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Prosecuting Terrorists at Home wait a second here.... posted by: simplicissimus 15:15 2.4.10 it wasn't left vs. right -- i'm not even sure what those terms mean anymore -- this is a republican thing. i mean: 100% (40/40) of the Republican caucus in the Senate (plus one douchebag from Connecticut) OPPOSE civilian trials. while.... 93% (56/60) of the Democratic caucus in the Senate SUPPORT civilian trials. http://www.kansascity.com/444/story/1721341.html It ain't cherry-picking when it's every Republican Senator! Come on, you know way more about math and statistics than I do. But the Republicans are in lock step on this one. Granted, they all may not be fear-mongering quite like Rudy, but nobody fear-mongers like he does. simpli posted by: horsebeater 13:09 2.4.10 you get to call rudy "the right," I get to call blanche lincoln "the left." And ... look, the LEFT is now agreeing to not have the terror trials in civilian courts. What a flip-flop! (joke, joke) http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/02/webb-lincoln-leading-dem-rebellion-911-trials scratch the republicans problem with that whole 5th amendment thing, too posted by: simplicissimus 23:37 2.2.10 http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32399.html and, imagine this, the christmas day bomber is talking and providing information because his parents convinced him (and not because he was hooded, goggled, hog-tied, flown 7,000 miles, kept in solitary and tortured). http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32413.html and we didn't compromise what makes us great in the process. who knew? i can't believe i missed this... posted by: simplicissimus 23:16 1.27.10 the right were -- at worst -- ok with trying moussoui (the "20th hijacker") in federal court. i guess it's only the end of the world when a dem does it. there must be a rub here, because if it's as simple as this the fact that any of these yahoos get to go on tv and talk shit after being fine with it under mush is just another reason why the msm absolutely sucks. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/18/sessions-giuliani-backed_n_362479.html Ahem, first rule simpli posted by: camdolphin 19:21 1.4.10 I think your knickers are bunched. I'm not saying that the system is broken because it failed to stop this one person or that the system should be geared to stop every lunatic who wishes to blow himself up. The thrust of my post is that making planes safer is largely wasted energy. Blowing up a plane can only harm a finite number of people. Blowing up a train can use much larger explosives and can affect millions. If we have information about a foreigner who is part of a conspiracy to do harm (as opposed to a lone lunatic; I don't know whether Mr. Nigerian was one or the other), it would be nice if it could be followed up on. Because conspiracies to move bombs around in general are potentially bad. And if we continue to send troops and bombs to the middle east (or most anywhere else), we will continue to see a rising threat of people trying to bomb us. So if, in fact, we already have information about a plot by foreigners to kill Americans, it does not violate my liberal sensitivities that the information should be shared with those tasked with stopping plots. Why bother gathering information if we're not going to use it? This is a far cry from Big Brother. Nowhere do I say we need to gather more info or stop at nothing to ferret out every potential terrorist. I just thought it was an opportunity to check the system to see if it's working - if the information we want shared is shared. Simpli, why do you hate America? hb is 100% right posted by: simplicissimus 21:38 12.30.09 there is a truth here, and it's that you CANNOT stop everyone. ever. the israelis, who have mastered preventing terrorism, can't do it. and they have roughly 1% of the space and population of the US. nobody can. and the idea that "information sharing" is something that's truly possible is just a fucking joke. do you know how many complaints, comments, reports, letters, phone calls the FBI, CIA, TSA, etc. etc. get a day? do you know how impossible it is to follow up on, let alone, resolve even 5% of them? and that's before you even get into the issue of inter-agency squabbling (to give you an idea of how entrenched it is, read a history of WW2 ... it wasn't just an issue between countries, the army and navy and marines hated each others' guts and refused to cooperate ... and that's when the future of the country hung in the balance). did i just hear a CIVIL RIGHTS LAWYER say "Intell is useless unless shared with those in a position to do something about it."???? um, think about it: we can do it. it's simple ... we can create a gigantic database, which contains information about every single person alive, where they shop, what they do, what they buy, who they support ... oh, sorry, that was pretty much attempted and panned by everyone. and i'm not giving you a false choice. there's a certain point where you say we've made it very hard, and we've stopped an awful lot, but in order to go further we're going to have to have unprecedented ability to access/analyze information about everyone who flies in the united states. because if the goal is no terrorism, the means to get there is ugly. but if the goal is to stop a huge portion of it ... we're already there. and, so, given it's impossible what have the israelis done? they have (a) accepted some limited intrusions in their lives; (b) accepted armed soliders are just about everywhere; and (c) accepted that there are still attacks. i was israel in the 1980s when there was a bus bombing within 10-12 miles of where i was. do you know what happened? they closed the road for a couple of hours and life went on as normal. no 198 day vigils, no resignation of government officials, no blaming of anyone. Agreed, posted by: camdolphin 17:31 12.30.09 but dems complained at length about the bush administration's failure to coordinate information among agencies - valid criticism of the obama administration that problems still exist. I'm not saying it's worse or better, I have no idea, but that's the part that bothers me. Intell is useless unless shared with those in a position to do something about it. cam... posted by: horsebeater 16:00 12.30.09 ... i'm not disagreeing that some aspects of the system should work a hell of a lot better. but even if you didn't even have a no fly list or any of that *at all*, the system seems to be able to stop most terrorist attempts. there's belts and suspenders all over the place. Yes. But posted by: camdolphin 14:29 12.30.09 the problem is information sharing. Seems different agencies knew different things but didn't share it. Isn't that the problem? That creates the possibility of transporting bad stuff much easier. Planes don't scare me. Trains do. Why don't terrorists use trains more? this probably deserves its own thread but... posted by: horsebeater 12:11 12.30.09 ... why aren't the recent thwarted attacks considered a success? why isn't the story that (a) TSA can only do a limited number of things to save us, (b) everyone knows that when shit goes down on a plane, the people on the plane need to deal with it (and shouldn't be passive like you would be in a carjacking or a mugging) and (c) people HAVE in fact realized this and are putting it into action, as demonstrated by recent activity. People are focusing on whether the Obama administration has solved the problem on their own. Who gives a fuck? It seems to me that SOCIETY has, in fact, largely solved the problem through a combination of (a) TSA getting most major weapons off the plane (they need to do better at explosives sniffing, but that seems to be the final frontier, and god knows they are motiviated to get there now) and (b) people on the plane TCB when they need to. I would estimate that we are 90% safer flying on an airplane than we were in 2000. It's too bad that this isn't something we're happy about. So we let 2 of the bombing planners go? posted by: simplicissimus 19:17 12.28.09 (no, this is not an attack on the bush administration. though i have to request that everyone imagine what the republicans would do to obama if he released 2 guys that helped plan the attacks ... 50/50 chance some congressmen would call for his impeachment) http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/men-believed-northwest-airlines-plot-set-free/story?id=9434065 the fact is, we've got a terrible situation on our hands with some of these guys. of course, if we can't convict them then i'm not sure how we could possibly justify keeping them imprisoned forever. on the flip side, of course, is the simple fact that if they didn't do anything conviction worthy in 2001, there's nothing like 9 years of imprisonment in gitmo to make them extremely dangerous. of course, there's no great solution. just like there's no way to prevent a maniac from bringing down a plane. but the more we chase our tales, scared out of our wits, and start talking about invading yemen or just imprisoning people forever because we say we need to, the more of a joke we become. and the weaker we get. Krauthammer gets a lot wrong... posted by: horsebeater 12:26 11.20.09 ... but one thing he gets right is the discovery point in the attached. I think that's a fair and valid point. And Holder has made a mess of this. Krauthammer points out his logic of on when you get military tribunals and when you get civilian trials is correct as well. And even I was shocked when Holder basically guaranteed a conviction (and then Obama did the same thing). If the point is to show the world that we have fair trials, having the AG and the President pre-ordain the outcome is a little weird. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/20/travesty_in_new_york_99224.html Right posted by: rabble-rouser 11:05 11.20.09 "We are special and different, but with that comes the responsibility to act that way." The Brits who allegedly killed people in the Boston Massacre got a fair public trial; why shouldn't these assholes? Political Grandstanding... posted by: simplicissimus 13:45 11.19.09 far be it from me to think that only the GOP engages in political grandstanding. as much as the "death panel" stuff -- which is utter nonsense: private insurance companies are already running them if you really want to argue the point -- makes me see red, the (successful) fear game played by the dems with Bush's privitization plan for social security was no less silly. however, this idea republican politicians are pushing: that trying al qaeda detainees on united states soil is likely to invite terrorist attacks is downright ridiculous. 1) The root assumption is that we are somehow providing a new target for al qaeda. which is all fine and dandy (and certainly may contribute to the desire to attack a certain location) except for the fact that this is the same republican crowd that has been warning us for 8 years that attacks are imminent, that we need to do everything we can to foil them every day, and that bush "kept us safe". if we are under this constant and intense state of seige, i can't really see how trials would up the ante. 2) The second idea is that federal courts will release these dangerous guys onto the street. this is even more absurd: these guys aren't US citizens, they will get deported (and, let's be honest, extradicted to face charges or house arrest in places like egypt, saudi arabia, pakistan, etc.). 3) The third thing is that the federal courts will screw it up and let them go ("like OJ" senator grassley recently commented). I'll just say that since 2001, there have been 119 terrorism cases with 289 defendants in the federal courts. As of June, 195 were convicted or plead guilty (and I'm pretty sure the rest, or vast majority of the rest) are yet unresolved. Compare this to the military commisions: 3 convictions (2 released within a year). Now, the fed courts were up and running in 2001 and the military tribunals were not yet even created ... so there's some wriggle room. But not much. 4) As the following letter notes (and it's where my stats come from), hundreds of former officers (including a few dozen very, very high ranking ones) have attested that Gitmo is the type of thing that drives al qaeda's recruitment. http://www.humanrightsfirst.info/pdf/111809-letter-closing-guantanamo.pdf 5) Most importantly, we're the motherfucking united states. We either deserve special praise, and occupy a special place, because we follow things like the rule of law, or we are just another empire. To me, that's the biggest reason of all - I mean, if we don't act like an example to the world, why are we so special or different? We are special and different, but with that comes the responsibility to act that way. --- What's so suprising about this position by many Republicans is it's logical end point: they are either being hysterical given the above stats and the hundreds of terrorists that are in prison in america right nwo (Shadagg talking about Bloomberg's daughter being kidnapped), or they are betting that there will be an attack at which point they can say "we told you so." Either one isn't too flattering.