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Combs: Try terror suspects where the crime occurred

despite his probably cynical motives, Obama is right

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By Britt Combs | The McDowell News

Published: November 17, 2009

Each week the Republicans like to find a new reason to wail that the president, foreign traitor and saboteur that he is, is deliberately destroying America. The cause of this week's Republican hissy fit was U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement that five alleged terror suspects currently confined in a political prison in Cuba will be tried in New York.

Former New York mayor and celebrity prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani said that President Obama and his administration has shown "concern with the rights of terrorists and a lack of concern for the rights of the public," and that the president is oblivious to "the fact that there is an Islamic war against us."

Dick Morris said the Justice Department's decision "paints a bulls-eye for terrorists right on New York City, their favorite target." Of course, Morris forgets that New York already had a bulls-eye. That's how the terrorists managed to hit it before. They know where it is.

Republicans have been unashamed of their distrust of the judicial system. They believe that the government can't get a fair shake in court. President Bush, like a common street criminal, established the political prison in Cuba specifically to circumvent the law and judicial oversight of his activities. Does the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave truly want their government kidnapping people from any corner of the earth and locking them away in political prisons?

The Bush people always said the "detainees" were not U.S. citizens and thus not subject to the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. That is nonsense. Aliens, both legal and illegal, are often tried in American courts.

They also said, on the other hand, that the detainees were not uniformed soldiers and thus are not prisoners of war, as defined by the Geneva Convention. Bush declared them un-persons.

Some of the arguments against a criminal trial have been downright silly, such as that offered by Michigan Representative Pete Hoekstra, that trying the men in New York will "rip open the wounds" of the 9/11 victims' families. But people are subjected to the trials of criminals who hurt innocent people every day. Somehow the survivors manage to survive the trial, too. In fact, some of these survivors may actually want to see the trial.

The Clinton Administration defied the Constitution and the rights of the people of Oklahoma when Timothy McVeigh was tried in Colorado for a crime that occurred in Oklahoma. The corruption surrounding that prosecution extended all the way to withheld evidence and tainted evidence from a still-disgraced FBI crime lab. Thousands in Oklahoma still question what really happened. The guilty verdict in that case is forever tainted.

Some worry that a trial in open court could jeopardize national security (that old saw) although it is highly doubtful that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, after all these years in military prison, has any intelligence that's not out of date. The argument is nonsense. Any time any evidence is presented in any case in any court, "bad guys" are tipped off about the "good guys'" methods and who the snitches are. It's just how these things work. We've survived this long, somehow.

Republicans argue that the chance of an acquittal is just too dang high to risk it. We need to try these men in military courts, where conviction is guaranteed. The guilt or innocence of the defendants is entirely immaterial. Giuliani displays the twisted and evil mentality so often seen in prosecutors: The only thing that matters is the conviction. They're all guilty of something. Just put them on trial. Manufacture evidence if need be, we're doing society a favor.

Despite what Giuliani would have you believe, there has not been a wave of "runaway juries" out there, laughing maniacally as they turn guilty killers onto the street to kill again. Grand juries nearly always indict those whom prosecutors tell them to indict. Juries convict those whom prosecutors say are guilty.

The right of accused criminals to challenge their accusers in open court and to hear and challenge evidence against them and to offer evidence to support their own case is an ancient one. The conservative mind has always hated that right, preferring to pronounce guilt in a star chamber. The issues at stake in the right to trial will still be vital and essential to liberty and freedom long, long after 9/11 is forgotten.

Thankfully, there are exceptions to the Republican hysteria. CBS News quoted Giuliani's successor, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg saying, "It is fitting that 9/11 suspects face justice near the World Trade Center site where so many New Yorkers were murdered."

All the evidence I have seen indicates these men committed a notorious crime in New York. They should be tried there. All New Yorkers who wish should witness the trial. Holder said he intends to seek death for the defendants. If guilty, they should be executed there.

It is high time Obama set about the work of undoing all the damage his predecessor has done. This is an important first step.

McDowell News Staff Writer and Columnist Britt Combs wears a tin foil hat while searching for black helicopters with his militia-nut buddies. Nevertheless, he is nearly always spot-on right.