Saving us all, one chauffeur at a time

An interesting but surprisingly leftist (well, maybe not leftist just grumpy) editorial in the Edmonton Sun. I tend to agree with some comments (thanks J) here that suggest the result in the Hamdan case shows the system works better than perhaps expected. That said the editorial is a good read:

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I am relieved that Salim Ahmed Hamdan got his butt kicked in Guantanamo on Wednesday. For a couple of days, it looked as though Osama bin Laden's former driver was going to get away with being a chauffeur to a terrorist. Especially to a terrorist the world can't seem to apprehend.

But thankfully, this week Hamdan was convicted of "providing material support for terrorism."

He's now facing a five-and-a-half year prison term, and so he should, the callous brute. Already acquitted of the more serious charge of conspiracy, had Hamdan also been let off on the charge of vehicular manipulation, he still wouldn't have been set free. He's the enemy , after all.

That is heartening.

Moreover, should he mount a successful appeal of the sentence, he will not be set free.

Now that is justice. This dude was and is going to the big house no matter what.

This two-week war crimes trial is the first the U.S. has participated in since the Nuremberg trials after the Second World War.

It thankfully corrects an oversight of those trials during which Erich Kempka, Hitler's driver, was not prosecuted as a war criminal.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/09082008/53/saving-chauffeur-time.html