Victor Davis Hanson: A Manifest Disaster
[Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. He is also the Wayne & Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History, Hillsdale College, where he teaches each fall semester courses in military history and classical culture.]
Two points about the strange decision to bring the 9/11 terrorists to New York:
One, Senator Grassley's point about federal attorneys and their past advocacy for detainees is worth listening to. I'll leave it to Andy McCarthy to ascertain the legal ramifications of Grassley's concern that there are lawyers in Eric Holder's Justice Department who (a) may be involved in the decision-making that brings the terrorist combatant KSM and others to civil trials in New York, and (b) not so long ago either were pro bono attorneys working on behalf of the Guantanamo detainees or were employed by firms who provided such subsidized legal work for those at Gitmo.
If any of that were found to be accurate, it would obviously present serious conflict-of-interest problems. But more important than the legal ramifications would be the political consequences.
I don't think the American people would take well to the idea that government prosecutors of the terrorists who had a hand in the murder of 3,000 Americans are, in some way, connected in the past with defense work on behalf of those very terrorists. That would be radioactive in political terms.
Two, we are now watching a very Orwellian development, as ACLU lawyers, civil libertarians, and liberal Obama-administration prosecutors all jostle to outbid one another in pretrial chest-pounding — boasting about the overwhelming evidence that will seal the fate of KSM. Our "don't rush to judgment" president has also weighed in and assured the country that the "suspect" will be tried and convicted in federal court, before being executed. (Obama had better be careful: There may be one or two ACLU attorneys out there who are not quite on the administration bus and, in customary fashion, may use all that "pretrial" prejudicial publicity as grounds for moving the case to, say, San Francisco, or perhaps as the basis for some sort of pretrial dismissal motion.)...
Read entire article at Private Papers (website of Victor Davis Hanson)
Two points about the strange decision to bring the 9/11 terrorists to New York:
One, Senator Grassley's point about federal attorneys and their past advocacy for detainees is worth listening to. I'll leave it to Andy McCarthy to ascertain the legal ramifications of Grassley's concern that there are lawyers in Eric Holder's Justice Department who (a) may be involved in the decision-making that brings the terrorist combatant KSM and others to civil trials in New York, and (b) not so long ago either were pro bono attorneys working on behalf of the Guantanamo detainees or were employed by firms who provided such subsidized legal work for those at Gitmo.
If any of that were found to be accurate, it would obviously present serious conflict-of-interest problems. But more important than the legal ramifications would be the political consequences.
I don't think the American people would take well to the idea that government prosecutors of the terrorists who had a hand in the murder of 3,000 Americans are, in some way, connected in the past with defense work on behalf of those very terrorists. That would be radioactive in political terms.
Two, we are now watching a very Orwellian development, as ACLU lawyers, civil libertarians, and liberal Obama-administration prosecutors all jostle to outbid one another in pretrial chest-pounding — boasting about the overwhelming evidence that will seal the fate of KSM. Our "don't rush to judgment" president has also weighed in and assured the country that the "suspect" will be tried and convicted in federal court, before being executed. (Obama had better be careful: There may be one or two ACLU attorneys out there who are not quite on the administration bus and, in customary fashion, may use all that "pretrial" prejudicial publicity as grounds for moving the case to, say, San Francisco, or perhaps as the basis for some sort of pretrial dismissal motion.)...