Obama Advisers Set to Recommend Military Tribunals for Alleged 9/11 Plotters

The Obama administration's decision to try captured terrorist leaders in civilian trials in New York City is turning out to be a total disaster.

It's a political disaster for the Obama administration, which is being forced by a groundswell of opposition to reverse its decision and go back to the Bush policy of holding military tribunals.

But it's still a disaster for America, because Obama will return to military tribunals after declaring them to be morally illegitimate. As the article below notes, in an unintentionally revealing turn of phrase, Obama sought civilian trials as "a symbol of US commitment to the rule of law." So if he drops them, is that a symbol of America's lack of commitment to the rule of law?

Moreover, as this article points out, the administration had already dropped the military prosecutions that were under way and will have to restart them again. Before all of this, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed intended to plead guilty, presumably because he had lost all hope and wanted to be put out of his misery. After Obama has given him hope of putting the US government on trial—as well as intellectual ammunition against us—what will he do now?

"Obama Advisers Set to Recommend Military Tribunals for Alleged 9/11 Plotters," Anne E. Kornblut and Peter Finn, Washington Post, March 5

President Obama's advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, administration officials said, a step that would reverse Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City.

The president's advisers feel increasingly hemmed in by bipartisan opposition to a federal trial in New York and demands, mainly from Republicans, that Mohammed and his accused co-conspirators remain under military jurisdiction, officials said. While Obama has favored trying some terrorism suspects in civilian courts as a symbol of US commitment to the rule of law, critics have said military tribunals are the appropriate venue for those accused of attacking the United States.

If Obama accepts the likely recommendation of his advisers, the White House may be able to secure from Congress the funding and legal authority it needs to close the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and replace it with a facility within the United States. The administration has failed to meet a self-imposed one-year deadline to close Guantanamo….

Capital charges against Mohammed and his four co-defendants were withdrawn without prejudice and dismissed on Jan. 21 in what military prosecutors thought was a prelude to a transfer to Manhattan. But by February, there was near-universal opposition among activists and lawmakers in both parties to trying the case in New York….

Military lawyers said prosecutors cannot simply reconstitute the case the government dropped in January and will have to re-arraign Mohammed and the others. Facing trial with Mohammed are four other alleged key players in the Sept. 11 conspiracy: Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni; Walid bin Attash, also a Yemeni; Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, a Pakistani who is Mohammed's nephew; and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, a Saudi. The five defendants were first arraigned in June 2008….

An interagency review of all cases at Guantanamo Bay concluded that about 50 prisoners will have to be held in some form of prolonged detention without trial, because the evidence against them was obtained through the use of harsh interrogation methods or because its revelation in court would compromise intelligence gathering. The government says the detainees are too dangerous to release.



Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of "The Intellectual Activist (TIA)" and contributor to "The Freedom Fighter's Journal."