Ex-White House counsel Greg Craig thought it was a good idea to transfer Elián Gonzalez from the arms of his loving family in Miami into the arms of Fidel Castro. Transfer Elián from Florida to Cuba. Bad idea. Attorney General Janet Reno thought she might have to prove her toughness by transferring dozens of women and children from a Waco cult headquarters to eternity. Really bad idea.
But Eric Holder’s plan to transfer Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from Guantánamo Bay to Manhattan for a civilian trial is perhaps liberals’ worst idea in years. KSM and his cohorts had agreed to plead guilty before a military tribunal, accept a sentence of death, and speedily rendezvous with their 72 ladies-in-waiting.

This offer of an efficient way out for the administration was not good enough for Attorney General Eric Holder. He insists on trying the terrorists before a civilian jury in federal court, just a few hundred yards from Ground Zero. Next to martyrdom and a free trip to paradise, this has to be the terrorists’ wildest dream.
No turbaned genie ever appeared out of Aladdin’s lamp to grant three greater wishes than these. KSM to Genie: One, I want to exploit my status as mass-murdering terrorist; Two, I want to inflict even greater pain and suffering on the families of those thousands whom I’ve murdered; Three, I want to make my trial a magnet for my brother jihadists throughout the world.
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