Khalid Sheikh Mohammed planned and helped execute the 9/11 attacks that killed 3,000 Americans. He also planned the 1993 World Trade Center Attack, the attacks in Bali and Kenya that killed hundreds more, and attacks that never had the chance to take place thanks to his capture and interrogation by American intelligence agents. We know this because KSM himself openly brags about his atrocities as a point of pride.
Now some have decided to help him commit his final atrocity — by painting himself as a victim…
And then a curious thing happens- Ed cites a long WSJ article, then goes back to moaning and wailing about all these people claiming KSM is a victim. There is, alas, one minor problem. They never mention who it actually is calling KSM a victim. Not in the 652 words Ed dedicated to this issue is there a mention of the “they” or the “who” or the “some” making KSM out as a victim. Nowhere in the 975 words in the WSJ editorial is there a name, either.
Captain Ed may not be able to join the military and do anything useful in the war on terror, but he sure as hell is a hero in the War on Straw. A salute to the brave Skipper.
4tehlulz
Oh come on. You know who those people are. It’s them.
Svensker
Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Anyone who wants KSM to have “rights”, because “rights” are only for good people who are innocent. Sheesh.
D. Mason
Don’t be simple John. Who else could it be if not liberals?
chopper
hey now. some people are allergic to straw. and are very happy that warriors like ed are looking out for their interests.
Dennis - SGMM
From Elmer Gantry:
Elvis Elvisberg
As a liberal, I am deeply committed to our bedrock principle that KSM should be given therapy in lieu of any kind of incarceration against his will. Because he has been imprisoned, he is, by definition, a victim.
OK, there you go, Ed, someone said what you fantasized that liberals think. Just be sure to mention my name and link to my blog when you criticize me. I’ll update it for the first time in 3 months just for the occasion. kthxbye.
jake
Oh John, he doesn’t need to specify who “they” are. The savvy reader knows he means Islahomofeminaziabortionsts.
Scotty
Maybe he’s referring to Liberal Fascists?
Graeme
John,
In all fairness, I’m sure Ed is part of the ‘Retail Support Brigade.’ He’s probably done a lot of shopping for America, leading patrol after patrol into the malls of this proud nation.
You know – the kind of nonsense that’s led to this mountain of patriotic debt that’s going to fuck up the economy but good.
Jay C
OK: in the interests of fairness (God knows why) – I went over to Captain’s Quarters, and read Ed’s whole piece. And while, yes, he has mustered a whole chorus line of dancing strawmen to tilt against, there is a (sort of) point buried deep in the haystack of his righteous fulminations: i.e., that trying KSM in a “regular” civilian court is a Bad Idea. However, it seems that Capt. Ed thinks it’s a Bad Idea, because he has a better way to deal with the issue: as explained in his closing sentence –
It beats what KSM really deserves as a consequence of his unlawful combatant status under the circumstances — a single pellet of lead in the brainpan.
“Captain” Ed Morrissey: judge, jury and executioner: so you don’t have to!
Dennis - SGMM
“Judge Edd”
Punchy
Hate to go all pro-Ed on you guys, but I really dont disagree. Those other Gitmo chumps deserve a real trial to prove their innocence. This guy? Not so much.
Tom Hilton
‘Deserve’? Maybe; that’s neither here nor there. No result can be considered legitimate unless the procedure used to achieve it is legitimate–that’s the whole basis of our judicial system, and to screw with it is to undermine our nation’s reason for existence.
jake
Don’t tell Special Ed the penalty for terminal incoherence is a steel toe to the junk. I want it to be a surprise.
To support his strawmen, Right Said Ed creates an even bigger straw man: UC = Pb to the Bp. (I’m sure he has a cite for this equation and it isn’t just something he “heard them” say.)
Acceptance of this theory (which Special Ed totally did not pull out of his ass) ought to make a good small gubbermint fistcal conservative wonder why we spend millions of dollars to keep UC’s at Gitmo.
Oh right, we’re the good guys.
zsa
Punchy, no one’s going to argue for KSM. I will argue for due process, however. Hell, we gave Ted Bundy a fair trial, we can give KSM a fair trial.
And then we can punch his ticket.
Scott H
Oh, man, it’s them, again. It’s always them! We gotta do something about them.
John, ask this Ed guy where we can find them. Maybe he knows who they are, too? That’s another bunch of real trouble makers. They hate America, you know.
jake
Pick one. Do you want a fair trial or do you want him dead?
With a fair trial he might well walk because of the way he was treated while in custody. The Insane Clown Posse in the White House knows this so they babble a lot of shit that amounts to “Fuck Habeus Corpus biatches, we gotta cover our asses!”
myiq2xu
We know this how? Last I heard KSM and rest of the the Camp X-Ray boys were allowed to talk to each other, let alone the media. So at best we have hearsay evidence from someone who may or may not be telling the truth.
And as for his statements during interrogation, they are meaningless because he was tortured.
The Soviet Union became so efficient at physical and psychological torture that they discovered that they could get people to say anything. It made the intelligence information gained worthless because it was untrustworthy.
Between the Nazis and the Soviets they have produced quite a bit of interesting research on the human mind. Although torture and terror have been around at least as long as the early civilizations, it wasn’t until the 20th Century that it was studied (and practiced) from a psychological perspective using the scientific method.
Although the Soviets began using torture mostly as a last resort in interrogations, they contined using it on political prisoners because torture is great for extracting confessions and it scares the shit out of the general public. The had special hospitals for extracting information where they could peel somebody like an onion.
cleek
ah Cap’n Ed, brave officer of the 43rd Sycophant Brigade, defending BushCo from all attacks. what a good soldier.
KG
jake, first, don’t insult the Insane Clown Posse by comparing them to the administration. ICP has more class – even if they’re white rappers with violent lyrics who part time work as pro wrestlers.
But, to the point of Ed’s argument… I keep hearing that torturing KSM has resulted in thousands of lives being saved. I would like some specifics please. What attacks were stopped? Who was arrested? If in the US when will they be charged and tried? And how do we get around the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree Doctrine?
Also, how many false leads did we get? How many times was the threat level raised to mauve because of false info from KSM?
And the big one… where did the information come from to corroborate KSM’s torture testimony? Because, you know, if we already had the information, it makes it kind of beside the point…
Notorious P.A.T.
It beats what KSM really deserves as a consequence of his unlawful combatant status under the circumstances—a single pellet of lead in the brainpan.
Great idea! Let’s start executing people who haven’t been found guilty yet! And why shoot them in the head? Let’s behead them, in the town square.
And we can cut off the hands of people who steal, and beat and imprison women who get raped. That will show the world we are better than those terrorist scum!
ThymeZone
Word.
The message of that posture is, you little pipsqueak terrorist fuckers can’t do anything that will make us give up being American. We’re better than you, and you lose.
And then, there’s the Bush posture: You scary evildoers! We stop being American! We act like you! Grrrrrrr!
zsa
Obviously he would first need to be found guilty. Apparently that wasn’t explicit.
If acquitted, he would then be free to search for the real killers.
Chris Johnson
This Ed move, if it’s intentional, is actually pretty clever in a way.
If you put out slime but don’t TARGET it at all, in a sense it’s undirected, but in another sense it’s associated with ‘gee, now who doesn’t Captain Ed like?’. It’s a way to attack somebody when directly attacking them will rebound. Expect to see more of this.
The downside is, it’s a much weaker position than forthrightly sliming somebody, because doing that you can pretend toughness but targetless insinuating makes you look like a weasel :) or worse, a cowering fearer of a thousand enemies who is losing the ability to even distinguish between them.
AnonE.Mouse
“a hero in the War on Straw”.
Funny.
Don
Why are those two things mutually exclusive?
I mean, personally I am opposed to capital punishment. I think everyone is better served when the guilty rot in their holes for long naturally lives. But we do CP in this country for non-terrorist fuckbags so I see no reason we can’t do it for TFs also.
I just shook my head while reading the WSJ editorial today. Such a ridiculous false dichotomy between needing to simply sentence people without process and evidence and complete surrender.
RSA
How long did it take to recover your sight after catching the latest edition of Day by Day (or whatever it’s called), in which the characters can’t think of anything that makes John McCain a conservative?
Pug
It is a pretty even fight between Captain Ed and a straw man. I’m proud of him for coming out on top.
TenguPhule
Justice for me, not for thee.
Given how much pure bullshit has been pumped out by the Bush Junta, I’m amazed that people still unquestioningly believe that people like Khalid did everything trumpheted by the whiny titty babies formerly known as the government.
TenguPhule
Because one involves justice, the other is just bloodlust at this point.
The Bush Junta has ensured that it is impossible to convict anyone through the fruit of the poisoned tree known as torture and illegal detention.
The evidence is tainted, the credibility of the prosecution is nonexistant and the world will never believe a conviction was not a show trial.
The only way to end this madness would be to free them all and then do things as they should have been done, by the book. But doughy pantload brigade will have none of that.
Emma Anne
Good point. I don’t believe these people if they tell me it’s raining outside.
Hey, remember those human paper shredders Saddam used? What ever happened to those?
jake
Because this isn’t the first time I’ve heard someone who isn’t a fRightened Keyboardist (or doesn’t think of themselves as such) say “We’ll give him a fair trial and then kill him.”
No. Wrong. Bad liberal, no snowflake baby sundaes.
You give the defendant a fair trial, period. A fair trial is not a formality we go through so we can feel good about executing a prisoner. A fair trial is a big fucking gamble for both sides.
And I say again. If those guys get a fair trial (not some bullshit made up on the fly military tribunal) a lot of them are going to come out of the court room free as birds.
EJ
Good grief – we could give an evil bastard like von Ribbentrop a fair trial back in 1946, and we’re too scared to give this little schmuck a fair trial 60 years later? Man, we suck.
EJ
oh and jake ^^, right on, you try the guy, period, if you can’t find him guilty, too bad, you take deep satisfaction in knowing you’ve lived up to the best ideals of this country.
Darkness
Elvis Elvisberg,
That had to be the most pathetic plea for traffic to a blog I’ve ever had the misfortune to witness. And you didn’t even provide a link. o_O
As to the main topic. It’s really a shame that irony doesn’t make people’s heads explode. It would sure make conversation more tolerable, albeit expensive at the dry cleaners.
binzinerator
This is why the Bush junta are the biggest threat to this country. Bush had done another one of his reckless poke-you-in-the-eye and spit-in-the-soup double-or-nothing scorched earth gambles. You can either uphold our system of laws and the foundation of our government OR you can watch some people who very possibly have committed terrorist acts walk free.
The bushies win either way: A government unrestrained by law, or a powerful weapon to destroy opposition to their lawlessness.
Bush and his followers use fear in the exact same way terrorists use fear, and for identical purposes.
The terrorists we are told to be afraid of strike at buildings, and murder thousands to further their ends. Bush and his war criminals strike at the very foundations of this country, and murder hundreds of thousands to further their ends.
The most dangerous terrorists are in the White House. Our most dangerous threat to this country is from the White House.
Far more monstrous, more calculating and more self-righteous murderers now sit in the White House than ever sat in one of those jetliners.
Hume's Ghost
Mr. Cole is being unfair to Captain Ed.
It’s well understood that “they” is movement conservative speak for “liberals.”
Badtux
Don’t worry, all of this information that we’re getting via torture is 100% accurate. Like the information that there was a 20th hijacker on 9/11/2001 by the name of Ramzi Binalshibh. Or was his name Mohamed al-Kahtani? No no, we tortured conclusive evidence out of these guys that the 20th hijacker was to be Zacarias Moussaoui. Unless it was Saeed al-Ghamdi (not to be confused with the successful hijacker of the same name), Tawfiq bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mushabib al-Hamlan, Zakariyah Essabar, Saeed Ahmad al-Zahrani, Ali Abd al-Rahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi, Saeed al-Baluchi, Qutaybah al-Najdi, Zuhair al-Thubaiti, or Saud al-Rashi, all of whom our successful torture has extracted reliable evidence were the “20th hijacker”. Man, that would have been a crowded cockpit on Flight 93, eh?!
Yessiree, I feel *real* confident that torture has worked wonders at getting accurate information out of these suspects…
— Badtux the Snarky Penguin