Defending the KSM Trial

I'm not going to do the defending (because I know far too little on the subject). I'll let Jack Goldsmith and Jim Comey, two Bush-era attorneys, do some of the talking in this WaPo editorial:

In deciding to use federal court, the attorney general probably considered the record of the military commission system that was established in November 2001. This system secured three convictions in eight years. The only person who had a full commission trial, Osama bin Laden's driver, received five additional months in prison, resulting in a sentence that was shorter than he probably would have received from a federal judge.

One reason commissions have not worked well is that changes in constitutional, international and military laws since they were last used, during World War II, have produced great uncertainty about the commissions' validity. This uncertainty has led to many legal challenges that will continue indefinitely -- hardly an ideal situation for the trial of the century.

I find the whole debate on this subject increasingly detached from reality. It strikes me as patently absurd that all terrorists demand a trial in federal courts, when the circumstances and their crimes may not warrant such a thing. I'm happy enough with at least a habeus corpus hearing to ensure that the government justifies indefinite detention for the most serious cases. Apparently, the President shares this view, if you believe this incredibly interesting account of his views on terrorism in the New York Times magazine. (I know it's long, and we all have things to do in our lives that prove we're productive members of society, but at least take a look at the introduction, which covers the worrying signs that Obama or Washington, D.C., would be attacked during the inauguration.)

It simply seems better to take things by each case, and determine the proper procedure from there.