Terrorist rights groups angry about KSM trial in military tribunal

Washington Times:

Civil liberties groups are reacting angrily to reports that President Obama could reverse his administration's stance and try the alleged Sept. 11 conspirators in a military tribunal -- a move that would leave many of his staunchest allies out on a limb.

Top supporters like Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Richard Durbin of Illinois -- both of whom have vehemently defended Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.s decision to try suspected al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed in federal court -- said they would wait for an official announcement from the White House before weighing in. But advocacy groups are fuming over a report in the Washington Post that advisers to Mr. Obama want him to do an about-face and prosecute Mohammed in a military commission.

America's enemies "certainly should be delighted with what appears to be great confusion, great ambiguity and inability to address the issue, so they should feel they are making progress if in fact our initial stand is reversed," retired Lt. Gen. Harry E. Soyster said on a conference call organized by Human Rights First, which urged Mr. Obama to stand firm.

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You know you must be doing something right when you have made all these people angry. The terrorist rights lobby is desperate to returned to the failed lawfare practices of the past. Durbin and Leahy have positions on these trials that are not worthy of respect. In fact they are dead wrong.

What is especially egregious about the awful decision to move the case to civilian trials is criminal malpractice of tuning down guilty pleas to do so. To put the country through trials costing million of dollars in cases where the President and the Attorney General have said there is a predetermined result has to be one of the more absurd decisions of all time by anyone in the Justice Department.