Jane Mayer on Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 defendants in military tribunals instead of civilian courts:
Today’s news that K.S.M. is slated now for a military trial in the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, rather than facing a criminal trial in the civilian justice system that Holder believed was more fitting, may indeed be the defining moment for the Obama Justice Department, defining it, unfortunately, as incapable of standing up to to the political passions still stirred by the threat of terrorism.
….“History will show that the decisions we’ve made are the right ones,” [Holder said last year.] After telling me that he regarded the trial as a defining event, he added, “Between now and then I suspect we’re in for some interesting times.” At his press conference today, he said, “I have to deal with the situation as I find it.”
It’s a cowardly decision, and not just from Holder and Obama. There was cowardice and demagoguery aplenty in this entire sorry episode.
