The decision to take the "terrorist trial" out of lower Manhattan has some basis in practicality. $1 billion and counting is a lot to pay, perhaps, even when it allows America to show its Constitutional stripes. Wimping out is going to leave a bad taste in the mouth of many and a pleasant thrill of victory in our detractors, some of whom believe themselves to be "real Americans."
The billion and inconvenience are the official explanation. The other has to do with a concerted effort to wound the Obama administration, our self-respect and our already disabled system of justice. Bottom line: Americans screw up again.
...It is possible that the reversal will call into question the calibrated effort of Mr. Obama and his attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., to bring the handling of suspected terrorists out of the realm of military emergency and into the halls of civilian justice.
If the message to Al Qaeda and its supporters in November was that New York City was able, even eager, to bring justice to those who plotted mass murder, the message of January is far less confident.
“This will be one more stroke for Al Qaeda’s propaganda,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University. ...NYT
It's not about Al Qaeda. We give them a good laugh about once a week. No, it's about who we are.
The city experienced the worst of terrorism on 9/11, but we also saw the best of the country in the weeks that followed. People rushed in from everywhere — often at great inconvenience — to help. And for months afterward, you could not travel anywhere outside the state without having other Americans come up to you and ask if there was anything they could do. They wanted a task. A whole nation was hungering to be inconvenienced for the common good. And President Bush’s response was to give them a tax cut. Whatever muscles we used in cooperating have atrophied. Barack Obama ran for president promising to change that, and he hasn’t. Part of the fault is his. Sometimes at crucial moments, there seems to be no hands on the tiller. The Republicans are impossible. Many Democrats are both frightened and greedy.But figuring out how we got here is irrelevant. We need to get out. ...Gail Collins, NYT
