WSJ: The Verdict on Holder-How to botch a terrorist trial and harm the U.S. reputation for justice.

[nonniey]

I'm surpised, somewhat, by the lack of interest in the botched Ghailani trial.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703673604575550512803967230.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop#articleTabs%3Darticle

"Terrorist Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was acquitted Wednesday on 284 of 285 counts associated with murdering 212 innocents, but the verdict on Attorney General Eric Holder was guilty as charged. His strategy of force-feeding terrorists into the civilian court system has turned into a legal and security fiasco.

Ghailani was indicted in 2001 for his role in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The Pakistani military captured him after a July 2004 battle and the CIA held him at a secret location until he was transferred in 2006 to Guantanamo with 13 other high-value detainees. Ghailani admitted his role during interrogation, and in 2008 military prosecutors charged him with war crimes. But last year the Obama Administration transferred him to downtown Manhattan to await a civilian trial.

The follies began early when Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that prosecutors could not call a key witness, Hussein Abebe. Mr. Abebe was to testify that he sold Ghailani the TNT that blew up the embassy in Dar es Salaam, killing 11. Authorities learned of Mr. Abebe from Ghailani, who named him during his CIA interrogation, and defense lawyers claimed the interrogation was abusive.

"The government has elected not to litigate the details of Ghailani's treatment while in CIA custody," Judge Kaplan noted in his ruling. "It has sought to make this unnecessary by asking the Court to assume in deciding this motion that everything Ghailani said while in CIA custody was coerced." Since the government had not demonstrated that Mr. Abebe's testimony was "sufficiently remote or attenuated" from the alleged coercion of Ghailani, Judge Kaplan held the testimony inadmissible. Prosecutors elected not to appeal and also chose not to use Ghailani's confession, which he later repudiated.

Mr. Holder's response was dismissive. "We are talking about one ruling, in one case by one judge," he told reporters. "I think it's too early to say that at this point the Ghailani matter is not going to be successful."

It's not too early now. The dozen civilian jurors issued one of the more puzzling verdicts in recent history, convicting him on one charge of conspiracy to destroy government property but acquitting him of conspiring to kill Americans. One news report suggests the verdict was a compromise to appease one juror who was holding out for an acquittal on all charges. We may learn more in the days ahead, but the blunder wasn't the jury's or Judge Kaplan's. They were working with the bad hand they were dealt under the rules of criminal due process that are designed to protect the innocent, not admitted enemy combatants.

The blunder was Mr. Holder's decision to dump Ghailani into the civilian system when a perfectly adequate military tribunal was available. Despite interminable legal challenges from white-shoe law firms and the political left, the Supreme Court has ruled that military commissions are lawful and part of a long U.S. tradition from revolutionary days through FDR. Their advantage is that military tribunals have somewhat more liberal rules of evidence and are designed to handle classified material in a way that protects national security without disqualifying pertinent facts.

Mr. Holder's choice was wholly political, intended to appease the anti-antiterror left that helped to elect President Obama. In a bad decision for the ages, last November he even proposed to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed near Ground Zero.........."

Click link for the rest of the article.

[Madison Redskin]

I have concerns about the military tribunals. I don't want innocent people being put in prison for the duration of the war on terrorism (i.e., their entire lives). I also have concerns about the civilian trials. I don't want terrorists going free because the prosecution was unable to collect enough evidence to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the terrorist was engaged in terrorist activities.

I'm not sure there is a "right answer" here. However, I must note that it is somewhat interesting that many conservatives, who generally warn against granting the government too much authority, have no problem granting the government nearly unlimited authority to put people (read Muslim brownies) in a dark hole for the rest of their lives based upon less than convincing evidence.

[JMS]

Well that's easy... You could decide to charge the guy on evidence obtained after he's been tortured for 7 years in front of an unbiased civilian judge..

Holder is obviously a moron... Where does he get off seeking an independent review of the government’s case against these terrorists in the first place.. That was his mistake...

[nonniey]

....

I'm not sure there is a "right answer" here. However, I must note that it is somewhat interesting that many conservatives, who generally warn against granting the government too much authority, have no problem granting the government nearly unlimited authority to put people (read Muslim brownies) in a dark hole for the rest of their lives based upon less than convincing evidence......

Not only Muslim Brownies, but White Nazi's and yellow Japanese if you want to be accurate (Yes I think you're play of the race card is wholey unjustified and insulting, but is par for the course from the left). The use of military tribunals is fully constitutional, approved by Congress and consistent with wartime precedent. Their more liberal evidentiary rules would have prevented the debacle we have now.

Here is another take from Washington Post: When Failure is a Habit

"WASHINGTON -- The closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison and civilian trials for terrorists were more than policy changes proposed by Barack Obama as a presidential candidate. They were presented as a return to constitutional government -- a dividing line from an uncivilized past.

The indefinite detention of terrorists, according to Obama, had "destroyed our credibility when it comes to the rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment." Testifying last year before Congress, Attorney General Eric Holder not only defended a New York trial for lead 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheik Mohammed, he lectured, he taunted, he preened. Unlike others, he was not "scared" of what Mohammed would say at trial. Failure was "not an option." This case, he told a reporter, would be "the defining event of my time as attorney general.

Which it certainly has been. Under Holder's influence, American detainee policy is a botched, hypocritical, politicized mess.

The case of embassy bomber Ahmed Ghailani -- the only Guantanamo Bay detainee the Obama administration has brought to trial in the United States -- was intended to increase public faith in civilian prosecutions. But a terrorist hugging his lawyers in victory can't be considered a confidence builder. Days before the Ghailani verdict, the White House admitted that Mohammed, because of massive, public resistance, would not be seeing the inside of a Manhattan courtroom anytime soon. "Gitmo," one official told The Washington Post, "is going to remain open for the foreseeable future."

Where do these developments leave Holder, for whom failure is not only an option but a habit? A recent profile by Wil Hylton in GQ magazine attempts to put his tenure in the best possible light -- the lonely, naive man of principle undone by politics. But the portrait is unintentionally devastating. Holder clearly views the war on terrorism as a distraction..........

...........

Obama seems to be realizing -- gradually, reluctantly -- that applying the rules of war in the midst of a war does not destroy the credibility of the rule of law or encourage terrorist recruitment. But his public inability to admit this shift seems to be leading to the worst of possible outcomes. In all likelihood, Mohammed won't be tried in a civilian court. But Obama's progressive allies would revolt against a military tribunal for the killer of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl and the mastermind of 9/11. So Mohammed is left in legal limbo. This, in its own way, does seem at odds with the rule of law -- a prisoner condemned to detention without trial because a president cannot admit he was wrong.

How does Obama back down and accept a tribunal? He could begin by appointing an attorney general who understands the requirements of national security. Some on the left believe Holder should resign out of principle. Some on the right believe he should leave because he is out of his depth. Such bipartisanship should not go to waste."

Click link for the entire article.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/11/19/when_failure_is_a_habit_108003.html

[Madison Redskin]

Not only Muslim Brownies, but White Nazi's and yellow Japanese if you want to be accurate (Yes I think you're play of the race card is wholey unjustified and insulting, but is par for the course from the left).

Yeah, because we all know that Americans love Muslims from the Middle East, the Far East, and Africa and otherwise view them as equals. I don't know why I thought otherwise. And just how many "White Nazi's and yellow Japanese" are being detained in Guantanamo?

[Dan T.]

And just how many "White Nazi's and yellow Japanese" are being detained in Guantanamo?

I think he's equating Bush's "War on Terror" with World War II, as if the parallels are so similar that's it's an easy answer in his mind to try them as enemy combatants.

[JMS]

How does it "harm" the United States reputation for justice to pronoune a man innocent of 230 charges of murder? Wouldn't it harm our reputation more if we found a guy guilty of 230 charges of murder, when he wasn't?

[nonniey]

Yeah, because we all know that Americans love Muslims from the Middle East, the Far East, and Africa and otherwise view them as equals. I don't know why I thought otherwise. And just how many "White Nazi's and yellow Japanese" are being detained in Guantanamo?

Your implication is that those individuals are in Guantanamo for being brown and/or Muslim. That is what you're saying right?

[nonniey]

I think he's equating Bush's "War on Terror" with World War II, as if the parallels are so similar that's it's an easy answer in his mind to try them as enemy combatants.

You think wrong, the precedence for military tribunals was set in the past. These tribunals were used against criminals regardless of race. Madison is implying tribunals are a new invention developed to persecute Muslims and brown people.

[Chicken Fried]

to put people (read Muslim brownies) in a dark hole for the rest of their lives

No, I'm suggesting death, just like Saddam. I also find the "less than convincing evidence" idea as particularly outlandish. Finally, it's amazing that you classify America as racist.

[Duckus]

On NPR last night they mentioned that the could still face life in prison.

[Dan T.]

You think wrong, the precedence for military tribunals has been set in the past and were used against criminals regardless of race. Madison is implying these are new rules invented to persecute Muslims and brown people.

So your mention of Nazis and Japanese was no allusion to WWII? Really?

The precedence for military tribunals has been used in the past in "traditional" wars in which enemy combatants are soldiers representing nations with which the U.S. is at war. The terrorists and others held at Guantanamo don't fit that tidy category. They aren't soldiers in the traditional sense. That complicates things. It's not as cut and dried as you seem to make it out to be.

[Destino]

I find it interesting that no one considers the possibility the man simply is innocent. Juries in the US have convicted women of murdering their husbands on the evidence that they were too happy after they learned he died. It doesn't take much to get them to come down with a guilty verdict. This guy is apparently assumed guilty entirely on evidence our justice system considers so unreliable that they don't even want to hear it.

Whats sad is that fair trials were instituted because no one would ever have trusted the government to assign guilt. Now we see them as a bonus perk to citizenship like a sample sized designer perfume in a swag bag.

[Dan T.]

Dupe post, sorry.

[Thiebear]

Chain of evidence was never established.

Early years were never recorded correctly.

We put them into a system that is innocent until proven guilty.

And a jury where 1 person with an agenda can stop the entire issues.

What did we expect exactly?

If convicted in a tribunal it would have been a 'setup" to 20% of the left side.

[nonniey]

So your mention of Nazis and Japanese was no allusion to WWII? Really?

The precedence for military tribunals has been used in the past in "traditional" wars in which enemy combatants are soldiers representing nations with which the U.S. is at war. The terrorists and others held at Guantanamo don't fit that tidy category. They aren't soldiers in the traditional sense. That complicates things. It's not as cut and dried as you seem to make it out to be.

We're talking past each other (Although I do believe it is cut and dried for the legality of using Tribunals). The issue is that Madison is implying a racial motive behind the use of the tribunals and the detention center. I believe that is utter bullcrap.

[Madison Redskin]

Your implication is that those individuals are in Guantanamo for being brown and/or Muslim. That is what you're saying right?

No, that's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying that some people don't care if some foreign Muslim dudes get sent to prison for life based upon questionable evidence. I think people would care a lot more about the tribunals if some of the detainees held different religious beliefs and looked, talked, and otherwise appeared more like your average American.

We're talking past each other (Although I do believe it is cut and dried for the legality of using Tribunals). The issue is that Madison is implying a racial motive behind the use of the tribunals and the detention center. I believe that is utter bullcrap.

You need to read my posts more carefully. I never said, and would never say, there is a racial motive behind the tribunals. The government's motivation in setting up the tribunals is to try terrorists and sentence those who are guilty to extended stays in Cuba or elsewhere. I don't think race or religion had anything to do with the government's decision to set up the tribunals.

However, I do think that at least some people tend to brush off concerns about the tribunals because the people who could be adversely affected by any such problems are foreign Muslims who are accused of being terrorists.

That may partially explain why people didn't go ape **** when the government decided to try John Walker Lindh (that kid from California) in a civilian court, but went ape **** when Obama said he was going to try other foreign terrorists in federal courts.

[Madison Redskin]

No, I'm suggesting death, just like Saddam. I also find the "less than convincing evidence" idea as particularly outlandish. Finally, it's amazing that you classify America as racist.

What is outlandish about my "less than convincing evidence idea?" And I didn't classify America as racist.

[Chicken Fried]

What is outlandish about my "less than convincing evidence idea?"

Just because a jury of God knows who didn't convict doesn't mean anything. I'm not saying he's automatically guilty just because the CIA says so.

And I didn't classify America as racist

I don't know what you implied, but you did say, "Yeah, because we all know that Americans love Muslims from the Middle East, the Far East, and Africa and otherwise view them as equals." I hope you were trying to say something else, but I can't think of what it would be. I'd love for you to prove me wrong.

[PeterMP]

Just because a jury of God knows who didn't convict doesn't mean anything. I'm not saying he's automatically guilty just because the CIA says so. I don't know what you implied, but you did say, "Yeah, because we all know that Americans love Muslims from the Middle East, the Far East, and Africa and otherwise view them as equals." I hope you were trying to say something else, but I can't think of what it would be. I'd love for you to prove me wrong.

http://www.extremeskins.com/showthread.php?339350-Church-in-Arizona-protested-because-it-looks-like-a-mosque

[Thiebear]

http://www.extremeskins.com/showthread.php?339350-Church-in-Arizona-protested-because-it-looks-like-a-mosque

how many is a few? Could you find a few that have an idea about say 'anything'?

[Hersh]

This is pure politics by the right. The guy still faces a minimum of 20 years in prison and possibly life and not a single person can say whether or not the same outcome would have happened in a military tribunal. This guy can join the four others that are in federal max for life that our court system dealt with appropriately. I'm not saying a court is always the best option, but let's not lose sight of the fact that it does work.

[Madison Redskin]

I don't know what you implied, but you did say, "Yeah, because we all know that Americans love Muslims from the Middle East, the Far East, and Africa and otherwise view them as equals." I hope you were trying to say something else, but I can't think of what it would be. I'd love for you to prove me wrong.

What that quoted statement implies is that: (1) some Americans don't have very happy thoughts about Muslims; and (2) those Americans aren't going to be losing sleep over the possibility that some of the detainees might be innocent. Are you actually going to disagree with that?

Just so you don't accuse me of saying that all of the detainees are innocent, let me state that I suspect that the vast majority of them are terrorists who deserve to die or rot in jail.

[JimboDaMan]

I'm having trouble figuring how this harms our reputation for justice.

Wait, first let me back up and wonder when conservatives started giving a rat's patootie about our "reputation". Seems like the past decade all I've heard is sneering about what other nations think of us. Suddenly it's a matter of importance?

But bringing a guy to trial, hearing all the evidence, convicting him of the crime supported by the evidence and acquitting of the ones that were not - is that supposed to show a flaw in the system?

Oh, I forgot, they didn't consider all the evidence because they didn't allow confessions tortured out of people. That stuff is not admissable in a military tribunal either, so what's the complaint? That we didn't simply hold a Soviet-era style show trial and execute him immediately afterwards? Would that have been better for our "reputation"?

[Mad Mike]

Yeah, because we all know that Americans love Muslims from the Middle East, the Far East, and Africa and otherwise view them as equals. I don't know why I thought otherwise. And just how many "White Nazi's and yellow Japanese" are being detained in Guantanamo?

Yeah, that's why they are in gitmo. Because they are Muslim. Not because we found them with guns in their hands killing Americans. Not because we have evidence against them. Forget that Ahmed Ghailani bought the TNT that was used in the embassy bombings. Forget the fact that the person who testified to this sold it to him and was not coerced. And that the only reason that testimony was not allowed in court was that Ghailani himself gave up his name as the person he purchased the TNT from while in CIA hands. It's all because he is "moooslim".

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/g/ahmed_khalfan_ghailani/index.html

And people didnt go are **** over Lindh being tried in a civilian court because he was an American citizen. Ghailani is not. Bin Laden declared war on the US in his Fatwa and Ghailani helped carry out an act of that war. He is not a US citizen and that makes him a foreign enemy combatant. THAT is the difference.