Why do they try to capture a terrorist?  Nidal Hasan’s shooting wasn’t videotaped, but his body count is two higher than the event in Paris.  Yet what of Major Hasan?  Swift justice?  Or "out of sight, out of mind"?  Still no execution date for Hasan.  And as the president empties GITMO, what of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?  KSM has been out of the loop for over a decade.  What intelligence-gathering reason is there to keep the oxygen flowing?  Holder’s trial venue game stopped long ago and, apparently, with it the chance of due punishment for KSM and Major Hasan.

Swift and sure must be the consequence for harming us.  The sooner the punishment relative to the event, the closer the connection to the deed itself.  This is not to suggest that the indictment, discovery, and trial should be cursory.  But the wheels should never stop, and they should always move at a steady and deliberate pace.

But the wheels have stopped, and someone hit the brakes.  Our eyes turn to Eric Holder and his mentor.

As the French scour their country for the perpetrators of this heinous crime, the president is releasing terrorists back into the system.  And the suggestion seems to remain that we shouldn’t “make them mad” at the risk of creating more terrorists.  Have the maintainers of that caution noticed the formation of the 30,000-strong ISIS army in the past year?

It seems meaningless, to an extent, to hunt down these miscreants if, once captured, their only punishment seems to be lengthy court time and bad clothing.  It will be interesting to see what the French do with any captured terrorists.  At some point, somewhere, the punishment must fit the crime.  People expect it, and when it doesn’t occur, it only encourages the terrorists to strike again.