What’d I tell ya? The right is steeped in fear, so deep they don’t even know they’re there. But what else can you call all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about bringing the alleged 9/11 conspirators to trial (gasp) on American soil?????

OMG, you’d think it was the end of the world. Oh wait. They do think that. And besides, what with 2012 coming up and the real end of the world, what the fuck do they care anyway?

Seriously, friends and family, did I not tell you that these folks’ operating system is fear-based? The politicians amongst them, along with their spokesfolks, the radio and television fearmongers, appeal daily to the basest of human emotions.

Fear.

Scary Muslims. Scary terrorists. Scary health care reform. Scary black guy in the Oval Office who is probably a Muslim and not even from America. Scary gay people. Even worse, scary transgendered people. Scary half-assed attempts to fix our badly broken economy. Scary Democrats. Scary liberals. EWWWWWW scary progressives. Scary Mexicans.  Scary Al Franken. Scary feminists. Scary women. Scary kids who think for themselves. Scary everything that isn’t us.

So look at these dudes. They are absolutely apoplectic over the very idea that five suspected terrorists could possibly be brought to trial!!!! Errr, brought to trial in the United States, where obviously we lack the capability to provide enough security and the entire country will be at risk to another terrorist attack!!!!

Run! Hide!

I mean, it’s not like any other terrorists like Omar Abdel-Rahman, El Sayid Nosair, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Mahmud Abouhalima, Ahmad Ajaj or Ramzi Yousef (over there in his prison uniform) were ever tried, convicted and given life sentences in the United States. Oh wait. They were. Years ago. Want me to give you their federal prisoner numbers?

So what is it about these guys? Because they had the audacity to think up a plot to crash airplanes into buildings? Because it worked? Because the Bushies were warned about the possibility a month before it happened and sat on their asses doing nothing but try to figure out how to attack Iraq? They should thank these guys, really. They got the perfect excuse to attack Iraq. All they had to do was play to the fear Americans were experiencing on 9/11 and drop the name “Saddam Hussein” in a few times. Oh, and then there was that little “Bush Doctrine” thing. The one Sarah Palin had never heard of that said We are America and We are badasses and if we think you are even thinking about doing something We don’t like, we will bomb your asses into oblivion. And then occupy your country for years to come to try to secure your oil …. I mean cities and stuff.

Let’s look at this rationally. I know, that’s pretty difficult in the face of the right’s irrational fear of terrorists who have been waterboarded 183 times and are in top security confinement at all times. Here’s Glenn Greenwald:

This is literally true: the Right’s reaction to yesterday’s announcement — we’re too afraid to allow trials and due process in our country — is the textbook definition of “surrendering to terrorists.” It’s the same fear they’ve been spewing for years. As always, the Right’s tough-guy leaders wallow in a combination of pitiful fear and cynical manipulation of the fear of their followers. Indeed, it’s hard to find any group of people on the globe who exude this sort of weakness and fear more than the American Right.

People in capitals all over the world have hosted trials of high-level terrorist suspects using their normal justice system. They didn’t allow fear to drive them to build island-prisons or create special commissions to depart from their rules of justice. Spain held an open trial in Madrid for the individuals accused of that country’s 2004 train bombings. The British put those accused of perpetrating the London subway bombings on trial right in their normal courthouse in London. Indonesia gave public trials using standard court procedures to the individuals who bombed a nightclub in Bali. India used a Mumbai courtroom to try the sole surviving terrorist who participated in the 2008 massacre of hundreds of residents. In Argentina, the Israelis captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals, and brought him to Jerusalem to stand trial for his crimes.

It’s only America’s Right that is too scared of the Terrorists — or which exploits the fears of their followers — to insist that no regular trials can be held and that “the safety and security of the American people” mean that we cannot even have them in our country to give them trials. As usual, it’s the weakest and most frightened among us who rely on the most flamboyant, theatrical displays of “strength” and “courage” to hide what they really are.

Better to just leave them in their cells at Guantanamo Bay, I guess. That’s a lovely place that Bryan at Why Now? called our very own Devil’s Island:

The most important thing everyone needs to remember about the various and sundry “terror” trials, and the movement of people from Guantanamo to prisons in the US, is the identity of those who have been telling you that these people are “the worst of the worst”: the same people who said that there was no doubt that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

I played a role in putting some people into Block D at the New York State prison at Attica, who should never be allowed out for any reason. There is one person in particular that could take out everyone at Guantanamo, if he thought it was amusing. I feel certain that every state prison has at least one of these types of sociopaths, and feel certain that large states have several.

The Federal prison system, especially the Super-max prisons, are designed for these types of people, and they don’t escape. They contain the heads of drug cartels that are responsible for hundreds of murders, but no one tried to put them on the US version of Devil’s Island.

The Federal courts in New York City tried and convicted those involved in the first attempt to destroy the World Trade Center, so they can certainly handle Khalid Sheik Mohammed, since he is apparently hellbent on being a martyr.

If we don’t follow our own laws, the terrorists have won.

But hey, at least those guys are getting trials now, unlike during the Bush administration.

Some of the nuttiest of the rightwing actually say things like “They’ll get the same rights as every American criminal now” as if that were a bad thing. And Michelle Malkin actually said they weren’t criminals, but apparently were something worse that allows the right to pass instant judgment and avoid trial altogether. Or something. I try not to read her because when I do my head starts spinning and I become very confused, often unsure of what I just read.

But the best, and I mean the very best analysis of why the right is so afraid of these trials (aside from the fact that all the “evidence” they got outta these guys came from inadmissable torture) comes from Amanda Marcotte. And man, she nails it.

I suspect that the Wingnutteria simply forgot what KSM is on trial for.  Oh sure, they could probably cough up “9/11”, but I’m not sure they really grasp what that means anymore.  Most of them probably assume that he’s on trial for being a generic Scary Muslim, and they don’t trust a New York jury to convict someone for what is technically not a crime.  Because any rational person, when faced with both the memory of 9/11 (and New Yorkers especially will never be able to scrub that one completely) and the unrepentant man who caused it, will have no problem convicting.

If you don’t go read her whole post, you are doing yourself a serious disservice, not to mention those whom you would have told about her post had you actually read it. You’ll love the part about New York City and Washington, DC, being giant metro theme parks in the minds of the rightwing followers. Here’s another excerpt just in case you’re wavering:

And in a sense, the wingnut response to 9/11 makes sense.  9/11 was surreal enough, and watching it from a distance, it was hard to avoid the yawning trap of hyper-reality.  On the day itself, the distance and the TV-contained aspects of it were frustrating, because it distorted your emotional reaction to the events, making you feel angry and scared but also passive and distant.  But by even 9/12, I could tell that Americans were using the media-created distance and ability to control the narrative to push the events away, to avoid dealing with them honestly.  It was easier to wave a flag and indulge in soft focus interviews with people whose make-up added to the unreality of it all.  The more TV I watched, the less I felt I understood, so I flipped it off.  But I don’t imagine that was a typical reaction, and people like Boehner and Palin are pandering to the distorted, kitschy feelings that have developed about 9/11 in the years since.

And here’s the link again. Go. Now. Stop hanging around here. I’m done.

And hopefully soon, so will be this insane right wing.