Bring On The Show Trials
Written by Brian Garst, Posted in Foreign Affairs & Policy, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort
The latest Friday news dump involved the announcement that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, along with four other terrorists, will receive a trial in civilian courts in New York City. This unwise decision is not about justice.
Mohammed has already confessed to his crimes – over two years ago. This “trial” will provide him an unnecessary platform on which to pontificate, grandstand, and spread his Jihadist filth. Our enemies will handed a magnificent propaganda tool for no good reason.
Leftist commentators, in defending this move, have suddenly found Constitutional religion while pointing to our founding document’s protections as justification. But these protections apply to Americans or residents, not foreigners apprehended overseas for waging war against our country. Affording them Constitutional protections when they have no obligation to uphold the duties it places on the rest of us is what would really make a mockery of it. It is a contract upon which they have never signed, and would just as soon spit on as do so. Why should they receive its benefits?
It is not only the administration’s opponents that are troubled by this decision. Democratic Senator Jim Webb said in a statement, “Those who have committed acts of international terrorism are enemy combatants, just as certainly as the Japanese pilots who killed thousands of Americans at Pearl Harbor. It will be disruptive, costly, and potentially counterproductive to try them as criminals in our civilian courts.”
This is not to say that there should be no due process; merely that it need not take the same form as those provided for Americans. As it turns out, that process already exists through military tribunals that have already been established – over much political wrangling. Why jettison them now? Our tribunals were more than capable of rendering fair verdicts in a situation where sensitive information and methods would not be exposed to our enemies. But that has been tossed aside in favor of a show trial in New York. And we can rest assured, this trial will be quite the circus – one which we’ll all likely leave with pie on our faces.
I serve as Vice President of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a non-profit think tank dedicated to preserving tax competition and free markets. This site features my personal views, which are not reflective of CF&P.