A Nation Of Laws

The Great Orange One calls out the Wingers on the KSM trial in New York.

American liberals are tough on terrorists and secure in their knowledge that the Sept. 11 conspirators are guilty of mass murder. American conservatives are timid cowards who fear that the U.S. government can’t actually prove that the Sept. 11 killers committed their heinous crimes. Sound weird?

Maybe. But what else can be concluded after watching conservatives collectively lose their heads over President Barack Obama’s easy decision to try Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other co-conspirators in U.S. District Court in New York City? Seems that macho conservatives are terrified of shackled terrorists in orange jumpsuits and the United States Constitution.

(More after the jump...)

“This decision is further evidence that the White House is reverting to a dangerous pre-Sept. 11 mentality: treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue and hoping for the best,” wailed House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), panic-stricken that the federal criminal justice system wasn’t up to the task of protecting him.

Conservative hack Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard fretted: “In open court, it will be Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who will hold forth, mocking his victims, exulting in the suffering of their families, ridiculing the judge, his lawyers and the American justice system, and worst of all, rallying his jihadi brothers to kill more Americans … just blocks from where 20,000 body parts were dug out of the rubble of the Twin Towers.”

Kristol’s words were as inflammatory as they were cowardly, betraying a sad fear that the pathetic Mohammed could shout out, “Allahu akbar!” in a courtroom and … what? Generate sensationalistic headlines in the New York Post? Immediately convert millions of Americans into radical Islamic extremists? Give slacking terrorists new resolve to attack America?

And of course he's right.  To conservatives, the law only exists to protect power: if it can be interpreted otherwise, it's unnecessary.  But it's the Winger response to this that is the most fascinating.

8 years after 9/11, these morons still apparently don’t get it. This has nothing to do with ‘cowering’ in the face of KSM. How dare the Attorney General of the US insinuate that the opposition to holding KSM’s trial in a civilian court has anything to do with being “cowardly”? The issue at hand is what sensitive information will be revealed in a US court of law, since KSM is being tried as a murderer in a civilian court, rather than as a suspected terrorist in a military court.

Supposedly – in spite of the fact that many other Gitmo terrorists will indeed be tried by a military court – the Obama administration wants this high-profile trial to be a “beacon” to other parts of the world, to show, in particular Muslim countries, how our justice system can be fair. But the underlying rationale for putting on this show trial, as I’ve already discussed here, is not to put KSM on trial and to provide justice to the 9-11 victims but instead to try the Bush administration and in the process reveal potentially damaging sensitive information about our intelligence collecting operations.

Normally this would be the point where Double G would come in and kill this, but I'll take a crack at it.

First of all, given the track record in the manipulation of intelligence after 9/11 to fit the Bush/Cheney narrative, saying that methods and sensitive information is now the holy of holies is ridiculous. Nobody seemed to care what these methods were until it was revealed how odious they were, and the rush to justify them was on.

Second, putting the methods and means that we used on trial is absolutely necessary for us as a country. As I have said numerous times, we are either a nation of laws or we are are not. You cannot justify what has been done in the name of national security and still have a secure nation. Let the world know. Let America come clean and then move on from this moment. Only a legitimate trial will do that...or do people really prefer a pointless kangaroo court to show American justice?

At least Sister Toldjah is being more honest than Bill Kristol and the bunch. The real argument is over the fact that we tortured people in the name of obtaining justice after 9/11. We have to deal with that as a nation...and that's what conservatives really are afraid of.