Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update

* this piece on fallout from the Tahawwur Rana trial shows just how politically poisonous that trial was in certain quarters. The evidence-free implication that US foreign policy objectives were achieved in the course of a legal trial -- for instance that prosecutors somehow chose to pursue conviction on the charge related to the Danish cartoons over the charges related to the Mumbai Massacre -- didn't convince me of anything except to maybe be alarmed about what people read into trials where politics are tangentially involved. Maybe that makes me naive, I'm not certain. While I admit the possibility some nefarious set of activities was in play -- it's a fallen world -- I'm always much less convinced when the construction of such an argument depends on a pitch-perfect manipulation of what we just saw into an exact outcome. That feels like building backwards to me. I'm also not sure what planet anyone is on convinced that the emphasis of this particular trial was not on Mumbai but on Copenhagen, which seemed to me to clearly dominate the witness list and time spent in court. I was dying for any focus on Copenhagen.

* the political fall-out remains, however, as India will continue to probe the influence and actions of Pakistani intelligence agency members in the November 28 attacks. The notion that direct interference in Rana's case is a possibility that must be decided against shows just how politically serious this matter has become.

* in case you were wondering, the US will not retry Rana on charges related to the Massacre. Even though acquittals are pretty typically not a springboard to further legal assault, I imagine will fuel the disappointment of those that feel some sort of political end was served.
 
posted 10:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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