Tag Al Qaeda

Go Army! (Navy, Air Force and Marines, too!)

Pat Ryan 2 Comments

If you can hear me over the complaining about the “insensitivity” of the plan to build a Muslim community center—including room for religious observance—two and a half blocks from the hallowed ground of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, listen to this: one way the Defense Department responded to the attack on the Pentagon that same day was to build a chapel for religious observance by all faiths—including Muslims, every single day—at the exact spot on that hallowed ground where the hijacked airliner smashed into the building!

Army spokesman George Wright said he is unaware of any complaints about the Muslim services from either 9/11 families or anyone in the building.

(That’s all…talk amongst yourselves.)

Political opportunists exploit Ground Zero, and not in a good way

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

September 11 is right around the corner, and this year it is likely to spike the hysteria over the planned construction of a community center two and a half blocks from the World Trade Center site.

Doesn’t that sound a lot less creepy and threatening than “a mosque at ground zero”?  That’s the gist of the problem.

A Muslim group in New York City wants to build a community center, including space for religious observance, at 45-51 Park Place in lower Manhattan, a site near the hole in the ground where the Twin Towers stood.  Google the address to see the distance between it and the pit.  There have been complaints from people who find the idea of a mosque at ground zero appalling and insensitive, and in some cases a symbolic victory for the people who carried out the September 11 attacks (and who are, it is true, still at war with the United States and plotting our destruction).  It’s not been made clear (to me) if there are objections to the swimming pool and meeting rooms in the plan, or just that there would be areas for Muslim religious activity.

I don’t follow how building a community center shows insensitivity to the victims of a terrorist or criminal act, unless you blame the builders of the center for the attack.  The man behind the Cordoba House has some questionable beliefs, but no associations with Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda.  If the people behind this proposal aren’t directly connected to the 9/11 hijackers, is the objection some sort of guilt by association?  I’d like to believe that association with Islam is not the cause of the opposition, since Islam didn’t attack us—that was done by some people with a perverted interpretation of Islam.  They’re no more representative of Islam than the (insert name of your favorite religious fringe group here) are of Christianity.

People who commandeer passenger jets and use them as missiles deserve our attention.  The last president let his administration turn that attention into fear, and enough of the fear became irrational enough to be exploited as a wedge to grab power and start a war that had nothing to do with finding the people who attacked us, merrily ignoring civil liberties along the way.  It’s not too big a leap to say that irrational fear, and political opportunism, are pumping up the volume in this case.

Charles Krauthammer makes a compelling point about preserving sacred ground, although he doesn’t say how far away would be far enough, and Ross Douthat has an interesting column about how the constitutional America and the cultural America are in conflict on this issue, and I see his point.  But I’m no culture warrior: no one’s made an argument that the proposed construction is illegal, the necessary governmental authorities have approved the plan, neighborhood and business groups approve, we’re not religious bigots…and it’s two blocks down and around the corner, for crying out loud.  Let’s move on.

Want more?  William Saletan does a skillful job taking down the anti-mosque arguments on their face, and their proponents with them.

How about a joke?  This is ridiculously close to a real news item:

The Statue of Liberty was briefly evacuated today after a faulty sensor in an elevator shaft falsely indicated smoke. While there were no immediate reports of injuries, the very idea that someone might build a Muslim community center just across the water from the site of that undamaged sacred ground was compared to a stab in the heart by a bunch of racist yahoos.

more truth, more free

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

Who knew—now I can’t open a Web page without seeing something new on the topic of trying terrorists.

First, an opinion piece arguing, among other things, that the families of September 11 victims would benefit emotionally from seeing Khalid Sheik Mohammed brought to justice at the site of the crime…an interesting perspective.

And then, who but Ben Sargent, one of my all-time favorite skewerers of fatuousness editorial cartoonists, should offer a thought:

…and the truth shall set you free

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

I’ve wondered why some people object to putting accused terrorists on trial in civilian courts; today, Houston attorney and Navy veteran Patrick McCann wonders the same thing and offers a thoughtful position on the value of such trials.

My default belief?  People who hijack planes and set off bombs are committing crimes, particularly if they aren’t wearing the uniform of a country that’s declared war on us when they do it.  So why wouldn’t we try them in civilian court?  McCann notes that we, in fact, have, without the courtroom becoming the target of another attack:

the sky does not actually fall when trials occur, even trials of, say, Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th 9/11 hijacker, who now rots in prison. Or that of the original shoe bomber Richard Reid, who is also in prison. Or that of Omar Abdel Rahman, known as the “blind sheikh,” who first tried to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993. Remember him? Well, if you don’t, it is probably because he was tried and sentenced to life in prison in the federal district court of New York. He now is living out his days at the “supermax” prison in Colorado. By the way, Timothy McVeigh, a man who tragically succeeded in blowing up innocent people, was also tried and executed in the federal court system.

As for the worry that an Al Qaeda defendant would use the public trial to condemn us, and tout his beliefs: as they say, bring it on.

The battleground of ideas is not fought by weapons of propaganda but by truth. There can be no simpler, greater truth than to place men such as the most recent tool of these fanatics on public trial, broadcast for the world. Let him spout an ideology that requires the murder of fellow Muslims, the enslavement of women and the use of suicide bombers to carry the word of God. Let him do so in a public court, where the record is tested by his lawyers and where the truth emerges in front of 12 citizens and the rest of the world. Let him try and twist the truth, as he certainly will, because he will fail. Let every person across the globe see the difference between the vision of the power-mad old men who command the vulnerable to slaughter in God’s name and the reality of life and liberty in a place that treats even these fools with decency.

(snip)

There is no simpler way to reveal these people for what they truly are, and no better way to show the world who we are. That is how the battle gets won, not by hysterical fear of a trial, nor by making these men out to be somehow too powerful for our system to deal with. They are not. It actually helps them to think our politicians and pundits are pandering to panic and fear when they read that they are too dangerous to hold in the United States. They do not deserve such mythic status, and our cowering pundits and public figures should not give it to them.

Today the attorney general said he decided a civilian court was good enough for the underwear bomber, and got no objection from military or intelligence (insert your own joke here).  A good sign, I think.