Krauthammer: Obama offered al-Qaeda 9/11 Act II

But don’t worry — no one in the media will pay any attention to the man who orchestrated the murder of 3,000 people on 9/11, according to Eric Holder. Just because Zacarias Moussaoui managed to conduct a global propaganda campaign from a courtroom in eastern Virginia doesn’t mean that the more savvy Khalid Sheikh Mohammed can do the same … from New York City. As Charles Krauthammer correctly states, the US has just given KSM exactly what he wanted — a high-profile media megaphone so that he can stand on the bodies of the dead and use them for propaganda (via Greg Hengler at Townhall):

Krauthammer uses an excellent analogy here. Initially, KSM wanted to hijack an airplane himself as part of the 9/11 plot, kill all the male passengers before landing, and make a grand statement of purpose before allowing himself to be martyred in the cause. Instead, al-Qaeda let the silence speak for itself, only acknowledging their role in the attacks months later. His military detention has kept KSM from profiting from his notoriety — until now.

Is that 9/11′s “Act II”? Not in the sense of it being another attack, but certainly in the sense of offering AQ a chance to profit from its attack. It was a thoroughly avoidable consequence of a bad decision by Holder and Obama. And lest anyone doubt that Obama actually made this call, John Ashcroft sets the record straight:

Attorney General Eric Holder lacks authority to make a decision on moving terror detainees to civilian courts for trial, one of his predecessors said Wednesday.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who held his position during the Bush administration from 2001-2005, said that Holder lacked the legal standing to decide to move alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other terror detainees to federal courts in New York City to stand trial.

“The attorney general doesn’t have the authority to mandate that the secretary of Defense turn somebody over to him and yield jurisdiction so that something that would have been done in a military setting is done in a civilian setting,” Ashcroft told the Christ Stigall show on KCMO radio this morning.

“I believe that this is a decision that comes as a result of the president making the decision, or if not making the decision, allowing an attorney general to do what he normally doesn’t have the authority to do, and could only do at the acquiescence of the president,” the former AG and former Missouri senator argued.

Listen to Ashcroft discussing that at KCMO’s podcast here.

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