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You are here: Home / Politics / War on Terror / War on Terror aka GSAVE® / Someone Explain to Me Why We Can’t Try Them Again?

Someone Explain to Me Why We Can’t Try Them Again?

by John Cole|  January 25, 20112:48 pm| 51 Comments

This post is in: War on Terror aka GSAVE®

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Life in prison with no chance of parole for one of our maiden trials of terrorists:

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the first former Guantánamo Bay camp detainee to be tried in the civilian court system, was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday for his role in the 1998 bombings of two United States Embassies in East Africa.

The nearly simultaneous attacks in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killed 224 people and wounded thousands.

Mr. Ghailani, 36, was convicted on Nov. 17 of a single count of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property, while being acquitted of more than 280 charges of murder and conspiracy.

But the many acquittals seemed to carry little weight with the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of United States District Court, who, before imposing the sentence, said that “Mr. Ghailani knew and intended that people would be killed as a result of his own actions and the conspiracy he joined.”

The judge rejected the defense’s request for a lesser sentence, saying, “The very purpose of the crime was to create terror by causing death and destruction.”

So someone explain to me what went wrong and why this process is such a bad thing? Hell, it’s the perfect outcome, because he won’t even be martyred like he would if he had received the death penalty.

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51Comments

  1. 1.

    NobodySpecial

    January 25, 2011 at 2:51 pm

    So someone explain to me what went wrong and why this process is such a bad thing?

    Because shut up, that’s why.

  2. 2.

    August J. Pollak

    January 25, 2011 at 2:52 pm

    Actually the Freepers are complaining about two things: that they aren’t putting him to death, and that it took to long.

    Admittedly the latter is because they’re upset he wasn’t killed immediately cowboy-hangin’ style, but wingers complaining about how long someone was indefinitely detained just makes my head hurt.

  3. 3.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    January 25, 2011 at 2:53 pm

    1. Because it would be a success by the Obama administration, and we can’t have that.
    2. It would show that Democrats are soft on terror because they want to follow the law.
    3. Now he might escape and do something bad, unlike all of the American criminals that escape.
    4. If this is the outcome, then people wouldn’t be afraid, and then they’ll stop voting Republican.

    ETA: And I mean 2 to be a dig at Democrats in Congress for not standing up to support doing the right thing.

  4. 4.

    cleek

    January 25, 2011 at 2:55 pm

    So someone explain to me what went wrong and why this process is such a bad thing?

    because the wingnuts have shrieked themselves into believing the nonsensical idea that any non-military solution to terrorism is liberal, wrong, and weak.

  5. 5.

    cyntax

    January 25, 2011 at 2:55 pm

    …he won’t even be martyred like he would if he had received the death penalty

    The teahadists and jihadists are both disappointed on this one.

    See, Obama is a uniter. Resentment ponies for everyone!

  6. 6.

    General Stuck

    January 25, 2011 at 2:59 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):

    Solid list. But #4 is a little more true than the others, imo. Got to keep them looking like fire breathing dragons with omnipotent powers for maximum fear leverage. Can’t do that with images of guilty verdicts on murrican teevees. CNN had a poll out yesterday showing Obama trusted on dealing with terrorism by 60 percent over wingers. Drinking their milkshakes.

    4. If this is the outcome, then people wouldn’t be afraid, and then they’ll stop voting Republican.

  7. 7.

    joe from Lowell

    January 25, 2011 at 3:00 pm

    @cleek:

    because the wingnuts have shrieked themselves into believing the nonsensical idea that any non-military solution to terrorism is liberal, wrong, and weak.

    I think this is really it. For a few years now, Republicans have been 1) making up a line of spin for political effect, 2) believing their own spin, and 3) basing their political actions on it.

    They believe that civilian trials for terrorists are a bad idea because a bunch of their leaders made that argument a couple years ago to attack Obama, so now it’s become gospel.

    It’s an odd little feedback loop.

  8. 8.

    dr. bloor

    January 25, 2011 at 3:01 pm

    Life without parole for one count of conspiracy? Why are we bothering with trials at all?

  9. 9.

    AB

    January 25, 2011 at 3:03 pm

    The system clearly didn’t work, because he was only convicted on a single charge. That means America won once, true, but it means America LOST 280+ times. How am I supposed to get excited about waving my big America foam finger with that kind of a win/loss ratio? You’re not looking at this through the right lens if you think people are complaining for any reason that actually has to do with the goal of keeping terrorists imprisoned.

  10. 10.

    Mattminus

    January 25, 2011 at 3:04 pm

    Now we’ll have to develop a prison capable of withstanding his atomic terror eye beams. Nice going, libtards.

  11. 11.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    January 25, 2011 at 3:05 pm

    @joe from Lowell:

    It’s an odd little feedback loop.

    Which is why it sounds exactly like a microphone in front of a speaker.

  12. 12.

    General Stuck

    January 25, 2011 at 3:07 pm

    You have to remember the genesis of wingnuts grasping at keeping Americans afraid of boogymen terrorists. It was literally the only issue the public gave them credit for for years during Bush, when everything else was turning to shit. Out of power, they bullshitted their way to some higher polling numbers on a few other issues, but old memes die hard, especially when it was your only Ace in the hole.

  13. 13.

    New Yorker

    January 25, 2011 at 3:07 pm

    So someone explain to me what went wrong and why this process is such a bad thing?

    Because hate-American lib’ruls want terrorists to go free so they can kill again. I mean, just look at this blog and all the people here who root for al Qaeda.

    /Mark Levin parody.

  14. 14.

    JWL

    January 25, 2011 at 3:07 pm

    Double Jeopardy: The usurpation of a nation’s political process by corporate interests wed to state power is called what?

  15. 15.

    cleek

    January 25, 2011 at 3:09 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):
    the sound of the future is an ice pick scratching your ear drum, forever.

  16. 16.

    agrippa

    January 25, 2011 at 3:09 pm

    He did not need to be sentenced to 281 life terms; one is sufficient. The system did function effectively.

  17. 17.

    Maude

    January 25, 2011 at 3:09 pm

    You have to wonder how much info would come out at a trial that would make IOIYR into it’s not okay.
    The Republicans would like to keep this under the carpet. There’s a lot of dirt under there.

  18. 18.

    Zifnab

    January 25, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    So someone explain to me what went wrong and why this process is such a bad thing?

    We can’t put the detainees in front of a court system. Government is never the solution, always the problem. We have to let the military handle this, not the government.

    Also, government out of my Medicare. Etc. Etc.

  19. 19.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    January 25, 2011 at 3:11 pm

    @dr. bloor:

    As they usta say in the Olde West: “We’ll give you a fair trail and a fine hangin'”.

    Can’t say that w/o the death penalty although it still has more cachet than “We’ll give you a fair trial and life without parole”

  20. 20.

    matt

    January 25, 2011 at 3:19 pm

    What is the probability of a false guilty verdict for an innocent man who has been held in Guantanamo? Lower then 1 in 280?

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    January 25, 2011 at 3:22 pm

    Because it would be a success by the Obama administration, and we can’t have that.

    And

    because the wingnuts have shrieked themselves into believing the nonsensical idea that any non-military solution to terrorism is liberal, wrong, and weak.

    Yep. I think that pretty much nails it.

    The crazy thing is that Orwell got it wrong. We don’t have Big Brother calling for perpetual war against permanent enemies, we have a hard, insane core of the citizenry demanding it.

  22. 22.

    Sly

    January 25, 2011 at 3:22 pm

    So someone explain to me what went wrong and why this process is such a bad thing?

    Because it lacks a fundamental mistrust of the equitable application of the law.

  23. 23.

    anticontrarian

    January 25, 2011 at 3:24 pm

    So someone explain to me what went wrong and why this process is such a bad thing?

    Because it doesn’t make anyone feel manly and potent?

  24. 24.

    Steve

    January 25, 2011 at 3:29 pm

    Something that may boggle the minds of non-lawyers is that if you’re found guilty on 1 count and not guilty on the other 99 counts (or however many), the judge is still allowed to take those 99 counts into account when he determines your sentence. So you were acquitted on those other counts, but if the judge thinks you did the deed anyway, you may wind up with a much longer sentence than if you had only been charged with the single count on which you were found guilty.

  25. 25.

    Dave

    January 25, 2011 at 3:34 pm

    Because they don’t want justice. They want blood.

  26. 26.

    peach flavored shampoo

    January 25, 2011 at 3:35 pm

    Mr. Ghailani, 36, was convicted on Nov. 17 of a single count of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property, while being acquitted of more than 280 charges of murder and conspiracy.

    Life for conspiracy? Dayum! Talk about CWB (Crime’in While Brown)

  27. 27.

    Mike R.

    January 25, 2011 at 3:37 pm

    It’s because the righties think that only Americans should receive the benefit of a system that is far more likely to prove itself worthy of providing justice than whatever process they hold dear. The fact that anyone at Guantanamo is still breathing is all it takes to set them off.

    It’s sad too because so many teachers taught me respect for our judicial system while so many in the country apparently were never given the opportunity to learn just how effective it really can be. We didn’t have the chapter where you make up the rules as you go along.

  28. 28.

    Mart

    January 25, 2011 at 3:37 pm

    I thought there was an excellent success rate with Bush era trials of terrorists in NYC, that has continued with Obama. The problems with convictions start with torture, where the evidence can not be used – i.e. 280 counts waived. Isn’t that why Gitmo is still open, we can’t go to trial due to torture, so we keep them caged?

    Also, hasn’t Obama decride that it light of all the success of civilian trials in NYC, and despite Liz Cheney’s protestation of millions in cost and NYC in flames not coming to fruition, all future trials will be military?

  29. 29.

    joe from Lowell

    January 25, 2011 at 3:41 pm

    @Mart:

    Also, hasn’t Obama decride that it light of all the success of civilian trials in NYC, that despite Liz Cheney’s protestation of millions in cost and NYC in flames not coming to fruition, all future trials will be military?

    Obama has decided that he wants a combination of civilian and military trials for various suspectds, but is being blocked by Congress, who can use their purse strings and federal-court-jurisdiction powers to block him from bringing suspects to the U.S. for trial in federal courts.

  30. 30.

    Chris

    January 25, 2011 at 3:41 pm

    Hell, it’s the perfect outcome, because he won’t even be martyred like he would if he had received the death penalty.

    Beyond the moral arguments, that’s the main argument I have against them. Let them rot in prison where no one remembers who they are.

    @Dave:

    Because they don’t want justice. They want blood.

    Best answer. And the same answer also explains Iraq and Afghanistan.

  31. 31.

    burnspbesq

    January 25, 2011 at 3:44 pm

    Wallah, criminal justice system, WAI.

  32. 32.

    Tsulagi

    January 25, 2011 at 3:46 pm

    Someone Explain to Me Why We Can’t Try Them Again?

    As a recently minted elitist Democrat, you now don’t see the big picture like the deep thinking R-baggers.

    Congressman Steve King (TP-Iowa) can see the future. If you bring those fuckers on American soil, somehow, someway whether they be released on a technicality or maybe escape those really devious jihadis will then walk into the nearest U.S. embassy (run by the commie State Dept.), be granted asylum, and then be on the path to US citizenship which everyone knows they covet. You can’t fool that congressman, again. He just knows there are US embassies in every American city, and they’re all just waiting to do that.

    Kinda funny, the Harper’s post I linked to above dated Jan 09 is titled “GOP Marketing Makeover Hits Snag: How do you rebrand stupid?” The answer: TEA PARTY!! Full of happily permanently outraged little teabaggers. No one could have predicted. Well, maybe some.

  33. 33.

    trollhattan

    January 25, 2011 at 3:46 pm

    @Mattminus:

    I was going to bring up containment of their Jihadi-Brand(tm) Superpowers, but I like yours better.

  34. 34.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    January 25, 2011 at 3:51 pm

    @joe from Lowell: How often are we going to have to mention 98-0 before the belief that Obama has a choice in this matter dies?

  35. 35.

    windshouter

    January 25, 2011 at 3:53 pm

    If you leave everyone to be tried in military commissions, no one except the President has to take responsibility for acquittals where the freed person later does something bad.
    To do anything else spreads responsibility throughout a system that fundamentally does not want it. That’s one thing that gets missed constantly. In order to share power, some other branch must want the power. If no one wants to share the power, the power will rest in one central place.

  36. 36.

    joe from Lowell

    January 25, 2011 at 3:54 pm

    @Tsulagi: Isn’t it funny how Republicans are always talking about prosecution by the DoJ and trial in front of the federal judiciary as being so soft, so full of loopholes – right up until one of them gets indicted?

    Given the regularity with which they are indicted, you’d think that they’d lay off the trash talk about the courts.

  37. 37.

    J.W. Hamner

    January 25, 2011 at 3:55 pm

    @joe from Lowell:

    The original “law enforcement approach to terrorism” criticism was invoked to blame Clinton for 9/11 IIRC, so it’s near and dear to conservative hearts.

  38. 38.

    joe from Lowell

    January 25, 2011 at 3:56 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):

    How often are we going to have to mention 98-0 before the belief that Obama has a choice in this matter dies?

    It’s difficult to make a man understand something that his self-image as a brave dissident depends upon his not understanding.

  39. 39.

    joe from Lowell

    January 25, 2011 at 3:58 pm

    @J.W. Hamner:

    The original “law enforcement approach to terrorism” criticism was invoked to blame Clinton for 9/11 IIRC

    Sure, but even as they were doing that, the Bush administration was 1) designating the Attorney General (not the SecDef) as the lead on counter-terrorism, and 2) trying terrorism suspects in federal court.

    It’s just nonsense. It’s not even something that the people saying it actually believe.

  40. 40.

    catclub

    January 25, 2011 at 4:08 pm

    @JWL: Oooh, ooh, pick me!
    What is fascism?

  41. 41.

    Steve

    January 25, 2011 at 4:12 pm

    @peach flavored shampoo: The law is different in every jurisdiction, but generally conspiracy gets you a sentence only slightly less harsh than the sentence for the actual offense you conspired to commit. It’s not really a slap-on-the-wrist type of crime.

  42. 42.

    Sasha

    January 25, 2011 at 4:26 pm

    Because Democrats are not the party of national security. Republicans are.

    Thus, any solution offered by Democrats to national security problems is de facto inferior to whatever solution the Republicans champion.

  43. 43.

    Mart

    January 25, 2011 at 4:32 pm

    I got a contributing factor – Bloomberg sold out.

  44. 44.

    Citizen_X

    January 25, 2011 at 4:38 pm

    @dr. bloor: @peach flavored shampoo: Oh, for fuck’s sake. Taking part in simultaneous terror bombings hundreds of miles apart is by definition conspiracy. It’s not like they’re going by hearsay evidence about something whispered between two guys; they’re going by all the bodies piled up in two distant capital cities.

    The vast majority of them brown.

  45. 45.

    gnomedad

    January 25, 2011 at 4:39 pm

    Wingers can’t stand it when the Constitution they fetishize is applied to people they already know are evil.

  46. 46.

    acallidryas

    January 25, 2011 at 4:50 pm

    Well, as we’ve all heard, no American prison can hold a Muslim Terrorist, the strongest, bravest, and cleverest of all evil creatures. You won’t be feeling so smug when he inevitably breaks out and imposes Sharia law on the country.

  47. 47.

    Beauzeaux

    January 25, 2011 at 5:01 pm

    I was in Nairobi and heard the bomb explode (August 1998) and I saw the raw footage on Kenyan TV. The overwhelming majority of the people who were killed and maimed were Kenyan civilians (including a passing busload of children).

    Anyone and everyone who played a part in that atrocity should go to prison for life.

  48. 48.

    David in NYC

    January 25, 2011 at 5:19 pm

    Because double jeopardy is unconstitutional (5th Amendment). LOL I think you mean “Someone Explain to Me AGAIN…”

    Hate to be the grammar police, but you know how some wingnut will turn it into DFHs supporting something bad.

  49. 49.

    piratedan

    January 25, 2011 at 6:15 pm

    but you see…if we give them a public trial in our court system then they’ll be able to use that as a podium to preach their hate and beliefs and create even more terrorists from which America itself will never be able to recover…ummm, what…right?

    ohhh that only happens if the media is paying attention… sorry about that…feel free to go about your business.

  50. 50.

    joe from Lowell

    January 25, 2011 at 7:12 pm

    Hey, that’s right: the “platform.” I’d totally forgotten about the “platform.”

    Look, I only intend to allow one African guy with a crazed, anti-American ideology to use a forum provided by the Constitution to preach his message to me this month, and he’s on the networks at 9 tonight.

  51. 51.

    honus

    January 25, 2011 at 7:19 pm

    Because the only true parts of the constitution say “no taxes” and “everybody can have guns” all that stuff about secure in their homes and habeus corpus and trial by jury doesn’t count.

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