Saturday, November 14, 2009

Whole Lotta Sheikhin' Goin' On


Can a war criminal or terrorist or soldier be tried in a civilian court?

Should he?

Can such person get "a fair trial?"

Can justice - whatever that may be - be served?

How?

Can the confession of a man who has been tortured be believed or accepted.

These are big questions and they are all thrown on the table as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and friends are brought to New York City to face charges on killing more than 3,000 people in one horrible moment, now known a 9/11.

Every paper in the world has covered this story today.

The Globe and Mail's is as good as any other, I suppose.

Read it
, and tell us what you think of this.

Simple "off with his head" comments won't cut it, so to speak...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

David, One can only hope and pray that the people of New York Can provide a fair trial for a terrorist. Its ironic that to bring a killer to trial they must worry about all of the complications. Im sure that the death of 3000 non combatants was simple and easy with very few complications.

Execute him with as little pomp and circumstance as possible. Let his execution take place at a date and time to be determined by the court in secret. Afew months after the sentence is carried out make the announcment in the back of the Mayberry Gazzette. No news , no hero ,no martyr, no reprisals from the Islam comunities that have spread across the shores of North America.

Anonymous said...

Random thoughts. Try him in New York. If he is found guilty - no death penalty - rather a life sentence served in a very small room with no amenities other than the basic essentials. Let him stay there and contemplate his wretched life until he dies. These sickos *want* to be martyrs.

Whatever the USA does, it won't please everyone - and will go on and on. I *do* feel sorry that the victims families and the people of NY have to have it this close to home.....

June

Anonymous said...

You can be sure this will be turned into a circus sideshow, which will barely resemble a criminal trial.

Anonymous said...

I find it puzzling that the Americans reverted to torture to extract confessions.

In the 15th century a French judge want to see if torture was effective and tried it for himself.

He ordered thumbscrews to be used on his person and in a very short time his experiment ended with the claim (paraphrased of course) that:"the pain was so excruciating that he would have confessed to the crucification of Christ."

Torture is venue of perverts, deviates and a like who love to see people in pain.

A hell of a way to start a trial.

Evil Eye

Anonymous said...

Evil eye, without getting into a debate over water boarding. Your right. If thats the only evidence that can be used to convict then lets set him free with the manditory apology and a cash settlement. I feel guilty that as North Americans we have treated the Islamic comunity as poorly as we have. They have a few beliefs that might be a wee bit harsh but female genital mutilation is a right not torture. Or the Indo Canadians that drown burn or simply toss into the garbage unwanted females.

Yes we must learn to be tolerant of these customs and beliefs. How dare us resort to torture to extract information from the Saudi people. They are after all a society that practices tolerance.

Anonymous said...

To the first anonymous: you obviously don't believe in living in a free and open society that is governed by laws. If KSM is to be found guitly of his role in 9/11, its up to the prosecution to proove it. And if the prosecution has no other evidence than the confessions of a man after being waterboarded 183 times, then said man must go free. That's the way it works, and if you don't like it, too fucking bad. Although I probably think the prosecution has more on him than that and I gather that the waterboarding was done to try to get KSM to give links to Saddam's Iraq so that the Bush Admin. could justify the invasion of that country.

Anonymous said...

evil eye.

Even with the use of the f word Im still not convinced that your moral high ground is justified. I agree that torture is wrong. BUT many of our beliefs about what is allowed when engaged in combat cant apply to radical Islamic killers.
I suppose that until one of those whack jobs actualy kills or hurts someone you love its easy to take the high road. We have skated without harm on Canadian soil.133 Canadian soldiers havent been as lucky.

Anonymous said...

Well the blog goes on.

Throughout history people have behaved badly.

If you think that US soldiers are going to be tortured because the US condones torture ,well that ship has sailed. US soldiers have been tortured in Somalia. If captured they are tortured killed and bodies dragged through the streets.
Ask Jessica lynch if she enjoyed her time in captivity in Iraq.

So I suppose that in this debate over the US being as guilty as the Islamic terrorists they can be judged as guilty. They have even killed innocent civilians.

If you were captured today would you rather be held by the US armed forces or Bin Ladens people?