A Trial That Will Convict Us All
by Paul Craig Roberts
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Republican members of Congress and what masquerades as a “conservative” media are outraged that the Obama administration intends to try in federal court Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of Sept. 11, and four alleged co-conspirators.
The Republican and right wing ranting that a trial is too good for these people proves what I have written for a number of years: Republicans and many Americans who think of themselves as conservatives have no regard for the U.S. Constitution or for civil liberties. They have no appreciation for the point made by Thomas Paine in his “Dissertations on First Principles of Government” (1790): “An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”
Republicans and American conservatives regard civil liberties as coddling devices for criminals and terrorists. They assume that police and prosecutors are morally pure and, in addition, never make mistakes. An accused person is guilty, or government wouldn’t have accused him. All of my life, I have heard self-described conservatives disparage lawyers who defend criminals. Such “conservatives” live in an ideal, not real, world. They desperately need to read “The Tyranny of Good Intentions.”
Even some of those, such as Stuart Taylor in the National Journal, who defend giving Mohammed a court trial do so on the grounds that there are no risks, as Mohammed is certain to be convicted and that “a civilian trial will show Americans and the rest of the world that our government is sure it can prove the 9/11 defendants guilty in the fairest of all courts.”
Taylor agrees that Mohammed deserves “summary execution,” but that it is a good Machiavellian ploy to try Mohammed in civilian court, while dealing with cases that have “trickier evidentiary problems” in “more flexible military commissions, away from the brightest spotlights.”
In other words, Taylor and the National Journal endorse Mohammed’s trial as a show trial that will prove both America’s honorable respect for fair trials and Muslim guilt for Sept. 11.
If, as Taylor writes, “the government’s evidence is so strong,” why wasn’t Mohammed tried years ago? Why was he held for years and tortured—apparently water-boarded 183 times—in violation of U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions? How can the U.S. government put a defendant on trial when its treatment of him violates U.S. statutory law, international law and every precept of the U.S. legal code? Mohammed has been treated as if he were a captive of Adolf Hitler’s Gestapo or Joseph Stalin’s KGB. And now we are going to finish him off in a show trial.
If the barbaric treatment Mohammed has received during his captivity hasn’t driven him insane, how do we know he hasn’t decided to confess in order to obtain for himself for evermore the glory of the deed? How many people can claim to have outwitted the CIA, the National Security Agency and all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, NORAD, the Pentagon, the National Security Council, airport security (four times on one morning), U.S. air traffic control, the U.S. Air Force, the military joint chiefs of staff, all the neocons, Mossad and even the formidable Dick Cheney?
Considering that some Muslims will blow themselves up in order to take out a handful of Israelis or U.S. and NATO occupation troops, the payoff that Mohammed will get out of a guilty verdict is enormous. Are we really sure we want to create a Muslim Superhero of such stature?
Originally, according to the U.S. government, Osama bin Laden was the mastermind of Sept. 11. To get bin Laden is the excuse given for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, which set up the invasion of Iraq. But after eight years of total failure to catch Osama bin Laden, it became absolutely necessary to convict some culprit, because the Sept. 11 Truth Movement is becoming too strong.
If Mohammed is really the mastermind who defeated the best that America has to offer, including the thousands of intelligence agents and strategic thinkers with the responsibility of protecting our country, Mohammed is a first-class genius. What a waste to execute him! Shouldn’t we first try to turn him? If we had a guy like Mohammed on our side running Homeland Security, we would forever be safe.
Allegedly, Arabs are corrupt and easily bribed. If we can pay the rulers of Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan to operate in our interest against their own kind, how do we know we can’t sign up Mohammed? I can see this guy as a highly paid consultant to Homeland Security. In addition to money, we could make some other concessions, such as ceasing to persecute Muslim charities and the innocent people who contribute to them. Using Stuart Taylor’s reasoning, this would be a good “pragmatic” move.
Unfortunately, there will be no such sensible outcome. David Feige in Slate.com on Nov. 19 has told us what the outcome will be. The prosecution doesn’t need any evidence because no judge and no jury is going to let the demonized “mastermind of Sept. 11″ off. No judge or juror wants to be forever damned by the brainwashed American public or assassinated by right-wing crazies.
Keep in mind that the kid, John Walker Lindh, termed “the American Taliban” by an ignorant and propagandistic U.S. media, was guilty of nothing except being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Despite the complete trampling of his every right, he got 20 years on a coerced plea bargain.
The price that Mohammed will pay will be small compared to the price we Americans will pay. The outcome of Mohammed’s trial will complete the transformation of the U.S. legal system from a shield of the people into a weapon in the hands of the state. Feige writes that Mohammed’s statements obtained by torture will not be suppressed, that witnesses against him will not be produced (”national security”), that documents that compromise the prosecution will be redacted.
At each stage of Mohammed’s appeals process, higher courts will enshrine into legal precedents the denial of the constitutional right to a speedy trial, thus enshrining indefinite detention; the denial of the right against damning pretrial publicity, thus allowing demonization prior to trial; and the denial of the right to have witnesses and documents produced, thus eviscerating a defendant’s rights to exculpatory evidence and to confront adverse witnesses.
The twisted logic necessary to disentangle Mohammed’s torture from his confession will also be upheld and will “provide a blueprint for the government, giving them the prize they’ve been after all this time—a legal way both to torture and to prosecute.”
It took Hitler a while to corrupt the German courts. Hitler first had to create new courts, like President George W. Bush’s military tribunals, that did not require evidence—using, in place of evidence hearsay, secret charges and self-incrimination obtained by torture.
Every American should be concerned that the Obama administration has decided to use Mohammed’s trial to complete the corruption of the American court system. When Mohammed’s trial is over, an American Joe Stalin or Adolf Hitler will be able to convict America’s Founding Fathers on charges of treason and terrorism. No one will be safe.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.COM
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1 Comment by RJ Rafferty on 25 November 2009:
God almighty but you are one abominably stupid “conservative”.
2 Comment by Theodore Van Oosbree on 25 November 2009:
I think Dr. Roberts has gone overboard. These men are neither POWs nor citizens and are not entitled to a civilian trial or Geneva Convention protections. They should have been tried in a military court long since. There is enough real injustice in courts already without inventing it where it does not exist.
3 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 25 November 2009:
Attention webmaster! Would you please ban RJ Rafferty from making any further posts on this site? Whoever they are, they never make any positive contribution to the discussion.
4 Comment by Allen Wilson on 25 November 2009:
Regardless of whether this man is entitled to a civilian trial, everything Roberts says about the precedents about to be set is true. We will see a show trial to cover up the failure to get Bin Laden, and the stage will be set for our own show trials.
5 Comment by Jonathan on 25 November 2009:
Roberts is wrong on this one. These men are enemy combatants. And he is also naive if he really believes the Obama administration is trying to get a conviction. To me, it appears more like the administration is attempting to intentionally taint the process with prejudicial statements – something a lawyer like Obama MUST KNOW is potentially damaging to prosecutors. My prediction is that this case will be kicked up to the World Court before 2012, and they will be let loose or given a slap on the wrist. And America will be put on trial by the world.
America, sometimes it really seems like you desire to commit suicide. But before doing so, can you at least consider the millions of innocent children in this country who will be left without a home, a future and a sanctuary to flee to?
6 Comment by Fred Breisch on 26 November 2009:
#4 I agree completely with your comment. Dr. Roberts is a lone voice in a vast wilderness of political correctness. His work is thought provoking and powerful, and I applaud Chronicles for giving him a platform to get his work out.
Keep up the good work!
7 Comment by Jonathan on 26 November 2009:
#6, Ironically, I feel the opposite is true. In this case, and I’m not making a blanket statement to be sure, Dr. Roberts is serving the ends of political correctness.
These terrorists are part of an organized war fighting effort being financed against the West by organized international bodies. Saying this isn’t a war because no official body has made an official declaration of war is the essense of PC. Saying these terrorists are civil criminals is the essence of PC and serves the ends of Marxism quite well.
The Supreme Court okayed the military process. It’s good enough for our soldiers… And this opens up all sorts of hypocrisys and paradoxes into this conflict.
Hitler’s corruption of the courts? What an outrageous comparison. Obama is doing nothing but corrupting the courts, irrespective of whatever sort of corruptions Bush 2 instituted. This is just a compounding of error. Not a reversal.
8 Comment by Tarkin on 26 November 2009:
Attention webmaster! Would you please ban RJ Rafferty from making any further posts on this site? Whoever they are, they never make any positive contribution to the discussion.
His/her comment was a silly one, but don’t you think he should be able write such silliness once in a bit?
9 Comment by RJ Rafferty on 26 November 2009:
My apologies to all. In deference to my health (my blood pressure isn’t what it should be) I normally stay far away from this column and this “pundit”. But against my better judgement I read on with the ensuing result. As to constructive criticism, meaningful debate, a thoughtful consideration of the issues, are you kidding? One does not engage in dialog with an idiot, a Hitler, a Hugo Chavez or a Paul Craig Roberts.
10 Comment by Edmond on 26 November 2009:
In response to Jonathan @ #7 (and with apologies if someone read this on another post),
Prior to the total dumbing down of America, the US Army, borrowing from Clausewitz, noted that war, being the continuation of politics by other means, meant their was a continuum of conflict so that on a scale of 1 to 10, peace and normal competition was at the level of 1, all out nuclear war was at 10, conventional war at 8, and counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency were at 4 and 5 on this scale. Articles in journals such as that of the Command and General Staff College always noted that becasue war was so expensive and unpredictable, a prudent nation avoided it like the plague. Consequently, opeations other than war were to be preferred. This was written during the Reagan years. Then, in 2001, a faux “warrior” was elected President and he and his fellow draft dodgers (not that non-draft dodgers can’t be equally stupid, as they demonstrate)began planning a series of wars, merely requiring a pretext to implement their militaristic schemes. Consequently, when a tiny band of terrorists, whom we had worked with in a number of other theaters, such as backing them in the battle against the Serbs and the Russians, attacked us with an attack that succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, the 2001 President exploited the situation with flipping the US Army’s rule on its head, and chose “war” as something to be desired rather than avoided. How else could a President claim extraordinary “war powers,” and invoke “unitary executive theory” as the legal doctrine for a veiled dictatorship? Since then, Americans found out about the unpredictabilty and expense of war, as we handed hegemony over Iraq to Iran). We also found out about the paradox of life and history as all this war on our part has made this tiny band of terrorists, with a home only in a backwards country, a genuine global force, even within our own borders. As anyone who has studied terrorism and the propaganda of the act; the greatest success comes when the victimized government overreacts and becomes tyrannical, within its own borders when there was such a thing as national sovereignty, and in todays global age under the control of the “world’s sole superpower,’ overreacts globally, as Dubya did. The strategy al Qaeda followed, as most terrorists, is merely the “rope a dope,” as popularized by Muhammad Ali, the former boxer. In this case, its hard to believe that al Qaeda could ever have imagined that the US had such a dope, as leader, as we did. And now we are in an accelerated decline just as the USSR was, with all of its militarism. And the Republicans (and conservatives of all stripes, with a few exceptions such as myself)are happily channeling Brezhev, et al.
11 Comment by Jim on 26 November 2009:
I tend to agree with PCR except for his disparagement of those who are disgusted with criminal defense lawyers. I don’t know any conservative (or liberal) who doesn’t at least accept that the accused deserve to have a fair trial and competent lawyer. Our problem with the criminal justice system and defense lawyers has more to do with 1) failure to have a speedy trial, 2) failure to allow real evidence due to some police mistake, 3) endless appeals for invented reasons, 4) verdicts overturned for procedural “errors”, 5) failure to keep violent criminals in jail, 6) the revolving door policy, etc etc. These failures of the system try the patience of Job and destroy everyone’s faith in the system.
12 Comment by Jonathan on 26 November 2009:
@ #10
I’m sorry Edmond. But I cannot accept the premise that Al Qaeda is a “tiny band of warriors” operating out of the Taliban’s backyard. Absolutely not. Look at what is happening in Europe. India. Indonesia. The Phillipines. Australia. China. Sri Lanka. 13 nations in Africa. At minimum, Western Civilization is under assault by an axis of Marxism and Islamic forces, working in tacit agreement, at least. All of Europe is under assault. Bush has not engineered that. This has been going on for decades. In fact, the extremism can be traced to one radical cleric in Egypt in the WW2 era who began preaching the renewal of jihad against the infidel.
Irrespective of whatever schemes Bush and the neocons pushed, it is impossible to coherently assert that the Islamofacists popped into being in 2001. This war has been going on since 1948, and it began to dramatically escalate in the late 60s. The resurgence of militancy has doubtless been fueled by the immense oil wealth suddenly accruing to the Wahabi empire. And with the creation of the Israeli state serving as the lightening rod.
But, you cannot blame the global assault on diverse and scattered countries by Islamic militants on Bush and the big blood for oil conspiracy. In no way is that a provable premise.
13 Comment by Richard on 27 November 2009:
#11 once the police find out how productive these ’stupid mistakes’ to which you allude can be, it becomes the norm.
Just go to a courtroom and watch a few trials for DWI and disorderly conduct etc. (the usual routine criminal court fare in any city)and you will not be able to avoid noticing the rote testimony, memorized and rehearsed tesimony that passes for evidence. It would not be so if the ‘defendants’ had any idea how to protect themselves in court, but that’s another topic.
It’s easy to see that holding the ‘professionals’ to the standards of the constitution is just too difficult, so let’s all bend over and grab our heels…
The fact that PCR’s comments offend you, when all he has actually suggested is that a trial should be conducted according to the law indicates that the source of discomfort is not a flaw in his character, but perhaps a confusion about the premises on which you seem to rely.
Well, as long as we are all willing to let this happen to the dirty little heathens, it is not just a matter of defining your own dirty little heathens to be thrown under the bus – isn’t it?
14 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 27 November 2009:
@13 Richard
I have recently been a customer of the court system, and I agree; it’s a travesty. Furthermore it’s proof that we no longer live in the Land Of The Free, but rather in the Land of Simon Legree.
Both lying policemen and dimwitted judges treat the citizens as cattle to be milked of their excess money (they accept charge cards), and all sorts of “further education” programs are routinely meted out. Trips to the Holoco$t Museum, anger management classes, drunk driving schools, and my favorite, Community Service.
15 Comment by Edmond on 27 November 2009:
Jonathan@#12
I didn’t say Bush created the problem; only accelerated it by overreacting in the manner that most terrorists can only dream of so that they are now seen as more legitimate in the Islamic world, where ever that is located. The paradox in history seems to be that the more a nation strives for 100% security, the more likely they are to self-destruct (See Nazi Germany, the USSR, and a couple of current nations). But, people only learn the hard way (See Stalingrad for Nazi Germany, Afghanistan for the USSR). However, we are the exception, aren’t we, or so the neocons tell us. And we’re doing quite well aren’t we; even after Bush and Cheney came up with a half witted scheme that would give hegemony over the mideast to one nation, with the Iranian agent Ahmad Chalabi advising them.
16 Comment by S.L. Toddard on 28 November 2009:
“Irrespective of whatever schemes Bush and the neocons pushed, it is impossible to coherently assert that the Islamofacists popped into being in 2001″
Correct – that is because there is no such thing as an “Islamofascist”. There are, however, scattered bands of muslim terrorists throughout the world who present no real threat to our survival or way of life. If KSM is aquitted, let him go.
17 Comment by Jonathan on 28 November 2009:
@16 Comment by S.L. Toddard
But, unlike manmade climate change, actual evidence is readily available from numerous resources both inside and outside the Middle East that contradicts denial. Even from so-called moderate Muslims who say Islam has been hijacked.
So even though Saudi culture is based upon the same fundamentalist sect of Islam that OBL practices and children in schools there are taught that non-Muslims are “monkeys and pigs.” According to the testimony of OBL’s former sister-in-law?
And I can go on Youtube any day of the week and watch Palestinian cartoons and preschool programs which encourage children to become suicide bombers – with no real criticism from the Islamic world?
I can go to countries like Egypt where giant billboards exist showing daggers stuck through the Israeli flag and the map of Europe, and big pictures of mushroom clouds sprouting up over a dead Uncle Sam?
And Europe is basically overrun by those demanding to superimpose their religious culture overtop of the native cultures, while living off the largess of the native taxpayers?
And the leader of Iran is openly calling for the extermination, not just of Israel, but of the Western World?
And Libya throws a big party for the mastermind of the Lockerbie bombing? In contravention of a promise to the victims’ families?
Large numbers of people throughout the world are coincidentally, but needlessly, worried about a phenomenon that doesn’t exist? And they have been for longer than GB 2 was even heard of outside of Texas? Sounds pretty unbelievable to me.
18 Comment by Jeremiah Whitmoore on 28 November 2009:
@16 Mr. Toddard,
Exactly my thoughts.
If Al-Qaeda, Islamofascism, Islam, radical Islam, Jihadism, or whatever it is was a existential threat like its talked up to be, we would have closed the borders and deported our multiculturalist dogma to the deeps of hades years ago.
To answer Pat Buchanan’s question – No, we are not a serious nation.
19 Comment by S.L. Toddard on 28 November 2009:
Of course it sounds unbelievable to you – you have bought into the official establishment storyline hook, line and sinker. Nevertheless, it is literally inconceivable that our way of live, or our survival, could be threatened by these silly, dirty people. They are a joke. It is impossible even to concoct a scenario in which America is eradicated by these bums. They are poor, powerless and irrelevant. While we continue to slaughter their countrymen and co-religionists, and while we continue to subsidize their brutal oppression, scattered outraged Muslims will sporadically take little swipes at us, and may manage to kill some of the three hundred millions of us. All we can do is stop slaughtering them, stop subsidizing their oppression, and stop importing them into our country.
20 Comment by S.L. Toddard on 28 November 2009:
Sorry – my last post (# 19) was directed at Jonathan at #17, not Mr. Whitmoore, with whom I agree.
21 Comment by Jonathan on 28 November 2009:
@19 Comment by S.L. Toddard
@18 Comment by Jeremiah Whitmoore
Now, which official establishment storyline are you referring to? I don’t recall hearing that from the neocons and Bush or from the radical left and the Democrats either. What I have heard was about that small one percent who hijacked Islam.
I have read Mr. Buchanan’s books, so I’m surprised his name is referenced as a defense against so-called establishment storylines. Jeremiah, multiculturalism is a Marxist construct to destroy Western Civilization. The Islamification of the West is a part of that effort. And so, the two factions become unlikely allies, at least for the time being. You seem not to understand that the left WANTS to destroy Western Civilization?
22 Comment by Miles Gloriosus on 28 November 2009:
SL Toddard wrote: “Correct – that is because there is no such thing as an “Islamofascist”. There are, however, scattered bands of muslim terrorists throughout the world who present no real threat to our survival or way of life. If KSM is aquitted, let him go.”
At this pass in history, I’ve rightfully got more to fear from my own government, even as I strive to obey the law, than KSM or all the other “Islamo-terrorists.”
23 Comment by Rob on 28 November 2009:
“One does not engage in dialog with an idiot, a Hitler, a Hugo Chavez or a Paul Craig Roberts.”
This is moral idiocy. We can disagree with Paul Craig Roberts all we want (and I do all the time, including this column) but this does not make him Hitler or even in the ballpark. Whenever we make a trivial comparison involving Hitler, we undermine our understanding of the evil launched by Hitler and his regime. It’s why neocons should not label every tyrant in the Middle East as the “next Hitler” or why the likes of Dr. Alan Keyes should not compare Obama with Hitler. It is mere cant that reveals that whoever makes it underestimate Satan’s most faithful servant of recent times–let us hope out of passion.
24 Comment by John Seiler on 29 November 2009:
Who is this R.J. Rafferty, whose only “arguments” are ad hominem?
Either America is a free country that follows the Bill of Rights, especially in the hardest cases — or it is a tyranny in which the government does what it wants to anybody, with no checks on its power, and no freedom or personal rights.
Take your pick. You can’t have both.
25 Comment by RJ Rafferty on 30 November 2009:
I’m sorry but I refuse to take seriously an America-hater such as PCR who, a few months ago, excoriated this country for using nuclear weapons against Japan in WWII. Ever hear a Chinese, a Filipino or any other victim of the Greater East Asua Co-Prosperity Sphere make the same complaint?
26 Comment by S.L. Toddard on 30 November 2009:
“I’m sorry but I refuse to take seriously an America-hater such as PCR who, a few months ago, excoriated this country for using nuclear weapons against Japan in WWII.”
Why? That is an issue about which I think reasonable persons might disagree. I, for one (along with a wide and prominent array of military and civilian experts both *at the time* and since) think the bombings were entirely unnecessary. I also understand the opposing arguments, and don’t think someone would have to be unreasonable to take that side. What IS unreasonable, though, is to take a side and consider all who disagree as being mentally unbalanced and un-serious. It illustrates that one’s position is based entirely on emotion rather than clear-eyed reason.
27 Comment by CM Collins on 30 November 2009:
I love these guys who are sorry for opposing arguments that haven’t been made, positions not taken, etc. I refer, of course, to ‘America-hater.’ Mrs. Frum, call the office, someone’s pilfering your husband’s schtick.
28 Comment by Bruce on 30 November 2009:
“No judge or juror wants to be forever damned by the brainwashed American public or assassinated by right-wing crazies.”
He seems to parallel the left’s belief that there’s a bunch of foaming at the mouth, right-wingnuts ready to pounce at any moment.
29 Comment by John Seiler on 30 November 2009:
#25, Rafferty, is amusing. Someone is not an “America hater” if he believe it was wrong to incinerate more than 100,000 people, mostly women, children, and old men, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just war theory, to which America subscribes, bans such outrages.
And here are the comments of other “America haters”:
GENERAL DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER:
“…in [July] 1945… Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. …the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.
“During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude….”
- Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380
“…the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”
- Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63
ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. LEAHY
(Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman)
“It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.
“The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”
- William Leahy, I Was There, pg. 441.
GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR:
“MacArthur’s views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed. When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.”
Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71. Cousins was a consultant to General MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan.
30 Comment by Bruce on 30 November 2009:
I don’t think PCR is an America hater but I think his hatred for those in charge of America makes his writing a bit hyperbolic at times.
31 Comment by Gilbert Jacobi on 30 November 2009:
ROBERTS is right about the damage this trial will do to American jurisprudence, but does not see the broader, anti-American and anti-white aims of this administration, which I outlined in my first post on the “Is America A Serious Nation?” thread. As for his excusing of Lindh, who was caught Kalishnikov in hand, shooting at Americans, and his plea on behalf of “innocent” people giving to charities that support Hamas, this just further deepens my suspicion of the man.
32 Comment by Jim on 1 December 2009:
@13 Richard and @14 Etienne. Don’t suppose that I am so gullible as not to think there are abuses by dimwitted judges and programmed police that need constitutional correction. Your DWI examples are hardly what I was referring to. Rather, turn your attention to the cop-killer suspect in Washington who was free on bail following rape and assault charges despite a long career of criminal activity and abuse of the system. Those police officers are the victims of defense lawyers and a bleeding-heart justice system.
I’ve had experiences with smart-aleck cops (speeding) that cause me never to accept automatically a policeman’s word. In fact I was recently excluded from a jury for answering “no” to the DA’s question as to whether I thought a policeman’s testimony would be more truthful than an ordinary citizen’s.
So I don’t mean to brush off your travails but you and PCR need to paint with a less broad brush when defending defense lawyers.
33 Comment by Allen Wilson on 1 December 2009:
Since we’re on the subject of traffic violations, how about the fact that speed traps are a big scam and rip off? I was written one last week, the first one in twenty years, for driving the same speed that people normally do in that area, and slower than cops often do. A couple days later, I went throught there again at the same speed, and found that two cars ahead were pulling away, one behind was closing in, etc, with a cop driving right along with the flow.
I’m not saying that we should be able to drive like lunatics, but something needs to be done about the racket. I was not driving unsafely, and as the no less than four patrol cars that ganged in sped away, they must have been going faster than I was fined for.
34 Comment by RJ Rafferty on 2 December 2009:
I do not call PCR an America-hater because of the wrong-headedness of his views. Whatever Leahy and Eisenhower thought about the nuking of Japan (and I put Cousins’ quote about MacArthur in the same category as Woodward’s quote from the dying CIA director) they did not leap to the defense of America’s enemies, they did not froth at the mouth as they heaped scorn and contempt ad rempublicam. Supposedly PCR is a syndicated conservative columnist. He don’t sound like no paleo or neo that I’ve ever read and I would be very much interested in learning what newspapers and journals consider his diet of bilge worth consuming.
35 Comment by CM Collins on 2 December 2009:
That’s it? Froth at the mouth. I should apologize to Frum.
36 Comment by virgilius on 3 December 2009:
After all the Patriot Acts, airport gestapo, constant surveillance by Big Brother (NSA, NRO, Homeland Security, etc…) are we truly a land of the free?
In retrospect, the genie was let out of the bottle. We embraced 1984 and there is no going back. This all seems like a war perpetrated on the American People.