Pakistan

Afghanistan, al Qaeda, Debra Burlingame, detainees, European appeasers, Gitmo, Guantanamo, Pakistan

French Justice: Train with al-Qaeda, Get Out of Jail Free

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Please see this important piece by John Rosenthal, revealing the outrageous consequences of repatriating detainees to European appeasers:

Last Tuesday, a Parisian appeals court overturned the convictions of five former Guantanamo inmates who had been found guilty on terrorist conspiracy charges in 2007. The development should give pause to wonder not only about the wisdom of plans to transfer Guantanamo inmates to European countries (see my earlier New Majority piece here), but more fundamentally about the very idea of treating the “disposition” of Guantanamo inmates as an issue for civilian courts, whether in the US or abroad. The five French Gitmo detainees were repatriated to France in 2004 and 2005. They were tried and convicted on charges of belonging to a “criminal association formed for the purpose of undertaking a terrorist act.” The definition of this crime in French law is exceptionally broad. Not only does it permit what are, in effect, preventive detentions, but a suspect may be convicted by virtue of merely having had “regular contact” [relations habituelles] with one or more other persons who form part of such a terrorist enterprise.

The five former Gitmo detainees, however, did not merely have casual contact with members of a terror group. All five have admitted to receiving military training in Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. They were taken prisoner in the Afghan-Pakistani border region in late 2001, while fleeing the Battle of Tora-Bora. The five men — Brahim Yadel, Mourad Benchellali, Nizar Sassi, Redouane Khalid, and Khaled ben Mustafa — have provided various far-fetched alibis that are supposed to explain how they could have found themselves training in Qaeda camps, but still somehow not be implicated in Qaeda’s wars. Undoubtedly, the most amusingly incongruous of these alibis comes to us by way of none other than the New York Times, which in June 2006 published an “op-ed” signed by Mourad Benchellali. In the article, Benchellali claims that he left France for Afghanistan in early summer 2001 to go on a “dream vacation.”

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Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Taliban

President Obama extends a hand towards many clenched fists

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I note that many editorials in newspapers this morning quote from or allude to one paragraph of President Barack Obama’s inaugural speech:

“To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West: Know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” [emphasis added mine]

President Obama intentionally lumped together “the Muslim world” with “leaders … who seek to sow conflict” and “the silencing of dissent.” Editors and commentators believing that he can convince the 57 Muslim nations to become less autocratic seems the epitome of naiveté; within them, secular democracy is the wrong side of history, immodest, and threatening.

Pakistan, Lebanon, Indonesia, and Egypt all allow dissent and Islamic radicalism continues to rise in those nations. There are no signs that dissidents here in America mistakenly believe he was redressing petro-rich Arab nations for using vasts sums to support the spread of sharia law. If he was appealing to dissidents in Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush and Pakistan’s tribal areas, they have already replied:

The Taliban on Tuesday killed four Pakistanis and two Afghan nationals they accused of spying for the US in North Waziristan. The bodies of three Pakistanis – Muhammad Nisar, Shahideen Khattak, Shadar – and Khanu Afghani, an Afghan refugee, were found on Tehsil Road, 25 kilometres from Mir Ali. Meanwhile, the bodies of Gul Zali, an Afghan national, and Majeed Khattak, a local, were found in Miranshah. A not [sic] found next to the bodies read that the bodies were “a gift for US President Barack Obama, Afghan President Karzai and President Asif Ali Zardari”.

Most likely, President Obama was offering his hand — with preconditions — to Iran and Syria where gathering radicals together and exporting them in the form of Islamic terrorism is foreign policy. If he unilaterally removes the military option from the table, it will be interesting to see how those nations respond.