The Crazy Woman's facebook ghost writer wants us to be afraid. Very afraid:Horrible decision, absolutely horrible. It is devastating for so many of us to hear that the Obama Administration decided that the 9/11 terrorist mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, will be given a criminal trial in New York. This is an atrocious decision.
Mohammed and his terrorist co-conspirators are responsible for the deaths of more than 3,000 Americans. Thousands of American families have suffered through the loss of loved ones because of the disgusting attacks launched against the United States, and now this trial venue adds insult to injury, in addition to compromising our efforts in the War on Terror. Heaven forbid our allies see this decision as a reason to become less likely to support our efforts in the future.
Criminal defense attorneys will now enter into delaying tactics and other methods in the hope of securing some kind of win for their “clients.” The trial will afford Mohammed the opportunity to grandstand and make use of his time in front of the world media to rally his disgusting terrorist cohorts. It will also be an insult to the victims of 9/11, as Mohammed will no doubt use the opportunity to spew his hateful rhetoric in the same neighborhood in which he ruthlessly cut down the lives of so many Americans.
It is crucially important that Americans be made aware that the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks may walk away from this trial without receiving just punishment because of a “hung jury” or from any variety of court room technicalities. If we are stuck with this terrible Obama Administration decision, I, like most Americans, hope that Mohammed and his co-conspirators are convicted. Hang ‘em high.
I wholeheartedly support the survivors and the families of the victims in their appeal to the president regarding this matter. You can read more about it here.
- Sarah Palin
ABC News has posted an article by Jake Tapper that is rather non-committal about what Palin's ghost writer is trying to do here. Some of his article's commenters aren't, though:
from Vengeance is Mine:
Why does Sarah Palin hate the U.S. judicial system? Does she have no faith in our system of government? If so, she should move to another country! Maybe Russia, since she can see it from her home state!
from Lisa:
Sarah Palin fails Due Process 101.
I say this as a Republican and a police officer.
from Jemma:
Personally, I find Mayor Bloomberg's opinion to hold more weight. As he rightly points out, it is "fitting that 9/11 suspects face justice near the World Trade Center site where so many New Yorkers were murdered. We have hosted terrorism trials before, including the trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the mastermind of the 1993 Trade Center bombing." And I love that he gives a shout out to the brave and amazing NYPD.
from Scarletti:
Another good read is Glenn Greenwald's blog: "The Right's Textbook 'Surrender to Terrorists'"
As he points out 'the Right's reaction to yesterday's announcement -- we're too afraid to allow trials and due process in our country -- is the textbook definition of "surrendering 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. '
Which brings me to Glenn Greenwald's article at Salon.com, titled The Right's textbook "surrender to terrorists"
He begins with "'We're too scared to have real trials in our country' is a level of cowardice unmatched in the world."
In the zany world of the GOP, the neo-Cons and the neo-Libs, when a band of terrorists spend about $300,000.00 in an operation to smash airplanes into huge and symbolic buildings, killing thousands, the best response is to spend a trillion dollars, kill a million people or so in the wrong country, displace three or four million more people there, destabilize half the Muslim world, and make about 150 million new enemies.
The way we have fought the war on terror has been as if Osama bin Laden was running it. We have fought very stupidly most of the time, very inefficiently and have allowed our politicians and their accomplices to shred the U.S. Constitution.
Greenwald wrote his essay before Palin's ghost writer posted the facebook entry. But he links to a host of other right-wing figures who are out there this weekend, drumming up fears:
This is literally true: the Right's reaction to yesterday's announcement -- we're too afraid to allow trials and due process in our country -- is the textbook definition of "surrendering to terrorists." It's the same fear they've been spewing for years. As always, the Right's tough-guy leaders wallow in a combination of pitiful fear and cynical manipulation of the fear of their followers. Indeed, it's hard to find any group of people on the globe who exude this sort of weakness and fear more than the American Right.
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.
It's only America's Right that is too scared of the Terrorists -- or which exploits the fears of their followers -- to insist that no regular trials can be held and that "the safety and security of the American people" mean that we cannot even have them in our country to give them trials. As usual, it's the weakest and most frightened among us who rely on the most flamboyant, theatrical displays of "strength" and "courage" to hide what they really are. Then again, this is the same political movement whose "leaders" -- people like John Cornyn and Pat Roberts -- cowardly insisted that we must ignore the Constitution in order to stay alive: the exact antithesis of the core value on which the nation was founded. Given that, it's hardly surprising that they exude a level of fear of Terrorists that is unmatched virtually anywhere in the world. It is, however, noteworthy that the position they advocate -- it's too scary to have normal trials in our country of Terrorists -- is as pure a surrender to the Terrorists as it gets.
image - Angry Crazy Woman by DZ