Glenn Greenwald on Terry Jones


The slimy weasels of congress are now on the case, muttering about somehow silencing the terrible people who endanger our country by inflaming the mad Muslim hordes, and Greenwald calls them out.

Harry Reid and Lindsey Graham yesterday both suggested that Congress take unspecified though formal action against the Koran-burning by Florida preacher Terry Jones, which triggered days of violence this week by angry Muslims in Afghanistan. Graham in particular — using the “but” that is the hallmark of all enemies of the First Amendment — said: “Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war.” He claimed that “during World War II, we had limits on what you could say if it would inspire the enemy” (I think he was thinking of World War I, when Woodrow Wilson succeeded in all but criminalizing war opposition, including passage of the dangerously broad Espionage Act: the statute Dianne Feinstein and others now want to exploit to prosecute WikiLeaks).

“but we’re in a war” might be a mollifying modifier if there were any prospect of someday not being in a war, or if Reid and Graham weren’t hawkish jerks who’d like to keep us in a perennial state of combat.

Greenwald also tellingly points out that if you want to find a really potent symbol for American tyranny, don’t look to some small time preacher burning books in Florida…look a little further south, to Guantanamo Bay. But I suppose Reid and Graham would just argue that Gitmo is necessary “because we’re in a war.”