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You Can't Bargain With Terrorists
Gerald L. Shargel, a member of the New York Bar since 1969, has handled numerous high-profile cases at both the trial and appellate level. He has written written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Law Journal and the online magazine Slate. Mr. Shargel, a Practitioner-in-Residence at Brooklyn Law School, recently authored a law review article published in the Fordham Law Review, "Federal Evidence Rule 608(b): Gateway to the Minefield of Witness Preparation."
U.S. Marshal's Service / AP Photo
Trying the Christmas terror suspect in federal court is a huge mistake. Gerald L. Shargel on why plea bargains are useless when you’re talking to suicide bombers.
Within weeks of the 9/11 attacks, I appeared on a Court TV program hosted by Alan Dershowitz. The professor asked whether I would be willing to defend Osama bin Laden, already identified as the prime suspect in the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings. We both assumed that the trial would take place in a federal district court. After all, bin Laden was already indicted in federal court in Manhattan, charged with conspiracies to murder, bomb, and maim United States nationals.
Dershowitz and I agreed that representing bin Laden would be an extreme act of patriotism. We would be aiding a process by which the world would see that no matter how uncivilized the perpetrator, America would stick to its values and afford him due process and a fair trial with a defense lawyer zealously committed to protecting his client's rights.
Why would hardened soldiers, quite willing to commit a suicide bombing, politely exchange information for leniency?
In the years following 9/11, I continued to believe that crimes committed on American soil should be prosecuted in a civilian, rather than a military, court. While terrorist defendants may be uncommon criminals, federal penal statutes have been working, in cases involving Zacarias Moussaoui (9/11 conspirator), Richard Reid (shoe bomber), Ramzi Yousef (1993 Trade Center bombing) and Mahmud Abouhalima (1993 Trade Center bombing), as well as many others who have been tried, convicted and sentenced to life, or the equivalent of life, without parole (Abouhalima, 50, is scheduled for release in September 2087).
In the days since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's arrest in the Christmas Day plot to blow up Northwest Flight 253, many of my long-held moral and legal assumptions shifted. It's not that I've lost confidence in the ability of the civilian courts to resolve these cases. Rather, prosecuting terrorists who commit crimes against United States nationals, at home or abroad, is a burden that American courts should not have to bear. These terrorist offenders are, in every sense of the word, soldiers. Soldiers in an openly declared holy war against American "infidels." These soldiers, like our soldiers, are highly trained. They too can strip and clean weapons while blindfolded. They too, are experts in explosives and guerrilla tactics. Their skill set is similar to the most elite of our forces. They are tough. Like our CIA agents, they too are required to endure torture so that they may be taught to resist it.
And knowing all this, as our intelligence community must, we are embracing a strategy not much different than the strategy in the "war on drugs" or the "war against the Mafia." Last Sunday, John O. Brennan, the president's deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism and homeland security, told David Gregory, the host of Meet the Press, that "plea bargaining" in a civilian court would result in obtaining valuable information about ongoing terrorist activity. According to Brennan, these terrorist defendants may be willing to trade information for lenient sentences.
It is undeniably true that the threat of long prison sentences has produced countless cooperators who have helped the government and themselves—and, in turn, spurred the collapse of drug cartels (a few) and Mafia families (some). But can it be said with a straight face that this same method would lead to valuable information extracted from terrorist soldiers? Eight years of torture coupled with an open offer of a $25 million reward has failed to produce the capture of Osama bin Laden. So, why would hardened soldiers, quite willing to commit a suicide bombing, politely exchange information for leniency?
And, assuming he were to cooperate, which government official will stand before the American public and announce, for example, that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who nearly killed at least 278 innocent Americans, received a light sentence in return for his cooperation?
The absurdity of this strategy is further illustrated by even a superficial analysis of the convict's post-release plan. Non-citizens convicted of serious crimes are automatically deported. Would Abdulmutallab then get deported back to Nigeria—or perhaps Yemen—having served his sentence, only to rejoin his compatriots?
Or, do the prosecutors secure an S-Visa for him? Although, as noted, deportation is mandatory and automatic in the event of conviction of a serious crime, the government may issue an S-Visa allowing the cooperator to live legally in the United States with eventual permanent residency (Green Card) or even citizenship as a reward for cooperation.
Enemy combatants, soldiers trained to kill—in the witness-protection program—living next door? Marrying my sister? This week I'm thinking, keep Guantanamo open.
Gerald L. Shargel, a member of the New York Bar since 1969, has handled numerous high-profile cases at both the trial and appellate level. He has written written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Law Journal and Slate. Mr. Shargel, a practitioner-in-residence at Brooklyn Law School, recently authored a law review article published in the Fordham Law Review, "Federal Evidence Rule 608(b): Gateway to the Minefield of Witness Preparation."
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Gerald L. Shargel, a member of the New York Bar since 1969, has handled numerous high-profile cases at both the trial and appellate level. He has written written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Law Journal and the online magazine Slate. Mr. Shargel, a Practitioner-in-Residence at Brooklyn Law School, recently authored a law review article published in the Fordham Law Review, "Federal Evidence Rule 608(b): Gateway to the Minefield of Witness Preparation."
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Gerald L. Shargel, a member of the New York Bar since 1969, has handled numerous high-profile cases at both the trial and appellate level. He has written written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Law Journal and the online magazine Slate. Mr. Shargel, a Practitioner-in-Residence at Brooklyn Law School, recently authored a law review article published in the Fordham Law Review, "Federal Evidence Rule 608(b): Gateway to the Minefield of Witness Preparation."
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Gerald L. Shargel, a member of the New York Bar since 1969, has handled numerous high-profile cases at both the trial and appellate level. He has written written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Law Journal and the online magazine Slate. Mr. Shargel, a Practitioner-in-Residence at Brooklyn Law School, recently authored a law review article published in the Fordham Law Review, "Federal Evidence Rule 608(b): Gateway to the Minefield of Witness Preparation."
ligligl
If our judicial system is unable to deal with a confused, deranged boy (have you read his e-mails?) then of what use is it - and the Muslims terrorists are right? Remember Roland Freisler? Don't subvert our system.
ThinkAgain
Ah, poorr wittle confused soul. Lets put him in rehab. That's what the judicial system does. That doesn't even work for twits like Lindsey Lohan but hey it feels good to try doesn't it?
He's not a criminal, he's a damn terrorist. An enemy combatant. The judicial system is not even supposed to handle those. Put him where he belongs and you're not subverting anything. You're facing the reality. Acting like that's distasteful doesn't make you compassionate, it makes you a total fool.
sophia5
ThinkAgain-
You have to understand,
maybe people like "ligligl" are SENSITIVE,
and want to understand what makes some like Umar tick . . . besides a detonator (pardon the pun).
There is a P.C. crowd that believes
"We Are The World We are The Children," and we should be
understanding of a "confused, deranged boy" . . . "boy" as if he were
an innocent child who got off on the wrong track.
It is time to stop the political correctness and treat these
terrorists as enemy combatants . . . not common criminals
as if they robbed a convenience store.
easton
Don't be silly, no one besides you is saying put him in rehab. It is these false dichotomies that make people like you look so damn idiotic. Nowhere in this article is the possibility that the plea bargain might mean a possibility of parole in 30 years, or opportunity to be in a regular maximum security prison, and not in lockdown 24/7 (with an hour a week alone in a yard). If this clown can give us hard intell on locations, names, etc. and the information pans out, hell yeah give him this kind of plea bargain. I doubt he would take it, but it is possible, the Pakistani terrorist who survived in Mumbai crumbled so this guy might as well. The sad thing about you is you lack imagination, so I suggest you think again.
xlntcat
An enemy combatant? An enemy combantant defies the legal definition of terrorist. You can be one or the other. Not both.
ThinkAgain
A plea bargain qualifies as imaginative? Wow, that's really thinking outside the ole box there! No wonder these confused 'boys' are outwitting us.
AlanD2
ThinkAgain: I don't think you'll find Richard Reid in rehab.
The Bush administration tried him in civilian courts and convicted him.
What's the problem with doing this again?
xlntcat
I agree. The shoe bomber was tried in Federal Court and is incarcerated in a maximum security prison so why is it assumed that our judicial system can no longer do what it has done successfully for so many years? Whining about where the underpants bomber is tried is insane. So far, we have had no success in completing the judicial process utilizing military tribunals. Is the goal to see to it that he never come to trial? I understand the cowardly, old, decrepit Cheney's motives in not wanting the current residents of GITMO litigated in Federal Court as during the sentencing phase, Cheney's war crime will all be exposed and one thing you can count on when discussing Cheney is that he is scared. His whole life has been devoted to crimnal behavior and driven by fear.
escomments
The reason we have had no success in trying these animals with military tribunals is because of Liberal Trial Lawyers fighting it every step of the way including the AG, Eric Holder, who has incidentally with unmatched chutzpa and hypocrisy, jumped on the band wagon of blaming Bush/Cheney for the delays after his law firm was a key player in manufacturing the delays.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjJjYTIxNGFlZjRiNzFmYzFiM2ZhMGI4NTR mMWNhMzg
The flight 253 bomber should be strung up by his toenails to make him talk. Not claiming his right to remain silent in the judicial system.
If people are killed because of information that this piece of shit knows of and has been allowed to keep slilent in the case of a plea bargain, the war criminals will be those liberal policy makers in the current administration, not Bush/Cheney.
AlanD2
For the benefit of other DB readers, I have provided a translation of part of escomments post:
"Liberal Trial Lawyers" = following our laws and Constitution
"If people are killed because of information that this piece of shit knows of and has been allowed to keep slilent [sic] in the case of a plea bargain"
= waterboard the bastard
Gotta love our DB conservatives! Even if they can't spell or use English correctly.
mtgyau
Here's a good reason:
According to court documents filed in a 2007 civil lawsuit against the government, Reid claimed that SAMs violated his First Amendment right of free speech and free exercise of religion. In a hand-written complaint, he asserted that he was being illegally prevented from performing daily "group prayers in a manner prescribed by my religion." Yet the list of Reid's potential fellow congregants at ADX Florence reads like a Who's Who of al Qaeda's most dangerous members: Ramzi Yousef and his three co-conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui; "Millennium bomber" Ahmed Ressam; "Dirty bomber" Jose Padilla; Wadih el-Hage, Osama Bin Laden's personal secretary, convicted in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombing that killed 247 people.
In December 2008, the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss Reid's lawsuit. It cited the example of ADX inmate Ahmed Ajaj as an illustration of "the dangers inherent in permitting a group of inmates, of like mind in their opposition to the United States, to congregate for a prayer service conducted in a language not understood by most correctional officers."
While imprisoned for passport fraud in 1992, Ajaj assisted in the plans to destroy the World Trade Center on Feb. 26, 1993, making phone calls to Ramzi Yousef and speaking in code to elude law enforcement monitoring. Ajaj tried to get his "training kit" to Yousef, which included videotapes and notes he had taken on bomb-making while attending a terrorist camp on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Reid's own SAMs on correspondence had been tightened in 2006 after the shocking discovery that three of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers at ADX, not subject to security directives, had sent 90 letters to overseas terrorist networks, including those associated with the Madrid train bombing. The letters, exhorting jihad and praising Osama bin Laden as "my hero of this generation," were printed in Arabic newspapers and brandished like trophies to recruit new members.
escomments
Notice how Alan conveniently ignores the rest of my post showing that there is a raging conflict of interest as the Attorney General of the United States worked for the Law Firm protecting the very same mad dog terrorists who he has decided would be tried in the Civilian Courts in New York and was one of the chief impediments to timely trials by tribunals for these scumbags.
And yes Alan I would put a gun to these animals heads and pull the trigger myself for wanting to destroy My Family's country and our way of life.
So, why don't you eat a bowl of excrement you sanctimonious piece of shit! (Did I spell that correctly?)
Natural-Selection
Won't be long, he'll be appointed to DHS as a consultant and given some posh digs at our expense so BHO can feel warm all over.
Natural-Selection
Another in a long line where this administration has "acted stupidly." Howabout $200 million to try the al Qaeda morons in NYC; with Constitutional Rights none-the-less? Brilliant...just brilliant. Is it 2012 yet???
DakLak
Maybe Gerald L. Shargel wants to take this character out behind the woodshed and beat the hell out of him or maybe try s little waterboarding?
If the accused cannot be tried in a regular court it is another win for the terrorists showing the that the 'mighty' U.S.A. is not so mighty after all.
Of course, using civilian courts means the courts function under the scrutiny of the public whereas military tribunals are stacked against the defendants which endears them so much to the No! Republican Party.
Let justice prevail so we can see it all on Court TV to make sure proper procedure is followed.
ndspinelli
Daklak,
Whether you agree or disagree w/ what this author is saying, it is patently unfair to say he is supporting waterboarding. Open up a Labatts, strap on your hockey skates, and go check some hosers. You need to work on your anger issues.
DakLak
Justice cannot be seen to be done when the process is hidden from public view.
This man claims to be a lawyer; he should be encouraging openess not a process that has been abused for over 8 years and included torture.
Finally, look up the meaning of "Maybe" the first word in my post.
ThinkAgain
A few second of feeling like he's drowning even though he knows he's not is just too much for your sensibilities? I'm sure Al Queda is thrilled to know we've elected a bunch of wusses who don't want to get their hands dirty.
rustywheeler
I guess Reagan was a wuss...
xlntcat
How do you get to be a bigger Wuss than the cowardly little draft dodging Dickie Cheney who refused to leave the bunker after 9/11 without a gas mask and accompanied by a personal physician.
ThinkAgain
Reagan killed a whole pile of Qudafi's family members by blowing his tent to smitherings and effectively ended their participation in this crap. He wasn't a wuss at all. It's not an all or nothing issue. Sometimes force and aggression works, sometimes restraint is more effective and sometimes nothing works.
Nobody suggests we should indiscriminately waterboard but ruling it out as if our system is above that is ridiculous. If we can send drones in the dead of night to bomb targets that we know are likely to include civilians, complaining about waterboarding is just political sniping.
meglon978
After WWII we executed members of the German and Japanese military for torture.... it's not political sniping. It's about having morality to start with, which anyone willing to use torture doesn't. If we use torture, than it's quid pro quo, we no longer have the right to suggest that any other country is morally offensive because it uses torture.
What you are in essence saying, and it may not be getting through your thick head that you are, is that you're perfectly fine with our soldiers being tortured.
Torturer's are psychopaths, plain and simple; and, as a country, we better be above that.
escomments
Yeah, the first people I look to for advise on morality are Liberals. LOL
amanda07070
meglon978 - Notice no one has addressed your comments? Pretty telling, I'd say. I agree with you completely.
ThinkAgain
Meglon978 - Putting the poor confused chap in dark dreary solidary confinement for a few days is more torturous that waterboarding.
With proper approval and oversight making someone uncomfortable for a FEW SECONDS is not torture. They know going in that it doesn't cause any damage. There's nothing in your skull for logic to stick to at all. It just whizzes in one ear and out the other.
unclelew
According to your sadistic thinking, the U.S. should apologize to those Japanese officers who used waterboarding and were prosecuted as war criminals. If it's good enough for America, it should be good enough for the Japanese empire.
How does acting as a decent human being qualify a person as a wuss.
AusLib
not being a resident of the US, was wondering if anyone would like to waterboard thinkagain and then see what his thoughts are?
Fathom
Survey says: meglon978 is correct.
Neo-con knee-jerks who want to destroy the very fabric of our society's mores, values, liberties and system of jurisprudence . . . aiding and abetting the terrorists in destroying America. Keep up the good work. The terrorists are depending on you to destroy our Country from within.
meglon978
While you may not think some things are torture, the fact that we've put people to death as war criminals for doing those things carries a lot more weight than your opinion.
The biggest threat to the US is internal; psychopaths and fear-mongers that would have everyone do away with their rights and morality because it makes those few sick people feel better.
When people like this are placed in any position of importance, they can corrupt the very essence of what human morality is in a larger amount of people, and I'm not talking about that fake religious moral crap that people give lip service to while being hypocrites.
And i realize, ThinkAgain, that you're simply a troll here trying to stir up people... your argument boils down to nothing more than ignorant insults. But you need to realize, you're comments are exemplifying that psychopathic behavior that should be a revulsion to anyone that's human.
escomments
Let's use the Military Tribunals. They are a tool to be used and are legal. There is no reason not to use them including DakLak's ability to see inside the deranged mind of people who's first instincts are to blow up innocents as if they can be reasoned with and as if the rest of the world really cares if we execute or torture terrorist mad dogs.
What do we do with mad dogs?
unclelew
More crap form escomment and ThinkAgain (in order to think again you have to first think, something you do little of). If he weren't so damned lazy he would have looked up FBI assertions - never proved wrong - that they got accurate information using proper interrogation techniques while suspects plain ol' lied to the CIA torturers. If you can't think like a human being, at least try to be pragmatic. Goes with what works, not with what sends a shiver up your leg.
AgathaX
There is a statute that permits persons convicted of aggravated felonies to be deported. It's relatively recent. The statute was part of legislation intended to address drug offenses. I'm aware of nothing in the statute requiring deportation. If this statute is a problem--which I doubt-- the statute should be changed rather than have due process abandoned.
Likewise, no prosecutor is ever required to offer a plea bargain. It's all case by case.
We need not get too worked up over every disturbed person who is lured to blow himself up by persons with ulterior motives, and we need to stop viewing due process as some sort of problem--something a certain class of people do not merit. You really think someone willing to blow themselves up would not be willing to give up information as a result of some inducement? Have you known no mentally ill person? No teenager, for that matter? Blowing oneself up is romantic. Quick. Presumably painless or only briefly painful. It requires no endurance. It is, in short, easy--or viewed as such. Being locked up for the rest of one's life is not romantic and not quick, and for many--infinitely more frightening.
Moreover, I suspect one would get more information out of people not by offering 10 years off of prison sentence, but by tiny inducements. Most dysfunctional people cannot fathom a 60 year prison sentence versus a 50 year sentence. However, offer them some little thing--a more comfortable mattress, the opportunity to play video games on a regular basis, certain types of food--and you might have a deal. Stop thinking that these people are rational. Few people are, and people willing to blow themselves up, likely less so than many.
pclayton
Isn't that the problem in a nutshell: people who are willing to blow themselves up for a cause that they are not even capable of understanding cannot be addressed as though they are sane. Terrorists willing to be martyrs have crossed over the line of rationality and must be treated as such. Can due process do them any justice, particularly if they can't really catch on to what that means? If they are mentally ill, then they should be diagnosed and kept in an appropriate institution where they can no longer be a threat to others or themselves.
johnstafford
Who says federal prosecutors are going to offer this creep a "plea bargain?"
=In any event, isn't it time we stopped splitting rhetorical hairs over what to call these bastards ("criminal defendants,"
"terrorists," "war criminals") and start spending all our time and energy on capturing, prosecuting and imprisoning them?
=While the right-wing attacks President Obama over the semantics of the "War on Terror," losers like UFA stroll through airports wearing explosive underpants!
=Some Americans are crazier than the suicide bombers!
OldCrow
Military tribunals have played an important role in our legislative history since the war of 1812. Many presidents have used them - both democrat and republican. Terrorists and other illegal combatants do no belong in our civil court system.
DakLak
Illegal combatants are not legally defined in law. They are simply enemy soldiers without uniforms.
OldCrow
Illegal Combatants are defined in the Geneva Conventions, specifically chapter 6 of the GC relative to the treatment of POW's.
(I used to teach a class on the subject.)
xlntcat
Then why, pray tell, were the shoe bomber and numerous others successfully tried in the Federal Justice system.
johnnycar
The Christmas Bomber may have touched a personal nerve, but I believe your initial analysis regarding trying terrorists in civilian courts was far more profound than your post-Umar analysis. First, there terrorists are not soldiers, they are thugs - members of an international criminal organization. Second, the terrorist trials are highly publicized and it is far more important that these trials promote American values (showing the rest of the world the power of restraint that our values require) then to make short, non-public, secretive work of these terrorists in military courts. Third, the same arguments regarding plea-bargaining could have been made regarding members of major drug or mafia organizations (who are similarly trained) - which you admit have led to the collection of valuable information (not impossible in this context). Fourth, your good point regarding a flaw in current federal criminal law which requires post-conviction deportation is not an argument for trying these thugs in military courts but is an argument for amending the law to provide for an exception when trying a terrorist. Even so, in many cases deportation would likely result in a death penalty in the terrorists country of origin - which would save us the trouble. Either way, these terrorists will get what they deserve. I just think its better that if we are going to deal with them we do it in a way that promotes our values. The rest of the world and history is watching. Do we allow our anger and frustration to overwhelm our values? If so, what does it matter who wins.
dcbooknurse
You are right in that a hardened terrorist is not going to accept a plea bargain. What prosecutor would offer such a deal? Even Rumsfeld supported trying the Shoe Bomber in Federal Court as opposed to a military court. We have successfully tried terrorists in Federal courts before. There is no reason to think we cannot do so in the future.
OldCrow
The "shoe bomber" was tried in civilian court because the military tribunal system had not yet been set up at Gitmo.
benrod1
Actually this is incorrect. By the time the Shoe Bomber was indicted for his crimes the framework for tribunals were in place, in fact Jose Padilla was being held as an enemy combatant before Reid plead guilty. So there was nothing to keep President Bush from declaring him the same and trying him before a tribunal. The fact that he didn't shows that he had faith in the judicial system to try a suspected terrorist.
mtgyau
benrod1 is technically correct, but misleading. Yes, the commissions were authorized and framework in place, but Reid pled guilty, so the comparison is invalid as it didn't matter where he was tried so not putting him in the military judicial system isn't a sign of anything. Trying Moussaoui in civilian court was a huge mistake (which we SHOULD have learned from), and was only prevented from being catastrophic by him eventually pleading guilty, as evidenced by the 4th Circuit's opinion, as discussed in the following:
"The appellate court notes that Moussaoui claims it was error for the trial judge to interfere with his unqualified right to represent himself; "to have personal, pretrial access to classified, exculpatory evidence"; and to be able to summon witnesses like co-conspirator Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for trial testimony. The Fourth Circuit acknowledges that all these claims have merit, but the court finds that Moussaoui, by pleading guilty, waived any claim of prejudice."
The Fourth Circuit also reminds us that the trial judge initially struck the death penalty from the case because the government refused to give Moussaoui access to the al-Qaeda prisoner witnesses. The Fourth Circuit reversed the judge at the time, but on the condition that it would be open to revisiting that conclusion if the government failed to provide Moussaoui with all the classified exculpatory information to which he was entitled. At that critical moment, Moussaoui decided to plead guilty. That is, we never found out what would have happened if Moussaoui had insisted on a trial at which he'd have access to all these witnesses and other national-defense information. The guilty-plea is deemed to have waived any claim by Moussaoui that he was denied the information to which he was entitled.
In the next case - like, say, KSM's civilian trial - the defendants will be smart enough not to plead guilty. They will insist on getting every piece of intelligence they're entitled to. And the prosecutors will look at this ruling on Moussaoui's appeal and realize they'd better give it to them or risk having the case thrown out. That's what the law-enforcement approach buys you."
billharris
Shargel is simply admitting that the Bush administration was right after all: terrorists are best defined as enemy combattants out of uniform. Hence they have no legal rights to either our court system or even to protest their torture.
By their conduct they have willingly renounced all inherant rights otherwise given to human beings. Their lives are only of value to the extent that biological functioning enables us to obtain information.
Of course, the above comments glaringly contradict "Natural Right" formulations that go back to Aquinas' rendering of all that Jesus stuff. BFD. Moreover, the Islamic Yalahoos have already factored in our beliefs in the 'inherant sacredness of life with respect to their own terrorist agenda.
Will, for example, our beliefs inhibit us from retaliating against the terrorists' families (present case serving as an exception)?
How about the extermination of their entire village? If not, perhaps the familly dog?
The 'shining example' we should set for other pipples should be, ostensibly, that our adherance to absolute moral precepts would be the indication of intellectual immaturity. In other words, short of turning terrorists over to the military, we've coming accross as cumbaya singing idiots.
Morality should inform us to what we should do, but must not over-ride good sense or the steps necessary for survival. All westerners should wake up to the fact that counter-terrorism has become the only absolute moral necessity.
Bill Harris
opedanderson
Seig Heil!
Send them to the showers!
Wow, look who we have become.......
OldCrow
FDR used military tribunals for the German spies who came ashore on Long Island, NY. They were found guilty and executed within 60 days of being captured.
Do you view FDR as a monster?
dcbooknurse
OldCrow
No, FDR was a wartime president. He was executing spies from a country we were officially at war with.
We are not at war with Nigeria. We are not at war with Yemen. Saying we are at war with terror is like FDR coming on the radio on December 7th and announcing we were at war with kamikazes. You cannot be at war with a technique or a strategy. You can only be at war with a country.
Pupster
Sorry, your "good sense" is truly what despots and tyrants have used to justify their rampages and pogroms. May God save us from your "good sense."
escomments
Despots and Tyrants?
You mean like Iran or North Korea taking foreign nationals into custody and charging them as spies for doing nothing more than making a wrong turn at Albuquerque?
You know if anyone of those despots or tyrants takes someone even an American into custody for trying to blow up one of their planes or take down one of their buildings, they are welcome to do with them what they choose.
That person once they have chosen to arbitrarily take innocent life in some perceived political, or religious struggle, relinquishes their own rights.
For you to think so little of your own country's inherent goodness and some how the rights of terrorists are above the rights of a single innocent life taken by their arbitrary brutality and compare us to despots and tyrants speaks volumes about you and yours.
May god save us from your warped sense of morality.
JohnConnughton
I am not much interested in people who try to murder hundreds randomly, but a fair trial for them is something I require because I believe in that and so I have no choice. And it must be the same for soldier, civilian or even non-citizen, because all are human before they can be narrowed down from there.
But plea deals with anybody ALWAYS sound like the guilty got away with less than they deserve, because, well, they did. And that's bad enough when it's a citizen gone wrong. With a terrorist bent on religious martyrdom there is no possibility of rehabilitation or co-habitation, because religion is about as deep as you can go inside a person's head. Once it is twisted this far we can't afford to imagine it won't stay that way.
What to do with them though? I vote death. I'm not about to return them to the world. I don't trust mere incarceration. And I can't approve mutilation (eg lobotomy) designed to permanently incapacitate. So might as well give them the death they wanted for their own. That's pretty sickening but what about this isn't already?
Pupster
Only rampaging mobs want to discard the rule of law and take punishment into their own hands. Some of these right-wing nutters remind me of the frenzied "patriots" from the French Revolution rounding up 'suspects' then chopping off their heads. What's a little due process when the nutters are foaming at the mouth?
pclayton
Why not place them in "protective custody" forever in an asylum because they are not sane. Yes, it's expensive to keep these people alive, but unless they succeeded in murdering at least one other person, it does not seem like justice to put them to death.
JohnConnughton
It bothers me too. How about Mars?
DakLak
How about adopting Sharia law for these cases?
They get a public trial so they get justice and then the judge uses Sharia law to sentence them for 2 legs off, or a leg and an arm.
How could they complain?
goffbum
I'm with you dak....except the libs would say that's just way too cruel. Actually we are dealing with sub humans so whats the matter with water boarding, after all the bottom line is saving civilization.....or splatter em with pig blood and put em before a firing squad.....oh yes they will talk ....big time....
oliverckerr
You are a sick fascist garbage mouthed piece of crap. The only sub-human is you and your scum bag fascist bureaucracy ink fellow travelers. You need to crawl back into your fascist cave.
michaelslevinson.com
pacifistgunslinger
So, you would have to agree that when Bush bombed Baghdad and killed thousands of people for no good reason, he too was a criminal deserving of the harshest punishment?
escomments
Gee OliverKerr,
I don't think I can vote for you with that potty mouth.
escomments
Pacifister,
I guess we would have to revive Truman and try him for turning Dresden into a Firestorm or Hiroshima?
ilpalazzo
Oh frikkin BRILLIANT! Let's let the gov't adopt Sharia Law for these 'cases'! Just don't be surprised if the gov't KEEPS Sharia Law, since we all know the gov't never give anything back after using.
oliverckerr
This kid, the underpants bomber is anothert sdad case, like the shoe bomber. Their threat is an excuse to grow bureaucracy.
I am a candidate for president.
The following is my terrorist / security redesign, which will be up and running within thirty days of my election. Maybe sooner.
Imagine a tripod, with horizontal stabilizers acrodss the bottom and the middle, two sets. The three verticle tri-bars are fbi (fascist bureaucracy ink) cia (cash in advance) and nsa (no such agency).
The horizontal cross bars represent an Executive Order Requiring inter communication. This is an Order Bush did not give, nor has Barry, our current POTUS who turns out pretty weak in the leadership department though he is pretty.
How do the horizontal bars get put into place, and work? Look at the Hewlett Packard web site. It is thousands of pages deep. Say, at the bottom left on a page about out of date printer inks it said "click here to take a 15 minute survey."
That could be the gateway to a giant Wiki board containing all of the ongoing terrorist intelligence being gathered by all three agencies, and the board would be available for comment and additions by any member of all three agencies, with automatic flags built in!
Could an enemy hack in? Nope, because the doorway would be top seek writ. At the door you would have to answer a series of security questions so it was clear you were you, and you could not get through except from one or two set computers, one in the office, the other at home, and in the event someone somehow did hack in instantly the Wiki security would know it, and from where. You could not get in from your lap top at Starbucks.
So the wide open Wiki would be tightly controlled. Even a local police person would have access to file a report on something suspicious so domestic potential activities would be uncovered.
And all the reporting and filing would be available to all the personal in all the intell agencies!
The president could establish such an inter agency Wiki Board with an Executive Order and make it clear to the agencies that this is how they are to communicate and their failure to communicate means instant dismissal! Leadership is what we don't have.
Integrate an Oracle data base and perhaps a couple dozen people on the Wiki would have flagged "the Nigerian" before he showed up to purchase a ticket.
The Wiki board, enabling a police person on the job in some city, along with an embassy attache, to uncover and flag the "Nigerian" flattens the CYA bureaucratic structures these intelligence agencies operate under.
Davis Letterman pointed out the "underpants" bomber bought a ticket, with cash, to go to Detroit???
Find another domestic security idea at the end of the essay , "From TWA 800 to Ground Zero at the
michaelslevinson.com
Pupster
Hearing voices through your tin foil hat? Seriously, your gibberish makes no sense. This is the kind of thing you should keep to yourself lest rational people think you're crazy.
oliverckerr
Pupster you punkster, the following is from Time Magazine, April '09. I read about this last year. My design is to improve it. Your design is domestic counter intelligence fbi - ish
TIME
There's a quiet revolution underway at the CIA and its sister agencies. A new generation of analysts, determined to drag their Cold War-era colleagues into the world of Web 2.0 information-sharing, have created Intellipedia, a classified version of Wikipedia they say is transforming the way U.S. spy agencies handle top-secret information by fostering collaboration across Washington and around the world. Rolled out in 2006 to skeptical veterans at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., Intellipedia has grown to a 900,000-page magnum opus of espionage, handling some 100,000 user accounts and 5,000 page edits a day, according to the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
michaelslevinson.com
pclayton
You lost me at the point of "stabilizers" and "crossbars." I think you need a better analogy to get your point across here.
goffbum
do you ever read any of your shit?
oliverckerr
pclayton
A tripod is a pyramid in form and so stands. Three supports. One is fbi (pupster's people); the second is cia, the third, nsa. They meet at the top where the president sits.
To further stabilize a simple tripod, you could install a horizontal bar, going from one brace to another, and so forth, so there are three horizontal bars.
The idea: The horizontal bar is a represention of a communication path between the three separate agencies, the agencies represented as three parts to a tripod. There could be a 2nd set of horizontal bars closer to the top, representing a higher level on inter intra agency communication.
In the real world that communication path, represented by the horizontal tripod braces could be represented by MUST READ emails between analysts behind a DC desk, and field people (in an embassy).
A field person with access to the wiki = someone in an embassy who might meet someone, example, the father of the underpants bomber. The field representative posts his experience with the father in a plain non-euphemistic language.
An NSA analyst reads the field representative report and, (before this essay) reports to his boss, and to his boss and along the way the information is lost.
With my redesign on how we handle intelligence, with the idea of eliminating suicide bombers on airplanes, the field representative posts the information given to him by the father. He posts the information and also passes the information, horizontally, to analysts in nsa, cia, and fbi.
Everybody looks at the information in all three agencies instead of information moving vertical in one agency and locked away from the other intelligence agencies.
Then we would not have an intelligence failure.
With my wiki board and Oracle data base, and tripod design, as above, the underpants bomber would have been kept off the plane and then followed back to the people that hooked him up with the explosives.
The horizontal "cross bars" represent the communication path between the three agencies. The president could by Executive Order expand the present wiki board someone has already set up, add the state of the art data base, so thousands of people from the three agencies and field reps everywhere would be gathering and looking at the data.
The top officials in these agencies are bureaucrats who see this issue as a turf battle. These bureaucrats need to be dismissed!
goffbum: stuff it punk.
michaelslevinson.com
opedanderson
This reminds me of when my older taught me poker when we were kids. Everytime I started winning, he would go ahead and change the rules on me.
Just because the crime is a big one, just because we all want revenge after the fact, you cannot change the rules of the game. Terrorists are criminals who belong to criminal organizations. They should be treated as such.
sonofloud
You can't bargain with any religious fanatic, including christians.
pclayton
You are soooo right.
goffbum
maybe a better analagy or word would be "reason" with the nutzzzzz
camfield
Can't even get them to debate on such issues as evolution/creationism. Science is an evil plot in many minds that prefer the vague generalizations of religion.
escomments
Fortunately for us, Christians aren't blowing up stuff on a regular basis.
Every once in a while you'll get the occasional "Isolated Instance of Extremism" as coined by Obama except, he was referring to the flight 253 bomber as the isolated instance. He has later revised and extended those remarks to include it was an organized mission by Al-Qaeda.
Call me kooky but I think that means it was Islamic Fundamentalist Nutjobs bent on destroying Western Civilization.
ilpalazzo
Yeah, but Christians won't cut off your arms and legs and leave you bleeding if you disagree.
briansays
Accoding to a Fox legal analyst there are 2 supreme court cases that absent a declaration of war require a court and not a military tribunal
Is this writer competant or a shill for the right?
Maezeppa
Shargel is dead wrong about this. First of all, most of these bombers aren't "hardened soldiers" and second, we know that politeness, respect, and rapport have been invaluable in extracting vital information. Daily Beast continues to disappoint.
Thank you.
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