Posted on 12/26/2013 1:41:08 PM PST by jazusamo
The leftist human rights groups pushing for Guantanamo terrorists to be tried in the civilian legal system should take note that a famously liberal federal appeals court affirmed the Military Commission at Gitmo has jurisdiction in the case against an Al Qaeda operative who bombed a U.S. Navy ship in Yemen.
The ruling, issued by the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, is a blow to the powerful leftwing organizations—including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch—that have long fought to afford Islamic terrorists the same rights as American citizens. For years they have petitioned the Obama administration to try terrorists incarcerated at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in federal court rather than the Military Commission created to hear the cases.
The Obama administration caved into the demands with a disastrous plan to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and four conspirators in Manhattan a few years ago. The preposterous idea blew up in the administration’s face and KSM and his cohorts are being tried in the more appropriate Military Commission at Gitmo. Judicial Watch has been approved by the Department of Defense (DOD) to travel to Gitmo and has monitored many of the Military Commission hearings.
On every occasion JW witnessed a deep commitment to justice by military lawyers as well as the topnotch civilian attorneys assigned to the terrorist suspects. Additionally, the Department of Justice (DOJ) closely monitors all proceedings and deploys a number of lawyers to each hearing. Nevertheless, influential leftist groups continue to advocate on behalf of the Gitmo terrorists, demanding that they be brought to justice in the same civilian courts used by American citizens and residents.
The effort includes appealing to civilian judges, which is what Saudi Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri did. In 2000 the Al-Qaeda operative orchestrated the bombing of the Navy destroyer USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden. Seventeen American sailors were murdered and dozens were injured. Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization claimed responsibility for the attack and in 2002 al-Nashiri was captured in the United Arab Emirates and charged with masterminding the bombing.
A DOD intelligence report describes al-Nashiri as one of Al-Qaeda’s most skilled, capable and prolific operational coordinators. JW has been present for all of his Gitmo proceedings , including his first one in November, 2011. Al-Nashiri appears physically fit, cocky and quite relaxed for a man facing death. Upon entering the courtroom he likes to wave at the observer gallery where family of USS Cole victims watch proceedings.
A few years ago al-Nashiri filed a lawsuit claiming that the Gitmo Military Commissions have no jurisdiction to prosecute him because the system only has authority to hear cases involving crimes committed during a state of war. When the Cole was bombed, the U.S. was not at war with Yemen, according to al-Nashiri’s lawsuit, and then-President Bill Clinton called it a peacetime attack. A federal judge slammed the lawsuit and al-Nashiri appealed to the 9 th Circuit, which upheld the lower court’s ruling that the Military Commission does in fact have jurisdiction over his case.
A trial of this sort should have only a couple of purposes:
Verify that the guy is who you think he is;
And document the reasons why you are going to hang him.
Shouldn’t take more than an hour.
I understand that the military intelligence guys are pretty good at getting intelligence from those terrorists for years and even decades later.
They’ll pop up with a name that no one has ever heard of before (in the years past) and by running through some more interrogation, they can find out a lot more about the newly discovered name.
What’s wrong with the 9th circus ?
LOL! They must have had a temporary relapse.
Yeah ... SOMEone took an American pill.
Even in the time of the campaign against the Barbary pirates, federal judges wanted to horn in to the trial and execution of pirates. They seriously wanted US Navy ships to leave their posts, to feed and transport pirates back to the US for trial.
Fortunately, the British navy was under no such restrictions. When it captured a pirate ship, they would hang the pirates on their own ship, then rig it to slowly and irretrievably sink, before casting off. If other pirates found it before it sank, no problem.
So the US Navy began to discover that when it captured pirates, they just happened to be in British territorial waters, so they had to turn them over to the British navy for disposition. Jurisdiction and all.
And the British navy was very accommodating to this idea, seeing it as an opportunity to establish friendly relations with its former colony.
Sounds like it was an excellent way to handle the situation, we need more of that kind of thinking today.
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