Lynne Stewart Proves President Bush Is Right

One of the differences between liberals and conservatives, and therefore between most Democrats and most Republicans, concerns whether the fight to defeat the Islamic terrorists is best handled by the criminal justice system or by the military. This is one of the reasons why so many Democrats have opposed warrantless wiretaps on foreign Al Qaeda communications with domestic accomplices, why they opposed the Patriot Act, why they opposed tough questioning of enemy combatants, and why they opposed the ‘Military Tribunals Act’ President Bush signed yesterday.

It also goes a long way towards explaining why Jamie Gorelick, former President Clinton’s Assistant District Attorney, erected a wall between the FBI and our intelligence agencies – a wall that has now been removed. Lynne Stewart is an American citizen (and unlike Hamdi and Padilla, who renounced their country and were caught in overt acts) was correctly tried in the criminal justice system, but should have been given a punishment fitting her crime. The outcome of her trial cements the reasons for the ‘Military Tribunals Act’.

Cross Posted from Captains Quarters:

“Today's sentencing of Lynne Stewart, who turned herself into a conduit for an Islamic terrorist who had already conspired to attack the United States once, demonstrates the fecklessness of pursuing terrorists through the civil courts. A federal judge sentenced Stewart to 28 months in prison for assisting Omar Abdel Rahman (who is serving a long sentence for plotting the 1993 Trade Towers bombing) in activating his terrorist network while the US held him in custody -- and then temporarily released her on her own recognizance:

A firebrand civil rights lawyer who has defended Black Panthers and anti-war radicals was sentenced Monday to nearly 2 1/2 years in prison — far less than the 30 years prosecutors wanted — for helping an imprisoned terrorist sheik communicate with his followers on the outside. ...

The judge said Stewart was guilty of smuggling messages between her client and his followers that could have "potentially lethal consequences." He called the crimes "extraordinarily severe criminal conduct."

But in departing from federal guidelines that called for 30 years behind bars, he cited Stewart's more than three decades of dedication to poor, disadvantaged and unpopular clients.

"Ms. Stewart performed a public service, not only to her clients, but to the nation," Koeltl said.

The judge said Stewart could remain free while she appeals, a process that could take more than a year.

This woman sent messages to Rahman's followers in Egypt that instructed them to begin terrorist activity. She knew exactly what she did -- after all, she had defended Rahman and had seen the evidence against him -- and turned her back on her country and her humanity in order to suck up to a man who plotted the murder of tens of thousands of Americans. Stewart's actions could easily have led to the deaths of many innocent civilians.

The government took this case to the appropriate venue; Stewart is an American citizen and committed a grievous crime. However, Judge Koeltl showed why the law-enforcement model will never defeat terrorism. Here we have an important part of a communication chain meant to instigate murder on a global scale, and the judge sentences her to 1/15th of the possible sentence. Koeltl waxed on about Stewart's previous good works, all of which would have amounted to zero comfort to anyone lost in a terrorist attack she enabled. In fact, we still don't know that there hasn't been an attack based on that communication.

Koeltl sent a message today that certain people can commit or enable acts of terror, as long as they have the correct political background. Stewart will do a few months at a minimum security work camp, and with her illness will probably avoid the work part of it. When she gets released, she will once again become the toast of the hate-America circuit, where she will once again claim she did nothing wrong and that the real terrorists are the people who have tried -- and succeeded -- to keep this country safe for the last five years.

It's a pathetic display, and Koeltl should be ashamed of himself.”

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Bush Signs Law Creating Tribunals for Terror Suspects (Update3)
By Roger Runningen, Bloomberg.com

“Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush signed legislation to allow the trial of suspected terrorists by military tribunals, and his administration immediately used the law to challenge suits by hundreds of Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The government took its first action under the new Military Commissions Act, which Bush said ``provides a way to deliver justice to the terrorists'' captured after the Sept. 11 attacks. The American Civil Liberties Union said the law will make Guantanamo and other detention facilities a ``legal no-man's land.''

Among those who will be brought to trial under the law is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind. He and 13 other terrorism suspects, who were labeled ``high value'' and had been held in secret overseas prisons operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, were transferred last month to the U.S. facility at the U.S. Navy Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba….”

That foreign Islamic terrorists should be given the rights of an American citizen is absurd. This would have allowed them access to evidence, methodology and informants; endangered the lives of witnesses, juries and their families; and opened the possibility that a liberal judge, like Judge Koeltl, would turn them loose to mass murder other Americans. When Italy decided to rid itself of the Mafia, it found it needed to employ similar procedures after years of murdered witnesses and juries and dismissed proceedings.