Terror Trials on U.S. Soil - Run for Your Lives!

Except that they've been going on all along, as bmaz at FiredogLake explains:

... not that anybody would know it, but there has been a terror trial going on all week in a real live Article III courtroom in the heart of Manhattan. Exactly like all the Republicans with vapors and trembling Democrats said could not be safely done.

Jury selection started Wednesday September 29th and today the trial in chief, expected to start Monday, was tentatively postponed until next Wednesday pending determination of admissibility of evidence and testimony from an important prosecution witness, Hussein Abebe.

SNIP

So, what you see here is another criminal trial. Ho hum and yawn. Certainly not the unholy hell Baby Dick Cheney, Rudy 9/11 and the other cowering fearmongers predicted is it? The attached video from Human Rights First sums it up perfectly. Here is Human Rights First’s press release on the issue:

Despite repeated warnings that trying Guantanamo detainees in New York would result in chaos, mayhem, kidnappings, astronomical security costs, a police take-over of Lower Manhattan, snarled traffic, street closures, and “utter, unmitigated disaster,” New Yorkers interviewed by Human Rights First are going about their daily business within blocks of the federal terrorism trial of a former Guantanamo detainee.

In an exclusive video released today, the group reveals that many New Yorkers are not only failing to fear, they do not even realize that accused terrorist Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani’s trial is underway. Some, despite the urgent warnings from those trying to “Keep America Safe,” even expressed pride that the prosecution was happening in New York City.

“We have trials like that here all of the time,” one woman observed as Human Rights First correspondent Reagan Kuhn interviewed her near the federal courthouse in Foley Square.

Despite the best efforts of Liz Cheney, Deborah Burlingame, Rudy Guiliani, and Karl Rove to spread panic, many naïve New Yorkers seemed completely uninformed about the chaos that was supposed to reign. Some even observed that “everything seems pretty normal,” “I haven’t noticed anything,” and “I’m sure everybody knows what they are doing.”

As the Ghailani trial proceeds this week and in the weeks ahead, Human Rights First will continue to monitor New Yorkers’ failure to fear federal prosecution of this case. It will also continue to send representatives to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where military commission proceedings are set to commence next month. For those keeping score, U.S. federal courts have convicted more than 400 terrorists. Military commissions have secured only four convictions.

They have been holding terrorism trials of the highest order for years in New York City. SDNY is where the Blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman was tried for the first World Trade Center Attack. There is not a better secured and more appropriate place in america to try the 9/11 terrorism suspects. That is what we do in America, and what we do as Americans. Giving in to the fear and bed wetting of the Cheneys, Rudy Guiliani, Lindsey Graham, Lieberman and others of their ilk is giving up on our principles and giving in to the terrorists themselves. Besides, NYC is always a target of terrorists and would be even if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other four 9/11 suspects were tried in Gitmo.

Put the trials where the crimes happened and deal with it.

And tell the pants-pissing liars of the frightwing to grow up.