Post 9/11: Putting America on trial
By
Rory Ryan-hcpress@cinci.rr.com
How soon we forget.
Americans seem to enjoy, again and again, proving George Santayana’s maxim that “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
It’s not too difficult for me to recall where I was on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. It was a Tuesday. And, typically, I was on a newspaper deadline when Amanda Crago Shelton brought the news of the first plane crash into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York a little before 9 a.m. (see Chronology of Terror at www.cnn.com.)
Amanda had just returned to The People’s Defender after picking up news releases at the Adams County Sheriff’s Office. We had no television at the Defender, but I had an old radio and we listened to Cincinnati’s WLW news that fateful morning.
During the initial days and weeks following the attacks that claimed approximately 3,000 civilians, Americans possessed a collective outrage against the attackers and their supporters. Even the most liberal lawmakers and liberal actors expressed similar indignation.
That collective outrage lasted just long enough to observe the one-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. From that point forward, Americans’ collective amnesia has set in and held fast.
David Beamer lost his son on Sept. 11, 2001. The father of Todd Beamer, who died on United Airlines Flight 93, has an insightful column in The Wall Street Journal.
Last week, Mr. Beamer attended the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder, regarding Holder’s (and President Obama’s) decision to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other terrorists in criminal courts rather than military tribunals.
What Mr. Beamer writes (see http://online.wsj.com) ought to be alarming for his fellow Americans.
“I expected that some (senators) would agree with Mr. Holder and that others would have challenging questions about his decision. What I did not anticipate was the level of partisanship showed by the majority party. It seemed clear to me and other family members of victims that party loyalty is trumping concern for America’s security interests. ...
“A second shocker: Mr. Holder said that he and his boss (the aforementioned President Obama) had not spoken in person about this decision,” Mr. Beamer said.
Let’s think about that statement for just a moment. Every civilized nation (and a few uncivilized ones) are watching the United States in its handling of the terrorists trials. As the old saying goes, “It’s been in all the papers.”
Yet, Eric Holder has the audacity to imply that his actions were taken without the knowledge and consent of President Obama? Bull-oney.
I’ve bought a lot of things (no comments, please) in my lifetime, but I ain’t buying that.
As Mr. Beamer writes: “This matter only involves upholding the constitutional rights of Americans, establishing a precedent with battlefield impact, and the safety and security of our citizens in a time of war.
“{Just} what ARE the criteria to make something a priority with President Barack Obama? How can it be that this matter didn’t make the cut?”
Good questions.
“Our enemies must be thrilled,” Mr. Beamer said. “We are willingly handing them an opportunity to inflict economic harm on New York City, keep their cause in the headlines, gather new intelligence, create new terror strategies, stimulate recruiting, celebrate new-found rights, and foist a fresh round of pain and suffering upon their victims. This decision is September 11, the sequel.”
This past Monday, Tom Brady posted an interview at www.nationalreview.com with Bill Burck, a former federal prosecutor in New York.
Burck maintains “{T}he real question is whether the Obama administration’s decision to prosecute the case as a federal criminal offense was the right thing to do. To my mind, the answer is clearly no. There’s no reason to believe that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his cohorts will do anything other than what they have promised to do in the past – make a mockery of our system and use the platform of a federal criminal trial, with all the attendant worldwide media coverage it will receive, to proclaim their martyrdom to the world.
“This will not be about guilt or innocence or evidence. That will all be a sideshow to the main attraction – Khalid Sheikh Mohammed putting America on trial to justify his acts of mass murder.
“To me, the most outrageous aspect of this decision is that it completely turns the laws of war on their head,” Burck said. “One simple but powerful idea that motivated the Geneva Conventions after World War II was that we needed rules to encourage more civilized behavior by combatants. A key motivator was the promise that combatants who follow certain rules would be guaranteed a minimum level of protections if they were captured in the course of the war. A defining rule was that you must not commit war crimes such as the deliberate targeting of civilians. The Obama administration appears to believe this is not a particularly important incentive for combatants.”
The Obama administration’s failure to differentiate an obvious act of war from what they prefer to present as a criminal offense best left to local law enforcement is a disgrace. Had such an announcement been made on Sept. 12, 2001 by former President Bush, the nation may well have had another revolution.
Of course, politicians (and their media accomplices) always bank on our short memories. And they always cash in.
Let’s face it. We’re just too busy to give a rat’s backside about terrorists being tried in New York. Would we pause to care if they were brought to trial before Judge Rocky Coss in Highland County Common Pleas Court? (Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Judge Coss might just give ’em what-for.)
Former Vice President Dick Cheney (I know, Cheney is taboo... Anyone mentioning his name must be an idiot... Point taken...) said this week: “We had 3,000 dead Americans on Sept. 11. That is not a law enforcement problem. That’s an act of war. And you need to treat it as an act of war.
“I can’t for the life of me figure out what Holder’s intent [is] here, in terms of having Khalid Sheikh Mohammed tried in a civilian court, other than to, to have some kind of show trial here,” Cheney said. “They’ll simply use it as a platform to argue their case,” Cheney said of the 9/11 terrorists.
As we learned from the now infamous O.J. Simpson trial, funny things can happen on the way back from the jury room.
Sadly, regardless of the verdict in the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial, he and his ilk have already received a major victory, courtesy of the Obama administration.
Rory Ryan is publisher and editor of The Highland County Press.[[In-content Ad]]
Americans seem to enjoy, again and again, proving George Santayana’s maxim that “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
It’s not too difficult for me to recall where I was on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. It was a Tuesday. And, typically, I was on a newspaper deadline when Amanda Crago Shelton brought the news of the first plane crash into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York a little before 9 a.m. (see Chronology of Terror at www.cnn.com.)
Amanda had just returned to The People’s Defender after picking up news releases at the Adams County Sheriff’s Office. We had no television at the Defender, but I had an old radio and we listened to Cincinnati’s WLW news that fateful morning.
During the initial days and weeks following the attacks that claimed approximately 3,000 civilians, Americans possessed a collective outrage against the attackers and their supporters. Even the most liberal lawmakers and liberal actors expressed similar indignation.
That collective outrage lasted just long enough to observe the one-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. From that point forward, Americans’ collective amnesia has set in and held fast.
David Beamer lost his son on Sept. 11, 2001. The father of Todd Beamer, who died on United Airlines Flight 93, has an insightful column in The Wall Street Journal.
Last week, Mr. Beamer attended the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder, regarding Holder’s (and President Obama’s) decision to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other terrorists in criminal courts rather than military tribunals.
What Mr. Beamer writes (see http://online.wsj.com) ought to be alarming for his fellow Americans.
“I expected that some (senators) would agree with Mr. Holder and that others would have challenging questions about his decision. What I did not anticipate was the level of partisanship showed by the majority party. It seemed clear to me and other family members of victims that party loyalty is trumping concern for America’s security interests. ...
“A second shocker: Mr. Holder said that he and his boss (the aforementioned President Obama) had not spoken in person about this decision,” Mr. Beamer said.
Let’s think about that statement for just a moment. Every civilized nation (and a few uncivilized ones) are watching the United States in its handling of the terrorists trials. As the old saying goes, “It’s been in all the papers.”
Yet, Eric Holder has the audacity to imply that his actions were taken without the knowledge and consent of President Obama? Bull-oney.
I’ve bought a lot of things (no comments, please) in my lifetime, but I ain’t buying that.
As Mr. Beamer writes: “This matter only involves upholding the constitutional rights of Americans, establishing a precedent with battlefield impact, and the safety and security of our citizens in a time of war.
“{Just} what ARE the criteria to make something a priority with President Barack Obama? How can it be that this matter didn’t make the cut?”
Good questions.
“Our enemies must be thrilled,” Mr. Beamer said. “We are willingly handing them an opportunity to inflict economic harm on New York City, keep their cause in the headlines, gather new intelligence, create new terror strategies, stimulate recruiting, celebrate new-found rights, and foist a fresh round of pain and suffering upon their victims. This decision is September 11, the sequel.”
This past Monday, Tom Brady posted an interview at www.nationalreview.com with Bill Burck, a former federal prosecutor in New York.
Burck maintains “{T}he real question is whether the Obama administration’s decision to prosecute the case as a federal criminal offense was the right thing to do. To my mind, the answer is clearly no. There’s no reason to believe that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his cohorts will do anything other than what they have promised to do in the past – make a mockery of our system and use the platform of a federal criminal trial, with all the attendant worldwide media coverage it will receive, to proclaim their martyrdom to the world.
“This will not be about guilt or innocence or evidence. That will all be a sideshow to the main attraction – Khalid Sheikh Mohammed putting America on trial to justify his acts of mass murder.
“To me, the most outrageous aspect of this decision is that it completely turns the laws of war on their head,” Burck said. “One simple but powerful idea that motivated the Geneva Conventions after World War II was that we needed rules to encourage more civilized behavior by combatants. A key motivator was the promise that combatants who follow certain rules would be guaranteed a minimum level of protections if they were captured in the course of the war. A defining rule was that you must not commit war crimes such as the deliberate targeting of civilians. The Obama administration appears to believe this is not a particularly important incentive for combatants.”
The Obama administration’s failure to differentiate an obvious act of war from what they prefer to present as a criminal offense best left to local law enforcement is a disgrace. Had such an announcement been made on Sept. 12, 2001 by former President Bush, the nation may well have had another revolution.
Of course, politicians (and their media accomplices) always bank on our short memories. And they always cash in.
Let’s face it. We’re just too busy to give a rat’s backside about terrorists being tried in New York. Would we pause to care if they were brought to trial before Judge Rocky Coss in Highland County Common Pleas Court? (Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Judge Coss might just give ’em what-for.)
Former Vice President Dick Cheney (I know, Cheney is taboo... Anyone mentioning his name must be an idiot... Point taken...) said this week: “We had 3,000 dead Americans on Sept. 11. That is not a law enforcement problem. That’s an act of war. And you need to treat it as an act of war.
“I can’t for the life of me figure out what Holder’s intent [is] here, in terms of having Khalid Sheikh Mohammed tried in a civilian court, other than to, to have some kind of show trial here,” Cheney said. “They’ll simply use it as a platform to argue their case,” Cheney said of the 9/11 terrorists.
As we learned from the now infamous O.J. Simpson trial, funny things can happen on the way back from the jury room.
Sadly, regardless of the verdict in the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial, he and his ilk have already received a major victory, courtesy of the Obama administration.
Rory Ryan is publisher and editor of The Highland County Press.[[In-content Ad]]