The 9/11 Six: An opportunity for Sen. McCain

Andrew McCarthy has an excellent article here on an important difference between Sen. McCain and Sens. Clinton and Obama. Sen. McCain voted FOR the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and Sens. Clinton and Obama voted AGAINST. Presumably, this means that they would prefer to try war criminals in civilian courts.

The problem with trying war criminals in civilian courts is that usually these people are captured abroad, sometimes even on a battlefield, and evidence-gathering is difficult. Witnesses against them can be difficult to find, and sometimes even inadvisable, such as when you are required to pull a soldier off the battlefield to testify at a trial. There obviously can be problems with interrogation, self-incrimination, confessions, and testimony by co-conspirators. We saw some of that in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the 9/11 conspirator tried in Virginia a few years ago. The Military Commissions Act was an attempt to deal with the problem of how to try war criminals.

That is not to say that civilian courts are never a possibility. The President has the authority to transfer a suspect from a military court to a civilian court and vice versa. That is what happened to Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber who was transferred from a military court to a civilian court and ultimately convicted by a civilian court.

Sens. Clinton and Obama must answer the question on how they would deal with war criminals. Presumably, we must assume that they would prefer to try them in civilian courts, which as stated above is bad policy. The next question is, if either of them were elected President, would they order that the "9/11 six" be prosecuted in civilian courts? And where? Would they transfer Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and his co-conspirators to New York City so they could be tried in lower Manhattan?

John McCain alone among the presidential contenders has the seriousness of purpose and clear-headedness necessary to fight and win a war against enemies of the United States. And that is why I am supporting him for President.