Boy you've got to hand it to John Ashcroft and the boys! When it
comes to keeping America safe from terrorists, those Department of Justice aces are
relentless pit-bulls of righteous vigilance! Already, they've succeeded in rounding
up hoards of terrifying suspects and locking them up securely to prevent them from
destroying Disneyland, Las Vegas, and elementary schools in Orland Park, Illinois!
Okay. Not "hoards" exactly. Four or five, to be
more precise. But boy, are those four or five scary! If you care about civil
rights in this country.
Take the case of Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi, Karim
Koubriti, Ahmed Hannan, and Farouk Ali-Haimoud.
These monsters were caught red-handed with travelogues, sketches of potential
terrorist targets, and, and, and.... well, they were definitely thinking of acquiring
deadly weapons like guns, except that would have been quite legal, and airplane tickets,
and they almost could have been thinking about trying to buy some gas masks, which surely
would have been extremely suspicious!
Elmardoudi was at least "found with a cache of identification
documents" (New York Times, June 2, 2003) and a lot of cash. Ah ha!
Of course, he has a history of committing credit card fraud, along with the
only witness against him, Youssef Hmimssa. That proves he was up to no good!
Unfortunately, he was arrested and imprisoned before federal investigators could actually
find any evidence of any kind of terrorist activity. But don't tell me that any Arab
with a lot of cash isn't obviously a terrorist!
Elmardoudi is alleged to be part of a "shadowy unidentified Muslim
terrorist group" (New York Times). Think about that. A "shadowy
unidentified" group of TERRORISTS! I bet I made you jump out of your chair.
Do you think that you could belong to a "shadowy unidentified group"?
What would make someone think that you belong to a "shadowy unidentified"
group? Someone who really badly wants you to belong to a "shadowy
unidentified" group because they caught you, and it's very hard to actually catch
someone who really belongs to a "shadowy unidentified" group. It's much
easier to attach a group to a suspect you already have than to actually find a
"shadowy unidentified" group and arrest someone in it. But that's the kind
of Homeland Security provided to us by John Ashcroft. Arrest somebody, anybody, and
make the right noises and then give speeches about how America is now safer thanks to you.
How did they prove Elmardoudi was a member of this shadowy
unidentifiable group? Unfortunately, once again, there wasn't actually any evidence
(that's how shadowy this group was) so we'll just round up the usual shadowy
unidentifiable witness (only one could be rounded up on short notice) to give vague
evidence about thinking that he heard them once say something vaguely terroristy.
And so Youssef Hmimssa, himself facing charges of visa and immigration fraud-- could there
be a deal in the works here?-- gives his earnest suspicions.
Now as anybody who reads the news already knows, one of the hallmarks of
a false conviction (as shown with subsequent DNA testing) is the ubiquitous jailhouse
informant who invariably testifies as to something he heard. These
informants never seem to provide the government with evidence about, say, the location of
the murder weapon, or bloodstains, or the names of real witnesses who might corroborate
their stories or have independent evidence to offer. Oh no. They invariably
provide only a first-hand account of something they heard but didn't happen to record or
remember until just recently when it was convenient for them, and the prosecutors, to
remember it.
It is not even concealed from the public that Judge Gerald Rosen, who is
hearing Hmimssa's case, can lighten his sentence depending on how "forthcoming"
he is about the terrorists suspects. Now come on-- do you really think the Judge
would consider it "forthcoming" of Hmimssa if he were to assert that they were
just a bunch of Arabs trying to make a better life for themselves in America? Come
on! Seriously?
Ah ha! But then there was the tape! Audio tapes found in
their apartment, of someone Arabic that sounded vaguely Salafist and used words like
terrorism and war and America! Except that the tape was actually critical of
terrorism and Islamic extremism. But why would they have a tape that even mentioned
extremism if they weren't planning to blow something up!
Ah ha! But they had airport badges! Eureka-- they must have
been planning to hijack airplanes and crash them into Disneyland and Las Vegas!
Except that, of course, two of the men worked at a catering company, SkyChef DTW, at the
airport. Those insidious terrorists! How sneaky-- actually taking jobs as
dishwashers at the very location terrorists would be least welcome!
These
unfortunate young men just happen to be Arabic and just happen to have been indulging in
some shady immigration practices, and just happen to have been caught in a highly
politicized witch hunt. They were held without bail for over a year.
The government has to show the public that they are actually doing
something about terrorism, and seeing as they haven't been able to even catch Saddam
Hussein, and haven't even come close to showing that he had anything to do with 9/11 in
the first place, and still haven't caught Osama Bin Laden.... well, these poor boys will
have to do for now.
