Circus of Fear

by John Cory, Reader Supported News

Saturday, 13 March 2010 18:29

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, photographed by the Red Cross at Guantanamo Bay, 07/15/09. (photo: Red Cross)

There are very few monsters that warrant the fear we have of them. - Andre Gide

alliopes blasting and hucksters barking, a parade of clowns and elephants march down Main Street USA in a three-ring circus of red, white and blue fear.

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Get your red-hot fear. Fresh fear! Godly fear. Patriotic fear. Real American fear. Step right up and grab a flak jacket. Load 'em if you've got 'em!

The Barnum and Bailey reaction to the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has nothing to do with truth, justice and the American way. It's a psych-op to sell the idea of putting KSM into a military tribunal before anyone gives it a second thought.

"It's a violation of the Constitution to use the panels without a declaration of war - and just calling it a 'war' on terror doesn't count." That's what Judge Napolitano from FOX News wrote in the Los Angeles Times last November.

Liz Cheney meet Judge Napolitano. Liz, maybe you can include him in your next al-Qaeda ad.

I heard a pundit on TV ask, "Do we want to give this guy a platform to spew his ideology? Do we want to let him make a big show of his hate-filled rhetoric in our courtrooms?"

When did America come to fear words? When did the rants of madmen and mass-murderers make us cower in the corner? What could KSM possibly say that would send such shivers through our nation?

The mayor of NYC was for it before he was against it. Mr. Bloomberg said it would be bad for business. Really? Bad for business? Does business trump closure for America by holding KSM accountable through our judicial system?

Other voices complain that it will be "too expensive." Excuse me? Taxpayers just bailed out Wall Street but can't afford to put a mass murderer on trial? Tell you what, get AIG, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and the rest of the boys to pony up some of the record profits they've made off the taxpayer dime and help America out.

So far there have been 200-plus successful federal criminal court trials resulting in terrorists being put in prison. The military tribunal system? Not so much.

Edward R. Murrow reminded us that, "We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men."

Listen up Democrats and Liberals and other living creatures of common sense: it is time to stand up. Stand up for the rule of law. Don't just pay it lip service like those who want to use law and order to hold you and me accountable, but not for themselves. It is time to remind our leaders that they are spending American lives to bring "freedom, democracy, truth, justice and the American way" to others while restricting those very principles at home. And they try to hide behind organizations and slogans like "Keep America Safe" which translate to "Keep America Scared."

Fear is the goal of terrorism. Fear is the doorway to hatred and bigotry and tyranny. Fear is a cancer on freedom, truth and justice.

Put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on trial in the federal courts. America is not afraid of his words or his ideologies. Let him testify to the mass murder of innocent people or brag about his brilliant scheme to kill people, including Muslims, in order to strike fear into the heart of America. Then let him see America does not fear him or his words. Let him see that America follows its principles of justice no matter how horrible the crime. Let him feel the eyes of America on him - not turned away from him.

What's the worst that will happen if KSM is put on trial in federal court? Will our children be born naked and crying? Will the sun rise over China before it shines on America? Will Rush Limbaugh threaten to leave the country but not really mean it? Will conservatives call liberals bad names? Will KSM shout "Allah Akbar" and will politicians end every speech with the phrase, "God bless America"?

Come on, let's put this guy on trial in public in federal court. Why? It works. Reuters published this report back in July of 2009 showing a 91 percent success rate in convicting terrorists in court while utilizing the Classified Information Procedures Act to protect against the leaking of sensitive information.

America needs to heal from the September 11, 2001 attacks. What better way than to use our justice system out in the open for the entire world to see? KSM was captured in March of 2003 - that is 7 years ago. It is time. Justice delayed is justice denied, not only for the accused, but also for the assaulted.

Shut down the big top and close the circus of fear. Let the Cheney family find some other form of entertainment. Put the clowns and elephants on the road to somewhere else.

In his novel, Dune, Frank Herbert wrote: "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration."

Monsters do not warrant our fear. They deserve to be held accountable in the open, in the very justice system they seek to destroy. Let us not destroy it for them by hiding in fear.

Comments

+14 # Guest 2010-03-13 21:45

Mr. Cory,

please keep writing. your voice resonates with many Americans who are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Perhaps we got too busy marching in unquestioning "patriot" lock-step fervor and forgot who we are. you remind us. keep writing. We are still a young country and some of us want our children to embrace truth and learn to ask the questions that need answering without getting shouted down by media corporations and their spokespeople who profit from war. enough secrecy. enough fear. enough silence. thank you Mr. Cory. I believe i read you are a Vietnam veteran which would explain your low tolerance for lies and manipulation. We need to hear your voice---keep writing!!

+8 # Guest 2010-03-13 22:29

Thank you John Cory for another fine essay.
But of course! A transparent showcase of American jurisprudence in the form of a trial of KSM for all the world to see would be completely virtuous!
Is it that big a stretch to realize that by giving into fear we accomplish the very thing that KSM set out to do?
There just isn't a credible argument against a public trial against KSM. If we can't believe in our own system of law to render a realitvely clear outcome of justice in this matter, then perhaps we are confessing to the world that our justice system isn't credible in the first place.
Of course I suppose we've damaged our reputation already by our illegal war on Iraq. OR MAYBE THAT'S THE PROBLEM! WE DON'T WANT TO BE HELD AS ACCOUNTABLE AS WE WOULD HAVE KSM BE!
Maybe we are afraid of being held accountable in the court of world opinion for the terrorism we've waged to even worse effect, and even more afraid of the implications of that...as we should be.

+8 # Guest 2010-03-13 22:35

Amen, amen, amen, and again I say amen!

+6 # Guest 2010-03-13 23:09

Quit buckling to the NO party. We have the majority, we just lack balls.
Put him on trial.

+10 # Guest 2010-03-13 23:31

The great pity is that this has to be said at all.

+15 # Guest 2010-03-13 23:50

Suppose for a moment that KSM knows some inconvenient facts that our gubmint does not want you to know. An open court would have to permit testimony that might be "embarrassing". Showing the world our justice system out in the open is a thought so horrific it could give some a heart attack. The goal is to sweep this under the rug and walk away. There is some "oh, shit" information you are not meant to know. That is why Americans are to be kept ignorant of the actual facts. Just like your momma taught you, once you start to lie, the lies pile on easily. Eventually, there are so many lies you can't even keep track of them. We don't want inconvenient facts to "come out" in an open court. Remember Cheney's slip of the tongue when he mentioned the "shooting down of flight 93"? Uh, we didn't shoot down flight 93! Or did we? Then there is the Downing Street memo which stated that Bush was going to "... fix facts around policy". This isn't about justice, this is about secrets and lies.

+8 # Guest 2010-03-13 23:53

Alright. And while we're at it let us put the entire system of institutionaliz ed greed which results in "on the average [a person dying] every second as a direct or indirect result of malnutrition" on trial as well. That's "4,000 every hour - 100,000 each day - 36 million each year - 58% of all deaths."

How can we hope to "heal" from '9/11' when "on the average, a child dies every 5 seconds as a direct or indirect result of malnutrition - 700 every hour - 16,000 each day - 6 million each year - 60% of all child deaths."

I remember thinking on the day it happened, "Oh God, that's terrible!..but wait...it was the WTC, right? So they were symbolically hitting the WTO, right? So it was the *system* of transnational l greed and exploitation they were attacking, right? Well, I doubt it will help much but it totally makes sense in a desperate sort of way."

So, I don't see how the trial or the subsequent execution will help the 6 million kids...do you?

+6 # Guest 2010-03-14 03:31

John Cory needs to run for office! Or how about giving a speech to the Senate? Can he be published in the NYT?!

+7 # Guest 2010-03-14 04:56

Well spoken

+10 # Guest 2010-03-14 05:10

The downfall of this country isn't going to be from an external threat, but from the rot within spawned by these Cheneyesque fear-hawking carnies.

+3 # Guest 2010-03-14 05:26

It wouldn't be so bad for business if the American justice system wasn't in such a broken state. This trial should take no more that two weeks, appeal...two weeks, and its off to prison if he's guilty. The Lawyers of America like it broken...they make more, and we know how many lawyers there are.

+8 # Guest 2010-03-14 06:29

The writer here has written KSM off as guilty without proof of his guilt. If that is the case, why try him at all?

Could it be that KSM's confessions were obtained through torture and would not stand up in a legitimate court trial?

What a lot of people really fear is that all the unanswered questions about what really happened on 9/11 would against be exposed to the world.

+6 # Guest 2010-03-14 07:01

Oh come on folks. KSM isn't guilty - when are you going to GET IT? This man shouldn't be on trial for 911 - the Bush administration should. This was an inside job. They found thermite at the site - these sand dwellers don't have access to that, but our own military does!

+5 # Guest 2010-03-14 08:24

You speak the truth Marj. But a majority in this country don't want to hear it. Truth about 9/11 brings responsibility to act and that takes effort. A blank stare when confronted with truth takes a lot less effort.

+11 # Guest 2010-03-14 07:10

Maybe they want to keep KSM out of the public courtrooms because he has information embarrassing to the US government. Maybe he knows that the Bush administration was complicit in the 9/11 attacks? Or maybe they don't want anyone to find out he was a CIA operative? Or maybe they don't want KSM to reveal whether or not he was tortured? Whatever it is, I agree wholeheartedly with John Cory. It is past time that we Americans stop being afraid of our own shadow. I mean, good grief, if we acted as a nation in fear back in 1776 like we are now, we may still be living under British rule!
Our politicians, who claim to be our "leaders", should all be X-rayed prior to assuming office to see if they have a backbone. If not, they should all be exiled to the middle class and help pay for corporate bailouts like the rest of us...

-7 # Guest 2010-03-14 09:19

Who is "John Cory" - and why does anybody trust his opinions? No website that publishes him gives any information about him other than that he is "a Vietnam vet" and was decorated with a Purple Heart and Bronze Star. His website gives no indication of his identity, bio, or style. No archives list him as Vietnam vet or award recipient. His rhetoric may resonate, but it is nothing we haven't heard over and over. Could it be John Cory is Gary Cooper's "John Doe," embodying the grassroots fervor no other pundits could muster from weary and wary people already fed up with lies? Maybe he's right. Maybe they're all "healots." But how can anybody believe someone's words or intentions without even knowing who they are. It's time to "Meet John Cory," if he exists, before we elect him to speak for anyone but himself.

+4 # Guest 2010-03-14 10:56

I know enough about John Cory. He makes perfect sense and that is all I need to know.

+1 # Guest 2010-03-14 14:25

Tell ya' what Woody...I don't care who is speaking the truth. I don't even care what their motives are. If it is the truth being told then this is all I need to know. I believe John Cory because I believe what he says. He could say a lie and then I'd disbelieve him then. If he is a John Doe, then bully for him. Let's hope there are plenty more where he comes from. I'd like to become one too.
If he intends to tell the truth...and delivers, why should I care who he is? "He" is not the point...his words are.

+1 # Guest 2010-03-17 06:51

I don't even CARE who John Cory is, he's stating simple unequivical FACTS that we all are thinking, but no one dares say or if they do, aren't given a minute of media time or space to be seen or heard. I'm sick of paying Republicans OUR tax dollars ($167,000+) a year to sit on their duffs with their fingers up their nose (I'm being nice). I'd love to meet Mr. Cory as well, but because he is speaking succinctly the words that I want heard by the rest of the country!!!

+5 # Guest 2010-03-14 07:31

Perhaps it's time to change that American symbol of strength, the Bald Eagle, to a chicken. The posts above all speak passionately for all the right reasons, yet so many others, through fear and ignorance, are prepared to oppose for no good reason. I have a fear too, and that is for the future on America and all it was.

+6 # Guest 2010-03-14 07:36

"Fear is a cancer on freedom, truth and justice".

And I might add, there are tons of money to be made with and by the institutionaliz ed fear mongering right wing Christian societies in control of a government in which half of the nation believes everything the fear mongers say and the other half don't give a hoot!

Indeed, John Cory need to go on national television with his messages. I doubt if he will do any good since half of the nation is already brainwashed with stupidity.

+5 # Guest 2010-03-14 08:17

I am in agreement with angry man. The opposition to the trial is built on and disguises a spurious reality. WE are not afraid of him being given an opportunity to speak. THEY are. the ones who don't want to hear that the main motivation of al Queada et all is american policy in the middle east, especially towards Israel. Read the transcripts from previous trials. Not one word of hating our way of life, but plenty to say about foreign policy. What an amazing job of hucksterism and slight of hand and con the opposition is to his trial. What fools and trembling naifs believe in it and not in justice.

+5 # Guest 2010-03-14 09:08

Thank you Mr. Cory for writing this. You speak like true Americans should speak. This is what I thought to be the Land of the Free and Home of the BRAVE. Unfortunately fear mongering will always be with us and it must be addressed

+2 # Guest 2010-03-14 09:13

Of course he should be put on trial. But though I believe the Bush administration is responsible for 9-11, I don't think hysteria is the answer. I certainly don't think we should all sign up for the coffee party or the tea party or any other party besides the Democratic party. The best thing to do is organize around throwing blue dogs out of Congress and their loser counterparts out of the Senate. Your money is welcome in any state. Then we will walk in lock-step just like the Republicans. Doesn't anyone understand how our system works?

+2 # Guest 2010-03-14 11:30

If our system works it's news to me. The question is, "For whom does it work?" We need extensive electoral reforms (at the very least) before we'll have a system that works. We need to abolish the electoral college, implement instant runoff, ensure proportional representation, and establish a decent parliamentary system just for starters. The so-called "Democrats" are one wing of an undemocratic one-party-masquerading-as-two-party system the main aim of which is to maintain the status quo with which we're all too familiar. I do not agree that supporting either wing of the Fascist party will lead to the much-needed reforms. As for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, I don't know him from Adam, but I agree we shouldn't be calling him a monster before he's found guilty by a jury of his peers. Can that happen here in the U.S.? I don't know. But if we're to even maintain a pretense of justice we need to put our own war criminals (Bush, Cheney, et al) on trial or surrender them to the International Court.

+4 # Guest 2010-03-14 09:22

Mr. Cory,
You are an angel come to earth to help us put into words arguments against those things that the fear mongers say so often and with such ease. We know in our guts they don't make sense, but their words permeate all media forms all around us. There needs to be a law against such lies. We're all suffering from fear, as when I was a child and taught to hate and fear the Communists as we ducked under our desks for that imminent air attack. It's amazing we don't all have high blood pressure, insomnia, facial ticks, and have become recluses. We are forced to hear several times a day that our President is illegal and a terrorist, and yet it is our own Supreme Court and Congress and financial system and health insurers who are terrorizing us while they sit back and snicker, all the way to the bank. Just for unprecedented profit, they would have this beloved nation become and remain sick. Thanks for keep us sane.

+7 # Guest 2010-03-14 09:25

keeping americans in fear is big business, look at the defense budget. Big business is all america is about, and both of them combined is keeping many people in congress. The rest of us dont count. The only way we are going to get justice is the way our founding fathers did, all else is just a waste of time and words and breath. You figure the rest out.

+3 # Guest 2010-03-14 11:32

Hear! Hear!

+4 # Guest 2010-03-14 11:00

People in fear are so much easier to control.

+2 # Guest 2010-03-17 06:53

Hitler relied on keeping people in fear for that very reason - to control them.

-3 # Guest 2010-03-14 12:17

Hard to believe there are people who no doubt think they are intelligent somehow believe the Bush administration was behind 9/11. The only people who benefit from these theories are the hucksters that keep pushing them and who make lots of money from the gullible people who pay them to keep publishing these far out theories. These are the same people who used to say in the Globe or other such trash they were abducted by space aliens. Nazi Germany did a lot of the same type of publishing, so these conspiracy people seem to be more facist than progressive.

+5 # Guest 2010-03-14 15:09

Paul,
You don't seem to realize that the official government account of the attacks is also a conspiracy theory. The government has not supplied any concrete proof to back up their story. Many of their claims are starting to fall apart. The FBI admits they have no evidence that Bin Laden was involved. They also now admit that there was no phone call from Barbara Olsen on flight 77 to her husband Ted Olsen. Her phone call was the only one that mentioned Arab terrorists with boxcutters. So now there is no evidence that there were Arab terrorists on the planes whatsoever. Nazi Germany is a good example to use for 9/11. Their Reichstag fire was a false flag event they staged in order to go to war--same as what some in our government and military did when they staged 9/11.

+3 # Guest 2010-03-16 13:39

War is big money to some. It happened with Viet Nam after the Kennedy assassination and is happening now with the 911 big show.Check out the physics of 911-hydrocarbons don't burn hot enough to melt steel and weakened steel beams would fall asymmetrically.

+3 # Guest 2010-03-14 12:24

Damn right we're afraid of what he might say...at least SOME of us are. (I'm talking to you Dick.)

-3 # Guest 2010-03-14 13:28

Woody, whose comment was rated minus one, made the most sense to me.

-1 # Guest 2010-03-15 22:51

The downward rating on your innocent and earnest meta-comment bodes ill for this group of people. It's either guilt by association or something more sinister; a highly polarized and antagonistic mob mentality. I expect this comment to suffer similarly. ;-)

+5 # Guest 2010-03-14 19:18

Personally, it occurs to me that the reason the trial has been moved from our completely competent and effective civilian system to a military tribunal is because it will make it easier to explain why KSM looks and/or sounds the way he does. Of course, I have no way of knowing what he looks like or sounds like at the present time. But after reading, again, a recent article about the torture used against him and others, but particularly the 83 times he was waterboarded, which apparently left him in terrible shape, including having hundreds of seizures since then, my suspicion is that they do not want ANYONE to see - literally - or hear the EFFECTS of OUR COUNTRY'S WILLINGNESS TO TORTURE.

-1 # Guest 2010-03-14 19:38

Not trying to shoot the messenger, but I do believe we SHOULD know who is speaking the truth, just as much as telling lies. Researching John Cory, to know more about the person whose words everyone is willing to endorse in protest, get “behind” supporting for public office, represent them, I drew a blank. Is that just what we say when words echo our frustrations? Do we really mean it? If so, why haven’t we been in the streets, supporting those saying the same things? It’s one thing to believe someone’s words, some more than others. Will I "follow" mere words that speak the “truth”? “John Cory” is nobody’s savior, just a pressure valve. Once most who read his words vent too, few will do anything more...until the next "John Cory" resonates with them. But asking “John Cory” to do what we ourselves won’t, or don’t think we already can... is either lazy or cowardly. I’m not sure which.

0 # Guest 2010-03-15 22:47

I like you (or maybe I just like your words). Anyway, don't let the bastards get you down.

0 # Guest 2010-03-17 07:00

Woody, I would support this except why aren't you concerned about FOX NEWS (the hysteria motivator)and Rush Limbaugh (the junkie sportscaster) or Glenn Beck (the whacko uneducated crybaby)? Here is someone who is clearly speaking on well known obvious facts as opposed to the fear mongers on the Right who just say whatever comes to mind to scare people and you want to know who John Cory is? We already KNOW who those fear and hate mongers are on the Right and need to find ways to stop their lies and deceit. I think you need to get your priorities straight.

+2 # Guest 2010-03-14 22:58

Another great no-nonsense article by John Cory! Thank you!
Organizations pressing for KSM trial in our courts include ACLU and others you can google to help make it so. I take this trial as only one of many examples of fear-mongering used by the neo cons, corporate media and others to control American people.

+2 # Guest 2010-03-15 22:45

word.

+2 # Guest 2010-03-16 09:38

Thank you, Mr. Cory, for being the voice of many. You are so right.

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