Via Amanda Terkel, Sarah Palin objected to the forthcoming KSM trial thusly:
The trial will afford Mohammed the opportunity to grandstand and make use of his time in front of the world media to rally his disgusting terrorist cohorts. It will also be an insult to the victims of 9/11, as Mohammed will no doubt use the opportunity to spew his hateful rhetoric in the same neighborhood in which he ruthlessly cut down the lives of so many Americans.
What's an actual insult to the victims of 9/11 is the idea that America is not strong enough to withstand the blatherings of a mass murderer. For me, the prospect of KSM grandstanding at his trial falls into I-wish-a-motherfucker-would territory. I want to hear how KSM builds a case against America, because everyone will hear how laughably conspiratorial and clownish it is. Think of what a cathartic moment it will be when America sees the face of the man considered to be UBL's most efficient henchman and he delivers a pitiful harangue to a bank of cameras. No one will be emboldened to do anything but laugh. The only downside will be his inevitable discussion of how CIA operatives tortured him.
My hope for the KSM trial is that it does more than all this. It should forever shatter the pernicious myth that al-Qaeda is composed of supermen — supermen against whom America has no choice but to alter its character and most precious laws in order to confront. I suspect we'll have an Eichmann-in-Jerusalem moment — and sorry for the unfortunate Nazi/al-Qaeda analogy; al-Qaeda are not the Nazis; but I couldn't really think of any other parallel — except instead of the banality of evil, we'll see the lunacy and vanity and self-absorption of it. That's because al-Qaeda's weltanshauung depends on a myth that holds America to be implacably determined to snuff out the glory of Islam. In reality, most Americans couldn't give a fuck about Islam and only started to know the first thing about it because of 9/11. But that America — an America bearing no resemblance to the actual America — will be what KSM seeks to counter-indict. It's farcical, and farcical in ways that can only benefit the real America.
This is what Sarah Palin is afraid of. She hasn't, I think it's safe to say, thought it through. Glenn Greenwald, in a post that surpasses his usual high standards, diagnoses her very well: she's given in to terrorism.
###
Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell declares war on polar bears - seeks to remove endangered listing to speed up oil field development.
###
###
Afghan women want West to back off 'rape law': http://www.canada.com/news/Afghan+women+want+West+back+rape/1492175/story.html
###
Huge Rise in Birth Defects in Falluja
Doctors in Iraq's war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/13/falluja-cancer-children-birth-defects
Another in America's long list of Crimes against Humanity. Thank Jebus we're a Christian nation, or it could be much worse.
(Classic wingnut response: "I seem to recall our military URGING ALL RESIDENTS TO LEAVE BEFORE THE BOMBING. They were ALL promised safety and ALL were told Falluja would be bombed and why. Those who stayed did so KNOWING their lives were in danger. It was their CHOICE ..... isn't that what you hold so dear....CHOICE?)
For those who don't remember, the first battle of Fallujah began in April, 2004, after the much-publicized brutal massacre, dismemberment, and public display of the bodies of four Blackwater mercenaries. As explained by Washington Post Pentagon and military correspondent Thomas Ricks, in Fiasco:
The civilian leadership of the U.S. government didn't want to wait for a careful, quiet counterattack.
Despite misgivings from some military commanders, including top Iraq commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the Bush White House wanted a quick response.
(Iraq occupation czar Paul) Bremer talked to Sanchez about launching a vigorous attack, and soon the Marines got a call from Sanchez's headquarters. "Go in and clobber people" was the way one officer remembered it.
Ill-planned and with ill intent, the U.S. military's response was brutal. The American corporate media didn't cover it with quite the same obsession they had brought to the initial massacre. In an article excoriating coverage by the New York Times, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting explained:
The head of Fallujah's hospital, Dr. Rafie al-Issawi, has consistently maintained that more than 600 people were killed in the initial U.S. siege of Fallujah in April 2004, a figure that rose to more than 800 as the siege was lifted and people pinned down by the fighting were able to register their families' deaths (Knight-Ridder, 5/9/04). More than 300 of the dead, according to al-Issawi, were women and children. The Iraqi Health Ministry in Baghdad, part of the U.S.-installed government, gave a lower figure of about 271 killed, with 52 of the dead being women and children. On October 26, the independent British-based group Iraq Body Count reported that the civilian death toll in Fallujah in April was about 600, based on their extensive evaluation of the numbers reported by local hospital officials and the Health Ministry, as well as mainstream media accounts.Other journalistic investigations depict the reality of widespread civilian death in Fallujah: An Associated Press tally of the dead in Iraq (4/30/04) discovered that in Fallujah "two football fields were turned into cemeteries, with hundreds of freshly dug graves, marked with wooden planks scrawled with names -- some with names of women, some marked specifically as children. At one of the fields, an AP reporter was told by volunteer gravediggers on April 11 that more than 300 people had been buried there." A Reuters report (4/13/04) quoted researchers from Human Rights Watch calling for an investigation based on reports they received from residents fleeing the violence in Fallujah.
Even the lower estimates provided by the Health Ministry debunk the Times' repeated assertion that reports of "large civilian casualties" are "unconfirmed"-- unless the paper wants to maintain that 52 women and children killed in an attempt to "liberate" their city are inconsequential. But the Times should know from its own reporting that the higher casualty figures are much more realistic.
By the end of a very bloody month, which culminated in aerial bombardments and hundreds of civilian dead, Bush again was dishonestly declaring victory. The U.S. forces ended up negotiating a withdrawal, while turning the city over to supposedly friendly Iraqi forces. In fact, the withdrawal represented a retreat.
Keep reading: http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/014565.php
###
Paul Clarke, 27, a veteran, thought that he was doing the right thing when he found a shotgun in his garden. He took the shotgun to the police station and was immediately arrested for possession of a firearm without permit and criminally charged — an offense that brings five years imprisonment. Prosecutor Brian Stalk insisted that this is a strict liability offense and his intent to help police does not matter — he is a menace to society as defined under the criminal code.
###
Environmental good news and bad news.
A classic wingnut response to the 'bad' news story:
"Maybe the land is going back to the way it was when our ancestors found it .... GREEN and lush .... which was why they named it Greenland."
I'm reading a bit about how our fine, God-loving nation just executed John Allen Muhammad, aka the Washington D.C. sniper, injected his remorseless flesh with a megadose of sodium pentothal as dozens of people actually chose to sit behind a glass wall and watch him writhe and twitch and die sans any final statement or single sign of penitence or satisfying explanation as to his murderous actions.
If you like, you can read the story right now on this fair site, and then jump to the bottom where you will certainly find a reeking cesspool of some of the most nasty, disturbing anonymous comments from fine, God-fearing Americans, and then proceed calmly to feeling utterly soiled, disgusted and sad about the human race as a whole.
Here's a better idea: Skip that, and instead check out the recent study from the Death Penalty Information Center, which states that after all court costs, fees and various social machinations are factored in, the average death sentence costs each state that supports it about $30 million per inmate, running well into hundreds of millions in wasted taxpayer dollars every year.
I say "wasted" because the study proves that, even from a simple economic perspective, the death penalty is ridiculous and culturally debilitating, and the various states in question could save hundreds of millions a year simply by locking the prisoner up for life.
To be honest, the first idea to occur to me wasn't even all that clever. I initially wondered what would happen if you took, say, 30 of the nastiest, most hateful, eye-for-an-eye death penalty supporters and anonymous commenters in America today, and made them the following offer:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/11/13/notes111309.DTL
###
Sarah Palin doesn't believe in evolution
New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani writes:
Elsewhere in this volume, she talks about creationism, saying she "didn't believe in the theory that human beings — thinking, loving beings — originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea" or from "monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees." In everything that happens to her, from meeting Todd to her selection by Mr. McCain for the Republican ticket, she sees the hand of God: "My life is in His hands. I encourage readers to do what I did many years ago, invite Him in to take over."
If there is a God, it is quite possible that he/she is guiding Palin to do everything possible to destroy the Republican Party and the conservative movement forever.
###
Click to see pix of the global denying morans who attended a protest against Al Gore. Damn I love Amerikkka!
###
First we found out that the RNC insurance policy covered abortions, now we learn that it promotes end-of-life counseling - AKA death panels: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/14/rnc-health-grandma/
###
From America's greatest novel
Here is the latest strange part of Going Rogue, where Sarah Palin talks to her cussin', chewin', questionin' son Track, who is fightin' in the Wars. We think Sarah is telling Track that she has decided to not-quit her job as governor, by quitting it. Then she abruptly orders Track to fast (!), but they reach a compromise. Track is a real American.
