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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Flight 1549, Sully Sullenberger

Flight 1549 rolls to Teterboro Airport

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U.S. Airways Flight 1549 was made famous when it was fabulously landed in the Hudson River by its crew, Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, co-pilot Jeffrey B. Skiles and flight attendants Doreen Walsh, Sheila Dail, and Donna Dent. Late in the afternoon of February 28 it was towed from the river to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.

Yesterday afternoon, Anthony Quintano was alerted by a friend that U.S. Airways Flight 1549 was being towed down New Jersey’s Route 46 towards Teterboro Airport where it will be examined in detail. He grabbed his “Canon 5d Mark II and drove down to the corner and managed to just catch the plane passing us.” Here is the 47-second video:


In addition, the co-founder, Dean Thompson, of the 9/11 Flight Crew Memorial passed on eleven great photos of Flight 1549 being towed through narrow city streets in New Jersey as the sun set. Click on the photo below to see the photos and slide show.