Subject: [big campaign] 9/11 Terrorists Finally Being Brought to Justice
From: Adam Blickstein <[email-masked]>
To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:24 -0500
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

9/11 Terrorists Finally Being Brought to Justice

Washington, D.C. -  Today, the Obama administration announced that five terrorists tied to the 9/11 attacks will be brought to justice in civilian courts. Our nation has a strong tradition of convicting some of the world's worst terrorists in civilian courts. From the mastermind of the first World Trade Center attack Ramzi Yousef to Zacarias Moussaoui-the "20th Hijacker"-to the shoe-bomber Richard Reid, our prison and court systems have a long track record of keeping our communities safe while bringing dangerous terrorists to justice. The Obama administration is applying the same record of success to the Mastermind of 9/11.  In fact, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, where these men will be tried, has a long track record of prosecuting terrorists, including Ramzi Yousef.

National security experts and leaders from both parties-from General David Petraeus to Grover Norquist-have expressed confidence that our court system is the right place for these men. By bringing these terrorists into the civilian court system, we are both ensuring that we hold terrorists accountable for their atrocious actions while restoring the rule of law that sets America apart from our enemies.  Over the last eight years, our civilian courts have convicted and imprisoned nearly 200 terrorists, while Guantanamo has yielded only three successful prosecutions.  Today's announcement is one more crucial step toward closing Guantanamo and restoring the global partnership we need in the struggle against terrorism.

Unfortunately, some conservatives would prefer to politicize the prosecution of terrorists rather than see them be brought to justice. For years they have opposed terrorists being brought to trial and have continually denigrated America's judicial system, which has a long and successful tradition of imprisoning and convicting the worst terrorists in the world. Americans have legitimate questions about this transfer that can easily be answered by legal and national security, but instead, some conservatives prefer to spread fear for political purposes.

9/11 terrorists are finally being brought to justice.  The New York Times reports that "Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other men accused in the plot will be prosecuted in federal court in New York City, a federal law enforcement official said early on Friday." The Times goes on to say, that "The decision about how to try several of the most high-profile detainees at Guantánamo marks a milestone in the administration's efforts to close the facility, a policy that President Obama announced shortly after taking office but which has proven more difficult than his team anticipated."  President Obama commented Friday that the "[a]ccused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed "will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice."

As detainee expert Ken Gude writes in a recently released Center for American Progress report, "The prosecution of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his co-conspirators is the most important of all cases at Guantanamo. U.S. federal criminal courts can handle this prosecution, and it will demonstrate meaningful change, setting the tone for broader U.S. detention policy. It is in the United States' strategic interest to refrain from seeking the death penalty no matter which forum it chooses, thus denying martyrdom to the 9/11 conspirators."  [NY Times, 11/13/09<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=gglqycdab.0.0.olnitxbab.0&ts=S0417&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2009%2F11%2F14%2Fus%2F14terror.html%3Fhp&id=preview>. President Obama, via CNN, 11/13/09<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=gglqycdab.0.0.olnitxbab.0&ts=S0417&p=http%3A%2F%2Fpoliticalticker.blogs.cnn.com%2F2009%2F11%2F13%2Fobama-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-subject-to-most-exacting-demands-of-justice%2F&id=preview>.  Ken Gude, Center for American Progress, 11/09<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=gglqycdab.0.0.olnitxbab.0&ts=S0417&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanprogress.org%2Fissues%2F2009%2F11%2Fpdf%2Fclosing_guantanamo_summary.pdf&id=preview>]

Bipartisan consensus agrees that federal courts are an essential and highly capable tool for combating terrorism.  The Constitution Project recently released a declaration signed by a large bipartisan group of prominent Americans including former members of Congress, diplomats, federal judges and prosecutors, former FBI directors, high-level military officials and national security experts.  The report emphasizes that "Civilian federal courts are the proper forum for terrorism cases," and is signed by such varied and notable figures as Morton Abramowitz, Ted Sorensen, Thomas Pickering, John Dean, Alberto Mora, and even Grover Norquist.  The declaration is also endorsed by a number of retired generals and admirals.  About the declaration, David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union said, "This is a declaration by Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, who represent decades of government service and a longstanding commitment to law enforcement, justice, and our nation's safety," said. "We have come together to make a stand for American values."

David Laufman, a former prosecutor who has prosecuted terrorism cases, says that federal courts are a necessary and successful tool for bringing terrorists to justice. He writes: "The American criminal justice system has demonstrated a remarkable ability to meet the legal challenges posed by 'the war on terror.' Based on my own experience in prosecuting terrorism cases and the growing historical record, federal courts consistently have resolved complex constitutional and procedural issues that terrorism cases often present, including the use and protection of sensitive intelligence information and the admissibility of evidence obtained overseas..."

And earlier this year, Republican Defense Secretary Robert Gates explained how terrorists have been tried and convicted by American courts for years: "This started 20 years ago when I was at CIA, and we captured a Hezbollah terrorist who had been involved in killing an American sailor on an aircraft that had been taken hostage in Beirut. We brought him to the United States, put him on trial and put him in prison." In fact federal prosecutions have been extraordinarily effective. According to the Department of Justice, the following terrorist cases have been prosecuted in New York's Southern District:

 *   1993 World Trade Center Bombing: After two trials, in 1993 and 1997, six defendants were convicted and sentenced principally to life in prison for detonating a truck bomb in the garage of the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring hundreds more. One of the defendants convicted at the second trial was Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the attack.
 *   1994-95 Manila Air Plot: Ramzi Yousef and two others were convicted in 1996 for plotting to plant bombs aboard a dozen U.S. commercial aircraft that were timed to go off as the planes were flying over the Pacific. The defendants were sentenced to substantial prison terms. Yousef concocted the plan with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is currently detained at Guantanamo Bay and has been indicted in SDNY for the Manila Air conspiracy since 1996.
 *   1995 "Blind Sheikh" Trial: Ten defendants associated with a mosque in Brooklyn, N.Y., were convicted of plotting to blow up the World Trade Center, United Nations headquarters, and various bridges, tunnels and landmarks in and around New York City. The lead defendant, Omar Abdel Rahman, also known as the "Blind Sheikh," was sentenced to life in prison, while his co-defendants were sentenced to prison terms ranging between life and 25 years.
 *   Embassy Bombings Trial: Shortly after the August 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, SDNY indicted Usama Bin Laden and approximately 20 alleged al-Qaeda loyalists for conspiring to murder Americans worldwide. Many of the defendants were also charged for their roles in the attacks on the U.S. Embassies in East Africa, including three defendants who were convicted after a six-month trial in early 2001. Those three defendants, and a fourth al-Qaeda member who was tried with them, were all sentenced to life in prison.

[The Constitution Project, 11/4/09<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=gglqycdab.0.0.olnitxbab.0&ts=S0417&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.constitutionproject.org%2Fmanage%2Ffile%2F347.pdf&id=preview>. David Laufman, 07/09/09<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=gglqycdab.0.0.olnitxbab.0&ts=S0417&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fdavid-laufman%2Fguantnamo-detainees-in-us_b_228679.html&id=preview>. Robert Gates, 5/22/09<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=gglqycdab.0.0.olnitxbab.0&ts=S0417&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.defenselink.mil%2Fnews%2Fnewsarticle.aspx%3Fid%3D54477&id=preview>. Department of Justice, 11/13/09<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=gglqycdab.0.0.olnitxbab.0&ts=S0417&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.justice.gov%2Fopa%2Fpr%2F2009%2FJune%2F09-ag-564.html&id=preview>]

Some conservatives continue to fear-monger and disparage America's judicial system while senior national security professionals disagree.    Sen. John Cornyn (R - TX) said today: "Reverting to a pre-9/11 approach to fighting terrorism and bringing these dangerous individuals onto U.S. soil needlessly compromises the safety of all Americans."  House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and leading neoconservative William Kristol quickly followed suit.

But the men and women charged with protecting us disagree.  Earlier this year,  11 former senior military, intelligence and national security officials, including former Guantanamo Bay Tribunal Officer Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, former National Security Council Counterterrorism Chief Richard Clarke and former Senior CIA Officer Margaret Henoch, rebuked those who spread "fear in order to score political points, and perpetuat[ing]the Bush/Cheney era strategy of seeking political victories instead of doing what's right to protect the country."  The letter also warned that "[w]e should also not allow the destructive politics of fear, which tarnish America's national security imperatives, to dictate the debate."

And as General Petraeus wrote in a 2007 letter to his troops in Iraq, the fight against extremism "depends on securing the population, which must understand that, we-not our enemies-occupy the moral high ground."

In addition, 9/11 family member Talat Hamdani wrote for Huffington Post, "I, and many other 9/11 family members, believe that the only way we can see real justice is to transfer these cases to federal courts and abandon the broken system that has come to symbolize the grave missteps of the last administration."  [Sen. John Cornyn, 11/13/09<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=gglqycdab.0.0.olnitxbab.0&ts=S0417&p=http%3A%2F%2Fcornyn.senate.gov%2Fpublic%2Findex.cfm%3Fp%3DNewsReleases%26ContentRecord_id%3D57170f29-7d27-4ef1-82cb-dcfd0805663d&id=preview>. Letter from 11 Retired National Security Officials, 8/27/09<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=gglqycdab.0.0.olnitxbab.0&ts=S0417&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nsnetwork.org%2Fnode%2F1398&id=preview>. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R - SC), via the WSJ,11/05/09<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=gglqycdab.0.0.olnitxbab.0&ts=S0417&p=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB125746366895732157.html&id=preview>. John Boehner, 11/13/09. Talat Hamdani, 10/20/09<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=gglqycdab.0.0.olnitxbab.0&ts=S0417&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Ftalat-hamdani%2F%3Fview%3Dscreen&id=preview>. Gen. David Petraeus, 5/11/07<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=gglqycdab.0.0.olnitxbab.0&ts=S0417&p=http%3A%2F%2Fandrewsullivan.theatlantic.com%2Fthe_daily_dish%2F2007%2F05%2Fpetraeus_comes_.html&id=preview>]

###

Adam Blickstein
Communications Director
National Security Network
202-289-7113 (office)
617-335-0859 (mobile)
[email-masked]

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