FOR POST
9-11-2001 NYC
JUSTICE HAS
BEEN DELAYED,
AND
THEREFORE DENIED
CLERIC WHO
PREACHES TERRORISM & INCITED TERRORIST ACTS,
ABU HAMZA aL-MARSI,
TRIAL
SCHEDULED TO BEGIN BY END OF APRIL,
TRIALS AT NUREMBERG - PRE-GENEVA CONVENTIONS
TAGS:
TERRORISTS SHOULD FACE TRIAL IN NYC, GITMO
MILITARY
TRIBUNALS A FAILURE, U.S. JURISPRUDENCE
CAN
HANDLE THESE CASES, NYPD DIRECTOR OF INTELLIGENCE
ANALYSIS
REBECCA WEINER, NYPD COMMISSIONER BILL BRATTON,
NYPD
INTEL UNIT
(Wednesday, April2, 2014
NY,NY) The NYPD Director of Intelligence Analysis Rebecca Weiner yesterday issued
a warning of a sort, regarding the possible increased threat to the City as the
trial of the extremely radical terrorist Abu Hamza al-Masri opens here
in Manhattan Federal Court later this month.
NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton addressed a large gathering of Jewish leaders
also making the point that the upcoming terrorist trial will coincide with the
beginning of Passover and that might prompt terrorists to lash out. While no
one in NYPD can identify any known plans or any “actionable” intelligence to
work with, Bratton perhaps felt it was a good time to remind all New Yorkers
that our City remains target number one for terrorists. Commissioner Bratton
has been away from New York City for the last 20 years and he does not need to
remind any of us about our perpetually looming threat. His predecessor, Ray Kelly, took the
initiative after September 11, 2001 to make certain that our City would never
again be as vulnerable as it was on that sunny Tuesday morning in September 13 years ago. He formed a robust Intelligence Unit with
world-wide connects, revamped the Counter Terrorism and Emergency Services Units
and did everything he could to provide the City of New York with our own functional
Intelligence Service; a smaller, more effective, efficient, and productive CIA
of our own. Though there have been close
calls and other attempts made to deliver destruction and death in our City
since 9-11-01 each was either thwarted by timely interdiction or uncovered well
in advance by NYPD.
CHEATED, DENIED, INSULTED
It has been said for hundreds
of years of western jurisprudence that “justice delayed is justice
denied”. This legal maxim applies to the
aggrieved, the plaintive, or victim of a crime.
Our criminal justice system with our Courts as the ultimate arbiters of
“justice” has been severely flawed, in many ways broken, for far too long. Despite its inherent deficiencies it does,
often at a glacial pace, manage – barely – sufficiently enough to fill our
jails and prisons, to suck up billions of dollars for federal, state and
municipal Courts. Our system of
jurisprudence is rooted firmly in the old English document, The Magna Carta,
wherein the basic machinations and conceptual fundamentals are
delineated. As times have changed so too
have some of our judicial policies and procedures. From local Courts up to decisions rendered by
our Supreme Court, we have acquired a body of precedent based on the
application of our Constitutionally derived laws. Still, one can argue that for better or worse
our system works as it should more often than not. One of its obvious flaws is the matter of
timely justice.
A week ago today just a few
blocks from here Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law, Suleiman Abu Ghaith, was
successfully tried and convicted on all counts stemming from his conspiracy to
commit mass murder, of being a prominent al Qaeda figure before and after the
attack on American icons on September 11, 2001.
In an uncharacteristically rapid fashion from the time Abu Ghaith was
handed over to US authorities from the Jordanian officials, just a little over
13 months elapsed. That is as close to a record breaking trial in such a complex arena as we've yet witnessed.
Meanwhile, we continue to hold
“detainees”, “enemy combatants”: men who planned, plotted and fought Americans
via terrorist attacks on object of US interest as they did on the ill-defined
battle fields of Afghanistan after 9-11-01.
Many were tribal “warriors” fighting their own internecine battles that
far and away predated anything related to deeming the United States an enemy. Some were members of the firebrand extremist
Muslim sect the Taliban who had essentially served as a “central government” in
Afghanistan since they helped defeat the forces of the invading USSR; an almost
decade long war where we helped arm and equip the mujahedeen. They would come
to use some of the remaining arms that we put in their possession as we
supported them as our proxy against the USSR in what our government at the time considered to
be aggressive Soviet expansion.
So much for history; it has
all been well documented, studied and analyzed.
Though the threat from terrorists of every denomination, inclination,
motivation and ideology remains very real to this day, we have kept men in
prison, some for up to 13 years at the American Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba (Gitmo). Many had spent months or
years incarcerated at CIA “black site” while others spent years of torture at
the hands of some of our “allies” in our “War on Terror.” Yes, it is common knowledge that harsh
interrogation tactics were used on some of those captured from October 2001
until sometime in 2004. What type of
intelligence these tactics produced is also widely accepted as having been
basically useless. In a practical sense
since many of these “detainees” had been held captive for years whatever
intelligence they might once have had knowledge of had no value since so much time had
elapsed. Intelligence, particularly
“actionable” intelligence has a shelf life just like milk; it is only good for
so long.
DELAYING JUSTICE, PROLOGING SORROW, GRIEF, AND FRUSTRATION
After all the hand-wringing in
the Cheney/Bush Administration regarding the legal status of the men our
Military was capturing and incarcerating around the world, the Justice
Department under Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, a few of his closest
cohorts and the Office of the Vice President, it was determined that those held
at Gitmo would face “military tribunals” at that prison base to keep them out
of Courtrooms on American soil and thus deprive them of all the rights that
come with it. They also presented the
argument that these dangerous men could not stand trial in an open criminal
court because some of the Prosecution’s witness’s testimony would likely reveal
“intelligence methods and sources” that would compromise our intelligence
networks overseas in on-going operations and between our Allies.
Lost in all the years of trying
to fit the square pegs that were our captured “enemy combatants” into the round
holes of our Federal Court system, were the thousands of relatives of all those
lost on September 11, 2001. For them,
right up until last week, there had been no one ever tried for being directly
associated to "beyond reasonable doubt" the 9-11-01 al Qaeda operation. The successful conviction of Suleiman Abu Ghaith set a
precedent in that it has been proven to prosecute others among those housed at
Gitmo in our Federal Courts. There have been other convictions of terrorists in
Federal Courts over the last 12 years but they had dubious links to al Qaeda,
seemed to be “homegrown” small cells of individuals or radicalized “lone wolf” players.
That all the men still held at
Gitmo remain in some military/legal limbo is indeed justice delayed and justice
denied; neither of which should all the families of the deceased, survivors,
friends and all those other wise affected by the September 11, 2001 attacks be
haunted by. The Cheney/Bush aversion to
trying these men on US soil in Federal Court was insulting to our Criminal
Justice system. If our President and
Vice President express reluctance and trepidation regarding the ability of our Courts
that is a sad statement that essentially expresses a lack of confidence in the
very Constitution they’d been sworn to defend.
JUSTICE ON THE HOME FIELD
Trials are virtually always
held in the jurisdiction where they the crime was committed. Exceptions are made, at times, when a particularly
high profile case and subsequent media coverage might pollute the jury pool but
they remain rare exceptions. The notion
that a defendant or defendants would not get a fair trial in the same
jurisdiction where they perpetrated their criminal acts implies that those
citizens called for jury duty are incapable of performing their tasks based on
the evidence presented to them as well as the arguments from the defense. While it is impossible to find a crime in
American history of the magnitude of September 11, 2001, it has now been proven
that a jury comprised of New Yorkers can deliberate with due diligence and act
accordingly.
Since New Yorkers and all
those in the NYC Metropolitan Area lost so much on September 11, 2001 and
continue to watch family, friends, neighbors and coworkers die from 9-11-01
related malignant diseases it should be paramount that every trial of a
defendant directly linked to the planning, plotting and support of the
diabolical plan stand and face a Federal Court just a few blocks from the site
that once was the home of our Twin Towers.
Obviously, the military tribunal process is broken, flawed, and not up
to the challenge regarding the few remaining “high value” prisoners. The United States government has spent untold
hundreds of millions not just on the facilities at GITMO but for the use of
other “off shore black sites.”
ON DECK AND ON THE DOCKET
The next al Qaeda terrorist to
be tried here in New York City will be the one-eyed, armless radical Abu Hamza
al-Masri. He has been a high profile
ultra-extreme cleric and terrorist largely responsible for the al Qaeda attack
on tourists in Yemen in 1998. While
al-Marsi may not have as much blood on his hands, or, more accurately his
hooks, as some of those still in Gitmo and among those already tried and
convicted, he once wielded a great deal of influence within the communities of young
Muslim men via his vitriolic preaching and constant appeal for as many of them
as possible to wage “holy jihad”
against Americans, and other westerners, where ever they could. His sermons, available on CD and on-line, were testaments of the duties that young men should embark upon and to
step up to defend Islam from all outside threats. He ceaselessly encouraged throngs of young Arab
and Muslim men to travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan for terrorist training at
various al Qaeda camps.
Now that the Federal Court in
New York City appears to be gaining some experience and traction in their
efforts to try all those held on charges of either being or already engaged in some military/legal process waiting to have a “military tribunal” begin, those incarcerated should be
systematically prosecuted. The thought
that they are in some mystical way imbued with magical powers that will usher unprecedented
chaos into our Federal Court is beyond patently false, it is ludicrous.
All legal issues aside the
only place that any form of “justice” can be meted out for these men is right
here on the Island of Manhattan a few short blocks away from the newly
constructed One World Trade Center Tower. Our Courts cannot fear that these men
will hide behind the defense that they were captured, tortured and often
exposed to “enhanced interrogation tactics”.
Some of them probably were. In
the days and weeks immediately following September 11, 2001 as our initial
wave of CIA paramilitary operatives and elite military Special Forces Units
were inserted into Afghanistan, the greatest concern was that there were
already similar terrorists strikes already “in the pipe line” and it would only
be through the gathering of intelligence, both signal and vocal, that we could
avoid another attack on our homeland. The United States has perpetrated far more egregious allegations under the auspices of "National Security" in the past. This should have been a no-brainer.
The military justice system, for
what it is, has failed miserably regarding the adjudication of the
detainees. Many had been held for years,
without any formal charges only to be released and repatriated to their native
land or another country willing to allow them entry. It is well beyond time to get these cases to
Court. This is not a statement in support of our prisoners; this is a call to arms in that they need to face an American Court of law soon; as soon as possible.
It is improbable to think that these men possess such incriminating information about our intelligence gathering and interrogation tactics that they are “too dangerous” to enter a Federal Court in New York City. The “Super Max” Federal Prison in Florence, Colorado presently houses other convicted terrorists as well as some of the most high profile – as in the most “dangerous” criminals – in the country. Super Max has their neon red ‘Vacancy’ light flashing. They have plenty of room, our Constitution and Courts are well equipped to prosecute and by virtually every New Yorker’s interpretation this is the ONLY place in the world where we will, after all these years of fits and starts, motions and counter-motions, let the system play out and convict the guilty and impose a sentence. That is the best justice we can hope for. If we lived in a more “just” country those terrorists who are convicted would be sentenced to death and that sentence would be carried out swiftly.
LEGAL PRECEDENT
It is improbable to think that these men possess such incriminating information about our intelligence gathering and interrogation tactics that they are “too dangerous” to enter a Federal Court in New York City. The “Super Max” Federal Prison in Florence, Colorado presently houses other convicted terrorists as well as some of the most high profile – as in the most “dangerous” criminals – in the country. Super Max has their neon red ‘Vacancy’ light flashing. They have plenty of room, our Constitution and Courts are well equipped to prosecute and by virtually every New Yorker’s interpretation this is the ONLY place in the world where we will, after all these years of fits and starts, motions and counter-motions, let the system play out and convict the guilty and impose a sentence. That is the best justice we can hope for. If we lived in a more “just” country those terrorists who are convicted would be sentenced to death and that sentence would be carried out swiftly.
LEGAL PRECEDENT
The challenges the Nuremberg
Trials faced prosecuting Nazi war criminals after World War II should serve as
a template, in a way, for prosecuting these men. The Trials at Nuremberg predated some of the
fundamentals of the Geneva Conventions so; there is legal precedence at least
in an international criminal court setting.
That 13 years after that
lethal attack on our country we still have detainees in Gitmo is not only an
embarrassing statement about our military/justice process but also tarnishes, belittles
the idea of American Justice.
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