There Is No Plan

The wave of 9/11 remembrance on the 9th anniversary is far, far greater than on the 8th. Why? Thank the totally manufactured “ground zero mosque” & “Koran burning” controversies. Yet again the right wing and their blogging stormtroopers manipulate the zeitgeist, and wag the dog. They know that 9/11 plays far better for them, than for liberals. General David Petraeus, whose politics are as thinly disguised as his buzzcut, dutifully raised the stakes by warning that burning the Korans would endanger US troops – as if it was possible to put them more in harm’s way than they already are.

And all this 7 weeks before crucial mid-term elections that could put Obama out of business. The Republicans said that they’d go after the “Ground Zero Mosque” trope as a campaign tactic. They couldn’t have formulated a more effective and more insidious approach to it.

To make matters worse, the Progressives are willing dupes, rending their hair in the name of Islam (on the anniversary of the very moment when a derivation of extreme Islam attacked us to our great cost), while actually reinforcing Muslim victim-hood, and alienating the left and the Democrats in the wider political context.

The GOP must be loving this.

in the next couple of years you are going to get very sick of this picture

Attorney General Eric Holder made the sobering announcement today that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (henceforth KSM) would be tried in New York for masterminding the 9/11 attacks.

It’s a bold move that’s been well received by progresssives as an opporunity for America to show that no matter what the crime, justice and due process will always be served.

Even though There is No Plan is a card-carrying member of the American left, it takes a very different view.There are no upsides in bringing KSM to America to face trial. Not one.

But let’s examine why many people think there are.

The argument put forward is that America will be able to show the world and in particular the Islamic street that we’re giving this guy a fair shake, so they won’t think he’s being martyred if and when he’s executed.

Think again. We can’t buy a break with Islam, literally. We build them roads, schools and institutions and they hate us. We buy their oil and accept their undemocratic and they hate us. The idea that they’re suddenly going to say, “You know America gave this guy a fair trial so if they say he’s guilty, he deserves to be executed” is total delusion. It doesn’t matter whether we drive the guy to the death house in a limo, or sentence him to death in the brig at Gitmo, he’s gonna be a martyr to Islamists and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. And as for the rest of the world, whether we try KSM at Gitmo or in downtown Manhattan will not change anybody’s opinion of us a jot, apart from the Europeans who are sure to whine about the death penalty.

Another argument is that the crime that KSM committed took place in New York so that’s the jurisdiction that should try him. Legally correct. Let’s give this guy due process. But sadly, this is no ordinary case. Firstly, we waterboarded the guy nearly two hundred times so admissibility of evidence is going to be in doubt. Secondly, KSM will make sure that it’s a show trial, and you can be pretty sure that torture will get the headlines in this case, not American justice. Thirdly, it will take forever, draining, dragging us all down with it, and finally, we might not even get a conviction. Think about that for a second. The guy who was behind 9/11 could walk free or do jail time? That’s a risk we’re prepared to take? To say that notion is red meat to the Republicans is the understatement of the year. Read the rest of this entry »