Obama finally smartening up about Khalid Sheik Mohammed

Instead of a civilian trial advisers to Obama are going to recommend a military tribunal.

President Obama's advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, administration officials said, a step that would reverse Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City.

The president's advisers feel increasingly hemmed in by bipartisan opposition to a federal trial in New York and demands, mainly from Republicans, that Mohammed and his accused co-conspirators remain under military jurisdiction, officials said. While Obama has favored trying some terrorism suspects in civilian courts as a symbol of U.S. commitment to the rule of law, critics have said military tribunals are the appropriate venue for those accused of attacking the United States.

If Obama accepts the likely recommendation of his advisers, the White House may be able to secure from Congress the funding and legal authority it needs to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and replace it with a facility within the United States. The administration has failed to meet a self-imposed one-year deadline to close Guantanamo.

This sounds great, but why the change? I for one don't exactly trust Obama.

I don't think this is a national security decision. If Obama actually cared about National Security he would have never let the idea of trying KSM as a civilian. It would have been a military tribunal from the word go. I think this is all political.

Obama knows the majority of the people care about America. They care about our national security. And they think that trying KSM as a civilian would make a spectacle of the Islamic terrorists.

It's a good thing Obama finally made the right decision regarding KSM. It just shouldn't have taken him this long.