World Does Not End as Gitmo Detainee Finally Brought to Face Justice

With the transfer to America soil of Guantanamo detainee Ahmed Ghailani, the Obama administration is doing something the Bush administration virtually failed to do for years: bring a dangerous terrorist to justice. For his role in the 1998 al Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the evidence against Ghailani is overwhelming. But instead of bringing him to trial and convicting him for his crimes (as his co-conspirators Wahid el-Hage, Mohammed Sadiq Odeh, Mohammed Rashed al-Owhali, and Khalfan Khamis Mohammed were, with all them now serving life terms in the Supermax prison in Florence, CO), the Bush administration decided to cast aside the constitution, our rule of law, and detain Ghailiani in Guantanamo Bay, thus denying the victims of the Embassy attacks and American people justice. With his transfer and subsequent trial, the Obama administration is remedying this vagrant violation of common sense, American values and ultimately justice.

But Conservatives still want to wield the fear card and play the blame game. John Boehner's misguided response to this reclamation of justice was that "this is the first step in the Democrats' plan to import terrorists into America." In reality, bringing Ghailani to trial is a crucial first step in restoring the rule of law that has kept America safe in the past. Instead of seeing an opportunity for justice, Conservatives continue to pursue a blind path of political opportunism and empty rhetoric that would actually make bringing terrorists to justice harder to achieve.

Despite fear-mongering from the right, the American justice system has proven that it is more than capable of trying and holding dangerous terrorists. The Federal system has housed and continues to house some of the most dangerous terrorists, including Ghailani's cohorts in the East Africa embassy bombings. This sentiment is shared by a bipartisan consensus, including Defense Secretary Gates, a career intelligence and defense official, who dispelled this fear mongering from conservatives: "We've never had an escape from a supermax prison, and that's where these guys will go; and if not one of the existing ones, we'll create a new one." He added that conservative counterarguments were historically baseless, saying "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."

Simply put, the Federal prison and criminal justice system safely holds or has held for extended periods of time a large number of convicted terrorists: including other perpetrators of the East Africa Embassy bombings, the perpetrator of the first World Trade Center attacks, 9/11 conspirator Zacharias Moussaoui, the Shoe Bomber, and Timothy McVeigh. These include:

Ramzi Yousef. The mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings was convicted and sentenced in 1998 by the Federal District Court in Manhattan and is being held at ADX Florence, the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

Zacharias Moussaoui. Convicted of conspiring to kill Americans for his role in the 9/11 attacks, Moussaoui is currently serving a life sentence at ADX Florence.

East African embassy bombing perpetrators. Wahid el-Hage, Mohammed Sadiq Odeh, Mohammed Rashed al-Owhali, and Khalfan Khamis Mohammed are all serving in ADX Florence.

Richard C. Reid. The so-called "Shoe Bomber," Reid was convicted for trying to blow up an airliner over the Atlantic with explosives in his shoe. He is currently serving a life sentence at ADX Florence.

Timothy McVeigh. Convicted of killing 168 people by blowing up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, McVeigh was held in ADX Florence until his execution on June 11, 2001.

Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri. The only person known to be held as an enemy combatant in the continental United States, al-Marri spent six years in the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina and is now being held in the Federal Correctional Institution in Illinois.

Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman. Responsible for plotting a series of bombings and assassinations, Omar Abdel-Rahman is currently serving a life sentence at Butner Federal Correctional Institution in North Carolina.

Muhammad Salameh. Convicted for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Salameh is serving a life sentence in ADX Florence.

Last week in Cairo, President Obama reaffirmed his intention to close the facility; and opinion polls in the Muslim world show that closing Guantanamo Bay would greatly improve people's opinions of the United States. But closing Guantanamo is not simply about restoring the image of America in the world's eyes. It will make us safer and advance America's security interests. The facility at Guantanamo, along with Abu Ghraib and the Bush administration's use of torture have served as tremendous recruiting tools for Al Qaeda.

While Conservative argue that closing Guantanamo will harm Americans, in reality, closing Guantanamo actually will most directly hurt Al Qaeda.

A bipartisan panel of former Secretaries of State made up of Secretaries Kissinger, Albright, Powell, Baker, and Christopher agreed. As James Baker, Secretary of State for George H.W. Bush, said: "Close Guantanamo...we all agreed, one of the best things that could happen would be to close Guantanamo, which is a very serious blot upon our reputation."

And Guantanamo has not just damaged America's image - it has also directly cost American lives. Retired Air Force major who goes by the pseudonym Matthew Alexander - the interrogator who used legal means to locate the notorious terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - says that these programs are responsible for thousands of Americans' deaths, "I listened time and time again to foreign fighters, and Sunni Iraqis, state that the number one reason they had decided to pick up arms and join Al Qaeda was the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the authorized torture and abuse at Guantanamo Bay... The number-one reason foreign fighters gave for coming to Iraq to fight is the torture and abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo."

The bottom line is conservatives that oppose bringing Ghailani to justice seem to lack faith and trust in the American justice system, the men, women and military officials who run these facilities and seem oblivious to the dangers to our security caused by keeping Guantanamo open.

It is about time that Ghailani was brought to justice.

Comments

[bighat]

when will we start receiving the cards and letters from govts and individuals to inform us of their love for the USA. that is after what we are going for is it not. Prestige and to be well thought of by others?

[DaveCarroll4]

The comments I see for your article, here today, seem to be a sign of the positive result of the media doing their job, at least a little bit better than they have for many years. Previous failure of the media to question, investigate and then report, has been instrumental in the Neo-con, far-right agenda of the Bush Administration and the Republican Party having had success with their agendas. I think that as little as maybe even months ago, this page of comments would have looked different. The American people deserted the mass media and arrived at the conclusion that Bush/Cheney and the Republican agenda was not representative of them as a population. They deserted the media in that they got on the Internet and asked their own questions, investigated stories for themselves, and came to conclusion far different than the mainstream media had been feeding them out of blind allegiance to a corrupted Executive Branch. Now people read the HuffPost instead of some "Other" Post, and the newspaper business is in trouble. "Fixed News" is feeling the results in the TV Media, arena, for continuing their Blind Republican agenda support, also... Put 'em in U.S. prisons and we'll be far safer than putting them anywhere else... and we'll know exactly where they are from now on! That's my comment on your article! Thank You, CounselorDave.

[Dengold]

My best guess is that this trial will proceed relatively smoothly and end in a conviction since "experts" from both the Right and the Left seem to agree that there is substantial evidence against the accused, including something resembling a confession. I would also guess that the Obama administration selected this case as its first venture due to that strong likelihood of conviction. I would be interested to know the reasons the Bush administration used to avoid such a trial. Perhaps those reasons have been given, but, if so, I missed hearing them.

Let's assume, therefore, that the case does go as we expect. In addition, however, I would assume that the trial will take on something of a circus atmosphere. No doubt, the defense attorney(s) will submit numerous discovery motions, some of which, if honored, might compromise our intelligence gathering procedures. Do Miranda rights apply to his confession? The defendant may well claim that he has been tortured (and perhaps he was) and/or use the trial to propagandize his position. In other words, the trial, even if it goes smoothly, will not be pretty. That is not sufficiant reason to avoid it, I agree, but I suspect that we will get a small scale version (in this trial) of what we can expect down the road. I'm nervous, but I'm reserving judgment for now.

[bighat]

Who is volunteering to be the lawyers for the terrorists?

[bvongrabe]

What evidence do we have exactly? His admission after having been tortured? But that is OK, isn't it? We don't really care whether somebody is innocent as long as we can beat a confession out of him!

[AllenShadow]

No. Maybe, this way, the world won't end.

[dsigeorge]

No, and the world will not end when Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Rice...etc are brought to face justice.
Hello Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder, we want justice now!

[bvongrabe]

Don't count on Holder or Obama. They can't act without deeply embarrassing Democrats. Which is why CSI-Jacksonville has filed a criminal complaint against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld with the International Criminal Corut, which has acceppted the complaint and - because an action is pending against Gonzales and others in Madrid - has given the evidence to the Spanish judge who promptly amended his prosecution to include Cheney.
Guess what, as they did in Great Britain, the CIA threatened the Spanish Government to cease sharing intelligence if the case goes forward. The Government put pressure on the Spanish Judge to stop prosecution.
At which time the ICC in the Hague can take over.

[anyman]

Nor will the world end when Bush ,Cheney ,and the rest of those cynical so and so's end up in the cell next to them. Mr Obama take note! The problem with trying these prisoners now is whatever evidence there might have been has been passed around between the CIA and the FBI and who knows who. a real court would have to have a shadow of doubt at the least. If Obama does not prosecute the former executive branch leaders who allowed the sort of things to go on that i saw in the HBO torture special last night. Drop them all back in the field where you found them and next time they step out of line prosecute them properly. We do not imprison people because of what they might do. If we pay a price for fixing this mess, put it on Bushes tab with the 5000 kids who have died making money for Dick and his friends. the actions of our government to avoid habius corpus were the worst terrorist acts i have seen since 911. if allowed to stand any one of us could end up in a cell with out a phone call for any amount of time

[Scent]

Sorry, but are all these terrorist charges from the same source that illegally tortured the people?

Maybe he IS a terrorist. But even though we want terrorists punished - as long as they do not work for US of course; then we shield, faund, train, and command them - the evidence is produced by the same people who told us Iraq had massive arsenals of WMDs. They told us that all south african nations were communists - because they had something as weird as fair wages and social security, which we blithely destroyed along with human rights, laws, justice and a few million lives. - But we DID get something out of all that: the most Billionaires per million people and the best educated torturers on the planet.

But anyone who after all that happened believes one shred of evidence that same CIA produces without verifying it, is not acting in due process of law but covering the vilest criminals this country ever produced.

[WillSeitz]

"Not in my back yard" is a Republican effort to score political points. What it actually does is make sure these people have the most chance possible to be active again. An Al Qaeda member sent to Yemen or Palau is much more able to pursue terrorist activities than if they are incarcerated in a federal super-max facility like Levenworth.

As for justice (aka trials) for these people, it would be great, but it is probably very difficult. These men were taken as military prisoners and not arrested by police performing criminal investigations and gathering evidence. Realistically these people are more like POWs, but they represent a criminal organization and not a nation. So we can't really deal with a nation that they represent. It is a hard problem, but you would hope we would handle it like a nation of laws and not like a Taliban or North Korea.

[rughead23]

If we don't torture, then why the cover up?

[Boyaca]

I guess thats what passes for justice in the USA. A dangerous terrorist is brought to trial in the USA. No alleged or any other nuenced language. Guilty as charged before the trial even takes place. You are going to give him a trial and then hang him. I guess it will be okay to use the evidence that was tortured out of him etc. "American Justice", an oxymoron if there ever was one.

[analisethis]

I suppose that John walker Lindh having fought with the taliban and then captured is much safer than gitmo detainees. "not in my back yard "is an absurd and obscene argument.

[HST]

According to the Republicans bringing suspects to trial on American soil puts us all at risk. Nevermind the fact that we have jails full of murders, rapists and domestic extremists. The GOPers are scared we can't handle a few foreigners. What a bunch of chickens** babies. The fear card is so 2004.

[setman]

"this is the first step in the Democrats' plan to import terrorists into America."

Why would the Democrats do this? Everyone knows terrorists tend to vote Republican. ( see Scott Roeder)

[bvongrabe]

Haha, that's a good one

[passthesewords]

Osama Bin Laden was indicted by a United States grand jury on 8 June 98 on charges for killing five Americans at a U.S. operated Saudi National Gurad training center in Riyadh. Osama Bin Laden, has a $25mm bounty on his head, he became the 456th person on the FBI Most Wanted List, he authorized the 9/11 attack on our country and Rep. John Boeher, Newt, Palin, Rush and the Republicans are saying we cannot close Gitmo and bring to trial terroist (Osama Bin Laden) if he's ever caught, in our courts. Where do we hold a trial for Osama Bin Laden? New Zealand? Someone needs to ask simple questions of these people. Please have them explain to the families of 9/11 this line of thought.

[LMPE]

The next step would be to return Guantanamo to Cuba.

[Emmory]

Why not turn the terrorists over to Castro as well?
What would Castro do with these terrorists?
Lets think...