RSS Feed MenuSo now Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) and five self-confessed 9/11 co-conspirators are to be tried not as war criminals in a military tribunal but rather in civilian court just blocks from Ground Zero.
A civilian format will allow challenges of evidence obtained under duress (ie. water-boarding), question the legality of KSM’s 2003 capture, and even negate confessions extracted without the full protections of the Constitution being first explained to the detainees. And thus do I have a horrible feeling that these trials will degenerate into a case against the Bush Administration as much as the terrorists themselves.
As for demonstrating to the world our righteousness, I do not think that the subtleties of the American justice system will be adequately explained in Arab newspapers. Do you? What WILL be reported as this drags on interminably will be the many claims by the defense of so-called “torture” without any context or pretext of fact-checking. Call it a hunch.
A civilian trial could also provide an intelligence boon to our enemies. Precisely because so much other evidence may not be admissible, prosecutors may have to reveal genuine secrets to get a conviction. As the Wall Street Journal reports:
Osama bin Laden learned a lot from the 1995 prosecution in New York of the ‘blind cleric’ Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman for the first World Trade Center attack. His main tip was that the U.S. considered bin Laden a terrorist co-conspirator, leading him to abandon his hideout in Sudan for Afghanistan.
Lost in all of this, of course, are the victims of these terrible war crimes and their families. (I know several.) They demand and deserve justice. A conviction that takes years, provides the murderers a megaphone to the world to spew radicalism, grants them the public martyrdom they so desire, and in the process reveals our vital secrets while turning the tables and putting this nation itself on trial, would be anything but.
Raider1 // Nov 18, 2009 at 12:59 pm
MI_GOP if you are right then we have a groupd of extreme cynics who need to go running this country at the moment.
balconesfault // Nov 18, 2009 at 1:45 pm
sinz: Over and over, liberals like yourself keep revealing that they want this trial, NOT so much to establish justice or closure for the worst atrocity on U.S. soil since the War of 1812, but to make one or more political statements.
You completely decontextualized my response.
I am just saying that the Holder Justice Department is not under any onus to fully disclose the proceedings of all the interrogations simply because a private citizen who once was Vice President calls for them to do so.
Do you disagree with this principle?
That’s completely divorced from the question of whether the trials themselves should be carried out. Although I will say that the proper place for disclosure and review of some of these materials is in the structured proceedings of the courtroom, rather than the all out brawling of the court of public opinion from where Cheney has been launching his assults on the Obama White House.
Independent // Nov 18, 2009 at 1:50 pm
“The base needs something right now; anything to recall why they fought so hard to get a radical into the WH” –migop
as an independent who did vote for mr obama, i can tell you that i didn’t think all the commentary about his radical inclinations were true. they just couldn’t be and still have him beat mrs clinton.
but the one thing i’ve learned since nov 08, he is everything his opponents said he was. when someone at a mccain townhall, during the campaign, said she was fearful of obama… mccain kind of slapped her down and said there was nothing to fear.
i think he was wrong about obama. i think he was wrong in selecting palin. i think the republicans were wrong in picking him.
and i really do think mr obama would do anything needed to save his failing political operation and his falling polls. if that means tossing the far left some political scraps, he’ll do it in a flash. if it means exposing ny’ers to a likely terror threat, it means nothing to him because he’ll tell himself there’s no threat because he’s already apologized to the radical muslim extremists.
and he’ll be wrong on that one, too. is this the moment in time that joe biden warned us all about… that obama would make mistakes, they’d be terrible mistakes, and that we should rally around behind him and catch his back?
Independent // Nov 18, 2009 at 1:52 pm
balconesfault is a regular poster at the huffington post? no, it simply can’t be true. no.
Raider1 // Nov 18, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Balcon: “You completely decontextualized my response.
I am just saying that the Holder Justice Department is not under any onus to fully disclose the proceedings of all the interrogations simply because a private citizen who once was Vice President calls for them to do so.”
Balcon. So you think that revealing interrogation techniques without showing what was gleaned from these techniques is acceptable? So reveal the bad half (the methods) that betray the counrty but in the process make the Bush Admin. bad in some circles (not to me but to otehrs, especialy the wusses that are the world) , but not the good half – what was revealed because all of a sudden it is a matter or privacy??
The Bush-Cheney crew are being publically maligned as war criminals, and being set up for prosocecution possibly by the far left Holder, and yet you think Cheney has no right, nor does Obama have an obligation, to tell teh ENTIRE story? Gimme abreak.
I really wish you would just say “I HATE BUSH NO MATTER WAHT” put the DNC pacifier dunked in kool-aid back in your mouth and be honest for once.
balconesfault // Nov 18, 2009 at 2:22 pm
balconesfault is a regular poster at the huffington post? no, it simply can’t be true. no
Regular poster? Eh – not so much. I’ve responded occassionally, but let’s see … their archives say I’ve
posted 59 comments in 5 years … less than once per month. Your definition of regular and mine may vary, though.
Is it just me, or is it kind of weird for someone to go searching the web for info on people who post here? FWIW, I’m pretty damn transparent about my opinions, I’d think.
Raider: So you think that revealing interrogation techniques without showing what was gleaned from these techniques is acceptable?
Yes. Absolutely.
When I was a child, one of the damning things always said about Soviet Communism was that for them, “the ends justified the means”.
I still believe that philosophy to be evil. And I still consider torture to be an unjustifiable means.
Raider1 // Nov 18, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Balcon. What is the purpose of revealing the techniques to the world but not the information gained? Please explain this to me.
balconesfault // Nov 18, 2009 at 4:00 pm
The world is already well aware of the techniques used … in many cases, there are probably stories spinning around of things that are worse than we actually did.
So the question among most of the world is not whether or not the US committed torture – but will the US publicly deal with the torture, which is the first step in a process to guarantee that this kind of human rights abuse and moral depravity is behind us.
As to the information itself … there may be information that KSM revealed or confirmed during torture that he had previously disclosed, and that may have been of sensitive nature. He may have also made false allegations against others, something which is very common during torture (a favorite tactic of the gulags, for example, getting subjects to confess to false crimes and to accuse others of complicity just to stop the pain, giving the state justification to expand their ring of interrogations).
I assume that when this information is not sensitive, it could be made public. That’s what the FOIA process is all about, and Cheney might be more successful invoking it rather than taking potshots from Sunday AM shows.
Raider1 // Nov 18, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Balcon. So you don’t think interrogation methods qualify as sensitive information? You do not think that in the future part of a terror camp training regimine will be learning techniques to resist US interrigation methods…revealed IN DETAIL now? (The world was not “well aware” of specific techniques and methodolgies, hence their effectiveness. On what imperical data do you base this claim?)
And your understanding of interrogation techniques seems to be what you know (or more likely do not know) of Soviet Russia.
And I would hardly call defending one’s reputation and the policies in office held while a sitting VP against a barage of charges as a war criminal that complete are devoid of any context in which the policies were formulated and adapted to be “pot shots.” I rather call it saying what had to be said for the good of a nation spinning into a dangerously naive mindset.
General question: Do you believe that the US is a force for good in the world? What nations do you hold in higher esteem and why?
Raider1 // Nov 18, 2009 at 4:39 pm
By the way Balcon. When the stakes are as high as terrorism where thousand of innocent AMERICAN lives could be at stake, absolutely the ends justify the means. Heck you wouldn’t break a man’s finger to get him to tell you the weatabouts of a bomb about to go off in your child’s elementary school? Of course you would. If you would not, then you are not only an irresponsible parent, but a hopelessly naive dreamer.
By the way. For the USSR, the end was continued subjugation of peoples and denial of God given rights of freedom…in the case of GITMO it was preventing another bloodbath of innocent lives at the hands of murderers. If you cannot see the moral difference, then I cannot help you. And so long as people who think like you are no where near any seat of national power, I don’t care. You’ll learn life’s lesson the hard way one day.
The key phrase you use in your post to justify your fairy tale approach to the world is “when I was a child.” As far as I am concerend, if you really believe lala land crap your peddling, you are STILL a child.
Raider1 // Nov 18, 2009 at 4:41 pm
And one more thing. If what went on at GITMO qualifies as “torture” then we need to come up with an entirely new lexicon for what went on in the Gulag and other wonderful places around the world whose approval you seem to feel we need so desperately.
Of course, if you really knew anything about the Gulag, you would have never brought it up as comparison. That tells me a lot.
balconesfault // Nov 18, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Raider1: So you don’t think interrogation methods qualify as sensitive information?
No. I believe that the American people have an absolute right to know what their government does to those it detains. It is critical to our freedom.
And I would hardly call defending one’s reputation and the policies in office held while a sitting VP against a barage of charges as a war criminal that complete are devoid of any context in which the policies were formulated and adapted to be “pot shots.”
I would say that accusing the Obama Administration of making the country weaker by abandoning portions of his anti-terrorism policy (although clearly large portions have been kept in place) is a pot shot. Particularly when most evidence suggests that the Bush Administration DID abandon almost all of the Clinton Administration anti-terrorism policy, in their desire to craft their own without any Clinton imprinteur.
Do you believe that the US is a force for good in the world?
In general, yes. In some specifics, no.
And almost everyone on the right would agree with me, although their specifics may be different than mine. The difference is that I won’t call them unpatriotic for being critical of some of what America does.
balconesfault // Nov 18, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Heck you wouldn’t break a man’s finger to get him to tell you the weatabouts of a bomb about to go off in your child’s elementary school?
If a man is crazy enough to place a bomb in my childs elementary school, and the almost certain knowledge that he will be put to death if it goes off, are not enough to deter him from this crime, I harbor no illusion that my breaking his fingers will produce anything except lies to buy time until the bomb actually goes off.
But if it’s not the real bomber, it may well produce accusations that others (also innocent) are involved, just to get me to quit breaking his fingers, and to go break theirs for awhile.
Torture is such a perversion, such an evil, that it is far too dangerous a weapon to put in the hands of government. It is the strongest tool for a wholly corrupt government to hold power.
Raider1 // Nov 19, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Balcon, you avoided the question. So your answer is that that scenario would never happen. So I come back to you: WHAT IF IT DID? What if by breaking a few fingers (not that anything we did was even remotely so terrible…hell arguing with you could be classified as “torture” given your very loose definition of it. Tell it to the guys on Bataan!) you were guaranteed to find the bomb and save the school? Do you do it? I do it in a heartbeat. Especially to a NON-US citizen doing harm to MY fellow Americans (that seems lost with you pepole. You are acting liek KSM was some poor shmuck caputured dragged into a car on the streets of Witchita as opposed to an enemy combatant on a foreign battlefield!)
And as to you hypothesis that a man so crazy to blow up a school would not crack under torture, I ask you…have you ever broken a bone?? Trust me, even psychos understand pain and will do what it takes to make it stop!
Sometimes the ends DO justify the means. Sorry. Welcome to the adult world.
MI-GOPer // Nov 19, 2009 at 1:01 pm
BlankHead says @31 “FWIW, I’m pretty damn transparent about my opinions, I’d think.”
Well, why then did you try to claim you’re a conservative? Was it your usual intellectual dishonesty or was it to gain some credibility debating someone who appears to be a real conservative?
And why do you use fake characters here and multiple faux names to appear to have people agreeing with you or– better in your book– able to make debate points that no one here would find credible coming from you?
Glad you finally admitted you’re a HuffPo regular and a far Left democrat activist, BlankHead. Wasn’t it one of your people who said “The Truth will set you free”?
balconesfault // Nov 19, 2009 at 1:28 pm
raider: Balcon, you avoided the question. So your answer is that that scenario would never happen.
No – my answer is that your basic assumption – that torture of whoever you captured would provide actionable intelligence that would save the school – is inherently flawed.
I would argue that rather than trying to gain truthful information in the time window described from someone in such a circumstance by breaking his fingers one by one – is as fanciful as arguing that the better solution is to bring in a master mesmerist to hypnotize him, or praying to God for a sign as to where the bomb is.
You threaten to break his finger. He tells you the name of another person who he says was actually responsible for bomb placement, that he has no idea of the final placement. Do you now go round up this other person and threaten to break his fingers? Do you start breaking his fingers anyway, even if it’s possible that he doesn’t know where the bomb is.
What percentage chance do you need to know that he’s actually involved before you start breaking fingers. Or is his being foreign enough justification to dispense with such weak-minded concerns?
A government which is granted the power to torture anyone will inherently contain the seed of the power to use torture to control people. That is something that the libertarian in me cannot abide.