Cowardice Blocks the 9/11 Trial

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/opinion/05tue1.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=cowardice%20blocks&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 6:46 AM
Subject: re: Cowardice Blocks the 9/11 Trial
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  In some alternative reality, the trial of Kaled Sheikh Mohammed in a Federal court might have been "the defining event of [Eric Holder's] time as Attorney General". In the current political reality, that has been precluded by Congressional grandstanding. All is not yet lost. AG Holder can still do much to restore our standing in the community of nations by prosecuting torturers; he can restore Civil Rights here in this country by throwing open and repudiating ten years of National Security Letters. His is a difficult office, in which the ever--changing "art of the possible" (i.e. politics) intersects with the eternal demands of Justice. It's not yet time to admit defeat.

Barry Haskell Levine