NPR on KSM

By John Ballard

Dina Temple-Raston's report this morning on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed does little to explain how this man became a poster child for terrorism. Though it comes as no surprise, I had no idea he had been a foreign student in an American university in his younger years, but it struck me as possibly important that the school where he studied was a small Southern school instead of a large famous institution from the East Coast or California.

Mohammed's first real taste of America came at a small two-year Baptist school called Chowan College in 1983. Nestled among the cotton fields of Murfreesboro, N.C., Mohammed arrived hoping his time at Chowan would become a springboard to an American education.

Back in the 1980s, all Chowan students � and that would have included Khalid Sheikh Mohammed � were obliged to study Christianity extensively. That meant prayers, singing and biblical instruction in addition to regular classes. It was an odd requirement for the son of an imam who had been a member of an Islamic group, Muslim Brotherhood, since he was 16.

In this seven-minute clip we can hear voices from his past who recall him as a college student in the Eighties, both as a student and a classmate.

NPR gets beat up in the comments thread by some offended that any reporter would have the nerve to humanize a monster.

Gee, what a nice little puff piece on a mass murderer (alleged, of course, for the PC crowd)yet NPR has no problem ripping into Sarah Palin, repeating the same mantra all the "kept whores" in the media are babbling. �Could Bill O'Reilly be right? Is the media afraid of the "potential" Palin brings to the political scene and, with a win, drive nails in the coffins of all you terrorist apologists?

But most comments recognized good journalism even if the subject was disagreeable.

Further to the KSM story, traffic at my old blog brought up a link to Volokh Conspiracy from February with commentary regarding whether non-citizens have the same rights as non-citizens under the Constitution.

I've heard many people suggest that the Bill of Rights protects only citizens, and not legally admitted aliens. Some have argued that surely the Framers would not have understood the Bill of Rights as protecting noncitizens.

It turns out, though, that at least one pretty significant Framer -- that would be James Madison -- took the opposite view. Here's Madison, from his Report on the Virginia Resolutions, which criticized the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798:

Again, it is said, that aliens not being parties to the Constitution, the rights and privileges which it secures cannot be at all claimed by them.

To this reasoning, also, it might be answered, that although aliens are not parties to the Constitution, it does not follow that the Constitution has vested in Congress an absolute power over them. The parties to the Constitution may have granted, or retained, or modified the power over aliens, without regard to that particular consideration.

But a more direct reply is, that it does not follow, because aliens are not parties to the Constitution, as citizens are parties to it, that whilst they actually conform to it, they have no right to its protection. Aliens are not more parties to the laws, than they are parties to the Constitution; yet, it will not be disputed, that as they owe, on one hand, a temporary obedience, they are entitled in return to their protection and advantage.

If aliens had no rights under the Constitution, they might not only be banished, but even capitally punished, without a jury or the other incidents to a fair trial. But so far has a contrary principle been carried, in every part of the United States, that except on charges of treason, an alien has, besides all the common privileges, the special one of being tried by a jury, of which one-half may be also aliens.

Recent comments  about this case have caught my attention.

Someone at C-SPAN (sorry, I don't remember the source) made the point that the Administration is making a distinction between crimes committed on US soil as legally distinct from actions taken elsewhere. Actions made outside our borders can be subject to military justice, but those committed in the country will be treated with the laws of the land, even if the perpetrator is not a citizen.

This is an important legal distinction, if one must be made, leading to the second comment from elsewhere (again I don't recall the source) that Obama is taking the "long view" rather than the "immediate view" of the international impact of this man's trial.

When I first became aware of the Uniform Code of Military Justice I was shocked. Despite all the good press and movies in the setting of the UCMJ it is basically an extra-Constitutional framework of rules and procedures in which there is no binding Bill of Rights. Summary justice by commanders and appointed tribunals replace the cumbersome apparatus of non-military jurisprudence with ignorant civilian juries, stare decisis and all that.  

Putting KSM into the American criminal justice system is a dramatic and unprecedented testimony to the the power and importance we place on democratic forms and institutions. Whatever the outcome, this move will in the long run (hence "the long view") discredit arguments of extremists. Moreover, as the judge said to the shoe bomber...

Here in this court , where we deal with individuals as individuals,
and care for individuals as individuals, as human beings we reach out
for justice, you are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You
are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that
reference, to call you a soldier gives you far too much stature.
Whether it is the officers of government who do it or your attorney
who does it, or that happens to be your view, you are a terrorist.

And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not treat with
terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them
down one by one and bring them to justice.

So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow.
But you are not that big. You're no warrior. I know warriors. You are
a terrorist. A species of criminal guilty of multiple attempted
murders.
[...]
Here, in this society, the very winds carry freedom. They carry it
everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual
freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So
that everyone can see, truly see that justice is administered fairly,
individually, and discretely.

It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously
on your behalf and have filed appeals, will go on in their, their
representation of you before other judges. We are about it. Because
we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of
our own liberties. Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we
will bear any burden, pay any price, to preserve our freedoms.

Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to
long remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow it will be
forgotten. But this, however, will long endure. Here in this
courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will
gather to see that justice,individual justice, justice, not war,
individual justice is in fact being done.