I’ve spilled my share of pixels criticizing the Bush Administration’s detention policy, but this strikes me as completely insane:
WASHINGTON — Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other men accused in the plot will be prosecuted in federal court in New York City, a federal law enforcement official said early on Friday.
But Obama the administration will prosecute Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri — the detainee accused of planning the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen — and several other detainees before a military commission, the official said.
The decisions to give civilian prosecutors detainees accused of the 2001 terrorist attacks and keep the case of the Cole attack within the military system are expected to be announced at the Department of Justice later on Friday by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because that news conference has not yet taken place.
Why does everyone fly to such ridiculous extremes on this subject? America gets attacked. So we capture and detain a bunch of the ringleaders prisoners indefinitely at The Only Secure Location In The World and torture them (but only just a little). Then, we have this whole rigmarole a few years back that ends with the passage of some fairly sensible legislation to try them through the military so we can be done with them and (hopefully) see them hang. Then, we completely drop the ball for the next three years and elect a new president who wavers between being a cynical bastard and being a completely reckless pie-in-the-sky lefty nutcase, as we’re seeing today!
Hi, customer service? Yes, I’d like to return this world; it’s defective.
Posted by Tom in CHANGE!, Liberty and/or Security