Thank you for the ping MamaDearest.
Here we go folks......
Lawyer has terror-case track record
The lawyer appointed to represent the man accused of attempting to bomb Northwest Flight 253 had prior success helping to defend an alleged terrorist.
Miriam Siefer, the chief public defender in Detroit, also has handled cases involving disturbances on other Northwest flights, including one in which a man pleaded guilty after illegally transporting ammunition and saying he was traveling overseas to kill Osama bin Laden.
Defense lawyers with experience in terrorism-related cases say Ms. Siefer's latest job -- representing 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was charged with trying to blow up a Christmas Day flight to Detroit -- will be difficult, in part because of his alleged statements after the incident. Among other things, passengers have said Mr. Abdulmutallab told them he had an "explosive device" after passengers and crew put out a fire that had started in his lap. He also allegedly told investigators he had affiliations with al Qaeda operatives in Yemen, who gave him the device and detonation instructions to blow up the plane.
If we don't profile, we're nuts!
Snips: But no, owing to politically correct folderol that falls little short of criminal negligence and nothing short of outright stupidity, profiling is viewed as, oh, so, you know, unfair and, my goodness, discriminatory, and, well, what are dozens of bodies blown to pieces next to those concerns?
It's absolutely nuts not to profile – which is to say, pay special attention to people with certain characteristics – because we know that most terrorists having at Americans are young men of jihadist stripe often coming from certain parts of the world. Focus on these people as they board planes, and if something is out of line, there's a good chance you'll find it.
The anti-profilers also tell you that profiling will somehow make you miss the terrorist who does not fit the bill, such as the 80-year-old great grandmother from Peoria who does militia training on weekends. Well, no it won't. Paying special attention to some does not mean you will pay no attention to others. But because intensive searches of everyone are impractical, we should play the odds by figuring young men are more likely to be terrorists than old women. We will save more lives that way.
Saving lives is what it's about, of course, and that's what the Army failed to do in the case of Maj. Nidal Malik Hassan, who announced his jihadist fanaticism to just about anyone who would listen but was apparently left alone because officials thought it would be unseemly to kick a Muslim out of the Army. He shot 13 people to death at Fort Hood. Political correctness can be deadly.
Even taking into consideration the failings of the CIA, the Department of State, and the Department of Homeland Security, some of this is President Obama’s fault. He has guaranteed that we will get far less intelligence from this terrorist than we would have under the Bush administration. Because the highly successful Clinton law-enforcement model has been reintroduced to the War on Terror, no sooner was the fire in Abdulmutallab’s pants out than he was read his Miranda rights and provided with a taxpayer-financed public defender. Under the terrible ancien regime, when the world hated us, and the terrorists were inspired to attack us because Guantanamo was not listed in Fodor’s Guide (except, gosh, they seem not to have gotten the memo because they persist in attacking), Abdulmutallab would have been hustled down to Guantanamo to be interrogated. Yes, interrogated. Not tortured. Not waterboarded (that happened to only three detainees), but interrogated about his contacts, his experiences in Yemen, his explosives training, and so forth. If he wanted better treatment — dessert, videos, music — he could purchase these with cooperation.
Not now. His lawyer, Miriam Siefer (who has represented terrorists before) will advise him to stay silent. We will learn nothing of other plots Abdulmutallab might have provided leads to, and nothing of the whereabouts of his supposed mentor, American-born Yemen resident Anwar al-Awlaki — the imam who also incited the Fort Hood killer, had contact with two of the September 11 terrorists, and who has been described by Al-Arabiya as “the bin Laden of the Internet.”
Speaking of Yemen, in the mad scramble to close Guantanamo by Obama’s self-imposed deadline, just this month the administration released six detainees to . . . Yemen, with the promise of 34 more to come. Well, didn’t the Bush administration release two Yemenis to Saudi Arabia who later moved to Yemen and continued jihad? Answer: Yes. Here’s another question: Why didn’t the Obama administration study that failure?
And here’s one more question: How does an overgrand, overreaching, would-be messiah learn the humility to at least put first things first?