Posted on 12/20/2005 7:10:50 AM PST by minus_273
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- A Hezbollah militant sentenced to life in Germany for murdering a U.S. Navy diver during the 1985 hijacking of a U.S. jetliner has been freed, officials said.
The German government denied on Tuesday the release was related to the freeing of a German hostage in Iraq.
Mohammed Ali Hamadi was released Thursday and allowed to return to his native Lebanon on the next day, after qualifying for parole after 19 years in prison, said Ulrich Hermanski, spokesman for the North Rhine Wesphalia state justice ministry.
"There was no special treatment," Hermanski said in a telephone interview.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I don't know why they put it at Gitmo - could be many reasons, ranging from public safety to size of base to climate to logistics of food and water and medical aide etc. Gitmo is a very large base, and from memory is well isolated.
However, one good reason - this is not WWII and the Left has learned how to use the media against the US interests. These "soldiers" - many fighting under no flag, in no uniform, hiding among the civilian population, targeting non-combatants, (List good enough - I will not complete their list of violations of rules of war), barely, (and arguably do not) fit under normal conditions for prisoners of war.
The Left will confuse the public - hey - the guy was not in uniform - that makes him a civilian, right? Wrong. That makes him a spy. The left is trying to give these guys benefits of our very liberal criminal justice system - this would never have happened in WWII. Imagine how far they would want to go if we had these guys in Texas.
Do you think we gave German POWs lawyers in WWII, and had rules of evidence? Did we fly American soldiers back from Europe for their trials? That is what the Left wants. We shot German's in these conditions (spies), as they shot Americans (spies). Those were the rules, and accepted behaviour.
Also - if soldiers escaped in WWII - would they have set out to murder women and children? No.
We should have kept them in the desert in the Middle East - less attention.
Maybe our guys felt the stress of being that far away would help them give us info - I don't know - Our guys are smart, and have reasons for doing things. Uusally very good ones.
As far as Patriot Act - I am not an expert. However, my understanding is that we loosen the rules a bit very similarly to how we treat organized crime (like Mafia and drug rings). Probably due to their "team" appraoch to crime. Most of what you read in the media is either outright lies or hypothetical "what ifs" that never happen.
That are indeed interesting news. It would be wonderful if they would turn out to be true, since there exists another version of the story:
In the leftist, but usually very well informed German magazine "Der Spiegel" it was said, that the US already requested his extradition out of Lebanon, but the Lebanese authorities refused. That wouldn't be a wonder since the Hamadi-clan is one of the most influential families in this country. Furthermore it is known that they already picked him up at the Beirut airport. It is quite likely that they try to hide him and it is probably extremely difficult to arrest Hamadi from now on.
Furthermore the Spiegel claims, that the US-administration was informed about his upcoming release since November. They tried to prevent it, but this was not possible due to the independence of the German justice. On the American side there were the former secretary of state Colin Powell and Alberto Gonzales involved.
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,391752,00.html (Sorry, the Article is in German)
Personally I do not have any problem with this because Americans are civilized people. Even with such scum like in Gitmo. On the other hand this practice is seen very skeptical among such allies like the UK or Poland.
I have to say, in spite of official denials, it's a payoff.
It's just too obvious.
Maybe you understand a littlebit better this Hamadi-BS from the European point of view if you take the Austrian (not German!) reaction to the execution of "Tookie" Williams:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1545213/posts
The thing is that the relation between Europe and America needs a new fondation. We have to define common values and interests. We have to work for it. Otherwise we will loose each other in the long term. Each side knows that the other side is not "Irrelevant". No matter what angry people may say. Since I am a real friend of the US I will do everything to stop this development. But people like me need some backing.
Tonight, on the local Fox affiliate, they had an interview with Capt. Testrake's daughter (Unfortunately, I can't suppy a link. Fox 4 doesn't have the story on their website). She said, in essence, her father would not be pleased with the actions of the German government. My words for the German government are unprintable.
If there was an ulterior motive for releasing this terrorist no mercy should be given to Germany. Whatever sanctions that can be imagined should be instantly implemented, including immediately removing and relocating all military resources in the country.
Given Germany's release of Hizbullah terrorist Mohamed Ali Hammedi and Hammedi's return to Lebanon, this cannot be good news.
It's apparant that a major reason Hizbullah is growing in power is Iran's funding of the group.
This is not good.
Iranian Vice President Notes 'Growing Hezbollah Resistance' During Lebanon Visit
IRNA
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Beirut, Dec 22, IRNA: Visiting Iranian Vice-President and head of the Islamic Revolution's Martyrs' Foundation Mohammad Hossein Dehqan met with a number of fathers of Lebanese martyrs here on Wednesday.
During the meeting, Dehqan praised Lebanon as an icon of "people power" and said that its freedom and independence was the fruit of its brave resistence.
Moreover, he stated his concern that world powers, particularly the US and Israel, were trying to sow discord in Lebanon and polarize the nation.
However, he said he was confident conspirators and enemies of Lebanese independence would be disappointed "thanks to the vigilance of the Lebanese nation in the country's political and social arenas." Dehqan further pointed to the growing Hezbollah resistance that today "can no longer be ignored in any Israeli plan to cause damage to the country."
Dehghan arrived here on Wednesday from Syria for a three-day visit.
(Description of Source: Tehran IRNA (Internet Version-WWW) in English -- official state-run news agency)
It's apparant that a major reason Hizbullah is growing in power is Iran's funding of the group.
This is not good.
Iranian Vice President Notes 'Growing Hezbollah Resistance' During Lebanon Visit
That is exactly the point. They are not criminals. A main reason the New York attack was successful was that previous adminsitrations were dealing with terrorists as if they were criminal cases.
US rights afforded citizens do not naturally fall to POWs, and never have. They don't in other countries either.
One of the main issues with Patriot Act is sharing information between US law enforcement agencies. We have Federal (US Gov - Domestic = FBI) State, local (like NY City), and International law enforcement arms. They were specifically prevented from sharing information prior to 9-11. So the complete pictures could not be assembled, because they were not allowed to share information.
US law is very convoluted concernig who has jurisdiction (legal control) over certain things. Lawyers could tie you up forever on this stuff.
It may be why they put it in Gitmo - if you were in charge - where would you put it? It is sort of common sense. The reason it is seen as skeptical outside the US is because they get the image given by the Leftist dominated media. There is nothing wrong or inhumane about keeping these guys at Gitmo. They are living better than our soldiers. They had a nicer lunch today than I did - as they do every day. Look - just to be obvious - how many stories did we get about "Flushing the Koran in a toilet" - that didn't even happen, vs how many stories on the fact that we give them a Koran on entry and allow special prayer time and make special food etc etc. 2:1? 10:1? And remember - story #1 wasn't even real.
How many Europeans are told the US military was 2-3 months into an investigation of Abu Graib when the story broke? There was no coverup - that is why the story was so easy to write - we were already investigating through normal channels. This misinformation is going on constantly. I'm not saying it was right - but our response was not how it was portrayed. Not to put to fine a point on it - but if it went "to the top of our Military Organizations" then the person making that statement might want to account for the investigation ongoing prior to the news reports.
etc.
We are sad and confused by European Socialism, and trying very hard for the disease to stay over there. I think Arnold Schwartzenegger summed up our response fairly well.
We can support you - but maybe the best way to do that is to try to keep the US at least a little bit normal.
Tookie was a cold blooded cold hearted murderer. If we stop killing guys like him - which by the way in all studies show states with death penalty have lower crime rates for death penalty crimes (we vary by State) - meaning it is an effective deterrent to these type crimes.
If we stop killing the Tookies of the world, for all we know Germany will work their way down from 15 years to ten, then maybe 5 years? Who knows.
Don't forget - the Canadians act European too.
In the last two elections we came within a state of having Leftist Socialists elected President. We are holding on with our fingernails.
Define a common foundation? How about not assuming the worst every time the US has to do something. How about supporting Democracies like the US and Israel over Iran and Palestinians. How about Austrians not getting anti-American excited when an American governor enforces the law of the US - on a cold blooded murderer. We are excited because Germany let the known terrorist murderer of an American serviceman go free after a short sentence. (and you know Germany only got involved in the first place to prevent his extradition to the US). Austria has nothing to do Tookie. Nothing. You guys know the right things to do in your hearts.
What Arnold was doing with Graz was saying "Keep your weak minded opinions to yourself". By all means - Austria should name the stadium after Tookie Williams. After all - this was a very important case with important ramificaitons for Austria. (Sarcasm). Do you know how funny that sounds over here? It sounds like common sense turned upside down. What common foundation should we have with people who treat cold blooded murderers as martyrs? Why the fascination with the US? Why the meddling?
I mean - seriously - how much outrage do these same losers show for Saddam, or Iran, or North Korea, or Sudan, or France for "Oil for food $" or ...etc. It is only anti-US grandstanding. Austria hasn't been important to us for 50 - 200 years - it isn't even important to Arnold anymore, and he was born there. This is not the US grandstanding against Austria.
To my knowlege POWs are standing solely under the legislation of their own country. The nation that has imprisoned them has no right to prosecute them. Therefore it would not be a problem to bring normal POWs into the US, since America would have absolutely no right to i.e. interrogate them anyway. (Hague Conventions of 1907 - the US is a member and the Third Geneva Convention (or GCIII) of 1929 signed by the US)
Now it is so that your gouvernment is argueing that imprisoned terrorists are no POWs, since they are no usual combatants. Their different prisoner status gives America much more possibilities compared to the status of the POWs, which are protected by the POW-conventions. I.e. it is possible to interrogate prisoners, to punish prisoners etc. etc.. Therefore they would be in the legal point of view usual prisoners if they would be held inside the US. In this case they would have the same rights like every other prisioner in America. As I have already said that this was -to my limited knowlege- one of the reasons to have this prisioner camp in Gitmo. BTW - this line of arguments of your gouvernment is highly disputed, because the Taliban i.e. had somehow a "real" millitary structure that is falling clearly under the named conventions.
Personally of course I see the necessity to imprison dangerous elements of all kinds. As I already said - I see you Americans as civilized people and I do not care if you do what has to be done in Gitmo or in Florida or elsewhere (if you want to do it in Europe you have to ask us first).
BTW - the recent discussion in the US about Gitmo and Abu Graib was and is followed closely in Europe. Even the most leftist elements are well informed about the outcomes (like the lawsuit of Lynnie England and her buddies). We know that federal America (which is responsible for millitary matters) is a constitutional state with a working judiciary.
I just showed you this Tookie Williams story to point out the completely different way of thinking between Europe and America. We do not have to discuss the rightfully desicion of your gouvernator. The simple thing is, that his former (or still - he has two citizenships to my knowlege) Austrian compatriots see him as a murderer, because he refused to stop a normal American judiciary process. The sad thing is, that they mean exactly what they are saying. Maybe this gives you a feeling how antithetic the values on both sides of the Atlantic are. These different attitudes are widely spread throughout whole Europe. It would have turned out to be the same for Arnie if he would have been born in London, Paris, Berlin or Brussels.
There was i.e. no possibility to do more on Hamadi for Germany than what has been done. Hamadi was longer behind bars than most other offenders (who convicted even much worser crimes than him). Since we have a law that no one can be extradited as a result of a crime he already "atoned" in Germany (unregarding the capital punishment issue), any German "help" would have been highly illegal. In a democratic country you have to obey the law or you turn yourself into a criminal very fast.
It is possible that Europe and America will loose each other since there is indeed no real foundation anymore. This is not only a problem between Germany and the US, this problem is between all western European nations and the US. If you come to the UK, your by far closest ally, you better not talk about your sympathy of your own administration for example. In the moment we have some reasonable politicians like Merkel, Sarkozy or Blair who try to ease the situation. This will not be that way forever. Since there are many issues were Europeans and Americans have totally different viewpoints that can't be by-passed, it would be helpful if we could find out what is connecting us. Both sides can't afford loosing their friends on the other shore. There are not only such fundamental interests like free trade, political stability or clear economic rules, we share our forefathers, our history and -guess what?- most of our values. Maybe we are mature enough to accept that some differences can make a friend even more interesting.
Warm up the B-17s.
It appears that not releasing the b@astard murderer would have been a violation of German law. Unfortunately, following the terrible Nazi experience, the Germans have been punctilious to a fault regarding legalities, abolished capital punishment, and typically, I believe, sentence murderers to ten years in prison. One such individual was an American from my hometown in Southern California, and he only received ten years for murdering a German taxi driver.
Calm down. We should be able to nail this guy without going insane. BTW, we should be encouraging Germans' friendship and not continue to bait them. They are definitely not our enemies, as much as some people want them to be.
Sheesh.
Okay, I'm glad of that. There are some other posters here who just love to hate the Germans. Some of them seem to live for it.
Perhaps not all. I do not think that Western Europe is nearly as monolithic in this as this statement presumes. But the current governments in Germany and France and Spain certainly seem to be.
I say this with sadness because I have the greatest respect for the civilization that gave us Goethe and Moliere and Cervantes, but I do not honestly believe that the rift is likely to be bridged. Western Europe has made its choice, and that is for comfort and senescence with an infuriating dollop of self-righteousness. I do not think it is widely appreciated in Europe how exquisitely disturbing this particular incident is - our media won't report it and European media certainly will not. And so it will fade in the public consciousness, and the rift will grow bit by bit silently, but it will grow.
I was not speaking about the gouvernments, I was speaking about the common people. Among them you have a extremely critic view upon America. In countries like Italy or the UK (which are seen as staunch allies of the US) is the vast majority of the public absolutely not satisfied with the foreign policy of their leaders. Their emotional distance towards America is even bigger than the one of the Germans. The "Spanish reaction" can happen everywhere.
The danger of a complete break-away is not unrealistic.
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