Intelligence Bonanza

According to John Yoo, a Bush administration Justice Department official from 2001 to 2003, the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York will be an intelligence bonanza for al Qaeda.

Prosecutors will be forced to reveal U.S. intelligence on KSM, the methods and sources for acquiring its information, and his relationships to fellow al Qaeda operatives. The information will enable al Qaeda to drop plans and personnel whose cover is blown. It will enable it to detect our means of intelligence-gathering, and to push forward into areas we know nothing about.

This is not hypothetical, as former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has explained. During the 1993 World Trade Center bombing trial of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (aka the "blind Sheikh"), standard criminal trial rules required the government to turn over to the defendants a list of 200 possible co-conspirators.

In essence, this list was a sketch of American intelligence on al Qaeda.

It's my personal opinion that this case is going to be tried in civilian courts because it provides a rationale for revisiting the torture controversy.  2010 is an election year.  If the Obama Justice Department can move quickly enough, the front pages of our elitist mainstream press can carry lurid headlines describing KSM's torture and abuse at the hands of George Bush -- just in time for Democrats to make it the centerpiece of their 2010 campaign.  Obama and the Democrats have never stopped campaigning against Bush, and by the looks of things they're not going to now.  The trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a bit of election year strategy for a party that is very quickly becoming very unpopular.

Comments

[PJ Smith]

The decision to try KSM seems so stupid I can only find a reason for the decision to do so by releasing my cynical side. It could be strategy.

Rahmbo, Axelrod and the gang have only one issue at the moment and that is the cornerstone of the collectivist future. The health care takeover is currently under assault as it worms its way through the senate. Call me crazy if you will, but I see this whole KSM circus as a possible distraction thrown up to divert conservative momentum in a different direction while Harry Reid musters his forces.

I don't know that it would work, but The conservative voices I heard over the weekend were not talking health care. If you can get Krauthammer, Limbaugh and Hannity off topic, you get less calls to senate offices from constituents.

[Tom Bowler]

I think there is another reason besides the opportunity to campaign against the Bush administration. The Democrat position has always been to treat terrorism as a law enforcement issue. Treating it as a war on terror means that administration powers, such as surveillance authority, expire when the war is over. With a law enforcement approach the administration is likely to have them forever. Democrats are all about government control.