Brown: Trial not Pittsburgh’s style

Just as Pittsburgh has finally cleared its lungs of the remnants of OC gas lingering in the… Just as Pittsburgh has finally cleared its lungs of the remnants of OC gas lingering in the court system following last September’s G-20 Summit, it looks like P.T. Obama and his three-ring political circus might be on its way back for an encore.

Promising to close the Guantanamo Bay military base during his first month in office, the president also vowed to have the remaining 9/11 terrorism suspects tried in civilian courts. Because of Sixth Amendment stipulations concerning the proximity of the trial venue to the crimes committed, New York, Virginia and Western Pennsylvania have made the short list to host the trials.

New York City would be the obvious choice, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he didn’t want the trials of mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspects disrupting the already hectic New York lifestyle. Bloomberg apparently carries some clout, as Politico reported that the White House is heeding his request.

And no one’s mentioning Virginia seriously — just a few miles away from Washington D.C. and the Pentagon.

Since Pittsburgh is the largest city near where United 93 went down, we might get stuck with the trial here. If that happens, we know plenty of protesters will be in town.

Obama’s 2010 budget has allocated $200 million for the stateside trials. For reference, the G-20 only cost the government a little over $12 million for all accommodations during the two-day summit and into the weekend.

Just imagine what kind of military-grade weapons some bored security personnel could use on civilian bystanders given that kind of budget. I don’t know about any of you, but I can hardly contain my excitement.

Surely, our gung-ho mayor must be elated to have another opportunity to show the world what Pittsburgh has to offer, right? Well, not exactly.

In what might be the first instance I can remember, Mayor Ravenstahl isn’t making himself out to be like a teenage girl in a shoe store with dad’s credit card. Dare I say it, but our young mayor is showing some maturity and restraint toward this occasion.

According to his spokeswoman, Joanna Doven, during an interview with the Tribune-Review, Ravenstahl shares many of the same concerns as Bloomberg.

“The trial could put our citizens in danger, as well as the exorbitant costs associated with the trial, something that we could not withstand,” she said.

It’s possible that, contrary to our concerns based on past handlings, our representatives were paying attention to us during the G-20 fiasco. Even Sen. Arlen Specter doesn’t want this state to host the trials, much less Pittsburgh.

“If there is any [move] to bring them to Pennsylvania, I’ll fight it,” he said. “And, I know Sen. Casey will and the Pennsylvania delegation. We’ll fight it. We’re not going to let that trial come to Pennsylvania.”

Only Newburgh, N.Y., 60 miles north of New York City, has stepped forward to accept hosting the trials. Mayor Nicholas Valentine said his reasoning has more to do with the city’s struggling economy, high crime rates and the promise of part of that $200 million going toward much-needed infrastructure updates than anything else, though.

While politicians continue to play an interstate game of hot potato, it has become clear that the Obama administration might be the only party that really wants the suspects tried in the U.S. After criticizing former president George W. Bush for his often bull-headed way of ignoring public opinion, Obama isn’t proving to be any better.

“Currently our federal jails hold hundreds of convicted terrorists, and the president’s opinion has not changed on that,” White House spokesman Bill Burton said.

We all know that Obama ditched the phrase “war on terror” last March, but semantics aside, having 100,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan to hunt terrorists isn’t exactly just a goodwill tour. Just because Obama doesn’t like Bush’s vernacular doesn’t make this any less of a war.

And as such, a military tribunal hearing for the terrorism suspects in the still-open Guantanamo Bay base makes perfect sense — not anywhere near where civilians can be harmed. In a rare bipartisan act in the Senate, legislators have proposed blocking the funding for the trials.

The nature of having the 9/11 trials hosted here could be very similar to the martial law-like shutdown experienced during the G-20 — only with a budget 12 times larger and the possibility of months of litigation instead of just two days of meetings. I’m crossing my fingers that our senators can force the trials back to Gitmo — or at least far away from Pittsburgh.

This town has already had more than enough muck slinged its way. Any further debacles here would be simply cruel.

E-mail Jacob at jeb110@pitt.edu.