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November 21, 2009

The NYT and 'American Justice'

Jan LaRue
The Obama-besotted editors at The New York Times applauded Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, (KSM) the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the United States will be tried in a civilian court in New York City.

KSM and four alleged co-conspirators are currently held at our military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where they are scheduled for trial before a military tribunal.

It's the standard stroke and poke opining we've come to expect from the Times in the only war it supports, Obama vs. Bush:
It was an enormous victory for the rule of law, a major milestone in Mr. Obama's efforts to close the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and an important departure from Mr. Bush's disregard for American courts and their proven ability to competently handle high-profile terror cases. If he and Vice President Dick Cheney had shown more faith in the laws and the Constitution, the alleged mass murderers would have faced justice much earlier.

Holder also announced that five other terrorism suspects at Guantanamo will be tried before a military commission, including Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri accused of participating in the attack on the USS Cole in 2000. The Times finds that regrettable.

According to Holder, KSM will be tried in a civilian court because the 9/11 attack targeted civilians. Al-Nashiri attacked a military target overseas so he will be tried by a military tribunal.

Holder's excuse for making a venue distinction between attacks on two military targets, the Cole and the Pentagon, based on their geographical location, is a distinction without a constitutional or legal justification.

Holder admitted that "the 9/11 attacks" (note they're plural) were both an act of war and a violation of our federal criminal law, and they could have been prosecuted in either federal courts or military commissions."

According to "The Military Commissions Act" of 2009, signed by President Barack Obama on Oct. 28, which Holder praised in his statement of Nov. 13, KSM and Al-Nashiri are "non privileged belligerents" eligible for trial by military commissions.

Pacifying the Times, however, means eliminating military commissions in order to "return to American justice."  

Some years ago, before the old gray lady went senile, Times editors argued that American citizens charged with "crimes against military authority" should be tried by military tribunal. The Times lambasted other newspapers for insisting on a trial in civilian court:

It is the nature of the crime, and not the dress of the criminal, which determines the tribunal by which he may be tried. ... It seems incapable of understanding that war is a matter of law-that it creates a new legal condition of things throughout the country, and that the status thus created must remain, until altered by the authority which made it. ... The perpetrators of that crime must be tried and punished by military law, no matter who they were, nor whether they were in the military service or not. Military tribunals do not exist merely to punish crimes committed by military men, but to punish crimes which assail the military force and menace its integrity and existence.

The crime was the conspiracy to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln, commander in chief of our military. The four conspirators, including a woman, were hanged in Washington, D.C. at the conclusion of a military tribunal.

It's what the Times used to call "American Justice."

The last time I received a subscription solicitation call from the Times, my response was, "No thanks, I don't have a bird."

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