CIA contractor Jeff Passaro was convicted in Raleigh of beating an Afghani man to death (from The Raleigh N&O):
RALEIGH – A federal jury Thursday found former CIA contractor David Passaro guilty of beating an Afghan prisoner, the first time during this war the agency has seen one of its own convicted for harming a detainee.
The Afghan prisoner died on his fourth day in U.S. custody.
Passaro, 40, a former Special Forces soldier from Lillington, was convicted of one felony and three misdemeanor assault charges after an eight-day trial. He faces as little as two years in prison or as much as 11 1/2, experts say. His sentencing has not been scheduled.
Liberals are hailing this as both a repudiation of BushCo's treatment of nice, kind, law abiding people around the world, who happen to be the same people that were caught in Afghanistan fighting for Al Queda and the Taliban, and a travesty, since it did not expose all those mean Americans in the CIA who were fighting for America's survival. Sorry, 9/11 stuff, old, irrelevant news to liberals. Unless it mentions My Pet Goat.
More to the point, progressives have another conundrum:
Passaro was convicted under the terms of the USA Patriot Act, which extends American law to military bases overseas.
Uh oh! Now what? The same Patriot Act that most Democrats voted "yea" initially, then voted for a second time when it was reauthorized, but then whined about, and their little followers continue to whine about, is responsible for the ability to prosecute Passaro in civilian court.
Will the progressives now love the Patriot Act?
Consider if this case had been tried in Chapel Hill, NC. The town council condemned the Patriot Act. Would they have followed it? Otherwise, Passaro could not have been tried.
And, Passaro deserved to be convicted, let me make that clear.
