The Upcoming Terrorist Trial in New York City

There are times to speak your mind, however unpopular it might be. Take the hit and lose some peeps and be true to the voice inside that is often quelled in the name of being non-controversial. This is one of those times for me. A friend of mine, who rarely sees eye to eye with me on most things political, said something so disturbing to me regarding the upcoming trial in New York City for the 9/11 bombings that I have been uncomfortable ever since. She said,

“Oh, and be glad you don’t live in NYC. Our brilliant prez is planning to bring the 9/11  mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, here for trial. He should be tried at Gitmo by a military court. I’m just sure there will be an attack on NYC once he’s here, and if so, that’ll be the end of Obama’s hopes for a second term.”

I have thought a lot about it over the past few days, and I want to weigh in along with all the other pundits like myself who really have no right to an opinion, so uninformed on the back story that goes into making these decisions are we.

Here is the short answer. Our President is brilliant. Like him or not, right on some things, wrong on others; he is very, very smart. Second, the definition of a war crime does not allow Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to be tried in a military court. You see we have laws defining what is military and what is not, and they dictate that he needs to be in civil court. Third, and perhaps most important, please stop running scared because something bad might happen. Something bad did happen, and I assure you we rose from it stronger than before. And lastly, if Obama is making decisions based on getting reelected for a second term, then he’s not the man I’d hoped. I hoped for someone who would make decisions based on the law and his judgement on what is best for the country – whether you and I like it or not. And judging from the number of things he’s done that I don’t agree with, I’d say he’s doing just that.

Now, let me break it down for you. I was there that day. I watched it unfold, not on TV, but with non-believing eyes staring at a weaving plane and a burst of fire the size of which I’d not thought possible. And so, I want Mohammed to go to trial in New York City. I want him sitting in a courtroom in the city in which he committed the most unspeakable crime in my history. I want my fellow citizens in the courtroom. I want justice served, according to the laws of my country.

Technically, an act of war is the only way he could be tried in a military tribunal. An act of war is defined as an act of agression by a country against another with which it is nominally at peace. That means that bombing Pearl Harbor was an act of war by Japan. Marching into Austria was an act of war by Germany. And so on. The attacks on Washington and New York City were acts of terrorism by a gang of zealots not dissimilar from Timothy McVeigh and his group of disgruntled Americans. It was bigger than Oklahoma. It was scarier. It was from a group outside our borders making it more appalling. But it was the same kind of crime, and if we did his trial in a different way than we did for McVeigh, then we are not the country we all signed on to be.

The following is a quote from the statement by a professor discussing McVeigh’s sentencing clearly making the connection between McVeigh’s act of terrorism and Mohammed’s act of terrorism.

A bomb carried in a Ryder truck exploded in front of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City at 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995.  The bomb claimed 168 innocent lives.  That a homegrown, war-decorated American terrorist named Timothy McVeigh drove and parked the Ryder truck in the handicap zone in front of the Murrah Building there is little doubt.  In 1997, a jury convicted McVeigh and sentenced him to death.  The federal government, after an investigation involving 2,000 agents, also charged two of McVeigh’s army buddies, Michael Fortier and Terry Nichols, with advance knowledge of the bombing and participation in the plot.  Despite considerable evidence linking various militant white supremacists to the tragedy in Oklahoma City, no other persons faced prosecution for what was–until September 11, 2001–the worst act of terrorism ever on American soil.

Would you really have McVeigh have preferential treatment over Mohammed? Is that what you want the world to see?

Timothy McVeigh was tried in Oklahoma City where he commited his crime and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed shall be tried in the city where the majority of his crimes were committed. There were death threats in Oklahoma and the city dealt with them. The surviving families came day after day and sat in the courtroom like dignified citizens as McVeigh was given the inalienable right to a fair trial by peers and his defense. I’m sure they would have preferred to string him up from the rafters, but we don’t do that in our country.

So we Americans don’t run scared from a trial because there might be trouble. Nope, not any longer. You see, the days of the following mantra,”Be scared. Be very, very scared and throw out the rules and laws that ensure our freedom in the name of safety,” are gone now, and if Obama loses the next election because of decisions like this one, it doesn’t mean those days of fear will come back.

Oh, and I have a message for Mayor Giuliani. Your fifteen minutes of historical fame  - that moment in time where you rose to the highest place deep inside you – is over. You have no business doing any politicking on this topic. Your job, if you want to go back to that place eight years ago that still feels like yesterday to me, is to go to the upcoming trial each and every day. Sit and stare into the eyes of the misguided man on trial representing the millions of people you led so forcefully. The firefighters. The police officers. And citizens like me. “Go to funerals even if you don’t know the person,” you told us. “Show your respect.” And each and every time a firefighter’s funeral went down Fifth Avenue, I stopped what I was doing, went as requested and said a silent prayer of thanks to him. Now, we need you in the courtroom representing them – and those of us still here – with the same dignity and judicial respect that makes us the finest country in the world.

As for the dissenters of the point of view I expressed today, I get that you are entitled to your opinion. You may want him shot behind a shed by an angry mob who steals him in the dead of night as far as I’m concerned. But I beg you to not hide behind fear-based reactions, or sidestep our constitution and what it does for a person’s rights, or talk about the resulting political fallout. Just say you want him in a trial that will be secret and unconstitutional and against our laws because you don’t want him to have a chance to escape the guilty verdict, and you don’t want the world to watch, and you don’t want to risk another attack associated with the publicity, or whatever. And be grateful that it’s the same laws you are trying to ignore that give you the right to say it.

As for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, I hope he fries. And, then I want world peace.