicely:
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.
Mr. McCarthy knows from whence he speaks... he led the 1995 prosecution against the original World Trade Center bombers.  

There's just so much to dislike disagree with hate about yesterday's decision it's difficult to know where to begin with the hatin'.  A great place to start would be with The One himself who, in typical fashion, assumed a low profile ("present!") by being out of the country when the announcement was made.  He owns this mess... assuming Harry Truman's "the buck stops here" presidential maxim still applies.

Elections have consequences.  Bring on the Buyer's Remorse, shall we?

8 comments:

  1. Buck, Ditto on all you said. I hope the aircraft they shuttle these goat buggers to the US has a mysterious problem and the US Military crew escapes unharmed while the plane and the rest of the crap-heads on board crash into the sea. Be done with it all in one shot. I'd be more than happy to pay more taxes buying more aircraft to throw away!!

    BT: Jimmy T sends.

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  2. I have to go along with McCarthy's analysis. I fully expect to see the CIA pilloried. And as for the Young President's Standard Operating Bullshit, he was out of the country ON A FRIDAY when htis was announced. Pre-frickin'-dictable.

    Now, just how can we get Jimmy T's efficient and cost-effective scenario to play out? There must be some old aircraft ready to be mothballed out there . . . .

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  3. I'm outraged too, Buck, but then I have been living in an increasing level of outrage for months now ... this is one more thing, quite possibly the WORST thing this administration has done yet.

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  4. Yup to all of your comments. I like your idea, Jimmy. I'd add video cameras in the passenger space, though... so we could watch.

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  5. Straight up, here it is.
    I so now issue an invitation to the AG, one Eric, I am a lowlife scumbag, Holder to the following. In the street, preferably of my choosing, stripped to the waist. We go for it, bare knuckles and no quarter. He wins, he gets the towelheads tried in NYC. I win they get tie down chains around them and thrown in the Atlantic Ocean AND Holder resigns and sentences himself to life in the Supermax in Florence, Colorado. And as I go 5' 3" and 140, I cheat. Holder ain't got a chance!

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  6. Glenn: I sense an income opportunity here. Can I be your agent? ;-)

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  7. I'm game, why not? Let's go for it.

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Just be polite... that's all I ask.