Terror trial in New York

I was a bit under the weather last week, which gave me some time to ruminate over the Obama administration’s decision to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who probably masterminded the 9/11 attacks, in a federal court in New York.

My conclusion: This is a good thing.

Critics, led by former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, argue this will put New Yorkers at risk for another attack, that it will turn into a circus trial and that it changes the way this country views those terrorist attacks — as a crime rather than an act of war.

The New York Times quoted him as saying, “we wouldn’t have tried the people who attacked Pearl Harbor in a civilian court in Hawaii.”

Well…Pearl Harbor was attacked by soldiers representing another sovereign nation. The trouble with the 9/11 terrorist attacks is that they were neither typical street crimes nor acts of war by another nation. They were a third thing — crimes committed by a network of zealots intended to injure, damage and ultimately destroy our government and way of life.

Hence the argument that these “combatants” don’t fall under the Geneva Conventions and don’t deserve the same rights as captured soldiers in a war.

But it also is true that a public trial may expose Khalid Shaikh Mohammed for the misguided murderer he is, while showing the rest of the world that our system of justice is bigger than any terrorist threat.

I like this take by CBS’s chief legal analyst Andrew Cohen, as published in the Washington Post. He confronts each of the worries in turn and explains why they really aren’t worth worrying about.

What do you think?