In times of peril true patriots support their President. In war (as we are in now) the President sometimes has to exercise extraordinary powers. Can you name one war in the history of the United States with as many traitors as the current one? I can't think of anything even remotely close.
I agree with the author of this piece (hat tip to Lindy's thread, where this was posted).
Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot
Big Lizards blog
By Dafydd on Global War on Terrorism
Something happened today that has not happened before in my lifetime, and I daresay in the lifetimes of most of our readers: an American, Adam Yehiye Gadahn, was actually indicted for treason:
"A grand jury returned the indictment against Adam Yehiye Gadahn, 28, a suspected al-Qaida operative sought by the FBI since 2004, said the official, who asked to remain anonymous because the indictment was to be announced later in the day....
Gadahn appeared last month in a 48-minute video along with al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, calling on his countrymen to convert to Islam and for U.S. soldiers to switch sides in the Iraq and Afghan wars."
I have mixed feelings about this:
* On the one hand, we need to get over our absurd fear of charging and prosecuting this crime. It's a difficult one to prove -- properly so; but when the evidence is clear, there is no reason to shrink from it.
* But on the other hand, the Founding Fathers made that charge extremely difficult to prove up for a reason: in the days of King George III of England, the charge of treason was flung about willy-nilly as an all-purpose way to shut one's political enemies up -- permanently.
*
But on the third hand, in the modern era, where nobody has been convicted of treason for 54 years, more and more Americans seem to think they have sovereign authority to make war upon the United States without serious consequences. Maybe if we began enforcing the law, fewer people would break it.
(Note, this reasoning also suggests that we should start prosecuting newspapers and their officers under the espionage act, when they have revealed highly classified national-security programs, in the hopes they will cease doing so.)
* Plenty of Americans seem to think that treason is a joke, a lark, or perhaps a profitable business; and we rarely prosecute them for this most serious of charges. We let them get away with pretending they're just daring defenders of various constitutional rights (hence, they must fight on behalf of an enemy that rejects all rights whatsoever.) It would be worth this prosecution just to wipe the infantile smirk off their faces.
On the whole, I'm glad we're doing this... if for no other reason than I'm curious to see whether any jury has the belly to assume its responsibility to apply the law, even when the charge sounds so scary and other-worldly.
No American has been convicted of treason since Tomoya Kawakita, who had dual citizenship in both Japan and the United States; he was convicted on June 2nd, 1952 and sentenced to death for several counts of torturing American prisoners of war in Japan. President Eisenhower commuted the sentence to life in prison. The President Kennedy pardoned him in 1962 and deported him to Japan.
Some other World War II defendants convicted of treason were:
* Mildred Elizabeth Sisk, a.k.a. Mildred Gillars, a.k.a. "Axis Sally," convicted of one count in 1949 (paroled in 1961);
* Iva Toguri D'Aquino, a.k.a. "Tokyo Rose," convicted in 1949 of being one of the "Tokyo Rose" broadcasters (the others were never tried), sentenced to ten years, paroled after six, and pardoned by President Ford in 1977;
* And Hans Max Haupt, father of Herber Hans Haupt, one of the German saboteurs who were arrested in the United States in 1942, convicted by military tribunal, and executed that same year (of the eight saboteurs, two ratted out their co-conspirators and received lesser sentences, which were then commuted to deportation). The father, Hans Max Haupt, was convicted of treason for aiding and abetting his son in March of 1947 and sentenced to life; I don't know if he was ever paroled or pardoned.
There are plenty enough traitors around now that we ought to revive this charge. I'm certain this will create absolute hysteria among Democrats -- another good reason to do it! -- though if they're wise, they'll wait until after the election... don't want to spook the herd, after all.
Back to Gadahn, or Azzam al-Amriki, Azzam the American, as he was known to his Moslem brothers. Showing an extraordinary grasp of just the right words to bring American soldiers and Marines to his side, Gadahn was shown in a video saying the following:
"If the Zionist crusader missionaries of hate and counter-Islam consultants like ... the crusader and chief George W. Bush [sic, I'm sure he meant "crusader IN chief"] were to abandon their unbelief and repent and enter into the light of Islam and turn their swords against the enemies of God, it would be accepted of them and they would be our brothers in Islam," Gadahn said in English.
I'm sure the heart of every Marine who heard that call swelled in patriotic agreement.
Adam Gadahn is probably just an idiot kid having fun playing traitor. I really want to see his neck stretched and his feet dancing on air; but even if convicted, he'll probably get less than a three-time carjacker in Los Angeles.
Treason is notoriously difficult to prove in court because it's defined in the Constitution, no less -- Article III, section 3:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.
Thus, we need two witnesses to the same offense; but since Gadahn saw fit to videotape his treasonous acts (levying war, adhering, and giving aid and comfort -- the Trifecta!) perhaps that won't be hard. I don't know if the court will accept viewing the videotape as evidence equivalent to witnessing the actual act, but maybe we have witnesses who actually saw and heard him with their own eyeballs and earballs.
This is history, folks. If any of you ever witnessed an American treason trial before, it must have been when you were impressionable kids. I hope large portions of it are broadcast on C-Span. It would be instructive, not only to loyal Americans, but to those loyal to a baser cause. |
