U.S. to move 9/11 terrorism trial out of NYC

By Michael J.W. Stickings

NYT:

The Obama administration on Friday gave up on its plan to try the Sept. 11 plotters in Lower Manhattan, bowing to almost unanimous pressure from New York officials and business leaders to move the terrorism trial elsewhere.

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The reversal on whether to try the alleged 9/11 terrorists blocks from the former World Trade Center site seemed to come suddenly this week, after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg abandoned his strong support for the plan and said the cost and disruption would be too great.

But behind the brave face that many New Yorkers had put on for weeks, resistance had been gathering steam.

I understand the security and logistical concerns involved with trying Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 plotters in Manhattan, as well as the strong resistance to it, but, as I just said on Jazz Shaw's Mid Stream Radio show, on which I was a guest from 1:30 to 2:00, I think the symbolism of doing it New York, America's primary terrorist target, as well as perhaps the most important city in the world, would have been immense, an expression of American strength, authority, confidence, and determination, a statement that the U.S. isn't backing down in the face of terrorism, and isn't solely relying on military might, that those who are charged with such horrendous acts will be treated fairly, under the law, according to America's values and principles -- in short, that America isn't like its enemies.

Given the significant hit America's credibility and moral standing took both at home and abroad as a result of how it handled the war on terror -- a disastrous war in Iraq, torture and "enhanced interrogation," Gitmo and military tribunals, etc. -- a civilian trial in New York would have done a great deal, it seems to me, to show that America has recovered from the abuses and excesses of the Bush years.