KHALID SHAIKH MOHAMMED HEADED FOR TRIAL…. It’s always reassuring when the Obama administration, knowing that intense far-right blowback is inevitable, does the right thing anyway.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other men accused in the plot will be prosecuted in federal court in New York City, a federal law enforcement official said early on Friday.
But the administration will prosecute Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri — the detainee accused of planning the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen — and several other detainees before a military commission, the official said.
The decisions to give civilian prosecutors detainees accused of the 2001 terrorist attacks and keep the case of the Cole attack within the military system are expected to be announced at the Department of Justice later on Friday by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.
We’ve been through all the arguments before, but I guarantee we’re about to have the same tiresome debate all over again. We’ll hear that a U.S. criminal court couldn’t possibly be equipped to hear a case against a terrorist suspect — except for all the U.S. criminal courts that have already proven that they’re well equipped to hear cases against terrorist suspects. We’ll hear that KSM, if convicted, will end up in an American supermax facility that’s ill prepared to house terrorists — except for all the terrorists that already safely locked away in American supermax facilities.
I’ve simply never understood the right’s weak-kneed panic over the U.S. justice system. 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. Shouldn’t Cheney, Giuliani, and the rest of the motley crew who’ll spend the day whining on Fox News want a trial for KSM?
