Is Everyone OK?!!

Oh my God, are you alright?!! Do you know what has been happening on AMERICAN soil. Where was the media, consarnit? why wasn’t I warned?! The children!

 NEW YORK — The first Guantanamo detainee to face a civilian trial was acquitted Wednesday of all but one of the hundreds of charges he helped unleash death and destruction on two U.S. embassies in 1998 – a mixed result for what’s been viewed as a terror test case.

A federal jury convicted Ahmed Ghailani of one count of conspiracy to destroy U.S. property and acquitted him on more than 280 other counts, including one murder count for each of the 224 people killed in the embassy bombings. The anonymous jurors deliberated over seven days.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan had thanked the jury, saying the outcome showed that justice “can be rendered calmly, deliberately and fairly by ordinary people – people who are not beholden to any government, even this one.”

In a statement, Department of Justice spokesman Matthew Miller said U.S. officials “respect the jury’s verdict” and are “pleased” that Ghailani faces a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of life in prison at sentencing on Jan. 25.

How dare Eric Holder adhere to the Rule of Law and let the terrorists win? Putting findings of law in the hands of terr’ist juries and terr’ist judges? Why does he insist on shaving crescent moons into the fur America’s golden labs? There are too many variations of hummus, Holder! You think this is a coincidence?! Open your eyes!

And what about all the attacks that happened? The circus? What about the circus?

Well, predictably others weren’t happy about it…

U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday’s verdict confirms that the Obama administration’s decision to try Gitmo detainees in civilian courts “was a mistake and will not work.”

“This case was supposed to be the easy one, and the Obama administration failed – the Gitmo cases from here-on-out will only get more difficult,” Hoekstra, of Michigan, said in a statement.

U.S. Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican who’s the ranking minority leader of the Homeland Security Committee, called the verdict a “wake-up call” for the White House.

I appreciate the call to more substance-free, fear-based justice, despite whatever that fucking Constitution says. Has King changed his undies yet? But of course they’re right. And of course this is what they stood behind last year…

The extensive security requirements in the vicinity of the court house and the surrounding area would create massive economic and emotional turmoil in a part of the city that has already suffered greatly from unthinkable acts of terrorism. You need to move the trial away from this large, vital urban center to a less populated location.

The projected $215 million annual cost for security doesn’t take into consideration the impact that these security measures will have on our economy, businesses, residents and visitors.

Is New York still there, or did everyone leave? And the Media coverage of the trial was just fantastic. It’s good to know this is only a story when hyperbolic GOP mouthpieces need to paint Obama as a terr’ist and the MSM obliges with their vintage record/play/ignore facts  coverage.

Oh well. I’m just glad we all survived.

America Somehow Manages To Convict Another Terrorist In Civilian Court

If you listen to the Beltway babble, even the “moderates” are starting to sound a lot like Dick Cheney. Apparently, their faith in our 250-year old Rule of Law is so fragile and skin-deep that the thought of using our existing legal framework to convict someone such as the “X-Mas Underwear Bomber” portends unfathomable danger for every red-blooded American. Furthermore, their interpretation of the Rights extended by the Constitution are either ridiculously misinformed, or intellectually dishonest.

Last week, it took a Kansas jury less than an hour to convict Scott Roeder, the man who walked into a Lutheran church and shot abortion doctor George Tiller in the head. Roeder’s defense put forth an argument that the charge be reduced to “voluntary manslaughter,” which Kansas law defines as “an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force” and carries a slim four-to-six-year sentence. The defense was hoping to make the case that Roeder honestly believed Tiller posed an imminent threat to “unborn children” and that using deadly force against him was justified. On the stand, Roeder admitted to shooting the doctor and expressed no regret. The judge denied this argument. The jury convicted Roeder of first-degree murder.

This is in Wichita, Kansas – a hotbed of Conservative activism. I doubt you could find a jury pool in Kansas without a handful of devout anti-Choice members. And it took them less than an hour.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. This guy is a white American murderer,” you may say. “That’s a big difference from being a brown Muslim murderer. (or attempted murderer)” Of course it is. We all know the broad pro-Muslim and pro-Brown tendencies of the American populace.

As the DOJ re-weighs its decision to try the Burned Crotch Bomber and 9/11 murderers in civilian Courts, I’m trying wrap my head around the associated fear-mongering being perpetrated by the Right (and a solid amount of Democrats).

No one less than Conservative Hero Ronald Reagan addressed the issue of trying terrorists in US Courts during his presidency.

The official policy of the Reagan Administration when it came to treating Terrorists, as articulated by the top Reagan State Department official in charge of Terrorism policies, L. Paul Bremer, in a speech he entitled “Counter-Terrorism:  Strategies and Tactics:”

Another important measure we have developed in our overall strategy is applying the rule of law to terrorists. Terrorists are criminals. They commit criminal actions like murder, kidnapping, and arson, and countries have laws to punish criminals. So a major element of our strategy has been to delegitimize terrorists, to get society to see them for what they are — criminals — and to use democracy’s most potent tool, the rule of law against them.

It was also Ronald Reagan who signed the Convention Against Torture in 1988 — after many years of countless, horrific Terrorist attacks — which not only declared that there are “no exceptional circumstances whatsoever” justifying torture, but also required all signatory countries to “ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law” and — and Reagan put it — “either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.”  And, of course, even George W. Bush — at the height of 9/11-induced Terrorism hysteria — charged attempted shoe bomber Richard Reid with actual crimes and processed him through our civilian courts.

While certain imperfections and inequities exist in our legal system, you have to wonder about the endgame for the supporters of indefinite, perpetual detention of uncharged prisoners.

Ramzi Yousef. Richard Reid. Jose Padilla. Khan Mohammed. Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri…The list goes on. All terrorists convicted in US Courts. While Holder weighs his options, his critics are ready to pounce.

“The only time [the Obama] administration ever cites the previous administration for a precedent is to mention that there were some terrorists tried in U.S. courts,” Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said Sunday on State of the Union.

“We now know that was a mistake,” declared McConnell. “That was a mistake by the previous administration. The other mistake they made that shouldn’t be replicated by this administration is letting too many people go from Guantanamo.”

So according to McConnell, not only Reagan, but Bush and Cheney are radical leftists. Is this just political posturing, or is the fear genuine?

“This is really dangerous nonsense,” McConnell said of the Obama administration’s policies regarding treatment of alleged terrorists. “We have a way to do it, John,” McConnell told CNN’s John King. “Interrogate them. Detain them and try them in military commissions offshore at Guantanamo from which no one has ever escaped.”

Asked whether he was ready to deny the White House the funding necessary to close the Guantanamo Bay facility and move detainees held there to a location somewhere in the United States, McConnell responded, “Absolutely.” He predicted that there would be bipartisan support in Congress for withholding the funding.

Ahh. The fear of the escaped terrorist single-handedly wreaking havoc on America. Looks like someone has been watching his 24 DVDs.

These fucking Hawks have big enough balls to send other Americans’ children off the fight their bullshit wars, but they’re scared of bringing heavily-guarded and shackled terrorists to an American city where they’re despised? Some critics say trying them in NYC would be a “circus.” Fine. I have an idea. United States District Court for the District of Kansas. Topeka or Wichita.

So far, Obama + Holder’s DOJ have sent mixed signals. It’s about time they step up and stand tall for the Bill of Rights and the American Rule of Law.