DA, I admit I'm confused with what you're trying to say.  Let me explain what I'm seeing:

 

You argue that in KSM's mind what he did--planning 9/11, killing Pearl, planning other operations that would've killed Americans had we not gotten him first--is within his rules of war.  We, as Westerners, can't understand that.  Since KSM considers himself a freedom fighter, fighting for his version of Islam against an arrogant, culture-killing West, then what he has done is legitimate, just as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was legitimate.

 

I disagree vehemently.  That's nothing less than moral equivalence.

 

Yes, maybe in KSM's mind, everything he's done has been a legitimate, asymmetrical action against his enemies.  But you can very quickly end up in a morass there.  If what KSM's done is right in his own mind, then so is the Holocaust: Hitler, Himmler, and so on firmly believed that they were saving Germany and Western civilization in general by exterminating the "anti-race" of the Jews, or murdering every Russian they could find, as the Russians represented Bolshevism. 

 

If what KSM's done is right in his own mind, then so was slavery: the Southerners firmly believed that what they were doing was best, not only to preserve the Southern economy and culture, but also to keep their black "children" safe and docile.  Start defending KSM's actions as something more than murder, or as legitimate acts of war, then you end up defending the Fort Pillow Massacre--something that I'm sure you're very reluctant to do, given your background.  (And understandably so--IMHO, Nathan Bedford Forrest should have been shot as a war criminal in 1865.)

 

Just as we put the Nazis on trial for war crimes in front of a military tribunal at Nuremberg, just as we put Japanese leaders on trial for war crimes (not as many as we should've, but that's another thread) in Manila and elsewhere, KSM should be put on trial for war crimes, with all evidence on the table.  

 

Unless, of course, you want him acquitted for lack of evidence--something that Obama and Holder themselves have claimed they do not want, though they have set up exactly that sort of possibility.  (Which brings up the whole reason behind a civil trial anyway--if we're going to hold KSM even if he's found innocent.)

 

Don't forget, DA quite clearly has agreed right from the beginning that KSM should be tried in a military tribunal courtroom.  I think he's just taking this opportunity to branch off onto another subject, which seems to be something about how actions taken during wartime are not, can not be, should not be treated as "crimes" in a civil jurisprudence sense.  And I agree with you Senty that underlying much of DA's argument in this (as well as in other subjects) is an alarming whiff of a certain lack of concern for any sort of ethical limitations on behavior, as opposed to a sort of ends-justifies-the-means pragmatism.

 

DA argument is sophist reduction of the absurd.   Because KSM was acting ethically in his own personal reality, we can not call him immoral/terrorist/CamelJockeyMostInNeedofAColumbianNecktie. [insult deliberate and apropos]

 

Which of course is pure ridicule of western society, and at best an argument not to prosecute psychotics (who also are validated by their own reality)  but to "help them understand what they did was wrong" BS that LIBERALs are famous for.

 

/GitMo was there for a reason.

 

Because the last time I looked; ANY attempt to conspire or actually seize airliners was skyjacking and under that proviso you can try the accused for that crime in ANY court in ANY nation anywhere; since skyjacking (piracy) has no jurisdiction limit as to prosecution for the crime, the only proviso that the trying nation apply its law to the defendant as is its IL right.  That is the problem. Some nations (Pakistan, Somalia, DPRK, PRC, Malaysia, Yemen, Iran, Cuba, etc.) harbor pirates and hijackers and will not prosecute.

 

Justification.... 

 

Holder may be an idiot, but there is US law to cover this.

 

Still there was no warrants, no arrest by an officer of the law, at best he was roughed-up during interrogation...Mr. Muhammed walks in any court in our country.

He was either denied due process like they claim and he walks...or it's a show trial and they're the same thing they complain about....So, like Bush with 9/11 memos, Obama is either ignorant or in on it.

 

"Mr Muhammed, would you tell the judge how your actions were a direct result of the policies of the Bush administration?"

 

 

 

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This will be a show trial. It will have a number of goals

 

1) the current administration will preen itself because its assumed moral superiority over that of the despised George W. Bush.  

 

2) It will allow the "torture" of KSM to be entered as "factual" evidence into public record. 

3) It will possibly build the public support for war crimes trails against KSM's interrogators 

 

4) It will open an avenue of compromise for our intelligence means and methods. 

 

It will NOT guarantee KSM's conviction

 

It will not settle the current tangle of conflicting legal claims over indefinite imprisonment of terrorist combatants. 

 

It will not settle the current tangle of legal claims of jurisdiction by military tribunals versus civil courts

At best, it opens several very large, very messy jars of worms 

It's very depressing to read stuff like this. You guys are arguing over whether KSM is a warrior or a criminal?! You have to know your enemy to defeat him; these guys are no legitimate soldiers. They are fighting to create a caliphate; such a creation is delusional. It would mean a dozen different countries giving up their sovereignty.... it is weirder than a pipedream.... and how will they accomplish this? through campaigning, elections, raising public awareness? No, by planting bombs in far off countries and slaughtering completely innocent people?!!! These guys are psychotic.... nuts.... the Russians ran into these guys in the High school masscacre (name escapes me) and slaughtered them all.... in my country we caught a bunch of these guys and lined them up against a wall! And you are calling them warriors and they may walk....!?!?!

 

 

Very depressing stuff....

Yeah some "great satan " we are. This is truly pathetic that we have allowed PC to wither us away into such a weakened state. This liberal crap will really be the death of us and our "western" way of life. We had better wake up and wake up fast.