Justice and the Enemy

16The renowned journalist and human rights activist considers the issues surrounding the pending trial of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, and the struggle to deal lawfully with the willfully lawless both in the US and internationally.Since the Nuremberg Trials of 1945, lawful countries have struggled to impose justice around the world, especially when confronted by tyrannical and genocidal regimes. But in Cambodia, the USSR, China, Bosnia, Rwanda, and beyond, justice has been served haltingly if at all in the face of colossal inhumanity. International Courts are not recognised worldwide. There is not a global consensus on how to punish transgressors. Now the case of imprisoned senior Al Qaeda plotter Khaled Sheikh Mohammed raises issues logistical, legal, and ethicalemblematic of the challenge posed to all nations and the international community. Should the US seek the high ground and try to make its law apply to the stateless and lawless who would do it harm? Or would a civil, federal tri16al reward a war criminal with the rights of a US citizen to which he is not entitled? Would a military tribunal be appropriate legally, militarily, or morally? In this book, William Shawcross explores the visceral debate that these questions have provoked over the proper application of democratic values in a time of war.13"This thoughtful, passionately right-wing study underscores the thorny difficulties the U.S. has faced in bringing the September 11 attackers to court." (Publishers Weekly)"A controversial intervention into the ongoing political and legal argument about whether and how to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his co-conspirators for their role in the 9/11 attack . . . [Shawcross] takes a no-holds-barred approach to the issues involved in putting the alleged perpetrators of 9/11 on trial for their crimes . . . Sure to cause further heated debate on the Mohammed situation and other similar scenarios."(Kirkus Reviews)"Brilliant, sobering, scholarly and full of suspense....urgently needed and an essential book for anyone who cares about the future of the free world." (Sally Bedell Smith, author)"This excellent book will make a huge contribution to the debate about the nature of the Islamist threat and ways of responding to it." (Amir Taheri, author)"In Justice and the Enemy, William Shawc13ross locates the current controversies over meting out justice to radical Islamist terrorists who have declared on the West, in the long tradition of humane jurisprudence. In this elegant and fair-minded discussion, Shawcross reminds us that defenders of Western civilization do not have to be perfect - who can be in the turmoil of war? - to be good when they try to bring horrific killers to legal account. His elegant discussion is an historical and literary masterpiece, in drawing on a lifetime of confronting enemies of civilization firsthand." (Victor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow, Classics/Military History, the Hoover Institution, Stanford University)