Baseball Crank: WAR/LAW: Everyone Is A Critic

November 23, 2009

WAR/LAW: Everyone Is A Critic

Want an illustration of problems faced by putting terrorists on trial that don't arise in military commissions or in ordinary criminal prosecutions? Try this:

A legal team is going to New York to prevent the use of evidence provided by Germany in seeking a death penalty. Berlin wants to ensure that promises made by the US are kept if the suspects are found guilty.
A team of observers from the German government is going to New York to oversee the trial of five suspects accused of orchestrating the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, the news magazine Der Spiegel reported on Saturday.

The federal trial of the suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants was announced on November 13 by the US Justice Department. The government also asserted that it intends to seek the death penalty if the accused are found guilty.

Germany, which does not have a death penalty, provided evidence for the trial on the condition that it could not be used to support a death sentence. Several members of the al Qaeda cell that planned and executed the attacks of September 11 were previously based in the northern German city of Hamburg.

"In this case we will observe very closely that the given assurances are kept," Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said.

Now, we can certainly tell the Germans to mind their own damn business, but since the entire point of this exercise is good PR with the "international community," that's not going to advance the purpose of the trial.

Posted by Baseball Crank at 12:26 PM | Law 2009 • | War 2007-09 | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)

Comments

I had a bad case of Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger once. Wasn't pretty, I can assure you.

Posted by: mikeski at November 23, 2009 1:48 PM

Nothing like being lectured by a country directly responsible for the deaths of what??? 100 million people in the last 95 years.

Posted by: dch at November 23, 2009 3:30 PM

Whoa! But I bet O-bama and company have already considered these issues and have well thought out plans to handle them.

Posted by: Lee at November 23, 2009 3:37 PM

If those of us -- not you -- who care about world opinion don't care about this, why should you?

Posted by: magrooder at November 23, 2009 5:20 PM

Germany doesn't tell the US what they can and can't do.
That's Israel's job.

Posted by: Berto at November 23, 2009 9:53 PM

We are commenting/complaining about it on a blog read probably almost exclusively by Americans-ie internal comsumption. By the way berto branching your insanity out to anti-semitism?-always good to diversify!! So according to the lefty fever swamps we are beholden to the Israelis and the Saudi's-two people that loath each other--mmmkay

BTW-any comments on all the stories coming out from England about how "global warming" scientists have lied, obfuscated, created bogus figures and data, conspired to shut down and censor all oppossing view points, etc, etc-you know all the things that idiotic, bible thumping conservatives have been claiming for decades. Wow the state religion of liberals proven to be composed of total lies-didn't see that coming.

Posted by: dch at November 24, 2009 11:50 AM

dch,
So pointing out that when Israel (a nation, BTW), says "jump", the USA asks "how high?" is now anti-semitism?
I thought anti-semitism was about hatred of Jews, not Israel.

Glad you pointed it out, dch. I now realize when you put down NYC and SF, you REALLY hate the people (American citizens for the most part), not the city governments.
So you love your country, just not the people who live in it.
Interesting that you want to start wars to protect the people you hate.
Maybe you can team up with Lopjan (if there's enough room under his bed) and see if you can get a discount from his psychologist.

Posted by: Berto at November 24, 2009 3:13 PM

Again per the left we do what Israel wants us to do and also what Saudi Arabia wants us to do. but they are basically diametrically opposed to each other, so........do you see the problem?

Again any comments on how everything conservatives have been saying about the global warming religion has now been proven correct?

Posted by: dch at November 24, 2009 3:45 PM

dch,
Let me look further into the charges you claim about global warming.
The idea that Conservatives can be correct on anything is almost too much for my head after hearing them be wrong about everything for the past 30 years.
I suppose there can be a first for everything.
Give me some time to look into it. I'll post after I do so.

Posted by: Berto at November 24, 2009 4:52 PM

Wouldn't the Germans be imposing the same conditions on the use of their intelligence in a military tribunal trial? Or are we just arguing that in one of those we wouldn't need to use it to get a conviction?

Posted by: Jerry at November 25, 2009 9:42 PM