Rudy Giuliani, America's Mayor
Returning some of the Guantanamo detainees to New York City for trial, specifically Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, has now brought us full circle – we have regressed to a pre-9/11 mentality with respect to Islamic extremist terrorismIt seems reasonable on its face: America has the best justice system in the world. This is a showcase to the rest of the world that even war criminals like Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his fellow co-conspirators can get a fair trial. What better place to do it but in New York City, the site of the World Trade Tower attacks that took thousands of innocent civilian lives?
There are several things wrong with that. First, I believe that New York has already paid and is paying more than its fair share of the cost burden associated with being a high value target of international terrorism, not to mention the blood and treasure directly related to these unspeakable acts of violence. Now everyone associated with this political theater civilian trial (the judge, the jurors, the lawyers, etc.) could become collateral targets of terrorism which make concerns about the reach of alleged Mafia mobsters almost pale in comparisons. In addition, the trial location and surrounding areas could become the target of real or symbolic sympathetic terrorist acts. This makes no sense; in fact, the same
Second, I don't get this progressive obsession with proving to the rest of the world the worthiness of our legal system and way of life. Obama's dishonorable, incessant Bush-bashing and compulsive need to apologize for past American "mistakes" to placate anti-American European socialists and other global adversaries really seem to manifest an intrinsic lack of confidence in our core values; progressives seek to reassure not foreigners but themselves, constantly putting America to the test and presumptuously making their own parochial interests a litmus test; I have zero interest in allowing liberals (or the foreigners they hope to impress) veto power over American decisions and interests. No justice system, consisting of fallible human beings, is perfect; what America does, better than any other country in the world, is expose its good and bad points for all the world to see. Only liberals could see a moral equivalence, for example, between the Abu Ghraib of the American occupation and the Abu Ghraib of Saddam Hussein (with mass graves and real torture, not enhanced interrogation techniques).The basic difference (beyond the nature, extent and intent of alleged mistreatment) is that Saddam Hussein suppressed publicity and evidence of his crimes against humanity, destroying records at Abu Ghraib before the liberation.
Third, progressives, although they claim to discern a distinction between criminal acts of violence and politically incorrect criminal acts of violence (i.e., "hate crimes"), seem unable or unwilling to distinguish between criminal behavior and international terrorism. The American court system is ill-equipped to deal with the dilemma of choosing between prosecuting the guilty and protecting our national secrets; that, in fact, is the whole reason for the purpose of military tribunals.
Progressives have, of course, accused Giuliani of inconsistency with his comments made after the World Trade Center bombing in the early 90's. Giuliani concedes, like many others, he was wrong at the time, that he has learned from the tragic experience of 9/11. It is the comparable failure of liberals to learn from their receding memories of that day of infamy; they have put dubious political principles above the common defense and security of the United States. Nobody seriously believes that KSM and his co-conspirators of terror are being prosecuted on contrived evidence. I am interested in simple justice, not how many angels can dance on the point of a needle.
