The Arizona Republic ignores the elephant in the room: unlawful torture

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The "Foxification" of the Arizona Republic continues today with this most disingenuous editorial opinion Terror suspect's civilian trial was a bad idea:

Of the trial of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, accused of terrorism, the best that can be said is that order prevailed. No jurors received threatening calls in the middle of the night. No plot was hatched to blow up the federal courthouse in New York City.

Nearly everything else fell apart, though.

Evidence regarding Ghailani's complicity in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in eastern Africa was suppressed. Witness testimony was struck. And, rolling it all together, of 280 criminal charges against Ghailani, including 224 murder counts, just one stuck: conspiracy to blow up buildings.

After two years of preparation for this trial, after the accumulation of the best forensic evidence investigators could collect, we cannot even call Ghailani a murderer in the eyes of the law. He conspired to bring down buildings. Precisely speaking, we couldn't even prove he actually killed anyone.

The White House and Attorney General Eric Holder, attempting to make the best of this near-debacle, contend that the Ghailani trial vindicates the decision to hold civilian trials of terror suspects. We can only hope they simply are putting lipstick to this pig for face-saving reasons and will quietly put the kibosh to future such show trials.

The editor of the Arizona Republic responsible for this disingenuous tripe (the author of this editorial opinion should have to sign it, I do not want to ascribe blame to all the editors) entirely leaves out the elephant in the room, the reason why the evidence was suppressed and witness testimony (Ghailani's confession) was struck: unlawful torture authorized by the president of the United States, George W. Bush.

Evidence and witness testimony (confessions) obtained by unlawful torture would be and has been suppressed and excluded in military tribunals as well, so the choice of venue of an Article III federal court makes no difference in the evidentiary standard. In fact, I could make the argument that military tribunals are more sensitive to the existence of torture, lest an American in military service face the same mistreatment at the hands of another country.

The editor of this disingenuous editorial opinion, like the partisan talking heads at Fox News, wants to blame president Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder for not getting a conviction on all counts and to suggest that the U.S. Department of Justice somehow did a horrible job in prosecuting this case. That of course is total bullshit from a partisan hack.

That the U.S. Department of Justice was able to get any conviction at all given the existence of unlawful torture in this case is nothing short of remarkable.

Though partisan critics and observers are suggesting the Ghailani verdict weakens the president's call for civilian criminal trials for Guantanamo detainees, a senior administration official pushed back, Senior Administration Official Defends Ghailani Trial, Verdict:

"He was convicted by a jury of a count which carries a 20-year minimum sentence," the official says. "He will very likely be sentenced to something closer to life. (The judge can, and very likely will, take into account things that the jury did not, and he can and will consider conduct that the jury found him not guilty of — e.g., murder). He will never be paroled (there is no parole in the federal system). There are very few federal crimes that carry a mandatory MINIMUM of 20 years. What that means is that he was convicted of a crime that is a very big deal."

"So, we tried a guy (who the Bush Admin tortured and then held at GTMO for 4-plus years with no end game whatsoever) in a federal court before a NY jury with full transparency and international legitimacy and — despite all of the legacy problems of the case (i.e., evidence getting thrown out because of Bush-Admin torture, etc,) we were STILL able to convict him and INCAPACITATE him for essentially the rest of his natural life, AND there was not one — not one — security problem associated with the trial."

"Would it have been better optically if he had been convicted of more counts? Sure. Would it have made any practical difference? No."

Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor and practicing attorney who has handled national security and terrorism cases, addressed this "outcome determinative" GOP talking point at his blog, Ghailani Acquitted On Major Terrorism Charges — Rep. King Responds With Call To Change Legal System:

In a truly disturbing response to the verdict, Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) denounced the jury verdict as “a total miscarriage of justice” and insisted “this tragic verdict demonstrates the absolute insanity of the Obama administration’s decision to try Al Qaeda terrorists in civilian courts.” Of course, no one would accuse New Yorkers as being ambivalent on terrorism.

Nevertheless, Rep. King’s solution to a jury of citizens acquitting an accused person is to rig the system to avoid such juries in the future. It is the most raw demonstration that the interest in the tribunal system is the view that it is outcome determinative and pre-set for convictions. Rep. King appears to be joining the Queen of Hearts that we must have a system that guarantees “sentence first, verdict afterwards.”

Turley later appeared on Hardball with former New York governor George Pataki, a GOP presidential aspirant, who repeated the GOP talking points on the Ghailani verdict and got schooled on constitutional law and American standards of justice by Jonathan Turley — a lesson from which the partisan hack who wrote this editorial opinion in the Arizona Republic should learn, though I doubt it.

President George W. Bush is going around the country on a book tour promoting the revisionist history of his presidency to rehabilitate his "legacy." "W" is actually bragging about having authorized the torture of terrorism suspects — in violation of U.S. law, international law, and treaties on torture to which the U.S. is both a signatory and the principal sponsor. George W. Bush is openly admitting to a war crime. That is his legacy.

The only failure of the Obama administration and Attorney General Eric Holder to "faithfully execute the laws of the United States" is their unwillingness to investigate and to prosecute those individuals who engaged in unlawful torture and those individuals who authorized the unlawful torture, including the self-confessed president George W. Bush. The Obama administration is paralyzed by fear of the partisan political backlash from the right (which now rejects long-standing American opposition to torture) that would result if they "faithfully executed the laws of the United States" and pursued justice.

If the United States does not live up to its legal obligations under law to investigate and to prosecute unlawful torture, another country will do it for us. London Mayor Tells Bush To Stay Out of Londontown — Will International Shunning Become Prosecution?:

Boris Johnson, the conservative Mayor of London, has declared George Bush a persona non grata — asking him to stay out of London with his new torture-touting memoir. The question is whether such international shunning will become actual effort to prosecute Bush, who just confessed to war crimes.

Johnson begins his column without mincing words:

It is not yet clear whether George W Bush is planning to cross the Atlantic to flog us his memoirs, but if I were his PR people I would urge caution. As book tours go, this one would be an absolute corker. It is not just that every European capital would be brought to a standstill, as book-signings turned into anti-war riots. The real trouble — from the Bush point of view — is that he might never see Texas again.

It seems that, while our own Democratic and Republican leaders do not want to discuss torture (let alone investigate it), the Mayor of London is not keen on a former leader flogging his memoir and proudly proclaiming how he ordered the torture of suspects.

The controversy may only be the first international reaction to the book. While our media has discussed the book rather matter-of-factly as acknowledging his order to waterboard suspects, other nations take international treaties seriously and view this as an admission of a war crime.

Previously, Cheney and others were the subject of international calls for arrest after they admitted to roles in the torture program. The United States has a clear obligation to prosecute those responsible for our torture program. However, President Obama has promised to block any investigation of torturers and has stopped any investigation of those who ordered the war crime. In the absence of nations enforcing their international obligations, other nations will often set forward to enforce the rule of law.

The United States no longer has any claim of moral authority on issues of torture and human rights. We have become what we always claimed that we despised. In that respect, the terrorists have won. They have demonstrated that Americans do not really believe in the principles that we preach and we will readily abandon them out of fear — the whole point of terrorism. And that is the legacy of George W. Bush as well.