Something More To Ponder

From a WaPo op-ed author, The Spirited Atheist, a personal favorite addition to the WaPo's "On Faith" feature, her piece on the death of Osama bin Laden:

bin Laden's death and the madness of crowds.

I really like how she bookends her post:

I suppose that someone, somewhere in the United States finds it ethically repugnant that our government hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden. I am not that someone. It is just and necessary that this evil man was finally punished for the mass murders he engineered on September 11, 2001. But I am repelled by the scenes of mindless jubilation, from Times Square to the park in front of the White House, that erupted after President Obama delivered the news in a properly sober tone Sunday night.

...

If there is a moral here, it is emphatically not the childish mantra that “bad guys do get caught.” It is that unearned happiness is a fleeting, unreliable commodity that has nothing to do with reason, justice, or what it takes to build a decent society and a decent world.

It's a short post, but well-worth the quick read.

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Developing Situation

An armed man has taken hostages at The Discovery Channel's HQ in Silver Spring, MD.

CNN.com is providing updates as the situation unfolds.

A friend of mine works media in the DC area. He provided this pic of the gunman (note: he said it could be one of the plain-clothes detectives...).

And apparently these are his demands. He apparently wants us to stop having kids, and sees having children as polluting the planet. Fortunately, given that this guy really really dislikes babies, CNN reports: [Updated at 2:19 p.m.] The Discovery Channel day care has been evacuated to a nearby area, according to CNN affiliate WJLA. The day care had about 100 kids, WJLA reported.

Environmentalist gone nuts? And there seem to be conflicting reports about evacuations or not...

UPDATE

The police shot and killed him at a little before 5:00. They moved-in on him when he drew a weapon and pointed it at a hostage.

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Question of the Day: Terrorists

Are all terrorists treated equal by the media?

Christian Terrorist = Militia

Muslim Terrorist = Islamofascist terrorists bent on destroying our freedoms and converting your children.

Guess not.

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Lawyers for Terrorists?

One of the themes we should expect to hear in the 2010 election is that "Obama" gave a terrorist a taxpayer-funded lawyer hours after he tried to blow up a plane over Detroit.

Please can a lawyer tell me, once the guy landed in Detroit, wouldn't we be required to give him a lawyer? What were our other options?

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The Option That Isn't Discussed

I don't have a lot of time, but I wanted to throw out this piece by Glenn Greenwald on Afghanistan. I have heard talks of escalation and keeping the same strength, but the one thing that doesn't get much press is a withdrawal.

Every option is on the proverbial table except one: not fighting the war. And there's a widening gap between (a) public opinion (which sees Afghanistan as "turning into another Vietnam" and which opposes more troops, with 49% favoring a full or partial withdrawal) and (b) the virtual unanimity of establishment punditry which, as always, is cheerleading for the war. The only difference is that, with a Democratic President, there seems to be more Democratic and progressive support for this war (though there was, of course, plenty of that for Iraq, too).

As the article points out, there is a compelling reason to pull out, this statement from the Defense Science Board Task Force on what is making terrorism worse and exacerbating the problem:

American direct intervention in the Muslim world" -- through our "one sided support in favor of Israel"; support for Islamic tyrannies in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and, most of all, "the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan

Give me a compelling reason to stay. I can see a few, but none that are worth the problems we are causing by staying.

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Justice: Obama Style

When the President announced he would be closing Guantanamo, one of my fears is that this move lacked substance and many of the more onerous War on Terrorism policies would continue. While torture seems to thankfully be discontinued, rendition still occurs. Even worse than this is news that the Administration will ignore due process in the results of trials if they don't agree with the outcome. Reason covered an exchange between Sen. Martinez (R-Fl) and Defense Department Counsel Johnson, where Johnson said:

You raised the issue of what happens if there's an acquittal, and in my judgment, as a matter of legal authority...if a review panel has determined this person is a security threat...and should not be released, if for some reason he is not convicted for a lengthy prison sentence, then as a matter of legal authority I think it's our view that we would have the ability to detain him.

The word show trial comes to mind. If some other panel can just ignore due process and detain a person, then you don't really have due process. Glenn Greenwald had a good analysis. He pointed out that:

In its own twisted way, the Bush approach was actually more honest and transparent: they made no secret of their belief that the President could imprison anyone he wanted without any process at all. That's clearly the Obama view as well, but he's creating an elaborate, multi-layered, and purely discretionary "justice system" that accomplishes exactly the same thing while creating the false appearance that there is due process being accorded. And for those who -- to justify what Obama is doing -- make the not unreasonable point that Bush left Obama with a difficult quandary at Guantanamo, how will that excuse apply when these new detention powers are applied not only to existing Guantanamo detainees but to future (i.e., not-yet-abducted) detainees as well?

I can understand that the President is under a great deal of pressure from both sides of this debate...to protect the US from terrorists and to provide detainees with some level of due process. I just can't help thinking that subverting the Constitution to provide a feeling of safety is not the road we want to continue down. I was hoping that this Bush-era policy would not continue.

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Obama: not letting up on terror

For those who thought Obama would be soft or weak on terrorists, this ABC News story would indicate otherwise. The President is continuing a controversial bombing campaign against Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan. Good for him, I say. Pakistan has seemed to have only made half-hearted attempts at dealing with the Al Qaeda operating from their country. This was something he said he would deal with, so it is nice to see him following up on a campaign promise.

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