Most Americans are justifiably outraged by Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, in a civilian criminal court in New York.

There are countless reasons to oppose Holder’s decision, not the least of which is the potential for compromising our intelligence assets in a public, criminal trial where Mohammed’s attorneys will demand release of such classified information.

This is not a hypothetical concern. During the trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the perpetrator of the 1993 New York trade center bombing, Rahman’s attorneys forced the release of the list of unindicted co-conspirators developed by the prosecution.

One of the names on the list? Osama bin Laden. Soon after, bin Laden fled Sudan.

The insightful Wall Street Journal column by William McGurn (see below) provides another powerful reason why Holder’s decision is so outrageous. Bottom line: Holder’s decision has given terrorists a greater incentive to target civilians.

The perversity of this defies description. This is just one more in a long line of decisions by the Obama administration that is putting America—and our lives—at greater risk.

Holder’s al Qaeda Incentive Plan

By William McGurn

Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2009

When it comes to terrorists, you would think that an al Qaeda operative who targets an American mom sitting in her office or a child on a flight back home is many degrees worse than a Taliban soldier picked up after a firefight with U.S. Army troops.

Your instinct would be correct, because at the heart of terrorism is the monstrous idea that the former is as legitimate a target as the latter. Unfortunately, by dispatching Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other al Qaeda leaders to federal criminal court for trial, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will be undermining this distinction. And the perverse message that decision will send to terrorists all over this dangerous world is this: If you kill civilians on American soil you will have greater protections than if you attack our military overseas.

"A fundamental purpose of rules such as the Geneva Conventions is to give those at war an incentive for more civilized behavior—and not targeting civilians is arguably the most sacred of these principles," says William Burck, a former federal prosecutor and Bush White House lawyer who dealt with national security issues. "It demolishes this principle to give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed even more legal protections than the Geneva Conventions provide a uniformed soldier fighting in a recognized war zone."

Go here for the full article.