Of all the idiotic complaints about Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9.11 plotters in a federal court in Manhattan, the most offensive is that a public trial will give him a megaphone for his propaganda — and his words will cause our city, nay, our nation to fall.
This hysteria (fueled entirely by Republican Obama Derangement Syndrome, which makes every action of this administration the handiwork of Satan) was in plain view when Holder defended his decision before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. (Why he felt he had to defend his decision is another matter.) Breast-beating — GOP breasts, natch — was much in evidence, as when the reliably hysterical Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) claimed, “These are not normal criminals.”
No, they’re not; they are far bigger scumbags because they slaughtered people in the name of religion and righteousness and I actually do believe that if there is a Satan, he is warming up a front-row seat for them in hell right now. But why do these standard-bearers of the right have so little faith in our court system, let alone this whole free speech thing? What are they, communists? (Vietnam just shut down Facebook btw, presumably because of that pesky free-speech stuff; maybe Sessions should move there?)
The fact that KSM (as the court documents call him) and his co-conspirators were successful on 9.11 says more about our lack of readiness and intelligence failures than it does about their criminal genius. These are not superheroes from Batman; they are zealots who should have the right to spew their anti-US propaganda right in the heart of still-bustling downtown NYC before we convict them and send them to prison forever. (No martyrdom, since that’s what they asked for.)
As Holder so eloquently put it, “We need not cower in the face of this enemy. Our institutions are strong, our infrastructure is sturdy, our resolve is firm, and our people are ready.” Or as GWB liked to say, “Bring ’em on.”