Conservatives’ fear = the terrorists win
November 17th, 2009 by John Grooms in Boomer with an Attitude
Many conservatives like to see themselves as rugged, no-nonsense defenders of freedom, clear-thinking patriots, ready to slap down America’s enemies at the drop of a hat. Too bad, then, that they’re actually cowards.
The right’s current collective nervous breakdown over plans to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York for his role in planning the 9-11 attacks confirms once again something we wrote about last year: the American right wing is scared stupid. When Attorney General Holder announced the forthcoming KSM trial, conservative members of Congress, columnists, TV newscasters, and bloggers just, there’s no better way to put it, completely freaked the hell out. “Dangerous!” “Irresponsible!” “What if he’s acquitted?!” “It invites more attacks!” Yesterday on Fox & Friends, Gretchen Carlson seemed genuinely terrified, practically on the verge of a stroke over the prospect of KSM’s trial.
Here’s what the stalwart patriots of the right can’t seem to understand: the whole point of terrorism is to make a country’s population walk around in fear every day. Conservatives, as far as I can see, threw in that towel a long time ago. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald describes the conservative position as, “We’re too scared to have real trials in our country,” which, as he points out, “is the textbook definition of ’surrendering to terrorists.’”
Spain held open trials for the terrorists who bombed trains in Madrid in 2004. The Brits tried the London subway terrorists in, you guessed it, London. The terrorists who bombed a nightclub in Bali? A regular trial in a regular courtroom. The 2008 massacres in Mumbai? Same thing. More to the point, we’ve already tried terrorists in America: remember Richard Reid, the shoe bomber? Zacarias Moussaoui? Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, the guy who launched the World Trade Center bombings in 1993? Will you Fox-Rush folks please get a damned grip?
It’s actually the right and their fear-mongering leaders who are being irresponsible by their public displays of terror. Again, as Greenwald put it, “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.” Frankly, these sunny day patriots’ ongoing surrender to terrorism would be kind of pitiful if they weren’t so damned cocky about being scared to death.
Gretchen Carlson: Help – the terrorists will kill us all!
November 17th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Nice of Grooms to show his ignorance concerning KSM. The problems that come up have to do with the problem of these guys not being captured in America even. All of Grooms examples were Terrorists being caught and tried in the country they commited the act in. This is not the case for all 5 of the guys Obama wants to bring to federal court. They were not read any miranda rights. Their discovery phase could force the exposure of sensitive ongoing investigation information. If we try these terrorists and give them citizenship rights of our court, does anyone attacked in our war on terror deserve relief in our American court system. Obama himself is using drones to attack people and kills women and children. The precedent Obama is setting could devolve into this. Past terrorist acts even on USA soil were sometime still done by military tribunal. Since the 9/11 attack was an act of war it should also be done by the military. The bad guys could also go free due to some silly technicality like the miranda rights thing.
Simply put this is a can of worms Obama did not need to open up. It shows just how short sight he is and proved yet again that he is not ready to lead.
I also do not see what this has to do with fear. This has to do with avoiding another OJ result and the unneeded bad side effects of a show trial. Just think how this will effect Democrats if one of these guys gets off on a technicality. Then we will see real fear and it will be coming from the Democrats future political losses.
Here is a great article on the subject.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=116268
November 17th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Grooms nailed this one. It’s not really news that the GOP/NeoCon/Fox News triumvirate is full of scare-dy cats. I see no problem with trying these murderers in the same jurisdiction as their horrific crimes.
Only a neo-con is scared of terrorists.
Dont be scurred!!! lol!
November 18th, 2009 at 10:53 am
I just don’t see the fear. All I see is liberal stupidity here. Maybe its the liberal fear of letting a crisis go to waste perhaps.
I just think its insane to give these terrorists the protections that are afforded to USA citizens. This is all a big clown show with Obama playing the part of Side Show Bob.
Lets sit back and see how smart this decision was a few months down the road.