Opinion Forum

Coming to a City Near You?

November 14th, 2009

The Attorney General set a thought-provoking precedent today when he announced his intention to transfer some of the terrorists being held in Cuba as military prisoners to a jail in New York and try them in a civilian court. This particular group of killers includes Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, thought to be the man behind the 9/11/2001 attack on the World Trade Center that murdered about 3,000 people. Eric Holder, Obama’s Attorney General, announced the move today during a mid-morning press conference (video).

The Obama Administration has decided to short circuit all the work done to date that would most likely have resulted in a conviction in a military trial. I say that because a good defense lawyer will argue that military evidence can’t for the most part be used in a civilian court. This, of course, will require collecting all-new evidence and redoing everything after eight years have passed.

So much for the pain of 9/11 or the lives taken or the even greater number of lives affected. It looks to me like political correctness is going to displace common sense in this matter. Mr Holder is going to create a three-ring circus and call it a civilian court.

These five terrorists being transferred from Guantanamo Bay are only a glimpse of a very dangerous brotherhood of killers and thugs. Bringing these killers back to the scene of their crime seems to me to be a form of atrocity against the families of the 9/11 attacks and the city of New York.

The return to New York may well cause more acts of violence to be committed as a show of support by fellow terrorists. I cannot understand what political advantage is important enough to risk more bloodshed and carnage.

This question of justice or lack of same for the families of the victims of 9/11 should never have been a political issue. It only proves what I’ve said before, this President and who he does and does not represent is all too apparent. He is a leftist and a socialist, and he shows it more with each passing day. The “Gitmo” terrorists have become sweethearts of Obama’s supporters on the far left. With the changes in how they will be prosecuted, there’s much less chance that they’ll ever be truly punished. Quite a departure from how Timothy McVeigh was handled. Was McVeigh more of a terrorist?

Articles written by Larry Ennis
Tags: justice, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, terrorism, Timmothy McVeigh, trials
Categories: Military, News, Politics | Comments (3) | Home

3 Responses to “Coming to a City Near You?”

Tom | November 15th, 2009 at 10:16 am

This isn’t a precedent, but it’s a bad idea because it indicates a mistaken belief that terrorists who wage war against the United States should be treated as common criminals instead of the enemy combatants they really are. It’s also a bad idea because it has the potential to attract more terrorists to NYC, some of the evidence against the defendants may be excluded for technical legal reasons, it will give them a stage on which to perform, and their defense will attract the usual crowd of unprincipled lawyers seeking fame and publicity. The AG has indicated that they will seek the death penalty. Fine, if the scumbags are convicted and executed, but an acquital of any of them will be a disaster.

This also undermines the military’s role in dealing with enemy combatants. That may be the Obama Administration’s intention, which might be understandable given the Bush Administration’s poor performance in dealing with the Guantanamo prisoners. This is a poor substitute for fixing the problem.

Just as an aside, the use of “military evidence” in a civilian trial isn’t a problem — in fact, I’m not sure what you mean by that term. The problem here might be the use of enhanced interrogation to get some of the evidence, and that wasn’t done by the military, for the most part.

Timothy McVeigh was a violent criminal guilty of murdering a lot of people, and he got what he deserved. But he can’t be compared to the Islamic extremists who have been waging war against the U.S. for years. The biggest difference is that he wasn’t influenced by a primitive religion with a modern history of violence and murder, his mother didn’t encourage him to go out and kill innocent people for religious reasons, and his actions weren’t applauded by millions and millions of people who shared his religious beliefs (whatever they may have been).

Kevin | November 16th, 2009 at 9:14 pm

McVeigh was informed by a primitive ideology with a history of violence and murder. Did you think it mere coincidence that he chose the 2nd anniversary of the Waco debacle to murder 168 people and wound 450 more?

Oh, and by the way… McVeigh was tried as a criminal, not as the terrorist that he was. The existance of armed & violent sympathizers was well known and yet his being treated as a criminal didn’t bring more violence.

Similarly, violent anti-abortion nuts are informed by primitive religious beliefs. Those who have practiced terrorism in the name of their “god” have also been handled as criminals even though their intent was terrorism.