Eric Holder's Circus

Peter Heck - Guest Columnist - 11/30/2009 8:30:00 AM 

The storyline is hauntingly familiar: terrorist detainees were moved to a major city to await trial.  While there, fellow Islamic terrorists decided to make a daring and dastardly attempt to gain their release, not by attacking the well-protected courtroom or the heavily guarded detention facility (they are bloodthirsty but they are not stupid), but by going for a more tantalizing target.

Thirty-five bomb-laden Muslim terrorists stormed a crowded middle school full of parents, teachers, and children.  By doing so, they immediately gained what they desired most: the eyes of a watching world paralyzed with fear at what they might do.  And the world had reason to fear.  Over the course of this three-day massacre, the terrorists barricaded doors and tied up authorities in "negotiations" that were used only to buy them the time they needed to coldly execute the stronger men hostages, rape young girls in front of their watching mothers, and rig explosives throughout the complex to ensure that when the authorities stormed the building there would be massive casualties.

This horrific drama played out in the quiet Russian town of Beslan just five short years ago.  In the end, 394 lay dead (over half of them children) with another 704 injured. 

And stunningly, Barack Obama has just invited the same carnage to our shores.

When the President's Attorney General Eric Holder announced the administration's breathtakingly ignorant decision to bring 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) and five compatriots to New York City to stand trial in civilian court for their act of war, there was undoubtedly a collective gasp in the small towns outside New York.  The citizens there surely must recognize that the high-profile status of KSM alone is enough to tempt every terror cell this side of Basra to consider making their rural middle schools the stage for Beslan: Act Two.

Why any president sworn to protect the lives of his fellow citizens would take such an outrageously absurd and completely unnecessary risk is unfathomable.  And make no mistake...it is unnecessary.  KSM and his fellow terrorists were already being tried by military commissions far away from American children and out of the international spotlight that they so desperately crave.  Many, including KSM, had already pled guilty and requested execution. 

But Barack Obama halted these commissions when he came into office, apparently more concerned with bolstering his image as a "citizen of the world" than protecting his own people.  He then passed the buck to Eric Holder who announced that the terrorists would be brought to one of America's largest cities for the trial of the century. 

The negative consequences of this decision are plentiful.  From endangering innocent Americans to gift-wrapping a perfect propaganda opportunity for the terrorist world, this decision is inexcusable.  And considering that the choice to try these monsters in civilian courts was to supposedly ensure that justice would be done, this decision becomes incomprehensible.  (How, for instance, will these show trials result in any better or more just outcome than a guilty plea and execution sentence – something that the military commission had all but secured?)

In short, this is about to be a circus. 

Obama and Holder have now given constitutional "rights of the accused" to these terrorists (something that has never been done throughout all of American history). And if you don't think that their lawyers are going to bring up the manner of their detainment, the circumstances surrounding their capture, any perceived threats or mistreatment, any notion of coerced confessions, their lack of immediate access to attorneys, demand for relocation, complaints about a biased jury, calls for mistrials, and the need for an extensive appeals process, you aren't thinking...sort of like the Obama administration.

With a decision this bad – one that is receiving scorn across the country from angry Americans of all political backgrounds – one might hope that Team Obama would come to its senses and reverse course.  Not likely.

When announcing this preposterous decision Holder stated, "To the extent that there are political consequences, I'll just have to take my lumps." 

Frankly, sir, the grisly images of Beslan are a little too fresh in our minds to be overly concerned with your personal political consequences.  We're a bit more concerned about the potentially deadly consequences this ragingly incompetent administration may have just brought on innocent American citizens.

Vice President Joe Biden once criticized Barack Obama's lack of preparedness for the serious responsibilities associated with the job of president by saying that the presidency was "not something that lends itself to on-the-job training."  God forbid that we're about to see just how right he was.