Last night, Bill Maher blasted the right-wing reaction to the Boston bombing by calling for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to be labeled an "enemy combatant" and to basically ignore our Constitution to deal with him.
And finally, New Rule: Stop worrying that our justice system can't be trusted to try this lowlife as a common criminal. Come on, this is the U.S.A. We're pretty good at putting people in prison. We have a higher incarceration rate than Iran, or China, or for that matter, every other country on Earth. We're also pretty good at executing people. 90% of places in the world don't, but we do. So yes, I'm afraid little Dzhokhar fucked with the wrong peace-loving Christian people. (audience applause)
Now ever since the shit went down in Boston, all the usual suspects on the right have been screeching about how Dzhokhar needs to be held as an "enemy combatant" and how Obama "doesn't get it" about fighting terrorism. No, you don't get it. We're not dealing with evil genius Bond villains here. We caught him because he and his brother pulled their getaway car over to make a pit stop for Red Bull.
Enemy combatant? I'm not sure we should be trying him as an adult! They had no escape plan, no disguises, and they got captured because they did not foresee that the Boston Marathon would be photographed.
Why call every murderer an "enemy combatant"? It's like calling everyone in porn a "porn star". It just cheapens it for the real artists. (audience laughter)
Just the term "enemy combatant" romanticizes them too much. Do you remember how we used to think bin Laden lived? This is how the London Times depicted his vast underground lair in November 2001.
It's big enough for 1,000 men with offices, computers, secret passages, generators, a Sam's Club. Donald Rumsfeld was shown this rendering at the time, and said, "Oh, there's not one of those. There are many of those." Actually, it turns out there were zero of those. When the Seals found bin Laden, he wasn't living in a neocon version of Barbie's Dream House. He was in a two-story stucco shitbox with a view of a farmer fucking a camel! (audience laughter)
Let's not make the same mistake with two dickheads who made nail bombs out of pots and pans. You know who really gets it about these two? Uncle [Tsarni], remember him? Let's listen to what he had to say about his nephews.
RUSLAN TSARNI (4/19/2013): I say what I think was behind it: BEING LOSERS!!
(audience laughter and applause)
There ya go! Let's acknowledge we've entered a new phase in the War on Terror by renaming it the War on Losers! After 9/11, we were shell-shocked. We didn't know what kind of enemy we were dealing with. But 12 years later, we have a much better idea — losers, fuck-ups, idiots!
The Times Square bomber couldn't make gasoline explode! And locked himself out of his car bomb. The shoe bomber couldn't light his shoes on fire. The underwear bomber couldn't ignite his underroos, not to mention that he was traveling on a one-way ticket with no luggage, no money, and no coat, going to Detroit in the winter. And his name was Mohammed Kablooey.
The Liberty Seven were put away for their plan to blow up the Sears building in Chicago, even though they didn't have a gun, or a plan, and no one shops at Sears. The Fort Dix six filmed themselves shooting guns and shouting about Allah, and then were caught when they took the tape to Circuit City to have it transferred to DVD! I know, it's hard to believe — someone went to Circuit City?
So, I'm not saying we should let our guard down. But our ever expanding Homeland Security department has gotten $790 billion dollars since 9/11. Bin Laden's plan wasn't to kill us all. It was to scare us into overreacting and destroy ourselves. Cuz if there's one thing those terrorists proved they can blow up? It's our balance sheet.