Choking on it
A most unappetizing meal, for all of us:
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) — Al Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui should spend the rest of his life in prison for his role in the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, a federal jury decided Wednesday.
The nine men and three women returned their verdict on the seventh day of deliberations after reliving the September 11 attacks through weeks of harrowing testimony and evidence.
Jurors were stone-faced as the lengthy verdict form was read in court. Spectators, including some 9/11 family members, fell silent and Moussaoui showed no immediate reaction.
“America, you lost,” Moussaoui stated, clapping his hands as he left the courtroom. “I won.”
He’s right. The fools and cowards who advocate the law-enforcement approach to “fighting” terrorism now have a perfect example of how well we can expect it to work out…as if any more were needed beyond what we’ve seen already.
This nation has now officially lost its way. We can’t find the strength to fight a war wholeheartedly, as if victory mattered to us less than being thought well of by a viper’s nest of cheap hoods, fainthearted Eurotrash Milquetoasts, and two-bit grifters; to be unequivocally proud of our country’s history and its unique achievements; to allow ourselves to believe that we’re in the right in a war we didn’t initiate; to call treason by its right name; to boldly recognize and name our enemies; or to execute a plain-guilty terrorist who had planned to assist in the murder of thousands of us, via an act of war that has no parallel in the modern age for its sheer nihilistic savagery.
We are defeated.
This perfidious decision will be a bleak reminder to every strong, patriotic American for a very long time to come of the mindless decay that festers within our country, as Moussaoui’s victorious partners in crime stage attack after attack to force our spineless “leaders” to release him. Hostages will be taken, embassies assaulted, innocent civilians attacked, all in support of this newly-created jailhouse hero — and we will do nothing of consequence in retaliation.
As for its impact on broader matters, we will lose the WoT (we’re barely fighting it anyway, as the biggest and most notable consequence of our enervated Iran policy remains simple inertia), and we in our pathetic cowardice deserve to; as such, we never should have even attempted to fight back against our attackers in the first place. Our soldiers should be brought immediately home from the far-flung hellholes to which we’ve mistakenly sent them, with our abjectest apologies for daring to presume that their countrymen possessed the guts and the will to see the mission through. We conservatarians should join with liberals and demand that our “leaders” beg our Islamist conquerors for clemency immediately, and pray that we’ll be allowed to live out our remaining time with some small shred of self-deceptive dignity intact.
Liberals will no doubt be delighted with the weakness and lack of resolve shown here, and will find plenty of progressivist rationalizations for praising the “humanity” and “forgiveness” shown by this sickening miscarriage of justice. For the rest of us, it’s a black day indeed. Charles Johnson says:
Note: in radical Islamic ideology, being captured by infidels and executed does not equal martyrdom. It equals humiliation. The ‘72 virgins/raisins’ fantasy is reserved for those who die ‘gloriously’ in battle.
And Zacarias Moussaoui will game the system to the best of his abilities. Don’t be surprised to see him get his own Koran, halal food, a prayer rug, and an arrow pointing toward Mecca.
Well, of course he will, and right from day one too; the namby-pamby, peace-at-any-price, Terrorists’ Bill of Rights-promoting liberals who have guaranteed our humiliating defeat will see to it. He’ll see every last one of his prison demands met, and he’ll be making plenty of them. He has our number, and he knows it, and as of now the most ragtag member of the lowliest Islamist rabble on the face of the Earth knows it too. As Misha says:
All over the world, terrorists let out a sigh of relief, knowing that you can go to America, conspire to murder 3,000 innocent civilians, and still live out your days in greater comfort and luxury than their caves could ever afford them.
As Moussaoui was led away after the verdict, he shouted: “America, you lost!”
He’s right, in a bigger sense than just the outcome of his trial where he was essentially pardoned for the murder of 3,000 innocents. We’ve lost our way. We’ve lost our will and ability to fight to WIN. We’ve lost our faith in ourselves and our belief in the righteousness of our cause. We’ve lost sight of the fact that this is a war that was forced upon us, a war fought by savages that deserve no consideration, no quarter and no mercy, a war that will not be won with kiddy gloves and a war that will not end until WE finish it, by whatever means necessary.
But at least we can tell ourselves over and over again that “we’re so much better than them” when we’re attacked the next time.
Yep. But hey, what else can we expect; after all, we can’t even find the stones to round up illegal aliens and deport them, even when they’re cooperative enough to gather in the streets in mass numbers demanding more “rights” and freebies, thus making it easier for law enforcement to find them.
I know most of what I’ve said here sounds overwrought and hysterical; I most likely am being exactly that. But I despair for my country when — after all we’ve endured so far, and all the worrisome evidence of our flightiness and lack of will we’ve seen since toppling Saddam — we can’t find the self-respect to impose the maximum punishment upon a sworn enemy like Moussaoui — and especially in light of the morale boost we know our quivering, lily-livered “moral superiority” will add up to for his worldwide partners in evil.
Stock up on ammo, that’s my advice. While you still can.
Update! Excellent roundup on reaction to this travesty by Allahpundit, who says:
Someone do me a favor and explain the “at least we denied him martyrdom” logic to me. Does that apply to Bin Laden too? If Moussaoui turns around tomorrow and says the worst thing we could do to him is supply him with lots of prostitutes, do we call the Mustang Ranch?
Well, apparently some of us would advocate exactly that approach. Just don’t throw him into that br’ar patch, okay? And down towards the end of the post, the juror cards prove that it’s actually a worse defeat than I thought, at least in terms of what it means for our ability to deal with an implacable enemy: “Only three jurors thought the defense proved Moussaoui’s involvement in 9/11 was ‘minor.’”
Sick-making, that’s what.
- Entries
He had nothing to do with 9/11, other than knowing some people's names.
His final comment "America, you lost" was his acknowledging that that we still have no justice served, no perpetrators behind bars or executed, no answers to the myriad outstanding...no, burning questions.
He would have said the same thing no matter what the jury returned, because whether he lives or dies makes no difference. America still has no idea what really happened.
Some twenty years ago or so, right after Fujimori's "self-coup" or auto gulpe I was working on the Colombian border when I saw the Peruvian secret police take some villagers prisoner. They were on a military boat...something about the size of a PT. The secret police (the counterparts to our CIA), were always masked. As I watched, one of the Peruvians took off his mask as he was headed below deck. He was an American. He was an American reptile exporter I knew in Iquitos.
I was naive then, and since then I have seen many things that cause me to distrust our government. Based on my experience, what I have seen concerning the events of 9/11 leave me certain that what we have been told by the commission, the president, and all of his men is not the truth.
This is true. I do actually respect your experience and intelligence -- despite giving you a ration of shit now and then, I don't think you're nuts at all.
I do, however, think your mistrust of government -- some of which I definitely share, albeit tacking in from a different angle -- combined with your intense dislike of Dubya leaves you susceptible to some pretty odd theories. And that's where we part ways.
I don't believe for a minute that in a country like ours, a conspiracy to explain 9/11 is either likely or possible, no matter who might desire to implement it. It just isn't logical to believe in something like that. 9/11 was too big, and too many people on too many different levels of government and the media would have had to have been involved. Somebody would have let the cat out of the bag way before those planes ever got in the air. As it was, it was a difficult and very precarious thing that it happened the way it did. Add in the personnel required to make such a thing happen from the intelligence agencies, the military, and the Administration itself, and to believe such simply strains credulity. Or it does mine, anyway.
The whole incident was staggering enough as it actually occurred. I see no need to complicate it further with additional layers of unlikelihood and complexity. We have a handful of perps, some of whom have admitted their guilt. I believe them, and I'm content to leave the wild theorizing to Tom Clancy.
I think you have to look at things like this not as apocalyptic omens, but as a sign that the system -the real system of fidelity to the rule of law - actually works. It's a bitter cup to drink from, that we can't draw and quarter, on public television, the sonsabitches responsible for 9/11. But that may be the way it is, and we have to get used to it. I just don't think this guy was responsible. Were I a terrorist of any magnitude, a fucknut like Moussaoui is the last person I'd trust with any mission of importance. Were I forced to guess, I'd say he was probably involved as an initial candidate for some kind of hijacking or suicide mission, and somewhere along the line got chucked out of the process because he's batshit crazy, and you can't have people like that in your operation if you want it to work right. You need people who are a little crazy, not a lot crazy... Moussaoui, with time on his hands and knowing that pilots could be valuable to the movement, sought out flight school in the manner of a lot of self-recruited intel or terrorist assets do that kind of thing, to make themselves operationally attractive... Either that, or the real deal is that he was to be on a fifth team and the other three or four members are at large. Regardless, the Feds don't appear to have offered proof of exactly what he was up to, aside from his own admissions, and you can't exactly trust a guy who thinks God is about to show up and smite the Jews and Americans.
I'm not sure I'd have been thrilled had he received a death penalty. I'm damn sure he's guilty of a lot of stuff, but am unconvinced that being part of the 9/11 plot is one of them.
In these circumstances, is justice the only factor or should also politics play a role?
Oh come on, please.... I have no sympathy for people who deliberately set out to kill civillians, whether al-qaida, Israeli sharpshooter putting one thru a schoolchild's head, whoever. But the planes on 9/11 didn't come from nowhere. They were great big pigeons coming home to roost.
You can argue that it was immoral - I agree. You can say these people didn't deserve their fate - I agree. [Will you agree that Palestinian schoolchildren in refugee camps should be extended the same courtesy?] But you can't say that this had nothing to do with decades of unwanted American interference in the Muslim world. Tired of always being the victims, Muslims have started to say, "if you kill our kids, we'll kill yours". They don't have black hawks, cruise missiles and the like. Hence the rise of the suicide warrior. What did you expect? We don't have to surrender, we have to defend what's right about our cultures and values but we have to wean ourselves off using overbearing violence on any society that won't bend at the knee to our political and economic interests.... Or have an endless war. It would be good for the military-industrial complex tho' I suppose.
I saw a talk recently by a famous British middle east correspondant. A telling phrase he used was, "the main freedom the Muslim world wants is freedom FROM US [i.e. the 'west'], unfortunately it's a freedom we don't seem likely to give them any time soon". Maybe when the oil runs out eh....?
And as for the Palestinian problem, exactly how many Jews ought we to encourage the slaughter of, to keep the chickens from coming home to roost again with another huge terrorist attack? Iran insists that 100% of them would be a good start, followed by eradication of the words "Israel" "Jew" and "Zion" from the annals of history. Hamas takes the much more reasonable position that merely slaughtering all of the Jews would do the trick. Should we just support a reasonable compromise - say, slaughtering half of them?
And by the way, the supreme irony of your position, is the kind of westerners that Islamists absolutely hate the worst, are secular left wing westerners. Not only don't y'all have any respect for the "people of the book" but you do a pretty good job of supporting exactly the kind of activities that Islamacists hold up as western depravity that merits destruction, not because it intrudes into the Islamacist lifestyle, but because it exists. Keep cheering for the U.S.'s destruction, fucko. You and your pals will be the first people lined up in a soccer stadium to have your feet chopped off.
Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that he was going to be serving his sentence in a Supermax.
Then, of course, there's this shit.
He's gone and done, not even yesterday's news anymore. He's less than Hess was, and the world forgot all about him. What and who is next? That's the question and concern.
Don't sweat the ankle-biters, Mike. At even that they're punching above their wieght class.
Y'know, this is actually a great comfort to me, seeing as how I've been blocking this Rhiannon's various IPs for literally years now, and he/she/it seems impervious to the knowledge that no one here has the least interest in anything he/she/it will ever have to say. I simply can't understand why someone who violently disagrees with every last word posted here, and who is clearly unwelcome, would want to keep popping up like a turd in a punchbowl. Some kind of masochism or other minor neurosis, I guess.
About 20 years ago, actually 14... I was rounding. it was actually in 1992.
And they weren't Sendero, they ran a cocaine factory. The CIA was there "helping".
Given the sheer lunacy you quote here on a regular basis, I'd have to go with the understanding of the average American over yourself.
Stop that. The first step in overcoming non-chemical insanity is personal recognition of the fact that one is, in fact, nuts. Pretending Zorro isn't nuts when he shows so much evidence that he is does no one any favors, least of all him.
Zero. Except - "America - Bad!"
Zero. Except - “America - Bad!”
It was the beginning of my education as to how things really work in the world.
When we get a minute, remind me to tell ya about the time I stumbled onto "Uncle Ollie's" airfield in Costa Rica. In 1997.
1997?, huh...I thought all the Iran/Contra stuff was put to bed long before.
nope.
And you're still alive.
Must be one slippery dude there, Zorro.
All you can do is come back with some lame swipe at the commentor. The point is that during Iran/Contra a big deal was mad of the fact that North was using US military to guard and provide support for the CIA, who were operating out of northern Costa Rica on private property owned by a retired Air Force colonel from Indiana.
The point is, the US military is still, right now, deployed guarding this mans private valley, and the field is still being actively used by someone for something.
It amounts to a secret base being used for secret, and probably illegal activities, such as drug trafficking.
Just recently, Mexican police busted a DC (carrying 5.5 TONS of cocaine in Campeche. This plane is registered to Skyway Aircraft and had markings that impersonated official Homeland Security vehicles.
This plane and the company that ows it is tied to Rudi Dekkers of Mohammad Atta-training fame.
As the plane landed, it was surrounded by Mexican police on the runway. Somehow the pilot escaped, but the co-pilot was apprehended.
It seems Eugene Hassenfuss has returned...in a manner of speaking.
Calm down a bit there, man.
I found out the details of the place from an ex-pat who has lived near there since the 60's. He also said: "see all these beautiful roads? Best in Costa Rica. All of them go north to unguarded points on the Nicaraguan border and stop. Courtesty of Oliver North."
Think all that was paid for with US tax dollars?...I don't think so.
I have to admit, it made getting around in the mountains a breeze.
The last of the Carter-years funk was still around us* and it was darn near impossible to do anything but the most basic counter moves on the global mapboard, even when it came to enforcing the Monroe Doctrine. I'm not surprised in the least that they pulled out the (metphorical) flick-knife and life preserver and went nasty. Not surprised in the least, old thing. And considering the type of people who become communists (Almost 100 years of enormity!) I'm not to upset.**
*Okay, who wants that back. I mean, really? Roller-Disco? /shudder/
**I sympathize with the poor people who get in the path of these things, because the fuedal overlord on one hand, the marxist soon-to-be-fuedal-overlord on the other - man, they are fucked, and right royally!***
***N.B. Aid Organizations/Churches - sucking up, and onto, communist or any kind of dictators Does Not Help! Anyone but the dictator, that is! I'm looking at you ECUSA.
You deserve the thanks of a grateful nation....
but don't hold your breath.