Category Error

Powerline asks, Whither KSM?

We have incessantly insisted that the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his 9/11 co-conspirators held at Guantanamo should not take place in federal court in New York. If they are to be tried at all, the trial should be held before a military commission at Guantanamo.

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Like picking a new site for the Guantanamo detainees, this is an exercise in stupidity. We don’t need a more convenient federal courtroom; we need a venue that recognizes the status of the defendants as enemy combatants. Gitmo is it.

What we have here is a category error. The perpetrators of 9/11 are not criminals; they are unlawful combatants and enemies of the United States of America. They do not belong in an American courtroom shielded by the protections accorded American citizens under the Constitution of the United States.

The Obama administration seeks to end the war against Islamist terrorism by closing its eyes. No more war against terrorism in word. No more Gitmo in deed. No more military commissions. The higher wisdom operative in the Obama administration takes its cue from the late John Lennon, who proclaimed “WAR IS OVER! (IF YOU WANT IT).” It wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now.

President Obama can click his heels all he wants; he won’t find himself on 9/10/2001.