September 11

9/11, Barack Obama, Ground Zero, John McCain, September 11, World Trade Center

At Ground Zero, on September 11, tell us about terrorists’ rights, Senator Obama

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Senators Barack Obama and John McCain are scheduled to attend a forum in New York City this Thursday, September 11. Presumably, they will visit the World Trade Center, speak to the media, and make formal comments in some venue. While Senator Obama is there, I hope he expands upon what Constitutional rights terrorists and combatants — both lawful and unlawful — have when found outside of our nation and its territories. Specifically, does he believe they are protected by the same rights as a common criminal found within the United States concerning self-incrimination, searches, and legal representation? Should they have full rights to discovery during prosecution?

My family will be at Ground Zero that day only to remember and honor those who were murdered by terrorists, on our soil, on 9/11. Yet I invite Senator Obama, while there, to repeat what he said in Michigan yesterday:

“First of all, you don’t even get to read them their rights until you catch ’em,” Obama said here, drawing laughs from 1,500 supporters in a high school gymnasium. “They should spend more time trying to catch Osama bin Laden and we can worry about the next steps later.”

If the plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks are in the government’s sights, Obama went on, they should be targeted and killed.

“My position has always been clear: If you’ve got a terrorist, take him out,” Obama said. “Anybody who was involved in 9/11, take ’em out.”

But Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for more than a decade, said captured suspects deserve to file writs of habeus corpus.

Calling it “the foundation of Anglo-American law,” he said the principle “says very simply: If the government grabs you, then you have the right to at least ask, ‘Why was I grabbed?’ And say, ‘Maybe you’ve got the wrong person.'”

The safeguard is essential, Obama continued, “because we don’t always have the right person.”

“We don’t always catch the right person,” he said. “We may think it’s Mohammed the terrorist, but it might be Mohammed the cab driver. You might think it’s Barack the bomb-thrower, but it might be Barack the guy running for president.”

Obama turned back to Palin’s comment, although he said he was not sure whether Palin or Rudy Giuliani said it.

“The reason that you have this principle is not to be soft on terrorism. It’s because that’s who we are. That’s what we’re protecting,” Obama said, his voice growing louder and the crowd rising to its feet to cheer. “Don’t mock the Constitution. Don’t make fun of it. Don’t suggest that it’s not American to abide by what the founding fathers set up. It’s worked pretty well for over 200 years.”

Perhaps Senator Obama will also point out where in our Constitution it says non-Americans, outside the United States, have the same rights as we have here.

Update, 10:42 AM, September 9, 2008:

An emailer had a few questions of their own for Senator Obama:

Of course, Sarah Palin probably doesn’t think the Constitution applies to foreign terrorists. But notice that he says, if they’re involved in 9/11 “take them out.” You mean, assassinate them before a trial? How do we know “they’re involved in 9/11” unless we give them the full monty? And what about the intelligence we might have gotten if we “take them out” without interrogation?

9/11, Mark Levin, September 11

We need to see the images of 9/11

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MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann was upset that they played video at the Republican convention that included the 9/11 attacks. Talk-radio host Mark Levin has a different opinion:

This is the video that Keith Olbermann does not think we should see:

Me.

A friend of a friend took two photographs at 8:49 a.m., September 11, 2001, from about halfway up inisde the South Tower, 14 minutes before Islamic terrorists slammed United Airlines Flight 175 into it. Those photos are hard to look at. They show smoke pouring out of a gaping hole in the North Tower above, from where American Airlines Flight 11 was crashed into it, debris flying, and God knows what else raining down to the courtyard below.

Click on image to enlarge

I know that 48 minutes later, a friend will be in his Pentagon office when American Airlines Flight 77 passes through it. I know that 70 minutes later, my wife’s brother will be fighting fire on the 78th floor of the South Tower when it collapses. I know that 74 minutes later a friend will be harvesting corn just north of Shanksville, see United Airlines Flight 93 come bobbing and weaving over the rise to his northwest, roll over, and watch in horror as it noses into the ground carrying 40 angels. I know that 99 minutes later a friend will pull up between Tower 5 and Tower 7 just as the North Tower crashes down. Thick dust will enclose him and he will crawl out from within a crushed fire truck. As the air clears, he will stand among twisted steel and wonder if the world just ended.

Click on image to enlarge

The images of 9/11 also remind me that my family and the families of the fallen did not face the days ahead alone. Our nation was attacked; millions who had never before known even one of them mourned our dead.

My friend Mark Levin said it well, “We need to see more of it, not less of it, not because we like it but because we hate it.” I would add that a hundred years from now, Americans should look at those images and cry out, “I remember.”

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Editor — To view individual tributes to those killed, please visit Legacy.com.