His Nose Was Too Big

As some of you may know, one of the "masterminds" behind the September 11th attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, went to military tribunal yesterday. He may be charged with war crimes, for which his penalty would be the death sentence.

Now, I realize this man most likely had an involvement in an attack that resulted in the death of some three thousand plus Americans (if you're not counting the war in Iraq that somehow resulted from the attack). However, I think in this particular case we should consider staying the death penalty, and should do the same in any cases where a terrorist is convicted. Death is the last thing you want to give someone who believes they are fighting in the name of God, Allah, or whoever else may have a following of extremists. When you give a man like this death, his death will be celebrated as a victory by his brothers-in-arms, and he will welcome his death with open arms, as Mohammed has stated. To give these men the martyrdom they seek will not be a victory for America, but just another reason to give their comrades a reason not to fear any punishment they may meet an American hands. To give them a life sentence would be to make their efforts more in vain. If they can't even die for their god, what's the bother in trying? Maybe this would just cause an increase in suicide attacks. Maybe it would result in less attacks overall. How could we measure the effect of letting these men live a life that's wasted by rotting away in prison? Who knows. The point is, we can't just send these men to their deaths if that's what they're asking for, it's not a punishment for them.

Also, I have to bring up the fact that Mohammed made a comment about his nose being drawn too big by a courtroom artist. Are you fucking kidding me? Why are we reporting on that?! We're prosecuting a "terrorist mastermind" and you're reporting on a comment about a courtroom drawing?

You people are hacks.

Big Talk, Big Stick

"Speak softly and carry a big stick..."

These were the words of Theodore Roosevelt, and for a long time our country lived by them as our foreign policy. We exercised real diplomacy, speaking with the leaders of enemy nations to help prevent war. We recognized that as long as we had that big stick in our hands we didn't need to make threats to other nations to keep them from attacking us or our allies. What I want to know is when we lost that realization. Now we have a politician that is being attacked for his idea that we should be meeting with people we're at odds with and try a good, old-fashioned conversation to see if we can reconcile our differences, while having that big stick (read United States Air Force) sitting in the background. It seems our idea of good foreign policy has become waving our big stick around and then yelling "You better not mess with us, this is what we've got if you do!" We don't talk, we don't ask, we just say "We're the boss" and then point to our stick.

This is not a foreign relations policy, this is a terrorist recruitment tool. This is a way for nations opposing us to find young, easily influenced people and say "America is our enemy, America is a threat." If we weren't going around the world pointing to our big stick, this wouldn't be as much of an issue as it is. I have to wonder if it has occurred to our current leaders Roosevelt's ideas of diplomacy could improve our nation's image in the eyes of the world. I have to wonder if they realize that real diplomacy, really working towards a peaceful solution, is going to give our enemies less of a reason to hate us and to get others to hate us. Maybe instead of attacking the idea of being diplomatic, the Republicans should pull their heads out of their asses and start a conversation that encourages peaceful solutions to international problems.

Who am I kidding. This isn't going to happen until we get some real change in this country, until our entire political environment changes. But this isn't going to happen. America isn't going to open its eyes, it's going to take someone forcing them open.