Our New Anahuac

First and foremost, thank you to Citlali Chavana, who is typing this post for her jefito due to his broken pinky. No doubt she will one day be a great writer/fashion designer/actress/whatever she wants to be.

Last Fridayish, Attorney General Eric Holder held a press conference in which he explained why some of the 9-11 criminals would be tried in civilian courts…but just some. The rest, would be tried by military tribunals. In essence, he implied that the criminals that would be tried in civilian courts were sure-fire convictions. The evidence was overwhelmingly in favor of the prosecution in the cases that are going to civilian courts. The reason, of course, that some criminals would be tried in civilian courts is, according to Holder, that true justice requires due process and a fair trial.

I was surprised when, a few questions later, a reporter took the words right out of my mouth. He asked, “you say this is being done in the name of justice, but it seems that you are choosing which cases you can win and sending those into civilian courts. How is that just?”

As soon as he posed the question that I had wondered about, I recalled an article, Nuremburg: A Fair Trial? by Charles E. Wyzanski, Jr. in which the liberal author argued that the Nuremburg Trials were simply a propaganda show for the Allies after World War II. He argued that the Nazi prisoners should simply have been executed by military tribunals. He argued this, not in the name of revanchist reaction, but so that the supposed purity of the jurisprudence system not be corrupted and manipulated by populist politics.

Obviously this guy was not familiar with the tradition of Southern/Frontier Justice, but he brought to light a good point. He went through a litany of reasons as to why the Nazi defendants did not receive an actual “trial.” He explained that Nuremburg was really a dog and pony show for the international stage. The article taught me a great deal about the motivations of powers to hold public trials.

I hold no romantic notions about the soundness of the justice system, as might Wyzanski, but recalling his article did open my eyes, and soon pundits began raising the point about the Obama administration’s high priority of reestablishing credit abroad.

My point in all this, besides the fact that I figured it out first and that, therefore, I am brilliant, is that I agree with many conservatives on the idea that these defendants should be tried by military tribunal.

I believe this not for the hate that conservatives feel toward the criminals, nor for the romantic feelings toward the (in)justice system that Wyzanski espouses. I believe that they should be tried by the military because we all know that they have already been convicted, and I believe that no life should be sacrificed to the God of US Imperialism with the added benefit of strengthening Uncle Sam’s credibility abroad and increasing his capacity to further invade, kill and maim civilians. They will be put to death anyway, let’s not use a show-trial to increase US hegemony.