Republican gubernatorial candidate Allen Weh says he is opposed to trying accused terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in federal civil court, citing a Wall Street Journal opinion piece from Saturday.

“Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to provide a ‘fair’ day in court on U.S. soil for the same terrorists who seek to destroy this great nation and western civilization is both dangerous to the American people and offensive to the many who served to protect our country,” Weh, a decorated retired Colonel of the United States Marine Corps Reserve, said in a release sent out Thursday.

But others say that trying terrorists in civilian courts is nothing new. Glenn Greenwald, a former constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York and currently a blogger for Salon.com, calls the reaction a “surrender” to terrorists:

People in capitals all over the world have hosted trials of high-level terrorist suspects using their normal justice system.  They didn’t allow fear to drive them to build island-prisons or create special commissions to depart from their rules of justice.  Spain held an open trial in Madrid for the individuals accused of that country’s 2004 train bombings.  The British put those accused of perpetrating the London subway bombings on trial right in their normal courthouse in London.  Indonesia gave public trials using standard court procedures to the individuals who bombed a nightclub in Bali.  India used a Mumbai courtroom to try the sole surviving terrorist who participated in the 2008 massacre of hundreds of residents.  In Argentina, the Israelis captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals, and brought him to Jerusalem to stand trial for his crimes.

The Wall Street Journal opinion piece, however, says:

Contrary to liberal myth, military tribunals aren’t a break with 200-plus years of American jurisprudence. Eight Nazis who snuck into the U.S. in June 1942 were tried by a similar court and most were hanged within two months. Before the Obama Administration stopped all proceedings earlier this year pending yesterday’s decision, the tribunals at Gitmo had earned a reputation for fairness and independence.

A majority of Americans, according to a CNN poll, say that they believe that Khalid Shiekh Mohammed should not be tried in federal court — however, a slightly larger majority says a trial in military court should still happen on American soil.

Already, one 9/11 conspirator, Zacarias Moussaoui, has been tried and convicted — though not given the death penalty — in federal civil court in Virginia.

Either way, it looks like Weh jumped into a very complicated constitutional and political mess.

Many are saying they believe the trial should be moved from New York City. Andrew Cohen, CBS News’ chief legal analyst and legal editor, writing for The Daily Beast, addresses the issue of moving the trial:

Even in the only 9/11 trial to date—the Zacarias Moussaoui conspiracy sentencing trial—a federal judge in Virginia refused to change location from Alexandria, Virginia. The only federal trial that would even remotely compare with the Mohammed trial was the 1997 trial of bomber Timothy McVeigh, the man who killed 168 people on April 19, 1995, when he blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Until 9/11, that trial was the biggest mass-murder trial in American history. Mohammed, meanwhile, may be on the hook for a capital trial linked to 10 times as many victims.

In the McVeigh case, even as early as his arraignment, defense attorneys sought a change of venue. First, they argued that the case be moved to another federal district within Oklahoma. Next, they argued that the case be moved out of Oklahoma City altogether. Jury-selection experts were consulted. Media experts were polled. And in the end, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Matsch moved the Oklahoma City bombing trial out of the state and to neighboring Denver. About 15 months later, McVeigh was convicted and sentenced to death by a federal jury in Denver.

Weh’s statement also addresses another controversial issue — whether or not alleged terrorists being held in Guantanamo Bay should be moved to facilities within the United States. From the gubernatorial candidates’ statement:

Weh said he believes a governor’s top priority is to provide safety to the citizens the state, just as the president’s No. 1 priority is to protect the people of the U.S. As a strong supporter of the 10th Amendment and prerogatives given to an elected governor of a state, Weh said he will do everything in his power as governor of New Mexico to stop the federal government from confining known terrorists in this state.

While, to my knowledge, there has been no movement to bring to New Mexico those currently held in Guantanamo Bay, that cannot be said for other states. For example, some in the village of Thomson, Illinois are hoping for the transfer of prisoners to an abandoned prison to increase job opportunities in the area.

U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who is running for Senate, blasted the idea, writing a letter to President Barack Obama saying, “As home to America’s tallest building and leading defense suppliers, we should not invite Al Qaeda to make Illinois its number one target.”

Kirk was opposed, however, by former Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Barr (Barr ran for President in 2008 as a libertarian), Americans for Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist and American Conservative Union founder David Keene.

“The scaremongering about these issues should stop,” they wrote in a letter circulated by the Constitution Project. “It makes sense for the community, which will benefit from the related employment and has absolutely no reason to fear that prisoners will escape or be released into their communities.”

Yesterday, an amendment put forward by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., which would have blocked the use of federal money to “adapt or build” facilities for Guantanamo Bay detainees failed.

All in all, very complicated issues with, perhaps, no right answers.