Jack & Jill Politics

So wonder the haranguing Chorus spewing poetic on what should be done with Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his merry band of mass murderers. They’ve come up with excuse that range from questions of safety to that of jurisdiction, but the upshot of it all seems to be this:

We don’t trust the Feds in New York City to punch this one through.

To which I ask, as politely as possible: Can you pass that dutchie to the left hand side? It’s clearly some of that deaf bubonic.

Let’s think this out loud: New York City, the site of the worse mass murder in the history of the United States, has a chance to get its hands on some of the scoundrels who perpetrated said mass murder and their gonna bungle this? The same town where people send back food that is “too hot” is gonna let this slide? It would seem the discussion should turn to whether or not New York is a safe place for KSM and Friends to be.

As my buddy Adam Serwer notes, these fools are never going to breathe free air again.

My gut tells me that the supporters of the tribunals have simple reasons for wanting to go that route. Rubberband to my head, I’d say it’s because they think the military will be harder on these guys. Not only will they convict them, they’ll convict them hard.

If KSM and Co. were convicted by a military tribunal, they’d spend the rest of their days getting tapdanced on by dudes in crew cuts in between waterboarding sessions and electrocution that involves nipple clamps. And all of this would take place in that shadowy Military World where the rules are just different. Or so hope, I think, the people who want to see a tribunal go down.

Shorter Toussaint: They want these dudes put in the hurt locker, military-style.

They want a vicious pimp hand to come down on the 9/11 plotters and they think the Feds in New York are too weak in the wrist.

The Feds in the city where these knuckleheads helped murdered 3,000 people. A city where people don’t even let too-hot food slide.*

Hm.

*Yes; you can probably reasonably argue that the Feds in a city aren’t necessarily representative of said city, but I get the sense that, from sea to shining sea, the Feds in the area take on the musk and complexion of the locale. When something happens in their neck of the woods, they take it personally. If I did something terroristic in New York City, best believe I’m not trying to see their Fed game.