Giuliani On 9/11 Trials: Obama Giving Favor To ‘Terrorists’ And Endangering New York

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani
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Former New York City Mayor and failed GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani made the rounds on the Sunday news shows today, slamming the Obama administration for the recently-announced civilian trials for suspected 9/11 conspirators that will be held in New York City.

Giuliani said the detainees — who are now being held at Gitmo — should be subject to military trials (“They were good enough for Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt.”) and not civilian trials in New York.

“It’s an unnecessary advantage to give to the terrorists,” Giuliani said on CNN’s State of the Union. “I don’t know why you want to give terrorists advantages. And secondly, it’s an unnecessary risk to the city of New York, which already has any number of risks.”

Several news show hosts called Giuliani out on some apparent hypocrisy — in 2006, he praised the civilian trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, saying he was “in awe of our system” and that we “are a nation of law.”

Giuliani tried to deflect that line of questioning by saying military tribunals are the preferred alternative for the current crop of suspects.

The former mayor said multiple times this morning that the trials pose a risk to New York — “Of course it’s going to create more security concerns,” he said on Fox News Sunday — but also pushed that the civilian trials somehow show that the White House doesn’t understand the “war on terror.”

“What the Obama administration is telling us loud and clear is that both in substance and reality, the war on terror, from their point of view, is over,” Giuliani said. “We’re no longer gonna treat these people as if this were an act of war.”

This is the administration that told us there was no war on terror. The only problem is, the terrorists seem to believe there is a war on us.

Giuliani also claimed that Obama was doing a favor to the Guantanamo detainees by bringing them to New York, saying on Fox News that “this gives all the benefits to the terrorists and much less benefit to the public.”

“Since when are we in the business of granting the wishes of terrorists?” he said, adding that “this seems to be an over concern with the rights of terrorists and a lack of concern for the rights of the public.”

As more supposed proof of how the administration doesn’t understand the “war on terror,” Giuliani pointed to the Fort Hood shootings, in which Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is suspected in an attack that killed 13 and wounded many more.

“This whole thing with Major Hasan is another indication that he doesn’t get it,” Giuliani said of Obama. “He doesn’t get that there was an Islamic war against us.”

On ABC’s This Week, Giuliani said the Fort Hood shooting was “clearly a terrorist attack in the name of Islamic terrorism” and that like the 9/11 attack, “these are acts of war.”

Asked about Sarah Palin — whose much anticipated memoir comes out this week — Giuliani said on CNN that Palin “is great for the Republican Party.”

This is a person who creates great enthusiasm for the party.

On This Week, Giuliani said “there’s something extra-special that Sarah Palin has.”

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