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27 Generals & 5 Admirals Call For An End to Fearmongering Over KSM Trial

Submitted by John Smith on Thu, 11/19/2009 - 10:28

32 retired generals and Admirals delivered a letter to Congress today supporting the closure of Gitmo and decrying Republican fearmongering over trying KSM in New York.

We have watched with disappointment efforts to engender fear among the American people about the prospect of bringing suspected terrorists to the United States for trial. Our federal justice system has a proven track record of successfully prosecuting terrorists and incarcerating them safely in our prisons. Our courts have convicted 195 terrorists since 9/11. Meanwhile, there have been only three successful prosecutions of terrorists by military commissions over that same period; two of those found guilty were released in less than a year. Those convicted in our federal courts, including many al Qaeda terrorists, are serving long sentences in federal prisons. The highly respected American Correctional Association, the nation’s largest corrections organization, in a recently passed resolution assured the American public they “would be safe from harm and free from danger should any detainees be transferred to a facility or facilities within the United States.” Our prisons currently house more than 150 convicted terrorists and none has ever escaped.

The American people can have confidence that our judicial and penal institutions are strong and that our military, law enforcement and corrections professionals are second to none.

 

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The letter and list of signatories...

Submitted by Remains of the ... on Thu, 11/19/2009 - 12:21.

 

can be found here:

http://www.humanrightsfirst.info/pdf/111809-letter-closing-guantanamo.pdf

Thanks.

Submitted by John Smith on Thu, 11/19/2009 - 12:28.

Thanks, I should have provided that myself. The signatories include a former C-i-C, Centcom, a former Commandant of the Marine Corps, a former C-i-C, U.S. Army in Europe, and a former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force. Plus many others.

chemjeff will be hear shortly to dismiss this as an appeal to authority.

ironman will be hear shortly to claim that he personally knows everyone who works at the FBI and they all disagree.

RBill will be shortly to say that the generals are all trolls.

LOL

Submitted by Remains of the ... on Thu, 11/19/2009 - 13:11.

I think chemjeff has gone into a brief hibernation after all the beating he took lately.

I am sure Ironman will remind us about OJ and how he had personally seen the disgusting tactics of lawyers defending known criminals in New York court rooms.

RBill might also declare that the generals are all categorically wrong and that the prosecutors will most certainly lose the case aganist KSM.

Prominent conservatives support Obama move...

Submitted by Remains of the ... on Thu, 11/19/2009 - 12:44.

A Letter From Bob Barr, David Keene And Grover Norquist On Trying 9/11 Suspects In U.S.

As it moves to close Guantanamo and develop policies for handling terrorism suspects going forward, the government should rely upon our established, traditional system of justice. This includes our system of federal prisons, which have repeatedly proven they can safely hold persons convicted of terrorism offenses.

We are confident that the government can preserve national security without resorting to sweeping and radical departures from an American constitutional tradition that has served us effectively for over two centuries.

Civilian federal courts are the proper forum for terrorism cases. Civilian prisons are the safe, cost effective and appropriate venue to hold persons convicted in federal courts. Over the last two decades, federal courts constituted under Article III of the U.S. Constitution have proven capable of trying a wide array of terrorism cases, without sacrificing either national security or fair trial standards.

Likewise the federal prison system has proven itself fully capable of safely holding literally hundreds of convicted terrorists with no threat or danger to the surrounding community.

The scaremongering about these issues should stop.

Using a state of the art but little used prison facility like the one at Thomson, Illinois - with any appropriate security upgrades our law enforcement professionals deem necessary - makes good sense for the tax payers who invested $145 million in the facility and who are seeing millions wasted every month at the costly, inefficient Guantanamo facility. It makes sense for the community which will benefit from the related employment and has absolutely no reason to fear that prisoners will escape or be released into their communities.

But most of all it makes sense for America because it is a critical link in the process of closing Guantanamo and getting this country back to using its tried and true, constitutionally sound institutions.

[emphasis mine]

For more info on the full list of signatories of the Constitution Project petition visit: http://www.constitutionproject.org/