Would You Serve On A Terrorist Jury?

March 24, 2002

by Tom Barrett, Editor@ConservativeTruth.org

"I want to be on the jury. I’ll vote to fry them!" That’s what you may be thinking now. But what if your wife received a call from Abdul? "We know your husband is Juror #4. We know where you live. We will cut up your children and burn your house with you in it." Would you still be anxious to be on that jury panel?

Liberals have always expressed far more sympathy for criminals than for their victims. If someone gets murdered or mugged, liberals feel they must somehow deserve it. Perhaps they oppressed the masses. Perhaps they had money and made poor people jealous.

The infamous traitor-actor, Alec Baldwin, has taken this kind of asinine rhetoric to new levels. He thinks the United States deserved to be attacked because we "allowed" President Bush to take office following Election 2000.

Now we have the ridiculous picture of "human rights advocates" moaning about the plight of the poor murderous terrorists in Camp X-Ray. These bleeding hearts should read Rudyard Kipling. When British soldiers fought the Afghans, they didn’t have to worry about the type of medical treatment they would receive if they were wounded in battle. They knew that following every battle the Afghan women would come to the battlefield and cut off the limbs of wounded British soldiers, leaving them to bleed to death.

Compared to the Afghan butchery then and now (Taliban criminals recently murdered a wounded American soldier in their custody), the terrorists incarcerated in Cuba are on a luxury vacation. They are treated well, have plenty of good, nutritious food, and are getting medical attention. But that doesn’t make the bleeding hearts happy. They’re so worried about the "rights" of these mass murderers that they are complaining that the guards are "cruel" because they won’t allow the terrorists to wear turbans. If I were an American soldier guarding these men (many of whom have stated publicly that their dream is to murder Americans while in custody), I certainly wouldn’t let them wear anything that could conceal a weapon.

The International Association of Bleeding Hearts and Liberal Wackos has stated in an official position paper that the United States must give the terrorists their "Constitutional Rights." I am totally in favor of this, as long as we use the proper constitution. They may use the Taliban constitution. They may use the Saudi Arabian constitution. Heck, they can even use the constitution of the Palestinian Authority. They may not use the U.S. Constitution which they tried so hard to destroy. The U.S. Constitution gives certain rights to U.S. citizens. Americans can lose their citizenship if they engage in war against the U.S. on behalf of a foreign power, as John Walker did. (Walker should have read that provision in his passport before he joined the murderers.) Why in the world should foreigners who attack us receive United States constitutional rights such as a civilian trial?

The first responsibility of any government is the protection of its people. It is clear that if we give these terrorists civilian trials on U.S. soil, we would endanger not only the judge and jury involved, but every U.S. citizen. Look at what the drug kingpins have done in Colombia. They have murdered judges and prosecutors and intimidated an entire nation. Whether you want to believe it or not, these terrorists have cells in every major U.S. city. If we try them publicly, no one will be safe.

There are also national security considerations. The press will hate me for saying this, but national security takes precedence over "the people’s right to know." (Where is "the people’s right to know" stated in the Constitution, anyway? I must have missed that.) We have seen jurors and even judges blab information protected by a gag order in civilian trials. I think we can trust U.S. military officers to keep any sensitive material that emerges from a terrorist trial secret.

Finally, if the news media obligingly informs the terrorists where and when their compatriots are being tried, do you believe for one minute that they won’t take people or monuments hostage to demand the release of their friends? What do you think will happen if one of the terrorist receives the death penalty?

The next time you hear someone whining about military tribunals, ask them if they would volunteer to be Juror #4.