Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock I’m sure you heard about the one and only terrorist President Obama sent to our civilian justice system from Gitmo was found not guilty on all 200+ charges except one, conspiracy:
A federal jury in Manhattan has returned what is transparently a compromise verdict in the terrorism trial of Ahmed Ghailani.
The case centered on al-Qaeda’s bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998. There were 285 counts, including separate murder charges for each of the 224 people killed. Ghailani was acquitted on 284 of them and convicted on a single charge of conspiracy to destroy government buildings.
~~~…the Justice Department walks away from the case as a big loser. That’s because the Obama administration made this much more than a terrorism trial. It cherry-picked the case to be a demonstration that the civilian criminal-justice system is up to the task of trying terrorists. This was to be the “turn the clock back” moment — specifically, back to the Clinton years, when Eric Holder was deputy attorney general and when prosecution in civilian courts was the U.S. government’s principal response to the jihadist onslaught that began with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
This was the model that Barack Obama campaigned on and that the anti-anti-terrorist Left takes as an article of faith. No more Bush-era counterterrorism: no enemy combatants, no military commissions, no indefinite detention, and certainly no aggressive interrogation. The president and his attorney general are adamant that “the rule of law” must be restored.
Never mind that the laws of war — which support all the Bush-administration measures — are the rule of law during wartime. Never mind that at no point in our history have the nation’s wartime enemies been given access to the civilian justice system and endowed with all the protections and presumptions that American citizens receive. To the Obama Left, the law-enforcement approach is effective national security, a way to win the hearts and minds of Muslims and consequently make ourselves safer. It makes no difference that the country was demonstrably unsafe — and repeatedly attacked — during the Clinton years. Nor does it matter that people in Islamic countries have no idea of the legal differences between American civilian and military proceedings — they care only that we are imprisoning Muslims, not about the abstruse details of our basis for doing so.The Obama Justice Department saw the Ghailani case as the perfect opportunity for the civilian system to prove itself. After all, the case had already been tried successfully: In 2001, before the 9/11 attacks, four terrorists were convicted and sentenced to life terms. Moreover, while critics of the law-enforcement counterterrorism model emphasize that civilian due process requires the government to hand over too much sensitive intelligence, thereby educating the enemy while we are trying to defeat the enemy, that argument was significantly diminished in Ghailani’s case. Because the case had already been tried in the civilian system, most of the relevant intelligence had already been disclosed. You could contend that this was not a good thing, but for better or worse it had already been done.
But instead of a shining moment for proponents of civilian prosecution, the Ghailani case is a body blow.
So now Americans will trust that KSM, the mastermind of 9/11, will not have the same fate if brought to our justice system?
No way no how.
As so many have stated, this was the Obama test case and as many of us predicted, it’s outcome was horrible.
They couldn’t introduce the man who sold explosives to Ghailani. They couldn’t introduce the fact that he admitted to the charges.
A complete and utter sham.
The only saving grace will be that there will not be another one sent to our justice system. There is no way in hell the DOJ will risk getting a full acquittal on KSM.
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It’s this kind of wacho liberal Democrat crap that will kill us all. File this disgrace on something to remember come 2012. Yes Greg, your President is an idiot!!
OK, I”m taking bets that more Kommiecrats lose in ’12 the ’10, no odds needed.
There should also be a pool on what federal prison holder goes to.
Sane, freedom loving, justice embracing Americans know this is a travesty of justice, while the far left will decry this as a victory for justice…
Sickening.
Wow! This is the first website of its kind that I’ve ever stumbled upon. I didn’t realize that three of you people knew how to use the internet!
A killer admits to killing over 200 and the Justice Department can’t convict him. I guess the Black Panther case set a precedent.
Yea Adam, these are the guys you hold in high esteem, incompetent and stupid. The two main requirements to be Useful Idiots and sycophants for Obama. You should have no problem getting a job with the Administration Adam, go for it. Obama wont care if you stumble around in a stupor, he likes people to be stupid and to keep chanting, “Yes we can”, even if you can’t slap your ass with both hands.
@Adam: #4
Keep coming here often enough and we will have you counting in the two digit numbers soon. The three digit numbers will take you a long time to learn, but keep at it long enough and eventually you will be able to count to 14,000,000,000,000. Don’t try to figure out that number yet, you ain’t ready for it. Your king has taught us to count that far.
@Adam: To quote radio host, Tom Marr – “Walk west until your hat floats…”
I see another Huffinton Post reject has found his way to FA. Welcome Adam and be prepared to have your bias and uneducated views thoroughly eviscerated.
Enemy combatant tried as a U. S. Citizen and convicted on one count out of 280, at considerable expense to the Feds – I can’t help but wonder how this will work out on appeal. Maybe if his conviction is overturned on appeal he can get a job with TSA?
You’re getting some drive-by comments, I see.
Note the recurring theme – they need somebody to feel superior to.
William T, that is a MAJOR trait of lefties. They desperately need to feel superior to others.
Alternately, it may suggest that torture is not an effective means of obtaining evidence that can be used in a U.S. court of law.
In theory at least, U.S. military courts are no different on that point.
Big Sis, ” hey 1 our of 200+ ain’t bad.
He wasn’t tortured Greg. As I have seen elsewhere, lefties like yourself want to use that as an excuse for the failure.
Torture is reading Greg’s posts and trying to make sense out of them! Greg and his buddies should head over to Iran or any of the Islamic states. He can identify torture first hand. Greg and his lefty buddies never realize that identifying what we do as torture makes them laugh and respect us less. Why do you think Obama has lost any respect he had after the election? Besides his incompetency, he never shows strength. Strength is respected in these countries. Political correctness is not! Trying these terrorists in our court system has made this administration the laughing stock of the world. These admitted terrorists would have already been executed by now in most countries. Lefties keep petting the cobra on the head and expect it to not bite them. What fools!
I said –
And right on cue, Greg didn’t disappoint.
Wasn’t there a story about how many of Obama’s DOJ top political picks used to work as defense attys for these terrorists while they were in Gitmo?
I thought I’d read that.
Now, people have a right to council, that is true.
But Obama chose men who took the side of the terrorists and knew just what to do to game them right out of jail for his DOJ.
Then they started doing it.
Nan, you are correct –
And from 2009, Michelle Malkin covered this when Holder was just a nominee –
@anticsrocks: #18
Let’s put the pieces together:
DNC failed to certify Obama as eligible to run for president in 49 states.
DNC Failed to Certify Obama as Eligible in MOST States!
While Obama was campaigning to get the nomination for the democratic party he said, “We gotta have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.” (referring to the military) If there is anybody who can’t figure out what he wants to use it for, you deserve a government that will run your life for you, because you can’t do it on your own.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt2yGzHfy7s
He promised to shut down Gitmo.
He set a deadline to be out of Iraq and Afghanistan. As far as I know he is the only president to tell our enemy when we will be leaving. Would you tell a gang in your area when you will be going on vacation?
At one time Obama hadn’t talked with General McChrystal for 70 days.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/09/gibbs-explains-why-the-president-has-only-talked-to-general-mcchrystal-once-in-10-weeks.html
Obama appoints a bunch of czars without congressional approval. A lot of them have communist or socialist ties.
Obama cuddles up to dictators and shuns our free world friendly countries.
He allowed a terrorist to be tried in a civilian court. Only one minor charge stuck. I am guessing he will want more so other of his friends will have a chance at acquittal.
He is encouraging us to try to be friendly with Muslims. Can you think of any other group who is trying to blow us up?
I could add many more, but there should be enough pieces to Obama’s jigsaw puzzle to see what it will look like when the final piece is put in place. If anyone hasn’t figured out what the puzzle will look like when completed, they either aren’t paying attention to what is going on around them like I did most of my life, or they are one piece of the puzzle.
@Smorgasbord – I completely agree with you in that Obama has an agenda.
I vacillate between thinking he is the village idiot of US Presidents and thinking that he is (to borrow from Jon Stewart) a “Jedi Master, playing chess on a three-leveled board” so many levels above us mere mortals.
@anticsrocks: #20
I don’t believe Obama is in charge of anything. He is too young to have come up the ranks to take charge and he has too much time to throw all of the parties that he does, go golfing as much as he does, and take all of the trips that he does. He doesn’t have time to do the actual thinking. He is just a game piece for the ones telling him what to do and say.
He can’t speak without his TOTUS, even in his executive meetings. How can you have a supposed impromptu town hall meeting and have your TOTUS? I don’t think he even reads most of the stuff the TOTUS feeds him. Whenever it goes bad he goes blank. You would think that he would be smart enough to have the written stuff with him in case the TOTUS goes bad AGAIN. Remember when he read Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen’s speech and didn’t know it, even thanking himself for for inviting everyone to the party.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/18/obama-thanks-irish-pm-repeats-speech-teleprompter-meltdown/