Guilty, Guilty, Guilty?

The big verdict this week was in the Martha trial, right?

The Bush administration has abandoned the War on Terror to focus on Iraq's oil fields, right?

3 American Muslims Convicted of Helping Wage Jihad

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 4 — In a victory for the Bush administration's campaign to root out home-grown terrorism, a federal judge convicted three American Muslims on Thursday of conspiring to help a Pakistani group wage "violent jihad" against Indian forces in Kashmir and possibly American troops in Afghanistan.

Ignore for a moment the Times uncharacteristic willingness to admit the terrorists were Muslim, (future post) and credit Ed Driscoll with being first to ask the obvious: Why is this a victory only for the Bush administration?

Is the implication that it's no victory for the American people?

Are we to assume that some other, unnamed administration wouldn't be pursuing such cases with the vigor of John Ashcroft’s Justice Department?

Perhaps said hypothetical administration would adopt a nuanced, highly sophisticated "European" approach?

KARLSRUHE, Germany -- Germany's highest court overturned on Thursday the verdict against the only person convicted of involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. In ordering a retrial, the court faulted the United States for refusing to allow testimony from a suspected key Al Qaeda captive.

The convicted man, Mounir el-Motassadeq, had been sentenced to 15 years in prison in February 2003 after being found guilty of 3,066 counts of being an accessory to murder and of playing a crucial logistical role for the members of the Al Qaeda cell in Hamburg that produced three of the Sept. 11 pilots.

Of course, besides Martha all the news this week is the "outrage" of the survivors of 911 over the use of imagery in Bush campaign spots.