Friday, November 13

Sen. Webb (D-VA) on the terror trials

Via TPM:
"I have never disputed the constitutional authority of the President to convene Article III courts in cases of international terrorism. However, I remain very concerned about the wisdom of doing so. Those who have committed acts of international terrorism are enemy combatants, just as certainly as the Japanese pilots who killed thousands of Americans at Pearl Harbor. It will be disruptive, costly, and potentially counterproductive to try them as criminals in our civilian courts.

"The precedent set by this decision deserves careful scrutiny as we consider proper venues for trying those now held at Guantanamo who were apprehended outside of this country for acts that occurred outside of the country. And we must be especially careful with any decisions to bring onto American soil any of those prisoners who remain a threat to our country but whose cases have been adjudged as inappropriate for trial at all. They do not belong in our country, they do not belong in our courts, and they do not belong in our prisons.

"I have consistently argued that military commissions, with the additional procedural rules added by Congress and enacted by President Obama, are the most appropriate venue for trying individuals adjudged to be enemy combatants."
For most of the detainees now in Guantanamo, this is probably true. But I think the Obama administration appreciates that because previous commissions enacted by Bush lacked the fairness and legitimacy of due process, merely reforming them is not enough. We must break with that past somehow.

Viewed in this light, trying KSM and a handful of others in New York seems inspired and fitting.

May they get their just desserts at an indisputably fair trial. And may the rest of the mess Bush left at Guantanamo be dealt with fairly but more quietly with the new commissions.

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