Terror Trials in New York

Once again, the Conservatives are protesting the use of civilian courts to hand the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators, in New York of all places. The conservatives (and more than a couple liberals) are scared out of their minds that somehow bringing these people to New York for trial will somehow backfire.

Of course they don't say they are scared. They are being prudent, they say. Beyond the psychological "trauma" they think New York citizens will feel having the trial that close to ground zero and the "victory" they think they are handing the terrorists by doing so, they don't even want civilian courts to conduct the trials. To do so is to risk these terrorists getting off on a technicality or taking advantage of the lighter security and escaping or even possibly giving the terrorists a lighter sentence than they deserve. This is what we are told, but it's mostly bull. If they had their way, all of these criminals, terrorists or just suspected terrorists should be given to military courts and the trials conducted away from the eyes of the public. However, even if everything they said was true, it doesn't change the fact that they are frighteningly wrong. In any case, if I were a civilian court judge, or a member of the New York PD, or just a citizen of New York, I would feel insulted by the behavior of these politicians and media pushers. As an American citizen who actually values our system of justice even with all it's warts, I'm merely angry as hell.

Our courts aren't good enough, is what they're actually saying. Our laws aren't good enough, our system of justice is flawed. The local police don't know how to treat dangerous criminals, the people of New York are fragile flowers, and the judges and the juries have no conception of how important these trials will be or the magnitude of the crimes these people have perpetrated on the American people. THAT is the message we're sending the world and our own people if we don't try these suspects with the same laws we try our own people and in the place where this attack took place. We're saying that when it comes down to it and you push us hard enough, embarrass us severely enough, we will throw our fundamental values away in favor of fear and revenge.

What does it say about us as a people that we are so scared of these people that we would rather hide them away in a prison that isn't even in the United States, that we have to deny them access to our own system of justice, that we have tortured them despite ample proof that torture doesn't do anything besides satisfy a sadistic desire for revenge... and now that we are finally getting around to actually trying them for the crimes we already "know" them to be guilty of, we don't even want to bring them to United States soil in order to do so? At best, it says that we provide "justice" only to those who we think deserve it. At worst, it says that we can't trust our legal system. It's okay for serial killers but not for terrorists.

These trials are long overdue. Our treatment of these prisoners has been an atrocity. We did what we did to them for no good reason. We didn't even trust our system of justice enough to charge any of them with a crime right away. Locking people up without a trial, and without the hope of ever getting one because you can't risk the chance that they might be found innocent or jump through some loophole is the action of a police state, not a benevolent society with one of the best systems of justice on the planet. Why we did it is easy to figure: Fear. Why we haven't stopped doing it and acknowledged that it was wrong is also easy, if a bit less dignified: Embarrassment. As a nation that is arguably the leader of the free world, we can't afford either. We should have the courage to do what's right as well as to admit our mistakes, and we should have the awareness to recognize both. This is our chance to at least correct our mistake, even if we're not likely to publicly admit that we actually made one.

As the city that has been in the cross-hairs of our enemies since at least the beginning of the Cold War, New York should be proud to host the trials. They should even demand the right, both as a way of gaining some form of closure and as a way of telling future terrorists that our way of life still exists, despite their best efforts. Terrorism is about fear. The best way to fight it is with courage.