the Right's reaction to yesterday's announcement -- we're too afraid to allow trials and due process in our country -- is the textbook definition of "surrendering to terrorists." It's the same fear they've been spewing for years. As always, the Right's tough-guy leaders wallow in a combination of pitiful fear and cynical manipulation of the fear of their followers. Indeed, 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.
People in capitals all over the world have hosted trials of high-level terrorist suspects using their normal justice system. They didn't allow fear to drive them to build island-prisons or create special commissions to depart from their rules of justice. Spain held an open trial in Madrid for the individuals accused of that country's 2004 train bombings. The British put those accused of perpetrating the London subway bombings on trial right in their normal courthouse in London. Indonesia gave public trials using standard court procedures to the individuals who bombed a nightclub in Bali. India used a Mumbai courtroom to try the sole surviving terrorist who participated in the 2008 massacre of hundreds of residents. In Argentina, the Israelis captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals, and brought him to Jerusalem to stand trial for his crimes.
It's only America's Right that is too scared of the Terrorists -- or which exploits the fears of their followers -- to insist that no regular trials can be held and that "the safety and security of the American people" mean that we cannot even have them in our country to give them trials. As usual, it's the weakest and most frightened among us who rely on the most flamboyant, theatrical displays of "strength" and "courage" to hide what they really are. Then again, this is the same political movement whose "leaders" -- people like John Cornyn and Pat Roberts -- cowardly insisted that we must ignore the Constitution in order to stay alive: the exact antithesis of the core value on which the nation was founded. Given that, it's hardly surprising that they exude a level of fear of Terrorists that is unmatched virtually anywhere in the world. It is, however, noteworthy that the position they advocate -- it's too scary to have normal trials in our country of Terrorists -- is as pure a surrender to the Terrorists as it gets.
And here is rightwing nutbag and coward John Shadegg (R, AZ)
The various ridiculous arguments against a trial by jury for KSM in New York are as disingenuous as they are puerile. They treat these terrorists like they have Super Powers worthy of a Marvel Comic, for chrissakes. As Greenwald says, it is a combination of pitiful fear and cynical manipulation, and it runs through their worldview. Whether it is Beck tearfully wailing that Obama and his dusky hewed African minions are Nazis, or whether it is Lou Dobbs wailing about the brown hordes spilling over the borders, these faux tough guys appeal to their pathetic follower's fears of losing control of their white, male ascendancy. Like the Irish Question, time and generational change will roll over them like a tide rising slowly, but before this country becomes a place where a culturally diverse majority is abundantly clear, their death cries will be increasingly shrill and violent.
Joining the xenophobes and Beck's legions, of course, are the bloodthirsty ghouls of the last administration, who have a separate fear...that their misdeeds and illegal goings-on will be exposed in a court of law. As Digby says:
But the possibility is what's got the rufftuffcreampuffs on the right quaking in their booties, that American law will actually shine a light on the murderous, torturing, incompetent, insanely frightened, paranoid, corrupt, and completely out of control Bush/Cheney regime.
It is going to be quite an ugly fight, once these trials start.
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