Giuliani, others: Civilian Courts in New York May Provoke the Mastermind Terrorists Too Much

Death Star laser: Does Al-Qaeda have one?

The NYT reports that the Justice Department is rethinking its decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City, after rising objections from local officials over issues of cost, logistics, and security. Mayor Bloomberg, Gov. Paterson, and Senators Shumer and Gillibrand have all recently expressed a strong preference for the Justice Department to start looking for “alternative locations”. The White House has gotten the hint, and has instructed Justice to consider other venues.

Fair enough, I suppose. I don’t really care if a civilian trial takes place in downtown Manhattan, some outer borough, or another region altogether, if it’s cheaper or less disruptive to business. But by far our most experienced terrorism prosecutors work in the Southern District, which encompasses New York. From a simple efficacy standpoint it would seem worth the extra cost and annoyance to ensure that the most experienced prosecutors are on the case.

The NYC controversy has allowed Republicans to reopen the debate over whether KSM should be tried in civilian courts at all. I’ll save the civilian court vs. military court argument for another day, but I find odd the most common objection to an NYC trial, and it’s one that has nothing to do with efficient justice: “…some politicians have complained that a trial could make the city an even more attractive target for Al Qaeda.”

Politicians like this argument a lot. Even Diane Feinsten said, “There are other places to try it in the U.S. that are much more remote, much less a target, and much less a squatting ground for propaganda around the world.” Rudy Giuliani loves it: “New York is already a target for terrorists. We announce that every day and talk about it every day. To add something unnecessary to that makes no sense.”

I find this general view—that it’s just too risky or provocative to apply the U.S. system of justice to members of Al-Qaeda, lest we be made more of a ‘target’—to be so pusillanimous, so capitulationist, and so maddeningly hypocritical.

First of all, isn’t it a little uncouth, at best, to say that any venue will be target, so best to do it somewhere that is relatively “less” of a target? It’s pretty appalling to apply the NIMBY argument when you believe innocent lives are in danger either way. To wit: there was brief mention of moving the trial to White Plains, NY. The mayor of White Plains wasn’t having it: “I think we need to be realistic,” he said. “Once you’ve placed it in a place like White Plains, you’ve made the city an automatic target, and everything located in it.”

“Everything located in it”?  Is Al-Qaeda going to deploy its noted asteroid-guiding technology to level the whole city or something? What the hell is this guy talking about?

I am extremely unsympathetic to any view that ascribes supernatural powers to Islamic terrorists. That our supermax prisons can’t possibly hold them, lest they slip through the prison bars with their Terminator 2 liquid metal alloy trick. Or that our civilian judicial system is just not sufficient for these “masterminds” because it might give such offense and provocation so as to put us in even greater danger.

Well while we’re appeasing, let’s see, what other cornerstones of our liberal democracy should we reconsider, if it might give less provocation to terrorists and make us less of a ‘target’? Offensive language about Islam? Very risky, definitely makes us a target. Satire about the Prophet Muhammed? Ask Denmark about that–very provocative. I assume Feinstein, Giuliani, and the hapless mayor of White Plains would prefer these expressions of free speech not occur within the boundaries of New York, since they would surely make the state more of an “unnecessary target”?

Giuliani and his ilk see terrorists as intent on destroying the American ‘way of life’, yet are so eager to circumvent and jettison the very foundation and guarantor of that ‘way of life’: the rule of law and the independent judiciary. The argument seems to be that they are all for the administering of legal justice, but only if it doesn’t further ignite or instigate terrorist violence. That line of thinking is one brave step on the path toward our “moral and cultural suicide”, as Christopher Hitchens once put it. In Giuliani’s view, best to send them all to Gitmo and torture the hell out of them. That should make his beloved New York much less of a target.