Don Rumsfeld gave 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Miranda rights when he was brought to Guantánamo Bay (a US military installation).
The decision to select a Manhattan courthouse as the trial venue was an flawed political calculation, made by Holder and Obama. Certainly rural Pennsylvania would have been a superior choice over New York or Arlington, but this does not eliminate the fact that A.G. Holder must uphold the Constitution of the United States, which identifies Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as a criminal being held in a U.S. prison.
If the United States had declared war on the government of Afghanistan and proclaimed Al-Qaeda as a paramilitary wing of the government, and then proved that the former government in Kabul had directly or indirectly sponsored Al-Qaeda during the planning of the 9/11 attacks, then there would have been no reason to extend Miranda rights to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and imprison him as a criminal in a US military base. The Bush administration with either unable or unwilling to make this legal connection, which is why they made the decision to bring the prisoners to Guantánamo.
This incident and the overall mismanagement of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib prison operations must be a lesson for all defcons. Leave the terrorists in the nations (sympathetic to the U.S.A.) that they were captured in and allow third parties to conduct the interrogations, so that our government is not forced to uphold our Constitution.
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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and Twitter/Kris_Lorelli
November 18th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
What if we’re wrong on the accusation that the prisoner was a terrorist? What if the person was innocent? That’s where the US should be taking the moral high ground (which we lose whenever we engage in underhanded tactics, e.g. torture).
November 18th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
1 – I understand your point, but this post has very little to do with how one defines torture.
If we really want their fingernails pulled, let the Pakitani’s do it, on Pakistani soil.
November 18th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
So we’re not forced to uphold the Constitution? Do you realize how terrible that sentence is?
November 18th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
3 – Yes, I know. But there are ppl like yourself who want to nationalize health care, which is not in the Constitution.
November 18th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Then the War on Terror is a catch and release program and we should all just convert to Islam and save some lives.
Terrorists are not covered in the Constitution. There’s absolutely no need to worry about a document which is silent on the subject.
November 18th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Kris, check in to the long-established international laws on all this. We could easily have classified KSM as a pirate under admiralty law and dispatched him at will.
Also, the Land Warfare portions of the Hague Conventions (part of the Geneva Conventions) show that KSM and these other self-styled holy warriors had no right as POWs, and were rightfully designated “unlawful combatants.” There’s a lot to dislike about Rumsfeld, perhaps, but Gitmo and the “unlawful combatant” designation were entirely right for a nation at war — which is what we were after multiple acts of warfare by the jihadis against us.
It is Holder who’s making a mess of the situation. And some folks think that this might backfire badly, ending up making our civilian criminal case law much harsher than it should be to protect normal American citizens against wrongful criminal charges.
November 18th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Check out the comments here:
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/war_and_crimes.php#comments
Particularly bright is this one:
November 18th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Well, it’s Holder and the Supreme Court who insist, for some baffling reason, that terrorist captives are to be treated as POWs.
But, since they don’t have any authority in the matter, they should just be ignored.
November 18th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
#8. Yeah, but it’s not a question of either terrorist or civilian, which is why the unlawful combatants, if tried under American laws, require a venue (at the time of the SCOTUS ruling) to be written into law, which ultimately became the military tribunals.
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that the O-ministration is still going to apply those “hated” tribunals to lots of other Gitmo detainees — the O-ministration simply singled out a couple high-profile cases to run through the civilian criminal justice system for no greater reason than, supposedly, having them tried closer to the scene of their “crime.”
November 19th, 2009 at 12:33 am
MarkG, thank you. Good read.
8 – once you grant an individual Constitutional rights under the law, they have the right to a def. and a hearing.