Well, this is going to be fun. I admit that I find it odd to seek the death penalty as punishment for those whose most fervent desire is martyrdom through death. Isn't that rather like punishing a bank robber by giving him the keys to the vault? In any case:
Sitting at the front of a line of five detainees accused of carrying out the most devastating terrorist attack in U.S. history, Mohammed stroked his long, bushy gray beard and spoke in confident English of his contempt for the U.S. Constitution and the military commissions designed to try him.Contempt for the Constitution? An "inquisition"? Oh no he di'in't!
Calling the process an "inquisition," Mohammed told Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, the presiding judge, that he wants to represent himself at trial and looks forward to the death penalty.
Even acquittal would probably leave the men in U.S. custody indefinitely. The government has determined them to be "enemy combatants" and serious threats to the United States and its allies.Oh. So. Well.
Claims that the Anglo-Saxon model of justicial proceduralism is a guarantor of actual justice are overblown, but nevertheless it seems clear that the presumption of innocence, evidentiary rules, impartial (such as it is) review, etc. form at very least a reasonably coherent means of determining guilt and meting out penalties. What's interesting about these tribunal proceedings is that they have not, contra the claims of many opponents, actually done away entirely with this process, but have instead simply skipped a step--hopping over the trial phase and going directly to sentencing.
30 comments:
what's funny is that America is already dead, yo.
quit poking at the corpse yo! we already killed America. thanks for playing.
Oh man, I love these guys. Can't wait till they get their martyrdom so we can nail the "that's what the terrorists WANT you to do!" crowd to the wall.
It's too bad this thing isn't televised, I'd get cable again to watch it.
IOZ,
what are you, pro-evildoer now?
death itself isn't the goal but rather what's done before death...
but ya, due process my ass.
The government case is largely designed to obtain death sentences against them. Even acquittal would probably leave the men in U.S. custody indefinitely.
Sweet Jesus.
The trial's not to decide guilt or innocence fairly, but to obtains a pretense for killing these guys.
How is that not an inquisition?
Fuck, this country makes my skin crawl.
Oh, also, I love how the paper has to put "allegedly" in front of all their crimes, even though the government has already found them guilty of such crimes that they must be locked away forever with no rights.
"hopping over the trial phase and going directly to sentencing"
Well, if the outcomes are either indefinite imprisonment or execution then they've skipped sentencing too and moved to pleading for a commutation. I guess this explains why they see the defense as having the burden of proof. On the plus side, granting of clemency has always seen as the near-unlimited perogative of the executive, so the fact that these tribunals are entirely arbitrary is consistent with their purpose.
Well, is Mohammed even contesting his guilt? Sorry, hard to work up a tear about this.
I love it. Its one of those rare settings in which the lawyers are the good guys! Snuggled between people advocating the mass slaughter of civilians and those who would torture and permanently imprison them, the lawyers look (and are!) downright virtuous insisting on due process, fairness, and justice.
I don't know about you la rana, but I am always one of the the good guys. And these men are accused of orchestrating the killing of 3,000+ innocent people (which again, I believe they are quite proud of), so what's so offensive about seeking permanent imprisonment or, dare I say, the death penalty for their crimes?
Okay, now I know Erin is a disingenuous creep, because there's no way she doesn't know what all the uproar over Gitmo, newly reopened Soviet gulags, habeas corpus, etc. is all about, but she pretends everyone's just a big ol' bleeding heart worried about hurting evildoer's fee-fees. Fuck off, you scum.
disgustipated - awww - i've missed you too
Ya know, I'm going to actually stand up for the criminal trial system in the US. Yeah it's not perfect but cops, judges, prosecutors and even from defense lawyers know (KNOW!) the guy did it so they view the whole jury trial thing as a waste of time.
What they don't know is that juries are the only people who are actually going to give a fair hearing to your side of things. Not always, but they are willing to listen.
the lawyers look (and are!) downright virtuous insisting on due process, fairness, and justice
Well, someone's gotta keep the handbasket steady on it's way to hell.
erin said:
"These men are accused of orchestrating the killing of 3,000+ innocent people (which again, I believe they are quite proud of)."
so the scope of the alleged crime is so huge that all notions of due process, human rights, presumption of innocence go right out the window? kill the bastard? for justice???
what you're doing is the same thing the white house does: you think accusation is the same thing as guilt. the fact that our government has killed hundreds of thousands of civilians after just such an accusation turned out to be patently false ought to force you into giving your bloodlust some second thought.
Erin: "don't know about you la rana, but I am always one of the the good guys."
How adorable. You think that if you say you are good, the decisions you collectively make and support are good. I dunno if I'm the first one to break this to you, but everyone thinks they are good. Ergo...catch up with the rest of us.
Agi: Tongue planted firmly in cheek.
Anon 2:41 - I am suggesting merely that you save your outrage for someone "falsely" accused, or who at least claims to be.
I read another news story in the 06/07/08 LA Times on the Guantanamo trials decrying that the media is being required to sit behind a glass partition and that there will be a 20-second delay in the sound they hear, among other things, prevent national security secrets from being disclosed, as if that's not a valid enough reason?!
But the Times story also stated, “Mohammed has confessed his responsibility for 9/11 during an earlier proceeding: ‘I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z.’ He also claimed he personally murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, among other atrocities: ‘I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl.’”
Again, hard to work up a tear.
la rana - I was really kind of joking with that comment, given how popular my views are in these parts.
I am suggesting merely that you save your outrage for someone "falsely" accused, or who at least claims to be.
Actually, i think KSM is the perfect example of how torture doesn't work. After all, they had four and a half years and the entire menu of techniques including "a little dunking in the water" and all the manage to get out of him was this
And once again, Erin, though I'm sure you already know this, if the motherfucker is so proudly evil, then there's no need to go to all the extra-Constitutional lengths, including torture, to prove it.
And, you know, if any of the inmates at Gitmo or any of our secret prisons around the world would ever actually be accused of anything in a courtroom, other than vaguely offending the voices in President Shitferbrains' head, then perhaps I could express my outrage on their behalf and win your respect, you model of intellectual honesty and integrity, you.
How did Nice Guy Eddie put it? "If you fucking beat this prick long enough, he'll tell you he started the goddamn Chicago fire, now that don't necessarily make it fucking so!"
I have no idea what KSM may or may not have done. I don't even know if the guy held by that name is even really him - for all I know he's some Kabul taxi driver who really does see five lights. That's the thing - it is now pretty much impossible to know, because all of the evidence has been irredeemably corrupted by the process.
that there will be a 20-second delay in the sound they hear, among other things, prevent national security secrets from being disclosed, as if that's not a valid enough reason?!
Yes, wouldn't want to hear the details on all that torture that we're certainly not doing, wink wink.
I love seeing idiots like Erin being all earnest in defense of authoritarianism. I guess I really am jaded.
"the presumption of innocence" is a mummied relic of America's fictional narrative about democracy and justice. 'Testilying' is the basis of law in Metropolis.
If those dirty dirty terrorists are so obviously guilty of murder and other crimes worthy of capital punishment then why exactly don't we spend the $50k and 9 months to try their asses legitimately [it's called submitting the state's secrets evidence in camera: the Federal courts have a procedure for that!], hang the fuckers and call it a day?
Oh right: [indefinite jailing + torture, followed by bullshit trials and more jailing + torture + maybe execution] accomplish our goals much more efficiently (while upholding Constitutional principles)! Silly me.
all I am asking for here is a sense of proportion
sorry, I now see that was too much to ask
Actually, erin, I think you were asking for more than that. (Just about every time someone says that "all they were asking for was" or "all they were saying was", they're lying.) Perhaps you need a sense of proportion. Disagreeing with you =/= no sense of proportion.
Back when Tim McVeigh was executed for the Oklahoma City bombing, a local newspaper pundit opined that McVeigh wasn't "the best poster child" for abolishing the death penalty. I wrote a column myself, arguing that in fact someone like him is the best "poster child." Most people will agree that an innocent person shouldn't be executed for a crime he/she didn't commit; some will even agree that a genuinely guilty, but repentant person should not be executed. But if opposition to the death penalty is serious, it includes the worst people.
Ditto for torture. Nobody should be tortured, not even George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell -- all of whom have more blood on their hands than any Islamoterrorist. I realize that this goes against all Christian values, since Christianity is based on the doctrine that one infraction, no matter how tiny, merits eternity in hellfire, but I'm not a Christian. And that's one reason why.
Ah, P. Reader, but what she really meant by having "a sense of proportion" is that surely we can agree that these people are so eeeeeeevil, beyond anything that has ever been done before in the history of this demented species of shaved ape, that we should bypass all legalities and normal procedures in order to consign them to the flames of hell post-haste.
I do have to wonder how people like her ever made it through the Cold War, what with actual nuclear missiles pointed at every major American city. She would have probably officially suspended the Constitution back then if she'd had the power.
No, I do not think disagreeing with me equals a lack of sense of proportion. I bring it up in the context of this monster because it seems appropriate to keep in mind that this is someone who does not deny, but revels in his crime. I think it's a point worth making, others disagree, and I understand that that is the nature of blogging. In truth, I learn something from listening to everyone here.
Anyways, you bring up Christianity. I suggest that your understanding of orthodox Christian theology is a bit off. It is not one sin that separates us from God - it is our sin nature. The part of us that inately wants to be God ourselves and to tell God to go f himself. That state of being separates us from God and keeps us from having a relationship with him.
What Christianity proposes in a nutshell is that God loves us in spite of this and became a human being in the form of Jesus to be the sacrifice for our sin and end the separation from God that it creates. Becoming a "Christian" simply means that you accept that state of affairs.
So you can choose to reject his offer, but you cannot blame him for your separation from him. As C S Lewis posits, those who want a life with no part of God in it will get their way when they die (or something to that effect).
Zeus Almighty, Erin, he was talking about hell - and, if I may presume to speak somewhat for him, he's talking about its insane desire to horrifically punish people who aren't part of the program for whatever reason. See how that fits in with this discussion?
Church fathers like Tertullian had no problems admitting that leaning over the ramparts of heaven to enjoy watching the torments of the damned down below was one of the perks of this religion. At one point, it seemed like common sense to people like him to say that unbaptized infants were damned upon death, because hey, the rules are more important than basic logic (contra your assertion that salvation/damnation is a matter of adult "choice"). Most believers today damn sure think that all the "others" are gonna get theirs and get it good, or else why bother being saved in the first place? Hence thinkers like Nietzsche pointing out just how much this supposedly love-filled religion was mainly motivated by ugly ressentiment. That whole thing, that "fanatical revenge on all who oppose us" thing that helps give Christianity its identity, is what he's talking about.
And yeah, blah blah blah, God sacrificed his son to us to save us from being the way he made us in the first place, because free will, yaaaawn. People who still accept the incredibly incoherent Bronze Age notion of one person being "sacrificed" in place of another and having it all add up the same way should be wearing a jacket that buckles in the back, you know.
The notion of sacrifice here derives from the Old Testament requirement of blood being required to remove sin.
And Tertullian sounds like a monster, too, and someone who totally missed the point of what he evidently claimed to believe.
Okay, but without a stick to threaten people who aren't interested in your carrot...you know? (Besides, Bart Ehrman makes it very clear that Jesus - if he existed at all - was an apocalypticist who had no interest in helping to create a better world, as he fully expected this one to end within a matter of weeks - hence the advice to not worry about tomorrow, since it would all be over before you ran out of food or clothing or shelter. And he had no problem with telling people that they were going to suffer tremendously in the coming Kingdom for not being down with the Good News).
There's always that or else hanging around behind all the supposedly good things in Christianity. To people like myself - and apparently Promiscuous Reader - hell is an abominable concept, enough to render the rest of the religion useless as well. What kind of sick fuck could dream up such a place and enjoy the thought of people suffering there for eternity?
But anyhoo, if there's nothing to be saved from, then who cares what some first-century weirdo thought about anything? If making a half-hearted but sincere effort to not be too much of a scumbag is all it takes to get a nice afterlife, then what's the point of identifying with this particular mythology? No matter how much our modern sensibilities want us to downplay or just ignore this bit of primitive barbarism, Christianity needs the idea of hell to give it any sort of coherence whatsoever.
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