U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham has been on the hot seat lately in the insane asylum known as the South Carolina GOP. The conservative senator has been condemned by various county GOP groups in S.C. for being a yucky-liberal-socialist-tree-hugger because he supports the growth of a clean energy industry in America. What kind of newfangled modern outrage will those liberals think of next? Paved roads? Television?
Maybe it’s because the wingnuts in his party have his ass in a sling, but Graham is now jumping with both feet onto the “no civilian trials for terrorists” bandwagon. The senator is introducing a bill today that would block funding for civilian trials for the five guys accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks. The right, which apparently has a little too much time on its hands, is all aflutter over this issue lately, claiming that since the U.S. is, as Graham said, “at war with al-Qaeda,” the accused terrorists should be tried by a military court, damn it.
Never mind that since 9/11, civilian courts have convicted more than 200 accused terrorists, while military commissions convicted a grand total of three. Never mind that no terrorist attacks occurred during those civilian trials. Never mind that every other western country tries terrorists in their civilian courts. Never mind that changing plans for the alleged 9/11 plotters’ trials will make the U.S. look like a bunch of wusses to the rest of the world. And never mind that al-Qaeda is a relatively small, terrorist-training group, not a large functioning army, and so naming the conflict against them a “war” was ridiculous to begin with.
No, never mind all that. The right, as usual, is scared out of its wits about something or other (Pick ’em: terrorists, illegal immigrants, gay marriage, big gummint, death panels, etc, etc, etc.), so the rest of us have to jump. Graham is a politician, and a military lawyer, so he has to cover his butt. Hopefully, though, Congress won’t be steamrolled into caving in to the right’s unnecessary silliness this time around.
This article appears in Feb 2-8, 2010.
Mr.Griffin:
Graham does not “spout” any “global warming BS.” All he has ever said is that he personally believes that excess carbon in the atmosphere can’t possibly be a good thing, but to what extent the negative externalities go, he does not know. If you’re referring to cap and trade, he says he supports it because it would reduce our dependency on foreign oil, which it would, because it would encourage investment into alternative energies, like nuclear, which do not produce carbon emissions, and therefore, would not be subject to certain restrictions.
This is not solely an issue of global warming. Factories producing such loads of excess carbon have an undeniable environmental effect on their immediate surroundings. The pollution is visible in local water sources, which become polluted and unusable, and in local plants and crops.
Well the neo-con Graham is wrong on both counts. Even if global warming is happening, what does the federal gov’t have to do with it? The GOP has selective amnesia on the terror trials in civilian courts. The right is mostly shilling for the GOP these days and boobus americanus still falls for it. I remember the recent Giuliani interview stating the same position as Graham, but then remember Giuiliani’s praise of our system when Bush was president and we were having the trials in civilian courts.
Can anyone every ask, “why do they want to attack us?” Why is this question so taboo?
Thankfully we are not a military dictatorship, yet.
Get your guns people. If Graham and his fellow neo-cons ever take back over, beware!
Get your guns and hold on to your wallets!