2 More Americans Arrested In Pakistan..Al Qaeda Related

I think the reason they are holding him is because this dirty bomb plot is much bigger than we know. Remember, Zubidah gave Padilla up. It was also Zubidah who warned of a Fourth of July plot. In addition to discussing the dirty bomb plot they also were planning to bomb hotel rooms and gas stations which means there are multiple operatives in the picture. Knowing how these people operate, one would have to assume there are more Padillas here waiting to pull of another syncronized, multi-targeted attack. I think they are holding him to get information on other operatives so they can avert another attack during our Independence week. The dirty bomb plot involved DC -- and NY has been on high alert, they've already begun disbursing iodide pills and has anyone seen or heard from Cheney lately? When he goes off to his undisclosed location I tend to worry. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we go to code orange in July.

"Badmouthing Bush? Who's badmouthing Bush? "

What the f!'s wrong with you? This is the second message in a row you sent me thinking that I'm talking about you. Take a break, get some rest!

I know, listen to some Carlie Simmon. You know the one, "You're so vain, I bet you think this song is about you…"

What the f!'s wrong with you? This is the second message in a row you sent me thinking that I'm talking about you.

I see enough of my commentary matching the commentary of those who you criticize. Therefore, I am responding to the general charges you levy.

"I see enough of my commentary matching the commentary of those who you criticize. Therefore, I am responding to the general charges you levy."

The words that I used that caught your attention, were a shorthand of claims made in the post which I was responding. Feel free to go to work on anything in the last 2 comments that I copied to you.

The problem is that we are at war
In the 1940's example, there were two important distinctions: 1) The citizen was NATURALIZED, not born here. 2) They charged him with a crime.

In this case, the citizen was born here and they are not charging him with a crime, maybe ever. Just holding him in jail.

Should I infer from this response that there is no difference in your mind between a criminal and an enemy except an enemy can only be a citizen of some other nation? And a citizen of this nation is always to be considered a criminal, never an enemy?

Seems more serious than people are thinking it is. A few days AFTER the following report came out, Bush announced Padilla's transfer to the custody fo the military, and this was only the most recent of cases of such materials being peddled or sought :

JUNE 2002 : European investigators are looking for a German national suspected of trying to buy radioactive material in Lithuania, which they fear may have been sold to terrorists wanting to make an unsophisticated "dirty" nuclear bomb. Six Lithuanian nationals were arrested in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, in a raid on Thursday, during which a large amount of the radioac tive metal, caesium-137, was confiscated. The caesium-137 was obtained by the Lithuanian suspects, unemployed men in their 30s, from another unspecified country in the former Soviet Union. They took the metal, weighing a kilogram, to the Lithuanian Institute of Physics in Vilnius, to have its value and content verified. A sale to a German national, believed to have connections with organised crime, was then arranged. But shortly after the visit to the institute, the police became aware of the plot, and arrested the six Lithuanians, who were known to them as traders in illegal metal. The German national fled. Investigators think he wanted to sell the metal, valued at $125,000 (£90,000), on the western black market. They doubt that the kilogram of metal is pure caesium-137; that much radioactive material would need to be kept in protective casing. "There are now close contacts between German and Lithuanian organised criminals," a Vilnius police spokeswoman said. 'This is the first time we have found such metals on sale here. This sort of metal is sold on the black market mostly for weapons, and we presume it came from Russia or Belarus.'"This is the same metal that Chechen rebels left in Izmailovo park in Moscow in 1996 to prove they could detonate a dirty bomb if they wanted to," said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Authority. The Moscow device was a deadly mixture of caesium-137, one of the by-products of nuclear fission, strapped to sticks of dynamite. In the past eight years, there are reported to have been 175 instances in which radioactive materials suitable for a dirty bomb have been smuggled out of the former Soviet Union. Bin Laden operatives reportedly also tried to buy enriched uranium in South Africa in 1993. But black market activity has not been limited to dirty bomb materials. In July last year, police in Paris, arrested three men and confiscated several grams of highly enriched uranium, a key component in a nuclear bomb. Six arrested, one sought in radioactive 'dirty bomb' plot by Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow, Guardian, UK 6/01/02