Given her "law and order" background, I thought Kelly Ayotte would avoid adding to the chorus of GOPers with no faith in the rule of law, but I was wrong:
"The decision to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the attacks of September 11 in federal court in New York is a huge mistake. The terrorist attacks on our country were an act of war and should be treated as such. Additionally, by pursuing charges in criminal court instead of a military tribunal, terrorists could become privy to American intelligence which could be used to harm our country and our allies. I firmly believe to keep our country safe Khalid Shaikh Mohammed should be tried in a military tribunal."
Earlier today Andrew Sullivan, an actual conservative, responded to this better than I ever could:
It will be a civic lesson to America and the world. It will show the evil of terrorism and the futility and danger of torture. It will be a way in which Cheney's torture regime can be revealed in all its grotesque excess at the same time as KSM's vile religious extremism is exposed for its murderous nihilism. That all this will take place in New York - close to where the mass murder took place - is a particularly smart touch.
This will, then, be a Nuremberg-style event - because it will pit Qaeda barbarism against the cooling, calm and resolute nature of real Western justice in the clear light of history. But it does one more critical thing. It reveals a new confidence in ourselves and the Western way of life.
...I believe this is the best symbolic answer to 9/11: a trial, with due process, after tempers have calmed somewhat, that exposes this evil for all it truly was. And also reveals the tragedy of an American government that lost its nerve and has now, under a new president, regained it.
