Moussaoui and the U.S. army: A double act for the ages

Is it me, or was the Moussaoui trial the biggest courtroom farce since OJ tried on the glove? Our fearless leaders couldn’t bring an actual 9-11 perpetrator to trial because the ones they have captured (or claim to have captured) they’ve brutally tortured and, ergo, can't risk exposing their heinous, criminal behavior. Also, confessions under torture aren’t admissable in our civilian courtrooms – at least not yet. I’m not even sure they’re admissible in military courts. Only in the Decider’s own special “enemy combatant” courts.

So in a kind of collaborative show trial/performance piece, U.S. prosecutors made a lot of noise and spent millions of our tax dollars to wrongly convict a sad clown, a terrorist “open-miker,” as Bill Maher calls him. He doesn’t seem to have had anything to do with 9-11; Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the so-called mastermind of the attacks, said Moussaoui was too much of a loose cannon to entrust him with even the knowledge of the plot. But Moussaoui wanted his 15 minutes of fame and his 72 virgins -- or “sturgeons,” as he said once during the trial, in which case why not just sentence him to 10 years in Zabar’s? He wouldn’t last.

The absurdity of this legal sham itself multiplied by the commentary from media and political blowhards who self-righteously touted it as worthy of Nuremberg Trials, a demonstration of our superior, rule-of-law democracy.

The trial exemplifies the dirty secret of the "war on terrorism": the hyperbolic inflation of the Islamic terror threat. The U.S. establishment did the same thing during the Cold War -- instilled fear in the populace by grossly overestimating the Soviet defense capabilities. (JFK called it "the missile defense gap," and it was completely fictional.)

Al Qaeda and its franchisees are the terrorists who can't shoot straight -- literally, as evidenced by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's comic ineptitude at firing a machine gun in outtakes of an Al-Qaeda propaganda video released this week that attempted to portray him as a macho head of the Council of Holy Warriors. And remember the original World Trade Center bombers, who were apprehended when they returned to a van they had stolen? And Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber"? Is it for these vaudevillians that we've invaded Iraq, shredded our constitution, and bankrupted the nation?

The Friday N.Y. Times story quoted Major General Rick Lynch, a military spokesman:

"What you saw on the Internet was what [Zarqawi] wanted the world to see. Look at me. I'm a capable leader of a capable organization, and we are indeed declaring war against democracy inside of Iraq, and we're going to establish an Islamic caliphate.
"What he didn't show you were the clips that I showed, wearing New Balance sneakers with his uniform, surrounded by supposedly competent subordinates who grab the hot barrel of a just-fired machine gun.
"We have a warrior leader, Zarqawi, who doesn't understand how to operate his weapon system and has to rely on his subordinates to clear a weapon stoppage...It makes you wonder."

It makes me wonder why our military is spending so much time and money pursuing him.

It also makes me wonder: WWGD? That is: What would Groucho do?