Saturday, September 23, 2006

So the three Christian terrorists in Indonesia who masterminded the slaughter of 70 Muslims have been executed...and Michelle Malkin isn't happy.

But she doesn't seem all that unhappy about the executions, which merit only a few lines in her post. What's really bothering her (that is, what takes up most of the post) are accusations of hypocrisy based on her suddenconcern about due process for terrorists:
This, my friends, is illuminating. Because I object to conferring the full panoply of constitutional rights on suspected terrorists and enemy combatants captured in battle and because I oppose the law-enforcement approach to waging war and because I favor military tribunals over the civilian court system to adjudicate terror cases, the left-wing mob argues, I can never question the legitimacy of any court system anywhere.
She goes on to quote some irrelevant bafflegab about the laws of war (which it's unlikely she understands in the first place) from Guantanamo apologist Andrew McCarthy; of course, this elides the point that Bush isn't applying due process under military law...which is why so many JAGs are unhappy with his little kangaroo courts.

But the key to Malkin's thinking here (or what passes for thinking is that nowhere does she refer to the Indonesian suspects as 'terrorists'.

Semi-Muslim shoots a handful of people in Seattle: terrorist.

Christians slaughter 70 Muslims in Indonesia: not terrorist.

In her little world, Christians aren't terrorists. Muslims are terrorists. Killing Muslims isn't terrorism (unless they're Muslims we're currently using as props in a certain Potemkin democracy). Killing Christians or Jews is.

That's why, in her mind, there's no inconsistency at all because she simply defines it away. She's always and consistently against due process for terrorists...which is to say, people she happens to be afraid of.

--Tom Hilton

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