Unreal.
First, the American people have to deal with the insult of a show trial where all the evidence is thrown out because the civilian courts are not equipped to deal with evidence gained by the military. So the terrorist, the MASTERMIND, mind you, gets convicted of a technicality.
Second, the Obama administration blames the Bush administration.
And really, blaming the Bush Administration was the point of the show trial, and certainly a trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, to begin with. So righteously outraged by torture, they were going to humiliate the former President and his administration by trying, and losing the suits, of hideously evil terrorists who really deserve to be dead. Yesterday. From Jake Tapper:
“So, we tried a guy (who the Bush Admin tortured and then held at GTMO for 4-plus years with no end game whatsoever) in a federal court before a NY jury with full transparency and international legitimacy and — despite all of the legacy problems of the case (i.e., evidence getting thrown out because of Bush-Admin torture, etc,) we were STILL able to convict him and INCAPACITATE him for essentially the rest of his natural life, AND there was not one — not one — security problem associated with the trial.”
No doubt, the Obama administration is upset that people aren’t seeing how awesome they are for convicting this guy on a technicality. They have “international legitimacy”. What Americans believe they don’t have: “Justice”.
Americans don’t care about international legitimacy and they don’t care that an evil guy such as KSM or this Ghailani were thoroughly interrogated. They DO care that America looks weak and pathetic on the world stage. They do care that a man responsible for killing our citizens will not pay with his own life.
What was the jury thinking when considering this evidence? The Weekly Standard recounts the facts:
4. Ghailani gave the suicide bomber who blew himself up in Tanzania the cell phone he used in plotting the attack. The suicide bomber made calls from this phone both the night before, and the morning of, the attack.
5. The government produced “numerous witnesses” who “placed Ghailani in 1998 in the company of known al Qaeda operatives and embassy bombers, at [a] ‘safe house’ in coastal Mombasa, Kenya, at the house Ghailani shared in Dar es Salaam, and riding in utility vehicles the conspirators used to ferry supplies to their bomb making locations.”
CBS News explains that two of the men “seen with Ghailani” have already been convicted for their role in the embassy bombings and are “serving life sentences.”
6. “Ghailani fled Tanzania using a fake name and passport the day before the bombings” and “three senior al Qaeda leaders involved with the East Africa’s cell were on Ghailani’s flight to Karachi, Pakistan.”
It is a mystery how the jury could find that these facts failed to add up to a guilty verdict on all of the murder counts. How can a terrorist be guilty of conspiring to blow up two buildings, but then be found not guilty of the ensuing deaths?
The verdict doesn’t make any logical sense even if there is a lawyerly explanation. (One juror reportedly held out, disagreeing with the other 11 jurors until a verdict was finally reached. It may be the case that the jurors could only agree on a compromise.)
Was one juror ideologically opposed to convicting a man to a sentence of death? Did justice hang on one stupid American? Did a foreign-born mastermind criminal receive all the benefit of the constitution that he wants to destroy?
And now, the Justice Department says, “(The judge can, and very likely will, take into account things that the jury did not, and he can and will consider conduct that the jury found him not guilty of — e.g., murder).” Uh, okay.
Well, that’s cold comfort. Who knows the ideological bent of the judge? Does he, too, desire to teach the Bush Administration a lesson at the expense of the American people.
Oh yes, this will go over well.
So now, to go with “show security” via the TSA, Americans have show trials to go with terrorism.
The irony, of course, is that of the few responsibilities enumerated by the constitution for the President, defending our borders is one of them.
