| Why Al-Arian Walked |  |
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 9, 2005
Posted on 12/09/2005 4:56:26 AM PST by SJackson
My friend, Michael Eisenstadt, dedicated his life, among other things, to seeing terrorist leader Sami Al-Arian face justice.
In September, Mike, spokesman for Tampa's Jewish community, died of lung cancer. While his passing is a source of great sadness, I'm glad Mike didn't get to see Al-Arian's acquittal, Tuesday.
It was a sad day in America, but not one that was unexpected. At least by me. Everyone predicted that the jury would throw the book at the man who was a founder of terrorist group Islamic Jihad, and ran its worldwide headquarters from his University of South Florida offices.
But not me.
I followed the trial and predicted all along (here and here) that Sami Al-Arian and his three co-defendants would walk. Why? Because our Justice Department, while desperate for victories, is really not serious about the War on Terror. In fact, more important to Gonzalez and Company (and before that, Ashcroft and Company) is outreach to radical Islamic individuals and groups that support terrorists like Al-Arian and prosecution of anything they perceive as "hate crimes" against those Muslims.
One need only look at the Justice Department record of fighting terrorism in court. It's a complete failure.
It's not just this case, blown big-time by Assistant U.S. Attorney Cherie Krigsman, but a host of other high profile case that were either flat-out lost or botched beyond belief.
Take the Sami Omar Al-Hussayen. A Saudi graduate student living in Boise, Idaho, he used his computer expertise to set up websites for Islamic terrorist groups and help them recruit members and financial donors. The evidence was pretty clear. One of the sites urged followers to use planes as weapons, flying them into American buildings. And that was BEFORE 9/11. And did I mention, he was here illegally?
Yet, the Justice Department--with all resources at its disposal--managed to lose. Al-Hussayen was acquitted.
Then, there is the Detroit Al-Qaeda terror cell trial. It was the first major jury terror trial after 9/11. The four men he was trying lived in Detroit house they shared with Nabil Al-Marabh, a Bin Laden associate who was among the FBI's 25 most wanted. They had over 100 extremist jihadi tapes urging the murder of Americans, Christians, and Jews. They also took videotape of major American sites and tourist attractions with girls singing Al-Qaeda songs in the background of the tapes. They had diagrams of American and Israeli F-16 and AWACS planes and their order of take-off from the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.
Sounds like a slam-dunk, right? Well, not exactly.
Prosecutor Richard Convertino's superiors at the Justice Department repeatedly, deliberately put obstacles in his way at every turn. His own boss, then-U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Collins, didn't want Convertino to win this case, let alone pursue it. The men had ties to Detroit's Islamic community, whom the ambitious Collins was aggressively courting, ad absurdum.
The accused terrorists received thousands of dollars in federal job training money from a major Detroit Arab welfare agency, dominated by Muslims. The "job training" consisted of commercial driving lessons and attempts to get hazardous materials hauling certificates--exactly what an Al-Qaeda operative wanting to blow things up would have on his Ramadan gift wish list. Collins could not afford to see these men convicted because it would embarrass the Islamic community and--especially--himself.
So when Convertino won terror convictions against the Detroit terror cell, Collins and the Justice Department higher-ups, like then-Assistant Attorney General James Comey and Justice Department official Barry Sabin set to get the convictions overturned. They began a witch-hunt investigation and searched Convertino's office, looking for ways to get his successful verdict against terrorists overturned. They also set out to destroy Convertino's reputation in a campaign of whispers in cooperation with the case's judge, Gerald Rosen and a fabricating Detroit News reporter.
Since then, Detroit's new U.S. Attorney, Stephen Murphy III, has made it his priority to prosecute not terrorism, but trumped up "hate crimes" against Detroit area Muslims.
Remember, this is OUR Justice Department. But it seems like someone else's. Someone who prays at an extremist mosque and wants to destroy America.
Then, there is Cherie Krigsman, the "prosecutor" in the Al-Arian trial. She could have taken a few lessons from Convertino. He had as much evidence as she did in her trial. But he knew how to trim the fat from the meat. Krigsman took over five months to put on her case--five months in which she threw in every piece of evidence no matter how weak, causing jurors' eyes to repeatedly glaze over. A Tampa TV reporter I know told me that he and other reporters were so bored, they stayed awake by betting on which juror would fall asleep next.
Clearly Krigsman was out of touch with the jury and didn't know what she was doing. She had strong evidence, including a videotape of Al-Arian at the Cleveland Mosque--at which he was proudly identified as the chief of "armed operations" for Islamic Jihad and he and the Cleveland Mosque imam, Fawaz Abu Damra, call for violent jihad and death to America, Christians, and Jews. She had evidence of money transfers, a letter to Kuwait in which Al-Arian speaks of a merger with "the brothers in HAMAS" which is almost complete, a speech in which Al-Arian calls for a river of gushing blood. Krigsman's case should have taken a month to put on, but instead she took more than five--confusing the jury with a myriad of weak evidence that ended up overwhelming the strong stuff.
Then, there is the judge. Federal Judge James S. Moody, a Clinton appointee, is the Dancing Judge Ito of terror trials. Caught up in the glamour of intense media coverage, he used the trial to showcase his bad nightclub-style comedy act, just like Judge Rosen in the Detroit terror trial. When a female attorney objected to the inclusion of a certain male juror, he joked that he would get the attorney his phone number after the trial. When Krigsman wrapped up cross-examination on a witness, saying "And finally," Moody interrupted with, "You're teasing us, right?" Not the kind of guy you want overseeing a serious terror trial.
If anything is an argument for treating terrorists as a national security problem, instead of a legal one in the courts, this is it. But the judge, jury, and prosecutors are exemplary of America's psyche, today. We've fallen asleep again, forgotten 9/11, and don't take Islamic terrorism very seriously.
Contrast that with the brave men of yesteryear. Sixty years ago, the Nuremberg trials of Germany's most heinous war criminals began. "The were evil men, and what they did was our task to expose," American Nuremberg prosecutor Whitney Harris, now 93, remembers. "And we did get the evidence and we were able to do so." Twelve of the 21 men on trial were sentenced to death, six received tough prison terms, and only three were acquitted.
Back then, most Americans knew what we were fighting, had the resolve to do it, and we beat the Nazis. Today, we're just too busy with XBox 360 to notice--or give a damn.
If you don't realize that the enemy is not the U.S. government, but rather the alq dogs that cut off heads and pray for our gruesome deaths,then I can't help YOU.
a very bright man named reagan once said, govt is the problem, he was right. no, i dont think our govt is a dedicated enemy of the american public, not in your sense of the word. what i find clear as daylight is the absolute incompetence which after a certain point surely becomes criminal in nature. to wit, my post about al quedas navy. they have allegedly some twenty or so merchant ships according to highly reputable sources. i will ask you this question, which you will not answer since it conflicts with your programming, since we have paid billions upon billions for a navy which is there to protect us, why hasnt this money been used to sink osamas navy? after all, naval movements is one of the most feared methods of attack if you have been paying attention. secondly, why is our southern border more open than a bordello on friday night? you may say, well, they mean well and are just to beauracratic, while i would say, their incompetence is criminal. you let them slide, id hold them accountable. finally, if you are right, i am merely a crackpot, but if i am right, the usa is gone, down which road it is surely meandering at present. to bring this home with the article, again, our govt is treating our sworn enemies like a fine piece of china, while an elderly lady who has not paid her property taxes is thrown out in the street like a dog. watch for the patterns, they will not lie to you, but you have to have your eyes open.
My mother always said to do that with my children, and to note when they're eyes glazed over : )
they're=their
what was I thinking?
Actually he died of syphillis after he got out of prison.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/mob_bosses/capone/chapter_11.html
How did Capone manage with the loss of popularity and status? He seemed to do reasonably well and got along better than most from the standpoint of adjustment. The same was not true of his health. The syphilis that he had contracted as a very young man was moving into the tertiary stage called neurosyphilis. By 1938, he was confused and disoriented.
Al spent the last year of his sentence, which had been reduced to six years and five months for a combination of good behavior and work credits, in the hospital section being treated for syphilis. He was released in November of 1939. Mae took him to a hospital in Baltimore where he was treated until March of 1940.
Sonny Capone seemed to be a remarkably friendly and well-adjusted young man, despite his very unusual background. In 1940, he married an Irish girl and settled in Miami. Sonny and Diana provided Al and Mae with four granddaughters, which were treated with lavish attention.
For his remaining years, Al slowly deteriorated in the quiet splendor of his Palm Island palace. Mae stuck by him until January 25, 1947 when he died of cardiac arrest at age 48, his grieving family surrounding him. A week before, Andrew Volstead, author of the Volstead Act that ushered in the era of Prohibition from 1920 to 1933, died at the age of 87.
bump
I know now but what an awful way to die for an awful man.
Pictures speak SO much louder than words...
More and more, the Bush/Clinton cabal tips it's hand...and the web is the MAIN source for the info!
So much for the "Roadmap for Peace"! Now we KNOW Condi isn't just acting on her training from Scowcroft and Baker...she was picked for State EXACTLY for her pro-Islamazi views!
BTTT
What was your previous freepname?
Yes, sooner or later every gentile supporter of Israel gets accused of 'betraying' or being 'pro-Islamicists' by some of the rabid pro-Israel nuts. No good deed goes unpunished, and let them disagree on a single issue and suddenly they're the great persecutors (usually with a Nazi reference or implied term.) Yeah, yeah, we're all secretly out to get you. Gee, I can't imagine how the mouthy zealots within the Jewish community wore out their welcome in various places. < / Sarc > Luckily most of us understand that you blowhards are not representative of most Jews or Israel. But you rabid types do profound damage by perpetuating a false stereotype with your backbiting, drama queening, and victimology. Of course the real and horrid persecution (going back far, far further than the Holocaust) and continued anti-Semitism (aka the UN) certainly justifies a degree of caution and skepticism, but good gosh, try not to spit on everyone of those on your side. After a while some may react like this, and after more of it they might decide to just go passive and indifferent.
I'm not even Jewish! Nor am I some "Rabid Fundie" (BTW, isn't GWB supposed to be one?)?
But I recognize the trademark Bush clan sellout of Israelis ...do you?
Poppy Bush ran to the Saudis in 98...did he run to Israel? The Bush clan kisses the Saudi A$$ every chance they get...where was the "love" for the Israeli contingent?
Condi learned at the feet of Scowcroft and "F the Joooos" Baker...no way to refute that!
A PaleSimian blows up a market, and Condi and the world yawn...Israel retaliates against the PaleSimian/Islamazi scum, and the World stops and UN resolutions are rolled out against Israel, and Condi shows up in her fashionable Jack-Boots to scold Israel for "endangering" the Roadmap, and not following America's plans for Isreali partitionmenmt in favor of those who blow up children.
So, stick a sock in it about this Admin being "Israel's friend"..."by their actions shall ye know them!"
Then you do the Jewish community any even greater disservice. I'll admit to assuming your name might be Jewish, and tied it in with you're over the top pro-Isreal rhetoric. I should have known better, the biggest idiots around here throwing the 'pro-Muzzie' label at anyone who ever disagrees with anything about Israel seem to often turn out to be non-Jews.
ping
It should also be noted that Damra was convicted-if I'm not mistaken-by a prosecution team that actually knew what it was doing.
bump
Don't make assumptions about my "programming"...You wouldn't have, had you read any of my previous posts.
I agree with many of the points you make. Generalizing is "generally" a bad idea, however. Those that make such silly statements, (such as your, "the U.S. government is the enemy), tend to turn people off... Such comments should be avoided. Stick to the specifics.
"what i find clear as daylight is the absolute incompetence which after a certain point surely becomes criminal in nature."
I don't know if it is incompetence or something more...
"our govt is treating our sworn enemies like a fine piece of china," You mean Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, et., al....I agree.
"watch for the patterns, they will not lie to you, but you have to have your eyes open."
I've been watching, and believe me, my eyes are WIDE open.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.