Michael Gerson gets it right on Eric Holder and terror trials

About a year ago we wrote of the American government’s decision, announced by Attorney General Eric Holder, that terror suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay would be tried in civilian courts. We thought it would be a disaster, and it turns out we were right. The first Guantanamo Bay prisoner tried in civilian court beat the U.S. last week when a jury of our peers convicted him of 1 out of 200 plus charges arising from the 1998 African embassy bombings.

Michael Gerson, writing in the Washington Post, takes Holder and the Obama Administration to task for using the civilian court to try Ahmed Ghailani and losing the case. (A minor conviction was gotten.)

The case of embassy bomber Ahmed Ghailani - the only Guantanamo Bay detainee the Obama administration has brought to trial in the United States - was intended to increase public faith in civilian prosecutions. But a terrorist hugging his lawyers in victory can’t be considered a confidence builder. Days before the Ghailani verdict, the White House admitted that Mohammed, because of massive, public resistance, would not be seeing the inside of a Manhattan courtroom anytime soon. “Gitmo,” one official told The Washington Post, “is going to remain open for the foreseeable future.”

We’ve been personally through this type of trial before. The case of Sami Al-Arian. The weaknesses in both cases was pretty much the same-- the trial took place years after the event in question, many charges were brought, and the evidence is confusing. In my opinion, more than the layperson can digest.

So, Gerson asks the question,

Where do these developments leave Holder, for whom failure is not only an option but a habit? A recent profile by Wil Hylton in GQ attempts to put his tenure in the best possible light - the lonely, naive man of principle undone by politics. But the portrait is unintentionally devastating. Holder clearly views the war on terrorism as a distraction. “The biggest surprise I’ve had in this job,” he told Hylton, “is how much time the national security issues take.”

Doh.

By insisting on civilian trials for terrorists, the Obama-Holder team embarked on a dangerous course of action. Obama needs a way to back off this course and get the next trials before military tribunals, where they belong.

National security is not a traffic infraction violation. It’s life and death stuff and we should learn to play by the rules need for it. And that’s what I think.

Read the full Op-ed.

Lincoln University harboring anti-Semite?

Lincoln University is the “first degree granting historically black university” located in southeastern Pennsylvania. It also harbors a radical anti-Semite on its faculty, Pakistani-born Kaukab Siddique.

Why do I think he’s an anti-Semite? Watch this video.




Siddique and his anti-Israel, Holocaust denying is the subject of an op-ed by Richard L. Cravatts, PhD. in the Jewish Press. He asks, "should academic free speech accommodate Holocaust denial?"

If you scratch a Holocaust denier long enough, you may reveal an anti-Semite, but not always. You will, however, probably find someone like the morally repellant Kaukab Siddique, a Pakistani-born tenured associate professor of English and journalism at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, who seemingly puts great faith in conspiratorial dramas in which a crafty and all-powerful enemy (i.e., Jews) weaves oft-repeated claims about the Holocaust just to elicit the world's sympathy and promote Zionism and the creation of Israel.

Siddique has been embroiled in an intellectual firestorm ever since his paroxysms of hatred toward Israel were exposed in a video taken during his appearance at a Labor Day rally in Washington and posted by The Investigative Project and reported on by the Christian Broadcasting Network. Siddique was filmed crying out to the crowd: "I say to the Muslims, 'Dear brothers and sisters, unite and rise up against this hydra-headed monster which calls itself Zionism...we must stand united to defeat, to destroy, to dismantle Israel, if possible [apparently not necessarily] by peaceful means."

It seems that Lincoln University will take no action because the above language was uttered at a non-university event. So what?

Imagine for a moment that a tenured professor at Lincoln was discovered to be a white nationalist, with his postings sprinkled on the pages of a hatesite such as Stormfront.org in which he railed, as visitors to that odious site do, against the dangers of non-whites to white culture, the harm non-whites do to society through criminality, high birthrates, and low morals, and the overall superiority of the white race to other groups.

Ask yourself, would that professor long survive at Lincoln University? I don't think so. But Lincoln University is not going to take action in the case of Siddique.


Therefore, I think it right that we complain to the Lincoln University administration about its refusal to address adquately Siddique's remarks and his continued presence on campus.

Read the full Op-ed.


That's what I think.

Don't look at us, says Sikh

An item in today's New York Times about the needs for Sikhs to remove their turbans for pre-flight searches caught my eye because of this line,

“While you’re spending that much time on Sikh Americans, who have absolutely no incidents of terrorism in the country, other people are getting through,” Jasjit Singh said.

OK, here's a guy who calls it as it is. The "it" is, of course, the root cause for the need for travelers to be searched before boarding flights, Muslim terrorists.

It is Arab and Muslim terrorists who have brought the curse of body scans and searches upon us. It started with the Palestinians who hijacked airliners in their self-proclaimed war with Israel and the West, and it's now Muslim Islamists who use airlines to wreak havoc upon unsuspecting civilians.

But the Sikhs? What's done them in? Well, their turbans may not be susceptible to accurate scanning even with the new body scanners. And so,

Three national Sikh advocacy and civil rights organizations have said federal transportation officials plan to always search turbans at airport screening stations, even if wearers pass through state-of-the-art body imaging scanners.

Lots of luck to our Sikh neighbors.

Read the full news report.

Go here for more information on Sikhim.

Palestinians and their Arab brothers

For a fellow with a PhD. in history, Abu Mazen, can't seem to get his facts (or sentiments) straight. While in Kuwait to build support for the Palestinian Authority's decision to avoid negotiations with Israel, he said,

"Kuwaiti-Palestinian relations are historical and excellent. It is a great honor for us that the Fatah movement was launched in Kuwait."

Does he have amnesia?  Where was he when Kuwait expelled thousands upon thousands of Palestinian Arabs from the country following the Gulf War.  (That was the war when missile attacks by Iraq against Israel were greeted by parties in the streets of Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank.)

Author Hassan A El-Najjar writes

Following the 1991 Gulf War, Palestinians in Kuwait were reduced from a thriving immigrant community of more than 400,000 to less than 30,000 in 1998. Kuwaitis forced them out of the country using a systematic and violent campaign of ethnic cleansing. The Palestinian official support for Iraq during the crisis was used as an excuse for that campaign.

So, with friends like the Kuwaitis who needs enemies. Rather than tour the Middle East gathering support for his policy of delaying negotiations, he should be sitting down with the people who can resolve his problems for once and all time--the Israelis.

Well, that's what I think.

Riverdale bombers were no dupes--Editorial - NYPOST.com

There is good news and bad news coming out of the conviction of the would-be synagogue bombers this week. From the New York Post:

Good news this week: Four Muslim converts who plotted to bomb a pair of Riverdale synagogues and shoot down military planes were convicted.

The bad news: Activists are turning the "Newburgh 4" into a cause célébre -- a
supposedly hapless squad of dimwits armed with fake explosives, arrested by the
feds before they did any harm.

Dimwits we'll buy, but that doesn't make them innocent. Even idiots can detonate explosives -- and this dangerous crew showed an unseemly eagerness to enlist in jihad.

And they're not alone.

The Post makes a good point when it compares these guys to others that the US has caught, prosecuted and convicted- the Newburgh 4 are home grown.

They're being grown in American prisons where Islam is the religion of choice among the violent and the gullible, and in mosques around the country. (Watch "My Name is Khan" to see how it happens.)

In any event, one could only hope that this is the last case that ever comes our way, but we know that's not going to be true.

Read the full editorial - Riverdale bombers were no dupes.

Well, that's what I have to say.

Stephen M. Flatow