Rand Paul, who’s running for Senate in Kentucky, has come out with a very hard-line stand on the issue of trials for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other al Qaeda members:
BOWLING GREEN, KENTUCKY – Leading United States Senate candidate Rand Paul today criticized the Obama administration’s decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center and try terrorism suspects in United States Civil Courts.
“Foreign terrorists do not deserve the protections of our Constitution,” said Dr. Paul. “These thugs should stand before military tribunals and be kept off American soil. I will always fight to keep Kentucky safe and that starts with cracking down on our enemies.”
Dr. Paul believes in strong national defense and thinks military spending should be our country’s top budget priority. He has also called for a Constitutional declaration of war with Afghanistan.
On some level, I think Paul has a point.
As I’ve already noted in connection with the impending KSM trial, I do not believe that civilian courts are the appropriate venue to try what are clearly enemy combatants who committed an act of war against the United States. Those tribunals should come with at least some bare minimum degree of protection for civil liberties, including the right for a detainee to have the government’s assertion that they are an enemy combatant outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. Court system tested in a U.S. District Court. Beyond that, though, I don’t see the wisdom of treating international terrorism as if it were a law enforcement problem.
There is a big difference between being a POW and being a mass murdering terrorist. POW’s deserve respect.
How do you distinguish between KSM and Timothy McVeigh? Do you disagree with the way McVeigh was tried. convicted and executed? Do we distinguish between terrorists, for the sake of venue, based upon their citizenship?