Posted by
flagwaver on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 12:41:51 PM
Folks, we are screwed. There's no other way to say it, no other way to express what the Obama InJustice Department is doing to this country. We thought the Clinton-Reno DOJ was bad, but I don't think even they would be this obtuse. And if they were, they would at least have enough savvy to change the focus of the press and public while they screwed us over. But the Obama administration and InJustice Department are a bunch of rank amateurs without the common sense to know that trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed is not a winning proposition for anyone...except the terrorists.
While many bemoan the return of a pre-9/11 mindset in Washington with the Obama Bunch, I think it is much worse than that. While a pre-9/11 mindset is a dangerous thing for people in the White House and at Justice to have, what is worse is to have people in charge that have no concept of truth and justice, or an understanding that "Yes Virginia, there really is a war on terror!" And by deciding to bring KSM to New York to stand trial in a civilian federal court, the Obama InJustice Department, so ably led by Eric Holder, has signalled to the terrorists that we are no longer at war with them. We don't want to win on the battlefield, we want to win in court!
Except that I don't think that Holder really wants to win this prosecution. He may talk a good game, mainly because as the chief prosecutor of the federal government he has to, this trial is one that is set up to be a loser for the prosecutors. For all of their assurances to the President that "we'll convict this person with the evidence they've got, going through our system", and the rash statements by Mr. Obama that trying KSM in Manhattan won't be "offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him", the government is going to be in a bad spot when the trial begins.
The problem is that the things that we know about KSM, the things that he told our interrogators, and the acts that he copped to after a few go-rounds with a certain towel and board apparatus are useless. If the judge who presides over this case applies the law fairly, KSM has a really good chance at winning an acquittal or at least a non-capital conviction. I'm no Benjamin Layton Matlock, but even I could probably get a lot of the most daming evidence against KSM tossed, because no fair minded judge could let any information obtained from him while at Club Gitmo into the record as evidence. The Holder InJustice Department, and the Lord High Inquisitor Obama have all been falling all over themselves to portray the use of waterboarding as torture, so anything gotten from a waterboarded KSM would have to be excluded; we do not allow coerced testimony at trial, and "torture" damned sure qualifies as coercion!
Another thing I would expect KSM's defense team to do is challenge any wiretapped calls, or information gathered from wiretaps as credible evidence. Again, Holder, Obama, et al have spent years squalling about how illegal the Bush Era wiretapping of terrorist communications were, and if I am not mistaken there was some federal judge who agreed. That would make any information gathered that way inadmissible, since it was gathered "illegally".
Then I would petition for a change of venue, because there is no way on Gore's Green Earth that KSM can get a fair trial in New York. I mean, how can the guy get a fair trial in the very city whose heart he is alleged to have attempted to cut out on 9/11? The media coverage has already been higlhly prejudical and is becoming more suffocating by the day, so the trial would have to be moved elsewhere...pronto.
And I would also refuse a jury trial and request a bench trial. By opening his mouth and saying that KSM would be convicted and executed, and by the Attorney General saying that "I have every confidence in the world that the antion and the world will see him [KSM] for the coward that he is" Holder has helped to dirty an already tainted jury pool. And honestly, where in this country are you going to finf twelve citizens who have not already prejudged KSM as guilty? Hell, I try to be evenhanded and all that, but even I know that the sorry son-of-a-biscuiteater is a s guilty as sin is wrong! So where are you going to find 12 good people, even liberals, who don't share that same view? So you get a judge, who has to apply the laws fairly regardless of his personal feelings, and plead your case in front of him. That is a clear advantage to the defense, because appeals to emotion will not be allowed.
Now if a non-lawyer like me can look at this decision and see these potential prosecution pitfalls, are you telling me that the Attorney General could not see them? Of course he saw them, but it doesn't matter to him...because this isn't about punishing KSM. This is about proving to the rest of the world that Obama is different from Bush, and it's about being able to hang something really bad...a possible acquittal of KSM...on the "excesses" of the Bush administration. This is all a political sop to the far left, and payback for the Bush administration's termerity in treating terrorists like, well...terrorists.
So we're screwed folks. KSM is in a position to use the courtroom to propogate his jihadist views, to inspire his fellow travellers, and to show how weak the West truly is. And if KSM is convicted it is set up perfectly for cries of a kangaroo court and a successful appeal.
We're screwed.