I was recently in New York City for the first time ever (loved it!) and happened to be there as the decision was made by the Fed AG to hold the Al Qaeda trials at a federal court in the city. This, unsurprisingly, made the right wing freak out, basically because every time Obama makes any decision at all, they will freak out and oppose it. On the surprising side, though, was the New York media and a lot of the citizens there, who were also vehemently opposed to it.
The New York Post's front page on that Friday read something like "Welcome to New York City... Now DIE!!!!!" and included a scathing Op-Ed about how the Obama administration's decision to, y'know... allow the United States justice system do its thing was tantamount to having surrendered to Tojo in 1941 right after Pearl Harbor.
I was, frankly, kind of appalled at the response. Let's break this down:
1. We hate terrorists because they "hate us for how we live" and "don't play by the rules when it comes to fighting".
2. Part of how we live is defined as "with respect for the due process of law" and "justice for all". Insert whichever pithy catchphrase defines it best for you but, in sum, the United States is the United States because here, unlike many other places, one has a reasonable expectation of what our laws are, how to obey them, and what will happen if you break one.
3. As much as George W. Bush declared this as a "War on Terror" and, therefore, the rules of law don't apply but the rules of war do, well: unless someone can point me to the declaration of war Congress authorized against Alqaedastan, that dog don't hunt.
What is everyone's problem with finally putting these murderous vipers up on trial and letting our justice system do its thing?
"It's an insult to New Yorkers to let them come back here!"
To that I say: man the fuck up, cupcakes. Let the world see that we're not acting like arbitrary stormtroopers and that we have confidence in our security and policing systems and let's just try these fuckheads via a boring old trial and then, hopefully, toss 'em in a SuperMax or, preferably, execute them.
What all those opposed seem to want is for us to simply keep them locked up in Gitmo (or, preferably, in a cargo container in Iraq where they can be beaten at will for kicks out of any camera's site) forever... no resolution, no justice, no ending... just an endless cycle of hate and retribution, which is EXACTLY what the terrorists fucking want in the first place.
I prefer the "you're a common criminal and will be treated as such because we are bigger than you and better than you and emphatically not fucking afraid of you because we are the goddamned United States of America and you're not".
Or, we can let fear win and toss overboard all of the vaunted principles that make this country worth giving a shit about in the first place and become, instead, a pale imitation of a once-great nation that now only exists to serve as a sad reminder of what we once were.
