Someone named Kejda Gjermani writes about being among 300 to 400 people on Foley Square, Manhattan, yesterday. They were protesting the upcoming trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others alleged to be responsible for the 9/11 attacks. In Manhattan, you can more people than that to line up for coffee and bagels. Even the dimmer New Yorkers who don’t grasp the significance of a civil trial are not worked up enough about it to protest, apparently.
Doubtless, the weather deterred many would-be attendees. But the 300-400 people who had shown up were determined and righteously angry–at the president’s and attorney general’s measly arguments for extending to the 9/11 mastermind the same legal privileges of American citizens; at the travesty of justice that his civil trial would entail; and at the cheap rhetorical shots through which the administration is dismissing the critics of its decision.
Cheap rhetorical shots like calling the lot of you cowards and appeasers of terrorism, Kejda Gjermani? Because as far as I’m concerned, that’s what you are. Instead of standing up to terrorists, you would rather fearfully betray our laws and values and demonstrate to terrorists we’re the despots they thought we were. Thanks loads.
The poor sap Gjermani actually quotes the engraving on the New York State Supreme Courthouse — “The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government” — as an argument for military trials. Stupid, much?
The rally was sponsored by something called the 9/11 Never Forget coalition, which is supposed to be “a diverse group of 9/11 victims, family members, first responders, active and reserve members of the military, veterans, and concerned Americans.” The comment I left on their website is awaiting moderation and I don’t expect it to be posted, so here it is —
Speaking as someone who was in lower Manhattan on 9/11 — after years of listening to President Bush claim that we were attacked because “they hate us for our freedoms,” it seems to me that trying KSM in a civilian court in New York City is the biggest flipped middle finger we could display to the terrorists. Trying KSM secretly in a military court is cowardly and caving in to terrorists, and all of the people on this panel should be ashamed of themselves.
But someone named Joe Citizen left a better comment —
I respect all of you, but think you terribly wrong on this issue. I am thrilled that the Justice Department has refused to play the game that KSM and his ilk wish, that they be considered some sort of legitimate military force fighting for their people. They are the lowest form of murderous criminals, and I am thankful that a jury of New Yorkers will get to pass judgment on their crimes.
I don’t know why exactly you people have chosen to take the opposite position on this. Some amongst you are driven, I am sure, by rank political opportunism, some others I fear, do not have much confidence in the American judicial system, or the American people. Maybe there are other more benign motivations, but they are erroneous and damaging.
Our American system, and our American values, are fully capable of dealing with horrendous crimes like this, and I wish you all would understand and support that.
That says it all pretty plainly, and it got past the site moderator. Glory be.
I can’t believe what’s happened to the right-wing in this country. Is September 11, 2001, the day they all turned into pussies?
In my lifetime, they went from being so against ANY intrusion into an individual’s privacy, to being gossipy snoops.
And while they admire Patton, both the man and the movie, which they can quote verbatim, they act like the poor kid that their favorite General had to slap for being “cowardly.”
And they swagger around like they’re John F’n Wayne, but cry and tremble like grade-B movie actress being tied to the railroad tracks.
Buck up, boy’s. If you keep crying and whimpering, your mascara will run – “not that there’s anything wrong with that…”
Didn’t anybody tell them? There’s no crying in national security. No crying…
Within a Federal District Court there are no cameras allowed, making the chance for grandstanding and propaganda from the terrorists much less likely. That’s assuming that our press does their normal, bang-up job. Besides, I think the idea is to give the terrorists a fair trial, and then execute them. Why this doesn’t make the white wing salivate is beyond me.
I occasionally correspond with extreme right-wing whackjobs, an exercise in intellectual masochism, I admit. The outrage from the nutjobs is that we are treating these people like people. The concern is not that they might be acquitted, it’s that we will grant them human rights when for 7 years the Cheney/Bush administration contrived mechanisms and rationale to deprive an accused Muslim of all human rights at the time of abduction (arrest is not the word), allow ‘confessions’ obtained under torture as evidence and limit what the defense would be allowed to request or introduce.
The goal of the military trials as designed by Cheney/Bush was to deprive the victim (guilty or not) of any semblance of a just trial. It was intended to be a very public mock-trial, a simulation that was deliberately and obviously contrived to satisfy a vindictive lust for revenge. It’s sick and it’s sad that in a city of 8 million, even 400 could be found who want to conduct a witch hunt – this is not the dark ages – and fashion-conscious NewYorkers know that burning people at the stake is out of style.
30,000+ people die in auto accidents in the U.S. each year, yet we think nothing about hopping in our cars and blithely toodling down the road. 44,000+ people die in the U.S. every year from lack of adequate health care, yet Harry Reid is having a helluva time getting 60 out of 100 senators to see this as a problem. In 2008, 1.9 million violent crimes were committed in the U.S., yet, while 50+ cents of every federal dollar is spent on our military, law enforcement agencies within our borders are experiencing severe budget cuts. And yes, right now someone living not very far from you is oiling his guns and stocking explosives — for some imaginary or half-assed reason.
The point I’m trying to make here is that we Americans are very selective about what constitutes sufficient cause to get our knickers in a twist. And I think that this takes some serious, deliberate programing. “Muslim Terrorist” has replaced “Vlad the Impaler” in the lexicon of really scary, shake in your boots, words. The Right Wing fear mongering is really starting to piss me off.
Actually, Kahlid wanted to be tried by a military court – something about giving him a certain ‘status,’ like rather being just a plain deranged terrorist, as he is to be tried, he’d achieve ‘fighter’ status tried by a military court.
As far as the 300, by now it’s obvious that whatever the Obama Administration does or plans to do or says or thinks of doesn’t do, plan, or think, a part of the electorate will be against (them.) They’re operating on some sort of body reflex reaction – like when the doc hits your knee with that little mallet your leg jumps.
Sounds to me like the terrorists have already beat those cowardly 300. Pathetic.
Maybe the 300 to 400 were bussed in and are not New Yorkers.
Nor Spartans. LOL
“Joe Citizen” and maha are already my Heroes of the Week, and it’s only Sunday.