David Reinhard has a good opinion piece on the trial of the Portland Seven, the jihad group that included Intel software engineer Maher “Mike” Hawash: The Squad of Death: What lies beneath. (Hat tip: Morgan.)

The defendants complained that the prosecution trafficked in “distortions and half-truths” but did not dispute any of the central facts in the government’s sentencing memo. In sum, Ford and Battle were ready to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan or fight violent jihad somewhere else in the world (Chechnya, Kashmir) prior to 9/11. That explains why our “Portland Seven” had their own name for their little outfit: “Katibat Al-Mawt.” Loose translation: “The Squad of Death.”

Ford and Battle came up with all kinds of lame excuses for their exploits. We just wanted to protect innocent Afghan Muslims from the United States! We wanted to help the weak against the strong! President Bush made us do it! But the most self-serving drivel came when they talked about the love they felt for their sons. This from men who abandoned their families and left their kids without visible means of support. Men who went off to kill the sons and fathers of other Americans. Men who wanted to impress someone — Osama bin Laden — who had slaughtered fathers and sons and more on one sun-splashed September day.

Spare us their tears for fatherless sons or sonless fathers. Or even their own sons.

Of course, the sentencing memo suggests that fathers and sons, mothers and daughters of non-Muslims — “kaffirs” or unbelievers — don’t count for much in Ford and Battle’s twisted minds. Battle considered Americans “pigs,” and Ford said in one taped conversation that Christians and Jews were “the same as apes and pigs.” In another taped conversation with another Squad of Death member, Ford refers to a TV show he was watching on the Holocaust. “I wish you was watching this, brother, it’s about the poor little Jews, ohh, and the Holocaust” — and he goes on to call Jews “lampshades.”

As horrifying as the attitudes of the Portland Seven—no, scratch that, more horrifying—is what Reinhard reveals about the reaction of spectators in the courtroom, when the judge uttered a PC comment about the Religion of Peace:

But something equally chilling — and perhaps equally instructive — happened in Jones’ courtroom Monday, and the two Squad of Death members were not the culprits. Having listened to Ford and Battle use Islam to justify their crimes, Jones had a bellyful. He told Ford, “You are an insult to the Muslim religion.”

Jones’ comment should have prompted cheers from true defenders of Islam. Instead, snarls and muttering filled the courtroom’s peanut gallery.

I’ve wondered how some Portlanders could stand by and do nothing as they watched traitors operate in our midst. Now, we may have a answer: There are apparently people in this city besides Patrice Lumumba Ford and Jeffrey Battle who share their contorted view of Islam.

This does raise a question: is it the spectators who hold a “contorted view of Islam” …or is it Judge Jones and David Reinhard?