9/11

“This is war,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). “I think the decision you’ve made to try these cases in federal court represents a policy and political decision.”

Of all the talking points emerging from the conservative side about the 9/11 trials, the prospect of attack architect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed getting set free in the U.S. is perhaps the most far-fetched, at least until the next round of trials are announced. I didn’t take it seriously enough to debunk, but The American Prospect’s [...]

This comes from September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a survivors’ group that has urged the Obama administration to shut down Guantanamo Bay:
We, the members of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, support the Attorney General’s decision to bring the trials of the five individuals currently accused of plotting the attacks of Sept 11, 2001 [...]

Yesterday’s announcement that the Obama administration will try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 suspects in federal court has been hailed as everything from “an important step forward for justice” by Human Rights Watch to “a step backwards for the security of our country [that] puts Americans unnecessarily at risk” by Senate Minority Leader [...]

After much delay and speculation, the Obama administration has reportedly decided to try the alleged co-conspirators of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in a civilian federal court in New York. That’s a significant defeat for some lawmakers, who had hoped to ban the men from civilian courts and force their trial in military commissions.

Crimes that occur on military bases are usually heard in the military justice system. But while that may sound harsher than a civilian court, the sentences usually turn out to be more lenient.
The result is that Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who allegedly gunned down 13 people at the military base in Texas last [...]

The influential Center for American Progress, which has close ties to the Obama administration, is now calling on President Obama to push back the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center to July. That’s despite the president’s day-two directive to close the notorious prison by January. Closure has been impeded by the inability to send [...]

The Senate just tabled the amendment proposed by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that would have prohibited use of Justice Department funds to prosecute the 9/11 terror suspects in U.S. federal courts. Effectively, that means it’s dead.
The amendment, S.A. 2669, to the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, would have forced the government to [...]

When I wrote my earlier post about the group of illustrious Americans urging the Obama administration to close Guantanamo and bring suspected terrorists to justice in U.S. federal courts, I neglected to mention that Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), joined by Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jim Webb (D-Va.), is today pushing a measure [...]

Fouad al Rabiah, a Kuwaiti Airways engineer accused of being an aide to Osama bin Laden who recently won his habeas corpus case in federal court, is a step closer to going home. McClatchy newspapers reports that the 50-year-old father of four was moved to the part of the Guantanamo detention center reserved for detainees [...]