DETAINEES TO GET ‘THE-STATE-ALWAYS-WINS’ SYSTEM OF ‘JUSTICE’
COMMENTARY ARCHIVES, 15 Nov 2009
Obama’s announcement to try 9/11 defendants would be commendable if it applied to all, rather than some, detainees.
What we have here is not an announcement that all terrorism suspects are entitled to real trials in a real American court. Instead, what we have is a multi-tiered justice system, where only certain individuals are entitled to real trials: namely, those whom the Government is convinced ahead of time it can convict.
According to The Associated Press, Eric Holder will announce later today [Nov 13 2009] that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 defendants will be brought from Guantanamo to New York to stand trial, in a real criminal court, for the crimes they are accused of committing. This is a decision I really wish I could praise, as it’s clearly both politically risky and the right thing to do.
An open criminal trial under our standard system of justice, accompanied by basic precepts of due process, is exactly the just and smart means for punishing those responsible for terrorist attacks. It announces to the world, including the Muslim world, that we have enough faith in our rules of justice to apply them equally to everyone, including to Muslim radicals accused of one of the worst crimes in American history.
Numerous family members of the 9/11 victims have long argued that real trials for the accused perpetrators are vital to providing real justice for what was done — I expect to have an interview later today with one of those family members — and holding the trial in New York, the place where 3,000 Americans died, provides particularly compelling symbolism. So this component of the Obama administration’s decision, standing alone, is praiseworthy indeed.
The problem is that this decision does not stand alone. Instead, it is accompanied by this:
Holder will also announce that a major suspect in the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, will face justice before a military commission, as will a handful of other detainees to be identified at the same announcement, the official said.
It was not immediately clear where commission-bound detainees like al-Nashiri might be sent, but a military brig in South Carolina has been high on the list of considered sites.
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