Tag Archives: Islamic Terrorism

News

Navy SEALs face assault charges from Iraqi terrorist they captured

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Let me start by quoting Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft, who doesn’t approve of punishing the Fort Hood terrorist with the death penalty.

She writes:

Major Nidal Hasan had his first hearing in the Ft. Hood murder case. The hearing was held in the hospital. His lawyer says he is paralyzed from the chest down, incontinent and in severe pain.

[…]How barbaric that the military will seek to kill a man with no sensation in his body from the chest down. He might prefer it (I certainly would) but it’s inexusable behavior for a civilized society and way beyond the pale of decency.

One wonders what she would say to the families of the victims.

The death penalty as a deterrent to future crimes

The trouble with Democrats is that they make decisions based on feelings and intentions, instead of based on knowledge and results. No one likes the death penalty, but that’s not the point of it. The point of the death penalty is that is deters future crimes.

The left-wing Washington Post reports on the latest research.

Excerpt:

“Science does really draw a conclusion. It did. There is no question about it,” said Naci Mocan, an economics professor at the University of Colorado at Denver. “The conclusion is there is a deterrent effect.”

A 2003 study he co-authored, and a 2006 study that re-examined the data, found that each execution results in five fewer homicides, and commuting a death sentence means five more homicides. “The results are robust, they don’t really go away,” he said. “I oppose the death penalty. But my results show that the death penalty (deters) – what am I going to do, hide them?”

Statistical studies like his are among a dozen papers since 2001 that capital punishment has deterrent effects. They all explore the same basic theory – if the cost of something (be it the purchase of an apple or the act of killing someone) becomes too high, people will change their behavior (forego apples or shy from murder).

[…]Among the conclusions:

– Each execution deters an average of 18 murders, according to a 2003 nationwide study by professors at Emory University. (Other studies have estimated the deterred murders per execution at three, five and 14).

– The Illinois moratorium on executions in 2000 led to 150 additional homicides over four years following, according to a 2006 study by professors at the University of Houston.

– Speeding up executions would strengthen the deterrent effect. For every 2.75 years cut from time spent on death row, one murder would be prevented, according to a 2004 study by an Emory University professor.

So, removing the death penalty encourages criminals to commit more crime. And this also applies to terrorism. If you want to coddle captured terrorists by giving them civilian trials and life imprisonment, instead of military trials and death sentences, then you get more terrorism.

Navy SEALS face criminal charges after capturing terrorist

Now let’s turn to this story from Fox News. (via The Weekly Standard via Fausta’s Blog)

Excerpt:

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy’s elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral’s mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named “Objective Amber,” told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

Just consider the incentives being created by this prosecution of Navy SEALS. This is exactly what caused the Army and the FBI to keep silent when Major Nidal Hasan was giving all the warning signs of committing a terrorist attack, including communicating with terrorists. The Army and the FBI didn’t want to face the wrath of politically correct lawyers and judges.

So we have the left opposing the death penalty for terrorism on the one hand, and on the other hand the left is in favor of prosecuting Navy SEALs and CIA interrogators for their work in stopping terrorism.

How Modern Liberals Think

If you want to understand why people on the left call evil good and call good evil, be sure and watch Evan Sayet’s speech at the Heritage Foundation, entitled “How Modern Liberals Think”.

Here’s the lecture:

Democrats aren’t not serious about evil, and that disqualifies them from any office involving national security. In my opinion, they are not qualified to do anything of any importance.

News

Female legislator killed in Afghanistan, pro-jihad woman kidnapped in Pakistan

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These two stories create an interesting contrast to say the least. First of all, a female legislator is killed by terrorists in Afghanistan.

Excerpt:

A female provincial government official in Afghanistan who worked hard for women’s rights was gunned down on Sunday during a weekend of violence that has rocked the south of the country.

Sitara Achakzai died when gunmen ambushed her outside her home in Kandahar city before driving away, according to Matiullah Khan Qateh, Kandahar province’s chief of police.

Four men on motorcycles drove up to the house and shot Achakzai as she exited her car, Qateh said.

Qari Yousef Ahmedi, a Taliban spokesperson, claimed responsibility for the killing.

Achakzai spent the years of Taliban rule in Afghanistan living outside the country. She lived in Germany for at least 20 years and was a dual Afghan-German citizen.

She returned to Afghanistan to work for women’s rights, according to Shahida Bibi of the Kandahar Women’s Association.

Achakzai was a member of Kandahar’s provincial council and was a vocal proponent of women working outside the home, Bibi said.

And here is an interesting contrast. According to this Fox News article (H/T Small Dead Animals), a Canadian female journalist who advocated in favor of terrorism has now been kidnapped and is being held for ransom by the terrorists that she’d been supporting.

Excerpt:

Soon after Al Qaeda terrorists killed 3,000 people in the U.S., Giesebrecht converted to Islam, adopted a new name — Khadija Abdul Qahaar — and spent the next two years studying the Koran in Egypt.

She created a pro-Jihadi Web site, Jihad Unspun, and she developed a network of contacts, contributors and translators, some of whom introduced her to the Taliban in Pakistan.

But then her new allies turned on her:

And then last November, the Taliban, the group she had befriended, kidnapped her while she was chasing a story in the Bannu region of northern Pakistan. In a video released after her capture, Qahaar says she’s being held by the Taliban…

In the most recent video, released to the Miranshah Press Club on March 18, Qahaar says her captors demand ransom payment of 2 million Rupees — about $25,000 — by the end of March. On earlier tapes, she said her captors were demanding $375,000.

“I’m pleading with you, save my life. Spare me,” she says. “We have a very short time now, I’ll probably be beheaded.”

The article concludes with this:

“I need somebody to help me,” Qaahar pleaded on the most recent video. “My government — the Canadian government, the Pakistan government — I want to go home.”

It’s certainly ironic.