Opinion: In today’s pages: KSM, Gitmo, Mexico ... and Prop 8
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| AP Photo/Janet Hamlin, Pool |
The Times’ editorial board looks forward to the day Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (at top on the right) receives the punishment he so richly deserves for his admitted role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That’s not just for justice’s sake, but also for the sake of a better approach to handling all suspected terrorists:
Mohammed and his co-defendants are the poster children in arguments by the Bush administration for why Guantanamo detainees shouldn’t be tried in civilian courts. Evidence ties them to terrorist activity, but some of it wouldn’t be admissible because it was obtained using ‘alternative’ interrogation methods (i.e. torture). Moreover, public access to some of the evidence might threaten national security. With them out of the way, there is a less compelling case for trying other detainees in military courts.
Columnist Tim Rutten takes on the very same topic on the Op-Ed page, calling the Guantanamo Bay detainee situation ‘the other mess Barack Obama will inherit from George Bush.’ Unlike the collapsing economy, which has ample precedent for Obama to rely on, Rutten writes that the ‘Gitmo debacle’ is unique in terms of its departure from ‘basic American concepts’ of justice and decency.
Why did administration officials create such an unwieldy, unconstitutional structure? Because they knew full well that trying these defendants in regular courts would present hellish problems; they’ve been tortured, and two of them may have been rendered incompetent to cooperate in their defense, one of them by the administration of psychotropic drugs.
Elsewhere in the editorial stack, the board observes that the latest protest by opponents of Proposition 8 -- today’s moratorium on working and shopping -- is a far better tactic than the ‘vengeful campaign against individuals who donated to the gay-marriage ban.’ And running against the prevailing tide in Illinois, Delaware and New York, it calls for the Senate seats vacated by Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton to be filled by someone on the basis of ... (wait for it) ... merit. Heh heh heh heh. Good one!
Back on the Op-Ed page, author David J. Danelo writes about the damage inflicted by Mexico’s surging drug war, which every week claims about as many lives as the recent terrorist attack in Mumbai. Journalist Ezra Klein regrets that President Bush didn’t admit more failings in his valedictory TV interview with ABC’s Charles Gibson, unlike former President Nixon’s famous sessions with David Frost. And Blair Bobier, deputy director of the New American Foundation’s Political Reform Program, lays out the virtues of instant runoff voting.
Oh and yes, there’s a cartoon from Tom Toles of The Washington Post: