Poll Shows Americans Hate The Idea Of Trying KSM In A Civilian Court

From CNS News:

By large margins, most Americans oppose giving terror suspects constitutional rights and want them to be tried in military tribunals, according to a poll by Quinnipiac University.

That goes against the policies of the Obama administration, which ordered that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terror suspects be tried in New York City. Likewise, alleged Christmas Day terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab will be tried as a criminal rather than in military courts.

However, a slim majority supported the government’s decision to read Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights that include his right to an attorney and right to remain silent.

The administration’s handling of terror cases has been heavily scrutinized by Republican lawmakers in recent months.

The poll found that 59 percent believe that the 9/11 terror suspects should be tried in military courts rather than in civilian courts, while 35 percent support the administration’s decision.

And, if you are one of those who thinks it's only right to try the guy in a Civilian Court, then read this and find out how such a maneuver is going to effect your civil rights:

I think I saw this first noted by James Taranto -- Obama, by refusing to admit any difference between trials of war criminal illegal combatants and citizen criminals, is accomplishing not one but two despicable outcomes.

The outcome he intends is to treat illegal combatants more sweetly and gently.

The outcome he doesn't intend -- but which he is engendering anyhow -- is to treat citizen suspects with less constitutional rights than they've ever had in history.

Few judges will, say, demand that KSM be released into the public a free man due to the serious constitutional violations the government inflicted on him. Violations, that is, if you postulate from the outset he had full constitutional rights of a citizen criminal. If you don't postulate that -- if you postulate he was owed a lesser standard due to the fact he was an illegal combatant -- then there weren't any violations (or at least far fewer).

Now, if a judge won't spring KSM for waterboarding -- surely a "shock the conscience" bit of coercion if performed in a police station house -- then a judge must necessarily bless it as permissible for a run-of-the-mill US citizen suspect, because that is, of course, Obama categorizes KSM.

Go read the whole thing over at Ace of Spades.