9/11

9/11, al Qaeda, al-Ajmi, Boumediene v. Bush, Debra Burlingame, Guantanamo, Lawfare

Debra Burlingame: Boumediene v. Bush a Strategic Victory for al Qaeda

by  • 

Today’s Supreme Court decision, Boumediene v. Bush, is a huge victory for terrorists and a step backward in the war against radical Islamists. If 9/11 taught us anything, it is that the criminal justice system is not capable of preventing catastrophic terrorists attacks — nor is it designed to be. Never in the history of American jurisprudence have we given full Constitutional rights to terrorists captured anywhere in the world who commit atrocities on civilians.

The lawyers who are championing the rights of terrorists should tell the public what this decision really means. It means that terrorists will be entitled to Miranda rights, to legal representation and the right to remain silent. And they will. When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, was handed over to the U.S. after his capture in Karachi in 2003, he taunted his interrogators with this, “I’ll talk to you guys in New York when I see my lawyer.” But they won’t tell the public, they will continue to talk about preserving the rights of people who would behead journalists, blow up children and fly commercial airliners into buildings, as if those acts are an abstraction. What this decision ultimately means is that the vital intelligence we need to prevent future attacks — the kind of intelligence we didn’t have on September 10, 2001 — will dry up. We will be left reacting to these attacks after the fact — just as we did in the ten years prior to the murder of 3,000 of our fellow human beings.

Something else the lawyers won’t tell the public. Dealing with terrorists in the criminal justice system means that only the most clear-cut cases will result in convictions. Terrorists like Mohammed Atta, Hani Hanjour, Ziad Jarrah and Marwan al-Shehhi, the men who piloted those planes into the WTC, the Pentagon and the ground on 9/11 would have stood a very good chance of acquittal if they were captured in an Al Qaeda training camp in the summer of 2001. The burden of proof in the civil criminal system — beyond a reasonable doubt — is extraordinarily high. Their lawyers back then would have argued that that they have no criminal history, had committed no hostile acts against the U.S. governmnent and in fact were simply religious Muslims doing charity work on holiday, the very claims Gitmo lawyers made about Abdullah Al-Ajmi and hundreds of other detainees. Al-Ajmi was released from Guantanamo in 2005. In April, he blew himself up in Iraq, killing 7 Iraqi security forces and maiming 28 others.

Justice Scalia is right that today’s opinion will result in the death of Americans. His words remind me of the beleaguered FBI agent, Harry Sammit, who pleaded with his superiors at FBI headquarters to be allowed to launch a nationwide manhunt for Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf Al-Hazmi, two of the hijackers on my brother’s plane, 3 weeks before 9/11. He was turned down by the lawyers in the National Security Law Unit of the FBI, who cited the FISA law that prevented this intelligence information from being used by the criminal division. The point of that law — known as “the wall” — was CIVIL LIBERTIES protection for the terrorists who were the object of that never-launched manhunt, should they ever be caught and brought to trial. Sammit wrote in an email, on Aug. 31, 2001:

“Someday someone will die…and the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing everything we had at certain problems. Let’s hope [the lawyers] will stand behind their decisions then, expecially since the biggest threat to us now, [bin laden], is getting the most protection.”

The media can call this a “defeat for the Bush administration,” but it is not. It is a defeat for the American people. And, God help us, when the next catastrophic attack occurs under the next American president’s watch, who will the media blame then? They won’t be thinking about President Bush. The families of those who are dead will be able to draw a straight, clear line right to the steps of their own U.S. Supreme Court.

[Editor — View and save a copy of the entire decision by clicking here (pdf).]

9/11, Debra Burlingame, Guantanamo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, September 11

9/11 Families’ Differing Views Of Justice: the full price for war crimes vs. style and no more hugs

by  • 

CBS News reports:

After years in detention, this week marked the first time that five men accused of direct involvement in the September 11, 2001, terrorism attacks on America made their first joint appearance in a military court, at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It was the start of a process which, the government expects, will bring justice for the families of 9/11 victims. But, as heard from two close relatives of the victims, those families don’t view the Guantanamo proceedings the same way.

“We must not forget the 2,973 people that were so brutally murdered as a result of this conspiracy,” said Debra Burlingame. Her brother, Charles [Charles Frank “Chic” Burlingame III], was the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77, the hijacked plane that crashed into the Pentagon on September 11.
…
“This is a way to be there for him, to witness for him these men getting American justice,” she said. The five men arraigned this week are accused of planning 9/11, training the 19 hijackers, and wiring them money to carry out the attacks. “They are being given a great deal more of due process then they deserve, quite frankly,” Burlingame said.

The long-delayed commissions are controversial – such as allowing government prosecutors to use hearsay evidence and statements coerced from the detainees under torture … while limiting the witnesses whom detainees may call. But Burlingame supports the process wholeheartedly. “We mustn’t let this turn into a focus so much on process that we forget who it is we are dealing with and what it is they did,” she said.

Process is a focus for Carie Lemak [sic] [Editor — the correct spelling of her last name is ‘Lemack’], whose mother Judy [Judith Camilla Larocque] was aboard American Airlines Flight 11, the first hijacked plane to crash into the World Trade Center. She said she rejects any mistreatment of detainees that’s occurred and, she says, so would her mother. “These are not good people, but I’m also very concerned about the system of justice that this country stands for, and want to make sure that we have trials that aren’t perceived as kangaroo courts around the world,” Lemak said. “She would want to see the American system of justice demonstrated around the globe for what it is, which is a beacon of hope – that even though they can treat us terribly, we are going to treat them humanely.”

At his arraignment, defendant Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged architect of 9/11, told the commission he would welcome becoming a “martyr” – and that worries Lemak, who opposes the death penalty sought by the government in this case. “I want them to go to jail for the rest of their lives,” she said. “Since my mom’s been murdered, the biggest kind of torture for me is not being able to hug her ever again, and to me that’s the fate that these people deserve – to be locked up in a jail cell for the rest of their lives and never get to hug anyone they love again.”

Update: Also see how al Qaeda wins