The first thing I thought when I heard that Faisal Shahzad, the suspected (now admitted, which I'll get to later) Times Square car bomber, attended a Pakistani terrorist training camp is that there are some serious quality control issues at these camps. I wonder if Shahzad and Captain Underpants went to the same school, because if so, that school doesn't exactly do a good job, do they? They've gotta be in danger of losing their al-Qaeda accreditation. Seriously, these guys need a No Violent Asshole Left Behind program or something. We talk about how our schools are failing... those schools are failing, epically.
The second thing I thought is that this was the perfect opportunity for some asshole to sound off about how we shouldn't give this guy his legal rights and put him on trial yadda yadda yadda (this despite the fact that not only was he arrested here, he's a U.S. citizen). I was right about that, of course - I just didn't expect the asshole to be John McCain. Nor did I suspect that the voice of reason on the right would be - of all people - Glenn friggin' Beck. "We don't shred the Constitution when it's popular, we do the right thing," Beck said, to the confusion of... well, everybody.
The third thing I thought is that Shahzad was almost certainly going to give up lots of valuable information despite his lawful arrest. Sure enough, the information Shahzad has been sharing has led to the arrests of seven Pakistanis. Standard prosecutorial tricks - offering lesser charges for cooperation, threatening lots of charges for being incooperative - work well with crimes like this because the case is so open-and-shut. A good lawyer would probably advise Shahzad to cooperate fully in the hopes of getting a lesser charge. (Furthermore, as far as I know an intel agency can interrogate without a lawyer as long as that info never sees the courtroom.)
The system works, y'all. No need to change it... which is why this bill from Joe Lieberman suggesting that we strip those accused of "terrorism" of their citizenship and send them to Gitmo is so unbelievably stupid that it barely merits a response. Not only does it open the door for unbelievable abuses of power, but also it's completely unnecessary! Of course, why would any politician let the actual ramifications of a bill get in the way of a good opportunity to grandstand.
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2 comments:
Let's just hope the quality control issues at those camps continue. God/Yahweh/Allah help us if they ever get good at their training!
With the way John McCain's been acting for the last 2 or so years, were you honestly that surprised? (The Beck thing, on the other hand, dropped my jaw to the floor.)
Finally, I'm sure you saw this, but it's still hilarious.
It's rare I ever say this, but kudos to the Obama administration in their handling of this.
Let's hope this attitude make its way into our foreign policy.
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