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Originally Posted by pan6467
9/11 was an act of war, why are we allowing our president to let Khalid Sheikh Mohammed have a criminal trial?
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9/11 was an act of terrorism by a criminal organization, not an act of war. I like Justice Gaston's definition of war the best:
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War in the legal sense is the state of nations among whom there is an interruption of all pacific relations and a general contestation of arms by authority of the several sovereigns; it is not a mere contest of force, but must be an armed struggle carried on between two political bodies each of which exercises de facto authority over persons within a determinate territory, and its existence is determined by the authorized political department of the government. So, lawful war can never exist without the actual concurrence of the war-making power, but may exist prior to any contest of the armed forces.
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Generally speaking, nations may war with one another or against itself in civil war, but terrorism committed by an independent organization that clearly was not acting on behalf of a nation by proxy would be something other than war. In this case, it's murder by terrorism. 9/11 was an act of terrorism which resulted in nearly 3,000 premeditated murders. Since it seems Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was directly involved in this, he should be arrested, put on trial by the facts, and found guilty or innocent based on those facts.
Any other course of action would be unjust as we wouldn't be applying our own rule of law.