The Difference Between Free People and Weenies

Been away for a couple of days, and I see Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 suspects are to be tried in a New York City court. And I can think of nothing more just, more perfect, than to let these trials go forward in the city that has waited so long for justice.

And naturally righties don’t like it, because deep down, they are all weenies. Glenn Greenwald is exactly right:

This is literally true: 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.

These same pathetic cowards scream perpetually about “freedom” but don’t know what it means. They’ve supported torture, suspension of habeas corpus for American citizens, warrantless surveillance, “black sites,” all because these atrocities are supposed to make us safer. But bring four suspects to New York for trial and they whine like this:

The Obama Administration’s irresponsible decision to prosecute the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks in New York City puts the interests of liberal special interest groups before the safety and security of the American people.

As an eyewitness to the collapse of the towers, I sincerely believe I speak for the enormous majority of people who were present at the terrorist attacks of 9/11, when I say to the sniveling righties — please stop being so pathetic. You’re embarrassing yourselves. Thanks much.

25 thoughts on “The Difference Between Free People and Weenies

  1. I want the people behind the World Trade Center terrorists to stay in prison for a long, LONG while. I want them to know that they’ve hurt the world, hurt Islam, and hurt their family. I want their names to be filled with shame.

    Here’s the important point: I want the people who suffer to be the ones who planned the attacks. Not a bystander in Karachi.

    That’s why open and fair trials, with capable lawyers, are vital. I don’t want people of the world to say that they’re suffering because the lawyers were incompetent. I want people of the world to know that the terrorists are imprisoned for the evil that they did.

  2. It occurs to me that I have misinterpreted Roosevelt’s the ‘the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’ I thought he meant personal fear that would paralyze the individual. He meant that fear is the greatest enemy of civil society. Now I get it. Unfortunately it took the events of today to furnish the lesson. This fear is our greatest threat and it may do us in as a democracy.

  3. Here’s my take… They should just execute the bunch of them and call it revenge. Why go through the mockery of a trial after Bush screwed up any hope a fair trial or justice by torturing them. I don’t doubt their guilt, or doubt that they will be found guilty and executed ( that’s a given already), but I do doubt that true justice can be served after Bush destroyed that possibility with his enhanced interrogations. I’m sure a lot of people will disagree with me, but my belief is once you start torturing suspects..justice goes out the window.

    And if any of you New Yorkers feel unsafe having the trial in New York..all you have to do is bring Rudy back as mayor on a temporary basis, and get Bernie signed up on a work release program to act as a temporary Police Commissioner, and you’ll be as safe as safe can be.

  4. Why is it some people don’t believe in constitutional rights, rule of law, ethics EXCEPT when they need to hide behind it?

    On her Facebook page, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin criticizes the decision of President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute some of the 9/11 conspirators.

    In a Friday post titled “Obama Administration’s Atrocious Decision,” Palin writes: “Horrible decision, absolutely horrible. It is devastating for so many of us to hear that the Obama Administration decided that the 9/11 terrorist mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, will be given a criminal trial in New York. This is an atrocious decision.”

  5. I think one of Glen’s commenters has one of the greatest fears of the Ch-ch-cheeney crew:

    Really what they are really afraid of is what these trials will expose about the former regime. Once that can of worms is opened there will be no going back.

    Oooh, lettin’ the Genie out de bottle, hotdamn!

  6. My father used to say “You’re too dumb to exist” when he was really mad at me – if that was true John Ziegler would have winked out of existence the second he typed these words (in caps)

    In 2008, John Ziegler wrote, directed and produced the documentary “Blocking the Path to 9/11″ and created http://www.HowObamaGotElected.com as a precursor to his next film, “Media Malpractice… How Obama Got Elected,” which came out in early 2009 and screened in over 20 theaters. A trailer video for that documentary has been viewed by at least 2.3 million people on You Tube.

    In an exclusive to Mediaite, Ziegler reviews Sarah Palin’s new book Going Rogue, which comes out tomorrow. Due to rights and clearance issues, the review will be published Tuesday at 12:01 am.

    Excerpts from his review include:
    “FOR MANY REASONS, THIS IS BY FAR THE BEST BOOK AND GREATEST LITERARY ACHIEVEMENT BY A POLITICAL FIGURE IN MY LIFETIME.”

    “I strongly believe that if every Republican primary voter reads this book, Sarah Palin will win the 2012 nomination in a landslide, whether she wants it or not.
    The real Sarah Palin is alive and well, and now you have the chance to finally find out who she is and understand why millions of her fans are so devoted to her, even when she is just a private citizen who cares deeply about her country.

  7. THANK YOU MAHA – You’ve found the approriate word for the American right – weenies. It perfectly fits: It’s the final critique: It is their label. They have ‘liberal’ and now we have ‘weenie.’ Congratulations.

  8. I would love to hear what “liberal special interest groups” are benefiting from having a trial in New York.

  9. “Really what they are really afraid of is what these trials will expose about the former regime.”

    I think that’s exactly right. Is Obama outsmarting all the wing-nuts by not disclosing the previous administrations secrets, but letting the long arm of lady justice expose the torture, lies and cover-ups? Sounds like a plan to me.

    It really is rich when these neoconsuperfratboys tell us now that we can’t risk the “terrorists” getting off because they where tortured and the evidence is tainted? Are they fucking listening to themselves? I really wish the democrats would grab their collective ball sacks and hit back when these wing-nuts cry about how trying the cases here on US soil puts our cities at risk, they should tell the republicans to quit telling Al-Qaeda where to attack next.

  10. This is literally true: 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.”

    What Greenwald said.

    [B]ut I do doubt that true justice can be served after Bush destroyed that possibility with his enhanced interrogations… my belief is once you start torturing suspects, justice goes out the window.

    And, sadly, what Swami said, also.

  11. I’m a little confused by something. The weenies – I mean conservatives – that I hear from hate the idea of a criminal trial in New York because what happened on 9-11 was an ‘act of war’. I have had weenies tell me that the Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction (when they struck down Bush on Military Tribunals & Habeus Corpus) becase what happened was a ‘crime against humanity’. (When I said if the scope exceeds the authority of the SC, they should be tried in the Hague – things got testy.)

    But what has me confused is that the wenies want to group the Army officer from Ft. Hood with the 9-11 group – a terrorist. He’s part of the ‘war crimes’ thing. OK – IF Hassan is a soldier on the other side, what makes the acts at Fort Hood a crime? If he’s ‘one of them’ and a soldier, he fired on enemy soldiers, American GIs. That those soldiers were unarmed is not material. In war, if you find soldiers of the other side asleep, for example, you don’t wake them up and say, we will be back in 10 minutes for a fair fight. Catching the enemy at a disadvantage is one thing Army officers train for.

    If he’s a religious nut-case who fired on a bunch of unarmed people, that’s premeditated murder – the issue is competence. If he’s a soldier for ‘them’ in the ‘war’ that righties are so worked up about, I am not sure he can be tried at all. He should be given POW status.

    At the heart of the issue is a question seldom asked. Who are ‘they’? The Geneva convention never addressed a conflict with an enemy who has no uniform, no country, no capitol. We can’t make up the rules as we go along, as the weenies want to do, but the weenies may have unearthed the key point. The conflict is global – the list of nations who have been victim includes Russia, Spain, Japan and others. The existing rules of war never anticipated this conflict and civilized nations need to agree on a code that addresses detention, arrest, trial and punishment.

  12. And, sadly, what Swami said, also.

    Joanr16… You mean my comment about Bernie? I know in these financial hard times people resort to the entrepreneurial spirit in order to get by. So I’m hoping to corner the market on eBay selling Bernie Keric hand crafted limited edition New York State license plates. I bet they’ll sell like hot cakes. I didn’t fare so well in my investment of Iraqi dinars back in ’03, but this time I know this one will be a winner. If you want to get in on the ground floor on the rise to riches drop me an e-mail, OK?

  13. Justice doesn’t really have a lot to do with the court system. Swami is kind of right but there is something he is forgetting. Holder wouldn’t be doing this unless there was enough non-torture evidence to convict them.

    Also, David Paterson has now joined the righties in saying that they shouldn’t be prosecuted in New York because New York is not “over” 9/11 yet. You know, the guy just looks cool but ye gods, terrible governor.

  14. I’m hoping to corner the market on eBay selling Bernie Keric hand crafted limited edition New York State license plates…. If you want to get in on the ground floor on the rise to riches drop me an e-mail, OK?

    You, sir, are indeed the entrepreneur. Have you a prospectus for potential investors?

    Holder wouldn’t be doing this unless there was enough non-torture evidence to convict them.

    MNPundit, how does one distinguish “torture evidence” from “non-torture evidence”? Will Holder bring the torturers to the witness stand to explain the difference to the court? Our criminal-court system may not be all that justice-oriented, but it’s extremely procedure-oriented. Swami’s point is, once the torture started it bloodied all the water, and he’s completely right about that.

  15. Joanr16, easily. Evidence obtained before the torture started. Evidence obtained even if we cover all torture-obtained evidence. We didn’t start torturing KSM right off the bat, and there’s physical evidence like his own writings or financial transactions that really bare no relation to the torture. Remember, torture doesn’t work. We simply got nothing useful from him in torture except a coerced confession that we don’t need.

  16. I hope this is not too far off topic. As an eyewitness to the collapse of the towers you would probably enjoy “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer. You have probably already read it, if so, what do you think of it?

  17. Since 9/11 I had alwaays hoped that bin Laden and his gang would get tried for murder York State Supreme Court (actually the lowest level state court in NY) as common criminals, and sent upstate to maximum security (or as Batman and Robin say “up the river,” if) if found guilty. Forget tthis “enemy combat” stuff which elevates them to the status of worthy US adversary. If found guilty, they are no better, and no nobler, than crroks who kill old ladies to steal purses or cars. GIven life without parole (no martyrdowm) and treat them humanely while they spend the next 30 years breaking up rocks. At the end of their lives let indepenent dcotors prove that they’d died of natural causes.

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