Obama Admin. "Dithering" On Terror Trial Location

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Stop Dithering, Holder


The terror trials won't be in Manhattan. The other federal court options aren’t much better. Gerald L. Shargel on why Eric Holder should put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on the stand in Gitmo.

The too-hot-to-handle Khalid Sheikh Mohammed travelin' road show has been run out of Gotham. The cover story is that a vacillating mayor, succumbing to pressure from commercial and residential neighbors, convinced both the White House and Justice Department to abandon the resolute plan to try the accused terrorist at the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan. The more likely story is that Attorney General Eric Holder blinked in the face of mounting criticism and the White House used the Bloomberg about-face (real or not) to escape from New York.

Although there is yet to be an official announcement, the widely reported alternative is to hold the KSM trial on a military base or in a federal prison. There has also been speculation about trying the case at a federal courthouse outside of New York City, with specific mention of the courthouse in White Plains. These alternatives are fraught with their own problems.

The federal court in White Plains, like almost all outlying courts, is particularly unsuited to meet the security issues that are freighted along with a terrorist trial. The closest jail, from which the defendant-inmates would need to be transported daily, is 20 miles away in Valhalla. The courthouse itself sits alone on a vulnerable corner bordering streets that would be nearly impossible to close.

A federal prison or military base would surely meet security concerns but the attendant problems would reach constitutional proportions. The Sixth Amendment guarantees a public trial, a right that the courts do not take lightly.

Only last month the Supreme Court, in Presley v. Georgia, reinforced the right to a public trial and reversed a criminal conviction where a lone spectator, the defendant's uncle, was excluded from the courtroom during jury selection. What arrangement can be made to accommodate the defendant's right to an open trial as well as the public's right to attend a trial if the proceeding is held within a prison? How is the plan to use a prison or military facility even being contemplated without addressing this core constitutional issue?

Trying the KSM case in a prison or on a military base presents an even larger question. The whole point of trying accused terrorists in a civilian court is to make it plain to "friend and foe alike" that terrorist acts, no matter how heinous, cannot shake the foundation of our republic nor its criminal justice system. Holding the trial at a military base or prison is so far outside conventional process that the intended message is defeated. Terrorist organizations would celebrate the fact that we have capitulated to the fears that they intended to instill.

The search for alternative venues will only strengthen the point originally recognized by both the federal and local government: The federal court in Manhattan is particularly well-suited for terrorist trials, as shown by a track record of successful prosecutions, including the prosecution of those involved in the 1993 plot to bomb the World Trade Center. In the federal courthouse the requisite secure facilities are already in place. The federal jail is only steps away, and those steps are taken through an underground tunnel with no public access. The jail itself is one of the most secure in the country, with its claustrophobic "terrorist floor," where inmates are kept in some form of deep lock 24 hours a day. And, of course, a trial in the Manhattan federal courthouse, subject to appropriate security measures, would be open to the public.

But make no mistake about it. A trial of KSM and other designated detainees accused of terrorist acts at the Manhattan federal courthouse will carry with it an enormous price, measured not only in dollars. Lives will be disrupted. Several federal judges, as well as prosecutors who were previously involved in terrorist cases, lived for years under the complete protection of the U.S. Marshals Service. Lawyers and litigants in unrelated cases will face a huge inconvenience upon approaching and entering the courthouse. And it cannot be disputed that the security measures necessary to prosecute KSM will be felt, like shockwaves, through lower Manhattan. So the real question is not whether another federal court or another federal facility would be better suited; the real question is whether civilian authority should have to bear the burden of prosecuting non-citizen terrorists.

The present waffling by the Justice Department and other officials on matters such as location, logistics, security, and cost speaks eloquently in support of abandoning the present plan altogether and holding these trials exclusively before constitutionally constituted military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay. We would first need to recognize that Guantanamo is not the Guantanamo of George W. Bush. While President Obama has not met his promise to close Guantanamo, the facility has become more bearable since he took office.

The torture has ended and the inmate's living conditions have been substantially improved. A military tribunal under the watch of the current administration is not the military tribunal of the Rumsfeld-Cheney era. There is no longer cause to believe that military trials will be unfair or that the accused terrorists will not get the process to which they are due.


Sources: MSNBC, The Daily Beast

House Dems Accuse Senate Dems Of "Dithering"

House Dems: Senate is "Dithering"


House Democrats’ long-simmering frustration with the slow pace of the Senate has begun to boil over, with a broad swath of Democratic representatives accusing their Senate colleagues of failing both their party and their country.

The cross-chamber assessment is brutal:

• “There is a growing sense that we’re lifting more than our share,” says California Rep. Xavier Becerra, a member of the Democrats’ leadership team in the House. “Members are hoping the Senate will kick into gear because the public expects a lot more to get done.”

• “Sometimes I get the feeling that some of those guys [in the Senate] just like to see their names in the paper and see their faces on TV,” says Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern.

• “I talk a lot about the psychology of consensus,” says House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). “Too often, it appears, that the psychology in the Senate is the psychology of one.”

• “When it comes to a jobs bill, the Senate seems more interested in dithering,” says first-year Rep. Tom Perriello, a Virginia Democrat whohas taken heat back home for tough votes on climate change and health care — two issues that remain bottled up in slow-moving Senate deliberations.

• “If you just take a look at the number of bills we’ve sent to the Senate and what they’ve done, I don’t know what they’re doing with their time honestly,” says Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Cal.).

• “I think the majority leader sometimes has to have the leadership to resolve these things,” says Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak, a Democrat challenging Sen. Arlen Specter, in a direct attack on Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “I understand it’s politically challenging, but we have the votes — and we should be doing much better than we are. I think this place needs a change, quite frankly.”

Reid spokesman Jim Manley said he understands the House Democrats’ frustrations but argues that their anger is directed at the wrong set of senators.

“We appreciate their concerns, but give me a break: The real concern is Senate Republicans,” Manley said.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said the Senate is just a different place.

“You see, we have different rules here,” he explained. “It’s called the ‘filibuster.’ Maybe they haven’t followed the number of Republican filibusters here, which is an all-time record.”

Senate Republicans, in turn, say Senate Democrats are to blame: With 60 votes in their caucus — a number that includes independents Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders — Democrats have the votes they need to overcome Republican filibusters if they can just agree among themselves.

But they can’t — or at least they haven’t — and that makes House Democrats nervous that they’ve been left exposed heading into the 2010 midterm elections. They’ve taken the heat for tough vote after tough vote. And with the Senate having failed to act, they have little to show for their efforts.

House Democrats kicked off 2009 by passing a huge economic stimulus package — only to watch it whittled down to win over three recalcitrant Republican senators.

In June, they made a tough vote on climate change in the hope of setting the stage for a deal in Copenhagen — only to watch the bill slide to the back of the line in the Senate.

In November, they worked overtime to approve a health care reform bill — only to watch the Senate slow roll it through long committee deliberations and then an agonizingly slow ballet with Sen. Joe Lieberman and other moderates.



Last week, they passed sweeping reforms for the rules that govern the nation’s financial institutions — knowing full well that the bill won’t look much like the one they passed when — or if — the Senate gets to it.

And this week they’ll try to pass legislation to help address the nation’s unemployment crisis — even though they know there’s no chance the Senate will do its part until after the holiday break.

The Senate started 2009 at a faster clip. At the beginning of the session, it passed legislation to expand children’s health insurance, control tobacco and respond to a Supreme Court decision on gender pay discrimination. But things have slowed down drastically since; the Senate took four weeks to pass a widely supported extension of unemployment benefits when the House passed it in a matter of hours.

For House Democrats, the Senate health care debate has been particularly painful.

The fate of the Senate bill remains in doubt even after Reid made a series of concessions this week to appease Lieberman, who declared that he would join the Republicans in filibustering any bill that contained either a public option or a proposed expansion of Medicare.

Lieberman’s one-man act prompted Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro to call for his recall and another Connecticut Democrat, Rep. John Larson, to ask: “What gives a senator that right?”

The answer: The Senate rules, which give just about any member the power to stall legislation — especially when that member is the would-be 60th vote to invoke cloture.

On the House side, the speaker has the Rules Committee to help limit debate on the floor and keep the minority party - or her own upstarts - in check. In the Senate, an objection from a single senator creates the need for a procedural vote and a time-consuming process that can paralyze the chamber for days.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) — a former House member himself — said there’s built-in tension between the two bodies, and that the tension leads to frustration among members of both.

“I understand that. I meet with them all the time — they are not happy with the pace of our deliberations,” he said. “But unfortunately, it reflects more on the institution than any given member ... [T]he rules here are designed to block. That’s what the founding fathers had in mind.”

Some House Democrats aren’t buying it.

“I know their rules are different over there,” McGovern said. “But like-minded people should be able to come together on this stuff. So it is frustrating. ... They’re definitely slowing things up.”

Of course, not all House Democrats are unhappy with the Senate’s slow pace.

South Dakota Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin said she’s glad the Senate takes more time to consider “legislation [that] is overreaching in some cases.” Still, even she says the Senate has “broken down” as an institution with the use of the filibuster.

Should Reid get a health care bill passed before Christmas, party leaders will still need to decide how to pay for it — through either a tax on high-end plans or a surtax on the wealthy — and then figure out how to wrap up differences on abortion, immigration and cost containment.

But House Democrats aren’t in the mood to trust their colleagues in the Senate, and that will make the process more difficult — even as Democrats acknowledge that they need to start getting some of these bills wrapped up if they want to reap the rewards next November.

Hoyer told reporters on Tuesday that it’s been “a very productive Congress, or House term, but it won’t be productive unless we can get those bills through the Senate.”


Sources: Politico

Dick Cheney Checks Obama On "Dithering", Foreign Policy & Gitmo

Former VP Dick Cheney hits Obama on his recent Afghan Exit Strategy Speech, "Dithering", Foreign Policy Agenda and Gitmo. Listen to the audio below of Cheney's comments.




Did Cheney cross the line in his criticism of Pres. Obama's Afghan War Exit Strategy?

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Sources: Politico, MSNBC

Commander-In-Chief Obama Rejects All Afghan War Options...Is He "Dithering"?

Obama Afghanistan advisers back to drawing board. Anne Gearan, national security writer for the AP, discusses with Rachel Maddow the news that President Obama has rejected all of the options presented to him on Afghanistan.

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Pres. Obama weighs US Troops increase options.

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Cheney criticizes Obama on Afghanistan. Former Vice President Dick Cheney accused President Barack Obama of “waffling” on sending more U.S. troops in Afghanistan and warned him to stop “dithering.” Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy and Air America’s Ron Reagan discusses.

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Official: Pres. Obama rejects all Afghan war options

President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

Obama still is close to announcing his revamped war strategy, most likely shortly after he returns from a trip to Asia that ends on Nov. 19.

The president raised questions at a war council meeting on Wednesday, however, that could alter the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what the timeline would be for their presence in the war zone, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Obama's thinking.

The president is considering options that include adding 30,000 or more U.S. troops to take on the Taliban in major areas of Afghanistan and to buy time for the Afghan government's small and ill-equipped fighting forces to take over. The other three options on the table are ranges of troop increases, from a relatively small addition of forces to the roughly 40,000 that the top U.S. general in Afghanistan prefers, according to military and other officials.

No open-ended commitment

The main sticking points appear to be timelines and mounting questions about the credibility of the Afghan government.

Administration officials said Wednesday that Obama wants to make clear that the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan is not open-ended. The war is now in its ninth year and is claiming U.S. lives at a record pace as military leaders say the Taliban has the upper hand in many parts of the country.

The options presented to Obama by his war council are likely to be amended.

Military officials say one approach is a compromise battle plan that would add 30,000 or more U.S. troops atop a record 68,000 in the country now. They described it as "half and half," meaning half fighting and half training and holding ground so the Afghans can regroup.

The White House says Obama has not made a final choice, although military and other officials have said he appears near to approving a slightly smaller increase than war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal wants at the outset.

Among the options for Obama would be ways to phase in additional troops, perhaps eventually equaling McChrystal's full request, based on security or other conditions in Afghanistan and in response to pending decisions on troop levels by some U.S. allies fighting in Afghanistan.

The White House has chafed under criticism from Republicans and some outside critics that Obama is dragging his feet to make a decision.

Pres. Obama's top military advisers have said they are comfortable with the pace of the process, and senior military officials have pointed out that the president still has time since no additional forces could begin flowing into Afghanistan until early next year.

Range of possibilities

Under the scenario featuring about 30,000 more troops, that number most likely would be assembled from three Army brigades and a Marine Corps contingent, plus a new headquarters operation that would be manned by another 7,000 or more troops, a senior military official said. There would be a heavy emphasis on the training of Afghan forces, and the reinforcements Obama sends could include thousands of U.S. military trainers.

Another official stressed that Obama is considering a range of possibilities for the military expansion, and his eventual decision would cover changes in U.S. approach beyond the addition of troops. The stepped-up training and partnership operation with Afghan forces would be part of that effort, the official said, although expansion of a better-trained Afghan force long has been part of the U.S. objective and the key to an eventual U.S. and allied exit from the country.

With the Taliban-led insurgency expanding in size and ability, U.S. military strategy already has shifted to focus on heading off the fighters and protecting Afghan civilians. The evolving U.S. policy, already remapped early in Obama's tenure, increasingly acknowledges that the insurgency can be blunted but not defeated outright by force.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday he expects Obama to announce his decision on sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan within days.

Brown: Announcement in days

Brown told lawmakers in the House of Commons on Wednesday that he had recently spoken to Obama, "and I expect him to announce in a few days what his numbers for Afghanistan will be."

Asked about Brown's comment, the White House referred to press secretary Robert Gibbs' statement Tuesday that Obama's decision was still weeks away.

The head of the U.S. Central Command also said a decision is near.

Gen. David Petraeus spoke to CNN television on Wednesday shortly before heading into the White House war council session, where troop numbers were under discussion.

"I think we are indeed nearing a decision on this very important topic," Petraeus said.



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Sources: MSNBC, Google Maps