Posted by
Defend America on Thursday, December 17, 2009 8:01:31 AM
Gitmo Does Not Cause Terrorism
Doubt It? Ask the Blind Sheikh.
By Andrew C. McCarthy
So
we’re going to shut down the detention center at the U.S. naval base on
Guantanamo Bay and move the 200-plus terrorists detained there to a
seldom-used civilian correctional center in Thomson, Ill. And we’re
doing it, the Obama administration and Sen. Di-k Durbin assure us, not
because they want to use federal money to indemnify their home state
for a white-elephant prison Illinois taxpayers should never have built,
but because Guantanamo Bay simply must be closed. Gitmo, they say,
causes terrorism.
It’s worth remembering that the “Blind
Sheikh,” Omar Abdel Rahman, perhaps the world’s most influential
jihadist, was never held in Gitmo. Instead, he and eleven of his
followers got the gold-plated due-process plan: a nine-month 1995 trial
in the criminal justice system for waging war against the American
people. (That’s not rhetoric; that was the charge: conspiracy to levy
war against the United States — Section 2384 of the federal penal
code.)
The red-carpet treatment didn’t begin or end with the trial. There were Miranda
warnings upon arrest (no one cooperated). Counsel was appointed, with
the defendants choosing their lawyers — and, for some, Uncle Sam paid
for two or more attorneys. Mountains of evidence were culled from
intelligence files and duly shared with overseas terrorist
organizations. The defense enjoyed a couple of years to make motions to
get more discovery, to suppress evidence, and to dismiss the
indictment. When things finally went to trial, there was a two-month
defense case (that’s much longer than most criminal trials), which
allowed them to put the government on trial for its investigative
tactics. There was a post-trial hearing on their motion to vacate their
convictions and dismiss the case on the ground of “outrageous
government misconduct.” There was elaborate litigation before severe
sentences were imposed: The Blind Sheikh got life imprisonment, and the
other sentences ranged from 25 years to life. That was followed by a
three-year appeals process, during which the court appointed new
lawyers to argue that their clients had been railroaded through the
incompetence of the old lawyers, while the old lawyers continued
arguing that their clients had been railroaded by the malevolence of
the government. Finally, when the appeals were done and the convictions
upheld, the defendants began filing habeas corpus petitions — a
practice that continues to this day — claiming that this or that
constitutional right was infringed, or that this or that prison
condition was inhumane.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NWJhNjU2YzBlNjE1ZGMzYmU2MzEwZmZkNGI2YzIyY2Y=