Republican Senators Demand Torture And A Lynching For Abdulmutallab

How many Southern Republicans want to bring this back?

As I was leaving for a peaceful December vacation in Rome and Albania all my plans were thrown askew by the announcement of a strike that would strand me in Europe for January. British Air's incredibly bad management team was as inept dealing with customers as they were in dealing with employees. I wound up buying a refundable ticket home on KLM as insurance. And just when a British judge declared the strike illegal and I was able to cancel the KLM flight, a Nigerian screwball shoves some explosive devise up his ass and tries to blow up a plane over Detroit! I don't want to sound like a crybaby so I'll spare you the details of the countless hours of pointless, ineffectual security checks at Heathrow as I made my way home.

Now, if you've read Charles Pierce's delightful and definitive commentary on contemporary American history, Idiot America, it should come as no surprise to you that members of the Hate-America-First brigade, lead by a cadre of partisan clowns and Confederates like Jim DeMint (R-SC), David Diapers Vitter (R-LA), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Jeff Sessions (KKK-AL) and Richard Burr (R-NC), is insisting on forgoing a trial and just implementing a kangaroo court and summary execution. Seems reasonable-- to Idiot America. But for real Americans, who are confident in our system of Justice, a trial seems both a positive development and absolutely de rigueur. If you follow this blog much, you probably know that I'm a lifelong advocate of the death penalty and often argue with opponents of it. If Abdulmutallab is found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt-- and it sure looks that way to me so far (although he refused to enter a plea)-- I would be delighted to see his life extinguished. Society has no place for mass murderers and it shouldn't only be people like Bush and Cheney on the list. Abdulmutallab and his Yemeni confederates should all pay the ultimate price for their deadly sociopathic behavior.

Meanwhile, nearly two dozen GOP senators, in the hope of causing President Obama political problems-- their only motivation in anything and everything they do (aside from serving the interests of their corporate and moneyed masters)-- have sent a whiny letter to the media objecting to a trial. They're worried that if we have to try him we won't be able to torture him first.

By prosecuting Abdulmutallab and the 9/11 conspirators in criminal court, and [Abd al-Rahim al-] Nashiri and others by military commission, it creates the impression that terrorists are rewarded with the full panoply of rights and privileges of an American if they attack defenseless civilians at home, but not if they attack our government or military interests abroad... This will only further incentivize terrorists to attack our Homeland.

And I'm sure they'd insist an American-made rope is too good for the lynching they envision as well.