Terrorist rights at the Times

NY Times Editorial:

The Bush administration’s decision to put six detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on trial before military tribunals and to seek the death penalty is both a betrayal of American ideals and simply bad strategy. Instead of being what they could and should be — a model of justice dispensed impartially, surely and dispassionately — the trials will proceed under deeply flawed procedures that violate this country’s basic fairness. The intense negative attention they will receive will do enormous damage to what is left of America’s standing in world opinion.

There is good reason to believe that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the five others may have been responsible for horrific acts. If convicted, they should be jailed for life, but that should happen under due process. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the administration has made clear that it wants to give people accused of terrorism as few rights as the Supreme Court will let it get away with.

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One of those good reasons is his own confession and the statements of his co conspirators. There is also good reason to limit his rights. In a normal trial he would have access to all the intelligence we gathered against him which would give the enemy access to our sources and methods of gathering this information.

We made the mistake of doing that in the African Embassy bombing cases against al Qaeda and bin Laden quite using his satellite phone when it became clear we were listening to his calls. This made it easier for him to plan and execute the attacks of 9-11.

The NY Times insistence on a failed lawfare approach to fighting this war is a huge mistake that would cost American lives. It thinks that we would get some PR benefit from turning over our intelligence to the enemy, something the times thinks it should be able to do also.

The Times also opposes the death penalty for these terrorist for PR reasons. Those who oppose the death penalty look for any excuse to oppose it and this case will be no different. We should ignore their unwise position which chases the death of more innocent people.

There is nothing unjust about trying these terrorist before military commissions. It was done in World War II by a Democrat administration and the Times had no objections. That makes this editorial look more like rank partisanship than their typical wimp liberalism.