Obama's error by trial: Civilian justice for 9/11 plotters is profound, dangerous mistake

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/...#ixzz0X7gsy3QG

Tuesday, November 17th 2009, 4:00 AM

Related NewsBombing at police station in northwestern Pakistan kills fourRadical imam: Fort Hood gunman 'trusted' me, but I didn't insitgate rampageGunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms abduct and kill 13 in BaghdadPaterson: 9/11 mastermind shouldn't be tried in NYC9/11 workers, first responders to rally for help in D.C.The foolhardiness of President Obama's decision to try the mastermind of 9/11 and four cohorts in civilian court grows ever clearer as the outlines of the proceedings take shape.

It is offensive that Obama gave his blessings to designating Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his Al Qaeda crew as common criminals rather than as enemy combatants, perpetrators of the worst attack on American soil from abroad.

But that offense, high as it is, pales in comparison with the serious practical and legal consequences of hauling these avowed enemies of the nation into Manhattan Federal Court with all the rights and protections under the Constitution.

Such as Mohammed's right to rummage through the government's intelligence and investigative files for information that is purportedly useful to his defense - but will be more helpful to Al Qaeda operatives in the field.

(Oh, so that's what the CIA has been up to!)

Such as Mohammed's right to mount a defense that attempts to put the U.S. on trial for supposed human rights violations in the detention and interrogation of prisoners.

Such as Mohammed's right to act as his own lawyer even as he perverts protections he has been granted by making a circus of the trial.

As we have said time and again, Mohammed should rightly stand before the bar of a military commission. That's where he had been, and that's where Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder should have kept him. In fact, almost a year ago, Mohammed & Co. announced that they wanted to plead guilty before such a tribunal and get on with their executions.

Although military commissions have been okayed by Congress and upheld by the courts as providing fair due process, Obama pressed forward with closing the Guantanamo camp and bringing terror suspects into civilian courts.

But Mohammed? The admitted architect of an attack plotted and launched from abroad? A foreign national who had concocted previous such schemes with the connivance and support of Osama Bin Laden?

Mohammed is not just a terror suspect. He's not the guy who wanted to bomb the Herald Square subway station, or the guy who schemed to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge. He is an unrepentant war criminal who is determined to harm the U.S. by any means possible.

A civilian trial needlessly - and thus foolhardily - enhances his ability to accomplish his goals. Critically, for example, a military commission would have the power to limit Mohammed's personal access - as opposed to his lawyer's access - to intelligence and investigative files.

This is no small matter. Andrew McCarthy, who prosecuted the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, has said sensitive material went within days from the defendants to Bin Laden.

We take a backseat to no one in craving vengeance for the mass murder of 9/11. And we would join the many New Yorkers who would take pleasure in participating in exacting justice. But we would do so knowing that Obama, in pursuit of misguided ideology and the fanciful notion that the world will think more highly of America, has taken a profoundly wrong step that will undermine the war on terror and increase the threat to New York.