Give the Ft. Hood Shooter the BEST Lawyer in Town!

Wolf Blitzer of CNN doesn't get it.

Blitzer was interviewing Nidel Hasan's military lawyer, and posed the usual question, asking how he could defend such a horrible person. At the end of attorney Colonel John Galligan's answer, Blitzer made a terrible mistake, saying:

"I'm sure he will get a much fairer hearing than those 13 Americans who were brutally gunned down the other day. I'm sure he will get all of the rights that are applied by the U.S. Military Code of Justice."

Blitzer is completely missing the point.

There's all this ballyhooing about how you're "innocent until proven guilty," which is absolutely true and a foundation of American Democracy. And there's all that stuff about, "Better to let ten guilty men go than convict one innocent man." Also very true, and the sign of a great nation.

But that's not why I want Hasan to have a great lawyer.

I want Colonel Galligan to be the best lawyer in the country. I want the Colonel to put up the best defense any lawyer ever mounted. I want him to poke into every nook and cranny, explore every possibility, grill every single witness ruthlessly. I want Colonel Galligan to really try to get Hasan off the hook.

Because then, when the jury finally pronounces its "Guilty!" verdict, as we all know they will, I want Hasan to go in front of that firing squad without any hope of appeal, and chance of clemency. I want him to be as hopeless and helpless as his victims were. And only Colonel Galligan can make Hasan completely hopeless, by doing his job well. I don't want even a hint of a mistake that could cause a mistrial, or get an appeal granted, or make anyone have any doubts at all. I want him to be found guilty, in spite of the best defense possible. I want him to be utterly and completely without hope when this trial is done.

Wolf Blitzer, you're not seeing this the right way. Let the Colonel do is job, because that is how justice will be served.

Christian AFA Director: Ban Muslims from Military!

You knew it would happen, but it's still shocking: Bryan Fischer, a Christian and the "Director of Issues Analysis" at American Family Association, wants to ban all Muslims from the U.S. Military. This is so unpatriotic and un-American it's a disgrace. They should take the word "American" out of their organization's name, they don't deserve to use it.

I may not agree with their religious views, but I know that the vast majority of both Christians and Muslims are honest, moral, patriotic, and thoughtful people. I've had the pleasure of knowing many Christians, and a number of Muslims in my lifetime, and I honestly can't tell the difference. Both groups believe in Yahweh, the God of Abraham, and have morals that they believe are given by God. Both groups have the usual assortment of mostly good, honest people, a few immoral people, and a few who stand out as exceptionally praiseworthy.

As far as I can tell, Mr. Fischer, a senior director at AFA, doesn't know what it means to be an American, he knows little about Islam, and he doesn't even know what it means to be a Christian. He's also an ignoramus about how sin works, because he's trying to blacken the reputation of all Muslims using the deeds of one. Maybe Mr. Fischer should go back and read about the Oklahoma City bombing by his fellow Christians, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Using Mr. Fischer's logic, maybe we should ban all Christians from the United States military.

While I disagree with most of the politics of the American Family Association, I respect them as fellow Americans. I know they, like me, are interested in making the world and America a better place; we just differ on how to achieve that. But with men like Mr. Fischer in their midst, I have to wonder if they truly understand our Constitution, and the religious freedoms that we all enjoy because of the wisdom and tolerance of our founding fathers.

The one good note in all of this is that another blogger at AFA has issued a rebuttal to Mr. Fischer. Unfortunately, with Mr. Fischer's position as a Director, the other blogger's article seems pretty weak, though well written.

Repeat Ft. Hood tragedy every day for 34 years? That's Iraq

What if yesterday's tragic shooting of twelve soldiers at Fort Hood by a deranged Army doctor happened every single day for the next week? We'd have 84 dead. What if twelve innocents were killed every day for a month? 360 dead. A year? That would be 4,380 dead innocent people.

It would be awful.

And what if we killed twelve innocent people every single day for the next 34 years? That would be Iraq.

Americans don't know what war really means. It means death. In Iraq, even the United States government admits at least 150,000 innocent civilians – over 60% of them women and children – have been killed by American bombs. Not terrorists, American bombs.

To equal that death toll in America, you'd have to kill twelve soldiers every single day for 34 years.

Except that it wouldn't be soldiers. To equal Iraq, you'd have to make eight of the twelve be women and children, every single day, for 34 years.

Or put it another way: For every soldier who died at Fort Hood yesterday, there are 12,500 dead Iraqi civilians. For every American brother, sister, mother, father, wife, husband, child, or friend, the death of their loved one is an unmitigated tragedy, a sadness that will be with them forever. And for each one of them, there are 12,500 Iraqi brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, children, and friends who also mourn the death of a loved one, the tragic loss of a human spirit that was snuffed out by an American bomb.

Humans don't seem capable of understanding large numbers. We gasp in horror when a little girl is kidnapped in Florida, but yawn when ten thousand civilians are killed in an invasion. We're glued to the TV set when OJ is on trial for murdering one woman, but don't care a bit that 400,000 Americans die from tobacco each year.

So when twelve soldiers are killed in one day, I hope it can remind us of the true tragedy we're inflicting in Iraq. To us, 150,000 is beyond our grasp, just a big number, a statistic. But to some little girl in Iraq whose mother was just killed by a brick from a bomb blast, it's her entire whole world.

My heart goes out to the families of those who died yesterday. This tragedy reminds us just how precious life is, and how tragic a death is of someone in the prime of life. And I hope it also reminds us of the magnitude of what we've done in Iraq.