Andrew Cuomo has allied himself with the rest of the fraidy cat New Yorker politicians who think that Khalid Sheik Mohammed is so scary and powerful that he can’t be tried in New York City. Giving KSM a fair trial in the city he attacked would send a message of strength. Instead, we send a message of weakness and fear. And I hope Cuomo doesn’t think this is protecting New York City, because it does just the opposite. It sends yet another message that our greatest fear is another attack on New York, so it’s a place where an attack meant to terrorize would be extremely effective.
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Gov.-elect Cuomo Opposes KSM Trial in NY; Libs Fear the Rule of Law…
The Miami Herald: New York Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo says hes against trying the professed mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in his state. This comes a day after that most political of U.S. Attorneys General, Eric Holder, announced he was close …
joe from Lowell
Are you crazy, man?!? You can’t try people who attack the World Trade Center in New York City!
Say, where was that byline again?
c u n d gulag
Andrew ain’t his Daddy. Mario had some guts.
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
Ohferfuxsake! The world’s only remaining Super Power has truly become a nation of bedwetters.
homerhk
Required reading for anyone who thinks Obama caves at a moment’s notice. When the trial for KSM was announced, Democrats should have been wall to wall shouting that this was what a country based on the rule of law should be doing. Instead, silence punctuated by comedy crickets. Ditto, extension of Bush tax cuts, stimulus, healthcare, Gitmo. The list goes on and on. Obama’s left to twist in the wind while the right calls him a marxist and the left feels betrayed. Figure there may be another target for this ire?
PeakVT
I wouldn’t mind if KSM and Co. were tried up here. I’m sure the local hospitality industry wouldn’t mind either.
ChrisS
Jesus Christ, if you don’t want to give a guy a fair trial and would rather act like a banana republic, just take the guy out back and shoot him instead of using him as political hot potato.
This is fucking embarrassing.
mr. whipple
@ChrisS:
Yup.
JCT
@c u n d gulag: +1 You beat me to it, not even close to Mario.
You know, I am beginning to lose faith completely in the quality of
people running for public office on both sides. Just a steady run downhill with a few notable exceptions. This is a component of this country’s decline.
Chris
Here’s a story about terrorist trials. It starts with the fact that I spent three years as a kid living in Paris, capital of the cheese-eating surrender monkeys.
One of my many fellow Parisians during that time (and to this day) was a man named Illych Ramirez Sanchez, aka Carlos the Jackal, the most infamous terrorist of the seventies and eighties, basically the Osama Bin Laden of his day. That’s because after the man was captured by French intelligence, he was put through a very public and very legal trial, then imprisoned in La Santé where he remains to this day, in the hands of the justice system. We’ve never had to worry that he might escape, and I don’t think we ever worried he might walk after being put on trial for terrorism.
Just bringing this up because it’s rather funny that we, bedwetting faggy Eurotrash surrendermeisters, still have more balls on this topic than the American electorate seems to.
Steve LaBonne
No surprise there. Andrew is a waste of skin. Compared to his dad it’s like Commodus vs. Marcus Aurelius.
bjacques
Well, to be fair, the terrorists must be mutants with the power to cause brave patriots to crap themselves just by being on the same continent as them. But I don’t think even Magneto would have a use for them, except maybe for entertainment value.
Lysana
Cuomo et al have so little faith in our court system, they ought to be agitating to improve it instead of whimpering like scared children about one little terrorist.
Chris
Cuomo et al have so little faith in our court system, they ought to be agitating to improve it instead of whimpering like scared children about one little terrorist.
Well, that, and if the justice system is really that riddled with holes, why the hell are they using it to lock up gang members and serial killers and rapists in the first place?
El Cid
It’s also about keeping terrorism as a magical threat which can destroy the United States and thus sanctioning any aggressive actions anywhere, versus a serious problem to be confronted without irrationalism.
Kryptik
It really is amazing the sheer pants-wetting irrational fear this crap gets. I hear all too often about the idea, in NYC itself and in neighboring Jersey, that ‘It’ll make us more vulnerable’.
…how? Please, explain how? Explain fucking how trying someone in a court makes us ‘more vulnerable’? Are they expecting some kind of comic book plot where the villain has planned for just the moment he enters court for his cohorts to slam the courthouse with an armored truck so they can make their break? Are they expecting the defendant to smuggle in a suicide vest so he can destroy the court at the climactic moment of verdict? What? I can understand some complaints about the mess the extra security needed for such trials might require, but at the same time, those complaints put the lie to the whole vulnerability bullshit.
Like said, for the “Greatest Country In The World”, we sure as hell have shit for faith in our justice system, for all the wrong fucking reasons.
Svensker
@Chris:
Oh, pshaw. Was he a Muslin? WAS HE A MUSLIN? No? You cheese eaters have no idea how terrifying and powerful Muslin terrorists are — they can do anything. Anything. They have Sharia Law! Go back to your warm dry bed, Mr. Euro-wuss, and let us take care of everything, like we always do. And you never even say thank you!
Acting as though a “threat” to Europe were even half as significant as a true and real threat to America. Gag. Ijit.
Steve
And I hope Cuomo doesn’t think this is protecting New York City, because it does just the opposite. It sends yet another message that our greatest fear is another attack on New York, so it’s a place where an attack meant to terrorize would be extremely effective.
Yeah, previously the terrorists thought it would be pointless to attack New York. Good analysis.
chopper
you gotta remember, in spite of all the tough talk, NYC is full of pants-shitting bedwetters (yeah, they wet the bed and shit themselves) just like anywhere else.
Chris
Oh, pshaw. Was he a Muslin? WAS HE A MUSLIN?
Yes, yes, yes he is.
Originally a Marxist with a Marxist’s view of God, the man converted to Islam while in prison. Married his wife in a Muslim ceremony, published a book called “Revolutionary Islam” that defends Salafi terrorism as a form of class conflict, and voiced support for Osama Bin Laden as well as Saddam Hussein.
In other words, he’s one screwed up dude, whose guiding light seems to be “fuck the West.” Seventy years ago, he’d as likely as not have been hopping on the fascist bandwagon.
But the point stands; he’s Muslim, so he has superpowers now!
Also, a correction. It seems the guy no longer lives in La Santé and was moved to a prison outside of Paris – wikipedia doesn’t say when, but it’s possible it was during (or before) I lived in Paris. But the basic point stands; he’s in the hands of the (civilian) justice system and we’ve nothing to fear or complain about.
New Yorker
Again, I’m amazed at how pathetic politicians can be. Is KSM General Zod? Is he going to break out of his cell and destroy New York? No? SO WHAT IS THE FUCKING PROBLEM?
Murc
I kind of expected stuff like this from Cuomo.
I live in New York (Upstate, Rochester, just like DougJ but not anywhere near as awesome) and the ONLY reason I voted for Cuomo was because Carl Paladino was motherfucking Carl Paladino.
Cuomo ran as a Republican. You should have seen his campaign ads. They were all about freezing the size of government, cutting all state departments by 20%, instituting property tax caps to ‘take the burden’ off local governments (because that worked real ‘fuckin well in California!), and some nice dog-whistle union-busting language.
I miss Spitzer. He could have ridden the damn scandal out, Vitter-style.
ornery curmudgeon
@Murc: “I miss Spitzer. He could have ridden the damn scandal out, Vitter-style.”
Except we had even the stalwart host of this blog, John Cole, calling for his head and eager to lob rotten fruit at Spitzer and end his career.
This was before the financial debacle came to light, and was a clear example of selective enforcement and false use of wire-tapping — and all Cole could do is sneer and do his hypocrite dance.
Accountability, don’tcha know … no not for feckless and stupid siding with the Right, no not for helping cover the tracks of our financial fraudsters, NO … because Spitzer had a HOOKER!!!
sparky
@El Cid: the only rational thing to do is ratchet up the irrationality. works pretty well, too.
Jim Pharo
Monsieur Mix, bad news: Andrew’s an idiot. Don’t expect anything from him that you wouldn’t have gotten from, say, Pataki. He’s not as aggressively incompetent as Paterson, but expecting him to be in any way helpful is unwarranted. Pity.
joe from Lowell
@Chris:
I once saw an interesting observation: Communism didn’t gain a following among upper-middle class Britons until after the horrors of the gulags came to light.
We tend to think of those who utilize political violence as primarily ideologues, so enamored of their vision that they’re willing to use violence to achieve it, but I don’t think that’s right. Rather, there are some people who are attracted to the concept of political violence, and they’ll latch onto ideology in order to have an excuse.
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
Or, as Jon Stewart said a few years ago when this first came up, “I would put any terrorist up against one of our good ol’ American brain-eaters any time!”
We have people in our prisons now who have done way worse than planning bombings. If we were able to keep Ted Bundy or Edmund Kemper in prison, I think we can manage a few frickin’ terrorists.
JWL
“Ah, New York City– you talk a lot, lets have a look at ya”.
Mick Jagger NYC 1969
don't try this at home
I wonder if the spectacle aspect is what’s lacking. Maybe if KSM were driven to the courthouse with whips, wielded by the prosecutors whose chariot he pulls?
Jacquie
I couldn’t have been more disappointed in Cuomo when I read this. Couldn’t help noticing he came out in support of hydrofracking, too. You want to know why voters in my demo (a ravishingly youthful 28) don’t turn out? Because we DO turn out, and we dutifully vote for the “liberal” candidate, and he kicks us in the goddamn teeth before he’s even sworn in.