Most oppose civilian trial
For six years, Republicans prepared to hold military tribunals at Gitmo for the 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others. Legal roadblocks were used by the ACLU, Congressional Democrats, Eric Holder before he became President Obama's Attorney General and Greg Craig before he became Obama's White House counsel. These people incorrectly claimed military detentions and tribunals violated the Constitution, Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The hard left fought the Republican plan using our tax dollars, but in September 2008, they lost in federal court. The courts ruled in favor of the Republican military tribunal plan.
Within three months of those rulings, Mohammed pleaded guilty and asked to be executed. Apparently the Obama administration decided they had not spent enough of our tax dollars needlessly because they have announced that despite the federal court rulings, they will give Mohammed a civilian trial granting him the same constitutional rights as American citizens. The cost of the civilian trial is expected to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, most of it going to security which would be an unnecessary expense had the Obama administration admitted they lost in federal court and tried him at Gitmo.
Inexplicably, the Obama administration announced last week that Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who bombed the USS Cole in Yemen, will receive a military tribunal. You have to hand it to Obama - he doesn't mind being inconsistent.
Both Obama and Holder have said on national television that Mohammed is guilty and will be given the death penalty. Holder said a not guilty verdict was impossible. These statements are a perversion of jurisprudence and I was stunned that Obama, who is a lawyer, did not realize the danger of his words. Where does one go find an impartial jury now that the man with the biggest microphone in the world announced the defendant is guilty? If a not-guilty verdict is impossible, then the trial is sham.
If Mohammed is convicted, he will spend his life in a federal prison where he will radicalize other prisoners. Ramzi Yousef, the 1993 World Trade Center bomber, has spent over a decade radicalizing other prisoners who now work with jihadists. No wonder a Rasmussen poll last week showed that 71 percent of Americans oppose Obama's plan to try Mohammed in civilian court.
Mary Beth Seaha
Aiken