The war is over.

[JakeWasHere]

We lost.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00324.html

[Wanderwolf]

We lost.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00324.html

You think so? You haven't seen what happens to the really hated cons "inside", I take it. He wouldn't be the first murdering loon to lie bleeding on the floor of the shower stalls...

I do not rejoice in his coming death. Death is not for rejoicing. But neither do I hate it.

Yours wolfishly,

The factual,

Wanderer

[JakeWasHere]

Correction: He's not going into GP anywhere, he's probably headed to a Supermax facility. Meaning he’s going into solitary. I assure you he’s in no danger of being beaten or anally raped - we know he deserves it, but we want to keep him alive.

No doubt, since we are a civilized society, we will also give him a few other concessions - halal meals, copy of the Koran, arrow on the floor pointing to Mecca...

3,000 people dead and we still allow this fucking waste of skin to continue to breathe. I don’t call that justice, I call it a Sign of the Fucking Apocalypse.

[Wanderwolf]

Correction: He's not going into GP anywhere, he's probably headed to a Supermax facility. Meaning he’s going into solitary. I assure you he’s in no danger of being beaten or anally raped - we know he deserves it, but we want to keep him alive.

Read the article: No Supermax. Just max-sec. And as this article shows:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/content ... lineonly01

More goes on in max-sec than anyone likes to know about.

No doubt, since we are a civilized society, we will also give him a few other concessions - halal meals, copy of the Koran, arrow on the floor pointing to Mecca...

3,000 people dead and we still allow this fucking waste of skin to continue to breathe. I don’t call that justice, I call it a Sign of the Fucking Apocalypse.

Language, please!

Of course we'll allow him to practice his religion "inside". We're not barbarians, you know. Yes, he can have his halal meals, and his suicide-safe copy of the Koran, and a pointer to Mecca.

He is going to die.

Yours factually,

The history-remembering,

Wanderer

[Calbeck]

Amazing. The jury claims that it refused the death penalty on grounds that he had a bad childhood and that he didn't commit his crimes in an "especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner."

If this jury had been on Timothy McVeigh's trial, the guy prolly would've walked.

"At the end of their 42-page verdict form, three jurors wrote in an additional factor in their decision: that Moussaoui "had limited knowledge of the 9/11 attack plans." "

So what? The same was true of Terry Nichols. The court found that even though he personally had no involvement in the Oklahoma City bomb plot, he knew enough about it that not turning over the information was worthy of the death sentence. And he got it.

McVeigh didn't cackle or joke about his actions. In fact, he insisted to the last that he was innocent. Moussaui was in there trying to justify mass murder and admitted his role in the attacks.

So what's the difference, other than Moussaui helped kill a lot more people, and Terry Nichols wasn't a minority?

[The JAM]

I've heard that they spared him so he would not become a "martyr". Though I would have put him on the chain gang doing forced labor to rebuild the Towers.

[Kerry Skydancer]

So they're nitwits. But this is the correct response. He's not -important- enough to execute. He has to -wait- for his 72 raisins - and that's if we don't decide to give him a sex-change operation.

[Rangers]

Don't you read the Danish press? They've run out!

Maybe they can recycle a few of them.

[IronFox]

So they're nitwits. But this is the correct response. He's not -important- enough to execute. He has to -wait- for his 72 raisins - and that's if we don't decide to give him a sex-change operation.

Or we could just stick him in a general prison (Say, Rikers) and have him find out just what the average American Thug thinks of him. And slip his cellmate some viagra, while we're at it.

[StrangeWulf13]

I don't think we've lost the war, but Rush Limbaugh made a good point on the radio today:

You don't win a war in the courts. These guys are not criminals, they're enemies of the state, foreign soldiers who wish our country harm.

They should not be given a court trial. They should be hanged in the street so the rest of the world figures out we're not people you mess with.

In other words, screw what the rest of the world thinks. Kill the terrorists so we can get the job done.

[T.s.a.o]

Gosh, are you really that hurt just because he said we lost?
what exactly have we lost again?

[Calbeck]

Gosh, are you really that hurt just because he said we lost?
what exactly have we lost again?

Common sense, apparently. There's no doubt of the man's guilt; the jury simply felt sorrier for him than it did for the people who he attempted to murder.

[T.s.a.o]

More likely they didn't, and just fealt dumping him in a block was just. Now let Barrabass be and stop whining about one conviceted criminal and return the focus on the still more out there we haven't even captured yet.

[RDB]

I've heard that they spared him so he would not become a "martyr". Though I would have put him on the chain gang doing forced labor to rebuild the Towers.

I'd put him on a pig farm shoveling manure and feed him ham sandwiches the rest of his life

Ron

[Chaser617]

Unfortunately that would be seen as a barbaric act by the rest of the world.

As much as we think he deserves it, as much as he will burn in hell when his day before God comes, the rest of the world will see us do that and condemn us for barberic hypocrits.

We, as the 'Good Guys' have to play by the rules. It really bites when the Other Guy can just ignore the rules and no one cares, (IE, morters in mosqus) as soon as we even slightly cross that line, we become, in the eyes of the world 'The Other Guy' the bad guy if you will. We may be the most powerful nation in the world at the moment, but we do not have so much power that we can do as we will on a whim.

Granted, I wish we could strangle a few of those european hypocrits that would turn on us if we did do that (IE the leadership [not the people] of france).

[Reignbow]

I have to confess that the court decision truely mystifies me. If Moussaoui out of all people gets to live, who still qualifies for death row? The "redeeming" circumstances of his bad childhood might explain (not exonerate) if he'd become a gang lord or some drug dealer. But conspiracy to murder of 3,000 civilians... really, that childhood would have to have been the mother of all nightmares.

Nevertheless, the decision is made, he lives. And is treated with certain reservations, including not feeding him ham sandwiches (I think), nor printing a selection of surah on his toilet paper.

But I know that there are people who desire harsher treatment, so I've been about this recently. I can't offer an american perspective, being German myself, but I did check out what our constitution has to say on this topic. In then end, it's very clear-cut: Several of the basic rights can be forfeited by actions against the free democratic order, but freedom of religion and basic human dignity are explicitly excepted. In fact, the constitution starts "human dignity is inviolable". This translates to no torture and no desacration. Even if it were for something like 11.9.01, breaching the most basic commands of the constitution doesn't seem worth it, since it makes other tenets far too vulnerable for comfort. I figure the people who wrote that up in 1949 had the biggest FUBAR in the entire history of democracy to learn from.

So, in the end, any "unusual" punishment against Moussaoui doesn't seem worth the precedent it would set (at least not to me). If you're christian, take comfort in the thought that he will burn in hell. If you're atheist, remember that this life is all he has, and he's going to spend every second he has left behind bars, a futile existence.

[StrangeWulf13]

Unfortunately that would be seen as a barbaric act by the rest of the world.

As much as we think he deserves it, as much as he will burn in hell when his day before God comes, the rest of the world will see us do that and condemn us for barberic hypocrits.

We, as the 'Good Guys' have to play by the rules. It really bites when the Other Guy can just ignore the rules and no one cares, (IE, morters in mosqus) as soon as we even slightly cross that line, we become, in the eyes of the world 'The Other Guy' the bad guy if you will. We may be the most powerful nation in the world at the moment, but we do not have so much power that we can do as we will on a whim.

Granted, I wish we could strangle a few of those european hypocrits that would turn on us if we did do that (IE the leadership [not the people] of france).

Speaking of hypocrites... I'm sorry, I just don't see why we should care if any of them think we're "barbaric" or "uncivilized". The UN itself could be compared to Mos Eisley space port. Tyrants, profiteers, villians of every sort...

Really, who has the right to judge us? France? The UK? Germany? Perhaps China or Russia? Maybe Iran is blessed with the clarity to hold us to our actions?

In my opinion, only God has a right to judge, although many a righteous person is granted the same clarity of judgement. And let's face it, when it comes to morality and clarity of judgement... many of the world's nations are sorely lacking. Ours is perhaps not much better in some areas (doubt God approves of strip clubs and porno films), but we have no tyrants, and we don't make deals with them. Anyone who does so is no friend of ours, no matter what pleasant words they give us. Even if they sit in the highest of office and command the greatest military in the world, dealing with tyrants and villians is not a virtue by any means. Not unless it involves bullets and high-yield explosives, of course.

I've found it rather annoying whenever someone brings up the argument that we shouldn't do this or that because oh my! What will those immoral, treacherous, back-stabbing "allies" of ours think of us?

They'll think we're the biggest bunch of bad-@$$es ever to walk the earth, that's what. You don't wake the sleeping giant. You don't mess with us unless you want a black eye, a broken rib, and maybe a couple missing teeth.

When Frenchmen wet their pants everytime a United States GI walks by, I'd say we're done building our reputation.

[DarkDragonReborn]

I still say the main reason we didn't kill him is so he couldn't become a martyr. The guy wanted us to kill him. In showing 'mercy', we're being far more cruel... at least to him. To the rest of the world, it makes us 'nice people'.

[Wanderwolf]

When Frenchmen wet their pants everytime a United States GI walks by, I'd say we're done building our reputation.

"To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."
-- Tacitus

"America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

And forgive me, I pray, this last one:

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Yours quotingly,

The not-wanting-to-have-the-next-Roman-Empire,

Wanderer

[Nikas_Zekeval]

Unfortunately that would be seen as a barbaric act by the rest of the world.

As much as we think he deserves it, as much as he will burn in hell when his day before God comes, the rest of the world will see us do that and condemn us for barberic hypocrits.

We, as the 'Good Guys' have to play by the rules. It really bites when the Other Guy can just ignore the rules and no one cares, (IE, morters in mosqus) as soon as we even slightly cross that line, we become, in the eyes of the world 'The Other Guy' the bad guy if you will. We may be the most powerful nation in the world at the moment, but we do not have so much power that we can do as we will on a whim.

Granted, I wish we could strangle a few of those european hypocrits that would turn on us if we did do that (IE the leadership [not the people] of france).

Actually by the 'rules', that is the Geneva Conventions, we could be alot more ruthless. Terrorists are illegal combatants, and by the GC their only 'rights' is the right to a bullet between the ears, or a long drop at the end of a short rope, capturer's preference, assuming they bother taking prisioners at all.

Even IF the US signed the last GC protocols (which we didn't) the acts of the terrorists would have put them in violation about two minutes into thier fighting. Unlike a school game where the other side can try and yell 'Hey he's cheating TOO!' the GCs were writting with the expectation that someone woud try to game the system. To prevent this violaters forfiet ALL their protections. Really it is only by US mercy that most of the occupants of Gitmo aren't pushing up daiseys, the military depot mosques, hospitals, and most of Falluga aren't piles of smoking rubble, and any 'dead' terrorist playing possom aren't immediately sent to Allah for judgement, do not pass Go, do not collect 72 virgins.