What the 9/11 attacks exposed is that we’re a nation of cowards who don’t have the guts to live up to our convictions. That’s why Senator Schumer and Mayor Bloomberg complained about having trials for the 9/11 perpetrators in the State of New York, and also why Congress barred the military from spending any money to transport people at Guantanamo Bay prison to anywhere in the United States.
The wound inflicted on New York City from Mr. Mohammed’s plot nearly a decade ago will not heal for many lifetimes, yet the city, while still grieving, has thrived. How fitting it would have been to put the plot’s architect on trial a few blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, to force him to submit to the justice of a dozen chosen New Yorkers, to demonstrate to the world that we will not allow fear of terrorism to alter our rule of law.
That is such a basic idea that it doesn’t require any elaboration. A country worth its salt would be eager to respond to terror and destruction with the rule of law and swift justice. We’re not worth our salt. We’re not worth a damn. I’m embarrassed to be an American right now because we are collectively too scared to put the people who attacked us on trial in our regular legal system or on our soil. The ridiculous alternative military commissions are a travesty and one more demonstration that we were more damaged by how we reacted to 9/11 than by the attacks themselves.
And, no, I don’t blame the administration for this. Everyone wants to apportion at least partial blame on them. Find me anyone who had their back. You won’t. They tried to do the right thing but were confronted with nineteen different kinds of cowardice and cynicism. The president isn’t a dictator. Congress won’t stand up to him when he wants to use military force, but when he wants to give people a fair trial all of a sudden they use the purse-strings to force him into committing an injustice.
It’s a fundamental idea. You can’t have a fair trial unless there is a possibility that the accused will be acquitted. And you can’t refuse to put people on trial because you are afraid it might provoke a terrorist attack. Finally, you can’t hold people in perpetuity without charging them with anything just because you’re too embarrassed to admit you detained them in error, or because you tainted the evidence against them by torturing them, or because they’ve become dangerous as a result of their treatment in prison, or because you’re too afraid to release them in your own country.
I do blame Obama for not taking a stronger stand on the principles involved here. But I’m far more upset with everyone else who has made it impossible for him to even to the bare minimum to clean up Bush’s mess and restore the rule of law.
spot on. not only are they cowardly little whiney ass titty babies, the lot of them, they brought much of this on themselves.
Any asshole (ie, someone like me) could have told them (and did) that evidence obtained by torture is inadmissiable, and THEN what?
this is another indelible stain on our national history.
To the extent I blame Obama I blame them for throwing in the towel on the issue. But the real fault lies with Congress and those who supported their pathetic retreat. But then again, I think it just goes to show: these guys are so rich and so connected that they don’t actually experience threats very often so when they do, pants wetting terror.
Yeah they tried to do the right thing on THIS, not Guantanamo as a whole, and Congress didn’t have their backs. From a political standpoint, I can’t fault Obama; pols are pols, and as you said, no one had his back.
But it’s not my job as an activist, blogger and citizen to say, “Well, no one had his back…so why would he propose real Gitmo reforms rather than Gitmo-north in Illinoids…and even THAT couldn’t pass.” Sure, I understand, I empathize, and I probably would have done the same in his position. It doesn’t matter, though, and I won’t lay off of him anymore than my shitty Congresspeople who told Obama to do it by himself.
It’s the same as the tax cut deal. The caucus didn’t have the president’s back, but that doesn’t mean I won’t beat him over the head any less than them. Although it’s important to be mindful of your audience; here I’m among other people who are informed. If I’m talking to you’re standard person, I’m of course going to yell at Congress far more than the president. As Krugman said, there aren’t any perfect pols in politics, nor any saints. But there are enemies, and I have not forgotten who those real enemies are.
your*
“It’s a fundamental idea. You can’t have a fair trial unless there is a possibility that the accused will be acquitted. And you can’t refuse to put people on trial because you are afraid it might provoke a terrorist attack. Finally, you can’t hold people in perpetuity without charging them with anything just because you’re too embarrassed to admit you detained them in error, or because you tainted the evidence against them by torturing them, or because they’ve become dangerous as a result of their treatment in prison, or because you’re too afraid to release them in your own country. “
Who is “you”?. The fact is, “we” can very well do all of those things. That’s pretty much how the GWOT works now isn’t it? And everybody knows that the GWOT is forever.
Obama took a strong stand. It didn’t make any difference. He was stabbed in the back by Mayor Bloomberg among others. Obama could have screamed and had a tantrum and it would not have mattered.
The Righties are still talking about the nighmare that would happen if the trials were held in NYC.
Congress won’t fund closing down Gitmo.
The issue of torture is dead center in this. Open court with testimony about torture is what Congress is afraid of.
Bush really damaged this country.
He (and Holder) could have pressed for a change in venue. I really don’t think the opposition would be so bad in Chicago (for instance). NYC was the site of the attacks and we don’t want a higher court to rule that he couldn’t get a fair trial in New York.
Also, I don’t think Rahm Emanual is as gutless as Bloomberg.
Holder tried for a change of venue and he was shouted down as if he wanted to let Charles Manson loose on the streets.
The MSM doesn’t cover the news well. The loud righties get the coverage because of drama of the day.
Then we have surrendered to mob rule,
What do you mean he didn’t take a stronger stand? I recall a whole lot of the left hootin’ and hollerin’ when he went up against congress on this a while back. There was so much back lash that NEW YORK backed out of the trials.
It was certainly doomed after this.
In the end, the Democrats just rolled over to the Republican narrative on this and let them have their way. It did not matter one whit than none of the Republican’s arguments held water. It was shameful.
for anything.
I think if he pissed in your ear you’d tell everyone what remarkable aim he has.
And if I posted fifteen articles opposing our involvement in Libya, you’d simply ignore them.
congress effectively prevented the obama administration from holding trials on the u.s. mainland in federal court. so why can’t obama write the rules for the tribunals to mirror the rights available to defendants in federal courts? if congress won’t let the defendants come to federal court, why not bring an effective federal court to them?
just because the bush version of the gitmo trials were designed to be a kangaroo court doesn’t mean the obama version has to be one too