Home of the Brave, My Ass

ter⋅ror⋅ism  [ter-uh-riz-uhm] – noun
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.

The reluctance and pitiful backtracking of political figures opposed to having the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York is proof that the terrorists have already won. Cowards like NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who beat his chest not two months ago in favor of having the trials in Manhattan, Senator Chuck Schumer, and countless others citing the cost and inconvenience as a factor is an ass covering tactic.

And those worried about the financial cost of the trial to New York City should petition that part of the tab be picked up by the federal government.  Besides the fact that in my opinion, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's expensive plan including rooftop snipers, random vehicle checkpoints and a virtual shutdown of lower Manhattan is over the top and only breeds fear in those who were running scared to begin with.

The story of how prominent New York officials seemed to have so quickly moved from a kind of “bring it on” bravado to an “anywhere but here” involves many factors, including a new anxiety about terrorism after the attempted airliner bombing on Christmas Day.

...“This will be one more stroke for Al Qaeda’s propaganda,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University.

No one whined about the cost of the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui. No one complanied about the inconvenience in the Richard Reid case. But now the KSM fiasco, which began with simpering masses of flesh not wanting Guantanamo detainees "setting foot on US soil", as if they had some kind of magical powers to break out of supermax prisons, has escalated to ridiculously epic proportions and ultimately, money did the talking.

...New York real estate executives were raising concerns with the Obama administration, according to Mr. Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York.

Mr. Spinola said he had received calls and e-mail messages from the board’s members. Residential real estate brokers were “going berserk,” as he put it, worried that they would no longer be able to sell apartments downtown.

Commercial brokers feared they would not be able to lease office space.

Screw justice if it's going to affect the bottom line, right? Patriots indeed.

Sleeping With The Enemy

Rudy's Sheikdown

Wayne Barrett, writing for the Village Voice, painstakingly researches Rudy's business contracts. Among his clients: Qatar's emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifah al-Thani.

Although a member of the emir's own royal family had harbored the man who would later be identified as the mastermind of the attack—a man named Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, often referred to in intelligence circles by his initials, KSM—al-Thani rushed to New York in its aftermath, offering to make a $3 million donation, principally to the families of its victims. Rudy Giuliani, apparently unaware of what the FBI and CIA had long known about Qatari links to Al Qaeda, appeared on CNN with al-Thani that night and vouched for the emir...

...The contradictory and stunning reality is that Giuliani Partners, the consulting company that has made Giuliani rich, feasts at the Qatar trough, doing business with the ministry run by the very member of the royal family identified in news and government reports as having concealed KSM —the terrorist mastermind who wired funds from Qatar to his nephew Ramzi Yousef prior to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and who also sold the idea of a plane attack on the towers to Osama bin Laden—on his Qatar farm in the mid-1990s.

The hero of 9/11... what else do we need to find out about Rudy before his presidential campaign crumbles? It's a sure bet that if the shoe were on the other foot and a Democrat was found to have business ties to terrorists, he would be skewered by the Right-Wing Spin Machine.