Terror Trials in New York City: David Loftus

A civil federal trial in New York City is absolutely the right thing to do with the regard to the September 11th suspects. I say this without having read any of the news stories, and not having looked at any of the arguments offered against it.

Despite all former President Bush’s pronouncements to the contrary, the 9/11 attacks were not acts of war; in the absence of a declared war, they were criminal acts. Even if you classify them as terrorist acts, that still means they were not acts of war. You cannot have it both ways. Bush and his defenders have presumed to have it both ways in so many areas: We did everything we could to prevent 9/11 but it happened anyway but there haven’t been any comparable attacks since so we’re obviously doing everything possible to prevent them now. We are at war so American citizens we incarcerate in Guantanamo are not entitled to their civil rights. We are at war but the Geneva Convention against torture doesn’t apply to our treatment of suspected terrorists in Guantanamo. We are completely justified in doing nasty things to prisoners in order to fight terrorism but we’re going to hide what we’re doing by flying them to secret destinations in friendly countries who can keep a secret.

If critics argue the New York civil trials make the city even more of a target for attacks, then they’re saying we aren’t really prepared to deal with future attacks after all. But a civil trial, out in the open, will provide a perfect example of the difference between us and them. It probably won’t change any militant Islamic minds across the globe -- they’ll presume the fix is in no matter what we do -- but it will hearten the hopefuls, reassure our Western (and Far Eastern) allies, and reaffirm that the United States stands by its ideals. We have to be better than our enemies to win any more hearts of minds in “the war against terror” (much as I despise that phrase).