Amateur Hour @ 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Regardless of your political affiliation, the mistakes being made at 1600 Pennsylvania are enough to make Jed Bartlett blush with embarrassment.  Poor president Obama can’t catch a break from the left or the right.

From the Left:

Bill Maher’s ode to being a liberal:

“As long as we’re pathetic, we might as well act like it’s cute. I don’t care about the president’s birth certificate, I do want to know what happened to “Yes we can.” Can we get out of Iraq? No. Afghanistan? No. Fix health care? No. Close Gitmo? No. Cap-and-trade carbon emissions? No. The Obamas have been in Washington for ten months and it seems like the only thing they’ve gotten is a dog.”

You can make that 12 months now, Bill.

Then Saturday Night Live created this skit that summed up the first year of the Obama Administration that both the Left and Right can agree on:

Now we have Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other al Qaeda operatives that will be put on trial in New York City federal court.

The Right is all abuzz about bringing a terrorist to NYC.  (I personally think that the best thing we could do is handcuff KSM to a light pole in Times Square for one night and justice will probably be served)

The Left is all a twitter about how the Right is scared to bring the detainees to to US soil.  But neither side thinks this the brightest idea.

John Yoo, law professor of University of California Berkley in a recently published WSJ editorial has some interesting observations on President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try KSM in NYC:

• Trying KSM in civilian court will be an intelligence bonanza for al Qaeda and the hostile nations that will view the U.S. intelligence methods and sources that such a trial will reveal
• The proceedings will tie up judges for years
• KSM and his co-defendants will enjoy the benefits and rights that the Constitution accords to citizens and resident aliens—including the right to demand that the government produce in open court all of the information that it has on them, and how it got it
• Prosecutors will be forced to reveal U.S. intelligence on KSM, the methods and sources for acquiring its information, and his relationships to fellow al Qaeda operatives. The information will enable al Qaeda to drop plans and personnel whose cover is blown. It will enable it to detect our means of intelligence-gathering, and to push forward into areas we know nothing about.
• This is not hypothetical – During the 1993 World Trade Center bombing trial of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (aka the “blind Sheikh”), standard criminal trial rules required the government to turn over to the defendants a list of 200 possible co-conspirators. This list was a sketch of American intelligence on al Qaeda. According to Mr. McCarthy, who tried the case, it was delivered to bin Laden in Sudan on a silver platter within days of its production as a court exhibit.
• Bin Laden, who was on the list, could immediately see who was compromised. He also could start figuring out how American intelligence had learned its information and anticipate what our future moves were likely to be.
• For a preview of the KSM trial, look at what happened in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker who was arrested in the U.S. just before 9/11. His trial never made it to a jury. Moussaoui’s lawyers tied the court up in knots. All they had to do was demand that the government hand over all its intelligence on him. The case became a four-year circus, giving Moussaoui a platform to air his anti-American tirades. The only reason the trial ended was because, at the last minute, Moussaoui decided to plead guilty. That plea relieved the government of the choice between allowing a fishing expedition into its intelligence files or dismissing the charges.

What else could this trial lead to?

• Will we have to read al Qaeda terrorists their Miranda rights?
• Will we have to secure the “crime scene” under battlefield conditions?
• Will we have to take statements from nearby “witnesses”?
• Will we have to gather evidence and secure its chain of custody for transport all the way back to New York?

Did the Attorney General Holder and President Obama consider these things when they decided to bring the KSM trial to NYC?  Stranger, they decided to keep using military comissions to try five other al Quaeda operatives held in Guantanamo Bay.  Their reasoning?  These five men attacked US targets oversees.  If anything attacking civilian targets on US soil should afford less rights.

I understand why President Obama is doing this, he thinks that this trial should be open so the rest of the world can see that we are a fair country.   However, KSM will in no way help play to President Obama’s wishes.  He will do everything he can to reveal intelligence secrets in open court. Our intelligence agents and soldiers will be the ones to suffer.

I hope that I am wrong on this, but this seems like a very amateur move by a President desperate to gain some traction on his agenda.