Holder unprepared for Senate Judiciary Committee

[RenegadeDave]

w/ respect to KSM being tried in civilian courts.

Would U.S. Need To Read Bin Laden His Miranda Rights? - The Two-Way - Breaking News, Analysis Blog : NPR

I mean, how could he NOT have been prepared for that question? It is the most obvious one that presents itself if you try to play devil's advocate at all.

[xXxPriestessxXx]

It is a pretty obvious question although I am not really sure it matters in this case. Even if we go about KSM's trial as federal instead of military, he is still going to be found guilty. As far as intelligence gathering goes, we have had this guy in custody for 5 years. If we haven't gotten intelligence from him yet we probably aren't going to. Personally, I would rather just like to see this taken care of instead of this debate on the hill.

[orb451]

Mr. Holder is an idiot. If left to go down this path our military will have yet another bunch of bullshit to hamstring them and prevent them from getting their job done.

I can't believe this guy is the Attorney General.

[TruthDose]

Where was Tim McVeigh tried?


If KSM is tried publicly there could be new developments into 9/11 re-investigation.
That's assuming that he supplied with a decent defense attourney

[Randy]

This isn't 200-and-....ing-4 anymore. Seriously. There aren't different rules for pursuing a case against somebody just because they're a terrorist, and there shouldn't be.

[RenegadeDave]

Originally Posted by Randy

This isn't 200-and-....ing-4 anymore. Seriously. There aren't different rules for pursuing a case against somebody just because they're a terrorist, and there shouldn't be.

Apparently the prosecutor would have to share a lot of would-be classified information with respect to how a lot of evidence was gathered.

I'm admittedly a click north of naive on the differences. With respect to how he's tried, it's a huge gray area to me as to where/how he was apprehended for how he should be tried. If he was apprehended locally, it'd be pretty cut and dried how we should try him, but if he was apprehended in a foreign theater of operations then i think it's pretty clear it should be a military tribunal. Either way, something should have happened by now. That's my read anyway.

To be honest, I don't even remember to the circumstances of how he was apprehended. I'm more shocked that Holder walked into the most obvious and predictable question he could be asked unprepared.

[Randy]

Originally Posted by RenegadeDave

If he was apprehended locally, it'd be pretty cut and dried how we should try him, but if he was apprehended in a foreign theater of operations then i think it's pretty clear it should be a military tribunal.

Soon after the 1993 attack, the FBI, on April 21, 1993 made him the 436th person added to the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. On February 7, 1995, Pakistani intelligence and U.S. Bureau of Diplomatic Security Special Agents Bill Miller and Jeff Riner captured Yousef in Islamabad, Pakistan. On February 7, 1995, they raided the Su-Casa Guest House in Islamabad, Pakistan, and captured Yousef before he could move to Peshawar. He was captured thanks to Istaique Parker, a man Yousef had tried to recruit. Parker was paid $2 million for the information leading to Yousef's capture.[4][5] When he was discovered, Yousef, about to leave his hotel room that day, had chemical burns on his fingers. Agents found Delta Air Lines and United Airlines flight schedules and bomb components in children's toys.[19]

He was sent to a prison in New York City and held there until his trial. In court, Yousef said, "Yes, I am a terrorist, and proud of it as long as it is against the U.S. government and against Israel, because you are more than terrorists; you are the one who invented terrorism and using it every day. You are butchers, liars and hypocrites." [8] On September 5, 1996, Yousef, and two co-conspirators were convicted for their role in the Bojinka plot and were sentenced to life in prison without parole. U.S. District Court Judge Kevin Duffy referred to Yousef as "an apostle of evil" before recommending that the entire sentence be served in solitary confinement.[21]

On November 12, 1997 Yousef was found guilty of masterminding the 1993 bombing and in 1998 he was convicted of "seditious conspiracy" to bomb the towers.[22][23]

Ramzi Yousef - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

that argument

[RenegadeDave]

Originally Posted by Randy

Ramzi Yousef - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

that argument

Yeah, I guess I should clarify, *by the military* in a foreign theater of operations (meaning specifically an area of the world where we had our little "war on terror" waged). That's not a perfect example you cited as the '93 bombing didn't lead to us launching our hugely expensive campaign of rearranging rocks in the country side of Afghanistan. Also he ('93 bomber) was apprehended by Diplomatic Security Agents, not military regulars (I'm guessing KSM was apprehended by some branch of the armed services, again I don't know and am too lazy to look it up).

There's no part of me that will weep if a non-US citizen terrorist apprehended outside of the US border is tried, convicted and sentenced in a military tribunal. At this point I'm more interested in the end result than the means.

I'd hardly say that your excerpt pokes holes as there isn't much parity, assuming he was caught by military forces. Also the "wartime" environment blurs the lines even more.

and again, I don't recall the circumstances leading to KSM's apprehension. regardless of how he's tried, just let him get what's coming to him at this point.

[Randy]

On September 11, 2002, members of Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) claimed to have killed or captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed during a raid in Karachi that resulted in Binalshibh's capture. Some people have reported that Mohammed escaped, but that his family was captured.[47]

On March 1, 2003, the ISI reported that they had captured him in a raid in Rawalpindi, Pakistan in a joint raid with the CIA's Special Activities Division paramilitary operatives.[48]

See if you can find some parity there, big guy.

subtle differences =/= relevant differences

Somebody just decided that the rules don't need to apply anymore, and we need to treat this whole thing like something we've never encountered before and that's simply not true. Just because we're waging war somewhere while they picked him up, doesn't mean it's case for military tribunals/intervention. If he wasn't picked up by the military (which, I don't think the CIA really qualifies as; [The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government.]) and he wasn't picked up in an active combat zone... and the majority of the accusations made against him are against civilians or private entities.... why the .... does this guy need a military trial? Or furthermore, why is a military tribunal MORE appropriate than a civilian trial in the first place?

Also, the civilian route seemed to work just fine in prosecuting all of our other terror cases... what makes this SO different that it warrants a completely different method? The answer is nothing.

EDIT: Also, something else to throw into the mix:

The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that military tribunals set up by the Bush administration to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are flawed because they were not expressly authorized by Congress and do not incorporate basic trial protections. The court says a key clause of the Geneva Conventions applies to the detainees and is enforceable in federal court for their protection. The provision prohibits mistreatment of detainees and trials except by "a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized people."

http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2005/2005_05_184/

[TruthDose]

Hey guys


9/11 was an inside job?

[RenegadeDave]

Randy I was under the impression he was detained by the military. If the CIA brought him in then I've no problem with a civilian trial. I readily admitted the whole time I was unaware of the particulars of his apprehension.

See if you can dial the civility back up to previous levels man. The hostility in your posts is both unflattering and unwarranted.

[Randy]

Fair enough.

I have more of an issue with the people who were fully informed with this case and the specifics involved, and still insisted that this should be handled by the military. Lindsey Graham being one of them.

That isn't you, and I shouldn't have attacked you for that. My bad, and I hear you loud and clear on all that. Sorry for being jerky.