Audio: Dick Cheney Says Trying 9/11 Hijackers In Civlian Courts A “Big Mistake”
Great interview between Scott Hennen and former Vice President Dick Cheney today:
Here’s a key exchange:
Scott – Our guest today is former Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney on the Scott Hennen show and the common sense club today, and our exclusive interview, the Obama administration has recently decided that for the first time in our nation’s history, an enemy combatant caught on the battle field will be tried in civilian court, I want your reaction to Khalid Sheik Mohammed and 4 other top Al-Qaeda terrorists being giving these rights in a New York City trial?
Dick – I think it’s a big mistake… the fact … and I don’t wanna go too long here on my answer, but a couple key points here Scott, before 9/11 we treated terrorist attacks as criminal offenses, as law enforcement problems, so… somebody tries to blow up the World Trade Center in New York in ’93, we arrest them, put them on trial, put them in prison, case closed. What 9/11 did, was change the way we look at those events, because all of a sudden we had 16 acres of downtown Manhattan destroyed, we had people jumping out of 80th floor windows to avoid being burned to death, we had the Pentagon badly struck, we would have problems with the white house hit had it not been for the brave passengers on Flight 93 who took it down, we had 3000 dead Americans that day. That is not a law enforcement problem, that’s an act of war and you need to treat it as an act of war. Once you make that decision, that it is an act of war, then you marshal all your national assets and your national means to go after the bad guys to go after those who supplied them, with weapons and training to go after those who provide sanctuary and safe harbor. To pursue a much more aggressive strategy, which we did…. and which paid off in safety for the homeland here for 8 years. Now when I see them bring Khalid Sheik Mohammed to New York City… to stand trial in a civilian court it says to me, they forgot those lessons and in fact reverted back to the old mindset that a terrorist attack is quote “a law enforcement problem” not an act of war.
Scott – Can it be stopped, would you have any advice for those who so vehemently opposed this decision Mr. Vice President?
Dick – Well I know there have been efforts in the Congress to pass legislation that would prohibit bringing these folks here for trial, we ought to continue to encourage our Congressman and Senators to support that kind of effort. There was a perfectly legal, constitutional proper way to deal with these and that’s to perform military commissions, the precedent is set. That’s what Roosevelt did in World War II when he captured German saboteurs on Long Island. That’s the way we dealt with conspiracy , the folks that were part the conspiracy around Abraham Lincoln. Its a well established practice, people have representation before those commission, there are rules of evidence and so forth, and ultimately the Supreme Court on more than one occasion found that it was constitutional permissible to deal with it in that fashion. And that’s what we did, we’ve got those military commissions set up today, as a matter of fact, Holder announced that some of those folks responsible for the ship attack USS Cole attack, in 2000, will be tried through military commissions, that’s the way it should be done for all of it. i can’t for the life of me figure out what Holder’s intent here, in terms of having Khalid Sheik Mohammed tried in a civilian court, other than to have some kind of show trial, they’ll simply use it as some sort of platform to argue their case, they don’t have a defense to speak of… it’ll be a place for them to stand up and spread the terrible ideology that they adhere too.
I think Cheney is right here, and I don’t think the Obama administration has yet realized the can of worms they’ve opened by doing this.
The reason we haven’t treated the 9/11 conspirators, and terrorists captured in the war on terror in general, as run-of-the-mill criminals arrested by law enforcement is because they aren’t run-of-the-mill criminals, and they aren’t being captured by law enforcement.
They are enemy combatants, and in a lot of instances they’re being captured by our military. Or by our intelligence agencies. Neither of which are law enforcement agencies, and the situations they work in are not conducive to traditional law enforcement practices.
But those law enforcement practices were built up to get convictions in civilian courts. If they’re not followed evidence gets thrown out. Charges get dismissed. Criminals and monsters go free.
This is a dangerous precedent the Obama administration is setting. One that will bear bitter fruit for this country, I’m afraid.
