Posted by
Always To The Right on Friday, November 13, 2009 12:51:56 PM
The Obama administration will send five of the 9/11 plotters to New York City to face a criminal trial
for their part in the terrorist attacks that killed almost 3,000
people. Among the terrorists to be tried is mastermind Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed, perhaps the most notorious detainee currently at Guantanamo
Bay. The decision will raise questions about security — and what Obama
is prepared to do if prosecutors fumble the case
So why bother to try the 9/11 “suspects” in the Big Apple at all?
One rationale for the split could be that Nashiri attacked a military
target while the 9/11 Five attacked civilians. However, the 9/11 plot
also killed almost 200 people at the Pentagon, most definitely a
military target. That alone justifies a military tribunal rather than
a criminal trial for KSM and the others. Besides, if several of these
terrorists get tried at Gitmo, trying the 9/11 plotters elsewhere isn’t
going to close Gitmo any faster.
What do we get from having the 9/11 plotters tried in criminal court in
New York City? Well, we get to have the city painted as a big, bright
target for terrorist action during the entirety of the trial. Thanks
to press coverage, which should be an order of magnitude more obsessive
than the OJ Simpson trial in LA fourteen years ago, jihadists will come
out of the woodwork to make a big international splash, or more likely
a boom. We also give KSM and his cohorts a big, juicy media
platform for their bile. That was one of their motivations for
conducting the attack in the first place, and we finally get to deliver
it to them.