The swift hammer of justice...is that aisle 12 at Lowes?

A couple of days ago one of my dear friends, who recently made a big move to the Big Apple, posted a question on my facebook wall about the much-debated and controversial move to have the terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks tried in New York City. She asked, knowing how opinionated I tend to be on political issues, what my feelings about this decision were. “No problem,” I thought, “I’ll post back with a quick little answer saying why I don’t feel like it’s a great idea.”

Turns out I got a little more fired up about it than I realized.

It also turns out that facebook has a character limit (I thought that was what twitter was for?).

So, I decided to take to the blogosphere to release a little pent up frustration about this whole situation (and about the fact that clearly facebook doesn’t want anyone to have a comprehensive political opinion).

Okay, here’s the thing about the 9/11 trials taking place in New York: we are in a war. No one can deny that fact. We are in a war against terrorism and individual terrorists, and especially those that were involved in the horrifying attacks that killed 2974 innocent civilians in the worst attack against Americans on American soil in the history of our nation.

(I know what you’re thinking: “duh, Sarah”, but hear me out).

In a war there are casualties. And in a war there are captives. That is what these terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are. They are our captives. Unlawful enemy combatants, if you will. They were captured taking up arms against our country without wearing the uniform of their country's military.

These terrorists are afforded rights under the Geneva Convention, and as such we keep them in reasonable conditions and don’t take them out to shoot them or brutally maim or torture them. My point here is that even as military prisoners they are given more rights than you can bet any American captured in Iraq or Afghanistan would get. When was the last time you heard of a terrorist at Gitmo being beheaded on live national TV?

But seeing as they are military prisoners taken captive during a time of war in which they were actively involved in taking up arms against the United States, we have the right to try them under military tribunals rather than in our civilian court systems. It is legal and constitutional to try them in the civilian court system if we want, but we could, as FDR, and Lincoln before him, did, legally keep them outside of the system.

At this point it looks like six of one, half dozen of another, right? WRONG. By agreeing to try them in a civilian court the President is giving them all of the rights and benefits of US citizenship: a right to a trial before a judge, a right to counsel, a right to a jury of their peers, a right to appeal any verdict that is handed down, etc. etc. Not only that, but it also bars any information we may have gotten from these TERRORISTS “under duress.” Here’s where it gets a little tricky. Having worked in the legal profession now, I can safely say that semantics will end up providing a HUGE advantage to the defense of these murderers. What constitutes duress? That is a million dollar question, my friend.

While on the surface the idea of giving these terrorists all the rights granted to a legitimate citizen of the United States might not seem like such a terrible idea, we’ve seen how quickly what should be a simple issue can turn into a complex drain on the legal system, taking years to sort out and get settled. Timothy McVeigh, the bomber in the Murrah Building Bombing, was convicted in 1995 and wasn’t executed until 2001. Sure, that doesn’t seem like ages or anything, but when you think of the purely monetary ramifications of housing, clothing, and even entertaining these prisoners, you see that taxpayers end up becoming responsible for more than $100,000.00 (average annual cost of a prisoner is around $22,650). And while that number is nothing compared to our national debt, or even what the government spends on office supplies in a given year, it is the principle of the matter.

I fear I’ve gotten away from my main point, though, so I digress.

Overall, I personally believe it is unnecessary to extend to a prisoner of war or a terrorist the same constitutional courtesies that an ordinary citizen would get. I think that this group of five people planned and executed the murder of over 2970 civilians in an attack that devastated a nation and forever changed the scope of international politics. I think that these people don’t deserve to be given any sort of second chance, and I don’t believe they deserve the right to sit in a federal prison within the United States, where they have to be given certain comforts by law, while they waste time and taxpayer money exhausting our legal system.

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War and tried criminals in military tribunals, even though they were citizens. FDR, also, tried civilians (in this case, Nazi saboteurs) in military courts during a time of war. While legal scholars debate the validity of these moves (in fact, in Ex parte Milligan the Supreme Court decided that civilian citizens could not be tried in military tribunals when civil courts were still in operation), Ex parte Quirin very clearly states,

"…the law of war draws a distinction between the armed forces and the peaceful populations of belligerent nations and also between those who are lawful and unlawful combatants. Lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful. The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals.”

Uh, hellllloooooo? That includes you as an unlawful combatant, KSM. You’re not a citizen and you’re an asshole who planned to murder thousands. DUH. But does that mean that it is illegal to try these terrorists in civilian courts? No. Just morally reprehensible. I guess I always wanted them to have a chance to come to New York, if I think about it. I want them to have a chance to be flown 110 stories straight up in the air, punched in the face, lit on fire, and then dropped out of a helicopter without a parachute. That’s what I want them to have a chance to do. A 1400 drop to your death seems too quick and easy for these bastards, but it would be the longest ten to twenty seconds of their lives (depending on wind speed and individual weight, of course).

It has been more than 8 years since the attacks of 9/11 killed people in New York, DC, and a field in Pennsylvania. Time may have softened the impact for some, but definitely not for everyone. New Yorkers, especially, still have to walk by the ruin of the Twin Towers and see the devastating effects these terrorist attacks have caused. I still have friends who get anxious when they are out of touch with their loved ones for more than a few days just because their parents or other family members were trapped in the snarl of traffic and human devastation in Manhattan on 9/11/01. This horrific day will honestly FOREVER live on in infamy, and many New Yorkers (and Americans in general) will never be able to forget. Bringing these terrorists into the country at all for trial, much less to a few city blocks away from where their attacks were carried out, is like rubbing salt in the still fresh wounds of Americans. It encourages disorderly conduct. I don’t know about you, but I do believe there are some people who would prefer to carry out vigilante justice swiftly on these animals rather than let the court take it’s sweet time, and I think that these sorts of thoughts are going to cause a lot of security problems (and thus quite a bit of city/state/federal spending on the safety of these jerks, which of course, is passed on to the taxpayers) for the good people of New York.

I don’t for one minute believe that any of these terrorists has expressed any true remorse for their actions. I don’t believe that bringing them to New York to see the pain they’ve caused will do anything but make them more smug in their own satisfaction at knowing that they were able to hurt us. I think that the idea of bringing these terrorists to trial in New York City is dangerous and costly to all involved. While it is legal to do so, it is also legal to try them before a military tribunal at Guantanamo. And that’s what I think we should do.

Why put New Yorkers, and Americans in general, through the turmoil of having to relive the horror of that fateful day all over again?

Bad call #4286, Obama. Cowboy up and get this done. Act like a President for once!

And thank you, Dr. Buell, for making me study Ex parte Milligan and Ex parte Quirin...I never thought I would say that!