TARANTO ON THE SHOW TRIALS
NY REP (D) ANTHONY WEINER DEFENDED THIS ON O’REILLY …MY HOW HE HAS CHANGED SINCE HIS ENGAGEMENT TO HUMA ABEDIN….RSK
Obama’s Show Trials – WSJ.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703683804574533833220552624.html
If military commissions are unjust, why is he still using them? If not, why aren’t they good enough for KSM?
Attorney General Eric Holder announced this morning that he’s going to import five unlawful enemy combatants, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, to New York–our town. The plan, as the Washington Post reports, is to put them on trial in a civilian court. Prosecutors are “likely to seek the death penalty,” the Post notes. But not all the terrorists at Guantanamo are coming to New York:
Administration officials say they expect that up to 40 of the 215 detainees at Guantanamo Bay will ultimately be tried in either federal court or military commissions–possibly including federal courts in the District [of Columbia] or Alexandria [Va.]. Approximately 90 others have been cleared for repatriation or resettlement in a third country, according to an administration official.
That leaves up to 75 individuals remaining at Guantanamo who could continue to be held under the laws of war because they are deemed too dangerous to release, but cannot be prosecuted because of evidentiary issues and limits on the use of classified material.
Holder also said Friday that Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused of orchestrating the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000 when it was docked in a port in Yemen, and four other detainees will be tried by a military commission. Officials have said military commissions for detainees will be located within the United States, not at Guantanamo, although no location has yet been officially designated.
So here’s a question: What happens if KSM is acquitted? An administration cheerleader called Steve Benen suggests that this is a silly question, because prosecuting him will be a cakewalk:
From what I gather, the case against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed should be pretty easy to make in court, and securing a conviction is likely to be pretty easy. By giving this suspected monster a fair trial, we can prove to the world the strength of American values and the integrity of the American system.
We suppose that arguing with someone dull-witted enough to use a phrase like “suspected monster” wouldn’t be a fair fight, (!!) so instead we’ll concede Benen’s point, at least to the extent that an acquittal of KSM seems highly unlikely. Let’s stipulate further that the Justice Department has full confidence in its ability to convict the other four detainees it has designated for civilian trial, and that this confidence is justified.
As Morris Davis, a retired military prosecutor, argued the other day in The Wall Street Journal, under the administration’s plan, “the standard of justice for each detainee will depend in large part upon the government’s assessment of how high the prosecution’s evidence can jump and which evidentiary bar it can clear.” Detainees will get a “fair trial” in civilian court only if their conviction is assured. By implication, that suggests that detainees who go before military commissions will get an unfair trial. Presumably the administration would deny this and say the commission trials will be fair too. But if so, why is such a trial not good enough for Khalid Sheikh Mohammad?
The answer seems to be that the administration is conducting a limited number of civilian trials of high-profile terrorists for show, so as to win “credibility” with the international left. These trials will differ from an ordinary show trial in that the process will be fair even though the verdict is predetermined. But people who wrongly think that either military commissions or detention without trial are unjust will not be satisfied with some detainees getting civilian trials–unless, of course, they are simply eager to be impressed by Barack Obama.
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