KSM Trial Conundrum Rages Onward
Over the weekend, the big discussion point by the commune of "TV guests with opinions" was whether or not it was a wise idea to bring the accused 9/11 co-conspirators to trial in New York City. Really? They didn't want to talk about Bill Belichick's stoopid decision not to punt?
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo blows through three tissue-thick arguments he's mainly heard about why they should go on trial in New York. Ultimately he lands on this sentiment: "Does anyone think that Nuremberg trials or the trial of Adolph Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961 or the war crimes trials of Slobodan Milosevic and others at the Hague advanced these mens' causes? Or that, in retrospect, it would have been wiser to hold these trials in secret?" He's right about worries over the terrorists going free — when does that ever happen? — and they're in no position to hurt New York again.
A fourth one not mentioned is by Berkeley law professor John Yoo published in the Wall Street Journal, which is now they'll have to broadcast what they know about Al-Qaeda. He points to the trial of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman over the first World Trade Center attacks resulted in the government relinquishing a list of 200 possible collaborators, which Osama bin Laden — in Sudan at the time — saw and realized he was outed, so he skedaddled to Afghanistan. "KSM's lawyers will not save the government from itself. Instead they will press hard to reveal intelligence secrets in open court. Our intelligence agents and soldiers will be the ones to suffer." Well, you'd imagine that if the U.S. government would have to surrender intelligence in public court, they wouldn't.
Furthermore ... is New York City really the best place for a 9/11 trial? I can foresee an unbiased jury being found quite easily. Yep.
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