WITH the ugly sanctimony of those who never had to make hard decisions, the American left demands show trials of those who kept us safe after 9/11. Wrapping themselves in repugnant self-righteousness, the MoveOn.org set wants political prosecutions. Should President Obama acquiesce, he won't be furthering the rule of law, but dismantling it.
Show trials have long been popular with leftists. Those who don't conform to each jot of doctrine become "enemies of the people." From Stalin down to Putin, and from Mao to Castro, vengeance disguised as law has been a mega-hit.
Those on the left don't want justice. If they did, they'd be protesting the murderous torture prevalent in Iran, the Gaza Strip, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela and Russia. Instead, our leftists want us to show the leaders of those terror states more respect.
The left is out for revenge. It always is. Hatred of those who think differently is the left's unifying principle. Leftists don't need God, but they see devils everywhere.
When President-for-Life Hugo Chavez called President George W. Bush "el Diablo," our leftists agreed. Hatred of the last administration grew so irrational that any terrorist, no matter how monstrous, became no more than a victim of Bush-Cheney.
Now the left wants an Inquisition for heretics who failed to share its worldview. Men and women who, in their capacity as public servants, wrestled with difficult legal issues in the course of our battle with terrorists are now to be tried and shamed because the left disagreed with their legal opinions and actions. No matter that most Americans wouldn't view the methods of our interrogators as torture when applied to hardened terrorists (despite the media's ceaseless effort to convince us otherwise). No matter that foreign leaders championed by the left use vastly more brutal techniques.
No matter that interrogators differ on the utility of "harsh" methods or that the information gleaned indisputably saved American lives. No matter that our system of government functioned as it was designed to.
The left just didn't like the results the system produced. Law has nothing to do with this cry for vengeance. This is purely about political differences. During the Bush administration, leftists warned repeatedly that actions they didn't like put our country on a "slippery slope." Well, once we initiate show trials of government officials who did their best to protect us, we'll have skipped the slippery slope and leapt to the bottom.
If Obama agrees to any form of show trial, he and his own team will live to regret it. His party won't always be in power, and he'll have set a hideous, un-American precedent.
If the Obama administration fails to keep us safe and our citizens are attacked at home or abroad, shall we then prosecute those who dismantled our safeguards and gutted our intelligence effort?
As countless leftists learned in the course of the 20th century, today's witness for the prosecution is tomorrow's enemy of the people.
The rule of law is paramount. When we pervert the law for political ends, we attack our deepest foundations. Where would such show trials stop? Will we try Supreme Court justices for issuing legal opinions with which a future administration disagrees?
There are plenty of genuine crimes worth prosecuting in Washington, DC. Corruption abounds. Not a few members of Congress -- from both parties -- should be in jail. But corruption isn't taken seriously. Politics are.
If the left gets its People's Court to destroy the lives of patriots who did their human, imperfect best to defend us (and who succeeded in that effort for seven years), we will do more damage to the United States than all the dictators our president longs to embrace could do together.
The left has nothing against torture. It just wants to choose the victims.
Meanwhile, that great bogeyman beloved of left-wing propagandists and Hollywood (sorry for being redundant), Sen. Joseph McCarthy, is grinning from ear to ear in hell: He's become the left's new role model.
Ralph Peters New York Post 4/23/09
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