The defiant words that a former third-grade teacher spat at a judge in Alexandria, Va., in April are more poignant now that sources in the Indian and U.S. governments are saying they believe Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), a Pakistan-based terrorist group, was behind the mass murder in Mumbai, India, last week. What government was supposed to be intimidated by my actions? Ali Asad Chandia asked U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton at the April hearing where the judge reconfirmed Chandias 15-year prison sentence, according to The Associated Press. Do you think the government of India will feel intimidated by a few boxes of paintballs?
Chandia taught at an Islamic school in the Maryland suburbs before being convicted in 2006 of providing material support to terrorists. In a Jan. 23, 2008, opinion affirming Chandias conviction but remanding his sentence to the district court for reconsideration, Judge Blane Michael of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit summarized the governments case against the schoolteacher.
Specifically, the government alleged that (LET official) Ajmal Khan traveled to the United States to secure high-tech equipment and other materials for LET and that Chandia provided material support to Ajmal Khan during his trips, wrote Michael. The alleged material support included picking up Ajmal Khan at the airport, providing him access to a computer and e-mail at Chandias residence, and assisting him in shipping paintballs to Pakistan for LET use in military training operations. How many paintballs? Chandia was found guilty of ... helping Khan ship 50,000 paintball pellets from the U.S. to Pakistan, reported The Associated Press.
Others who (like Chandia) attended the now-closed Dar al Arqam Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va.which is about 11 miles from the U.S. Capitoldid more than ship paintballs. Judge Allyson Duncan of the Fourth Circuit explained their activities in a Sept. 1, 2006, opinion affirming the convictions of Masoud Khan, Seifullah Chapman and Hammad Abdur-Raheem on terrorism-related conspiracy charges.
Khan, Chapman and Hammad attended the Dar al Arqam Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., where Ali Timimi, a primary lecturer, spoke of the necessity to engage in violent jihad against the enemies of Islam and the end of time battle between Muslims and non-Muslims, wrote Duncan. Several of the attendees, including Chapman and Hammad, organized a group to engage in activities in preparation for jihad. In the spring of 2000, members of the group began simulating combat through paintball exercises and practices at firing ranges, the judge wrote.
How did this tie-in to LET and India? Members of the group had ties to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the military wing of a Pakistani organization initially founded to conduct jihad against Russians in Afghanistan, said Duncan. One member of the paintball group, Mr. Hamdi, openly discussed wanting to go to fight in Kashmir and ultimately die as a martyr in combat. Hamdi traveled to Pakistan in August 2000 and was admitted to the LET camps, wrote the judge. While there, he fired on Indian positions in Kashmir. Upon his return, he rejoined the paintball group and informed the others about LETs mission to destroy India, Israel and the United States.
In the summer of 2001, Chapman traveled to LET camps in Pakistan. Then came the attacks of Sept. 11. That night, Timimi argued that the attacks should not be condemned, wrote the judge. He was thereafter not invited to lecture at Dar al Arqam, and tapes of his speeches were destroyed. However, on Sept. 16, 2001, Timimi met with the paintball group, including Khan and Hammad, at a members house. Timimi said that the Sept. 11 attacks were justified and that it was the obligatory religious duty of those present to defend the Taliban against the American troops that were expected to invade Afghanistan in pursuit of al-Qaida. The discussion focused on training at the LET camps as necessary preparation to fight with the Taliban against the United States. Several of the members, including Khan, expressed their intent to train at the LET camps and to fight in Afghanistan after their training was complete. For purposes of their travel, they agreed that Khan would be their emir, or leader.
Khan then traveled to Pakistan, where he trained at LET camps for about six weeks, according to Duncan. The evidence reflects that LET broadly disseminated its goals for the destruction of India, America and Israel on its Website and elsewhere, she said.
In upholding Chapmans conviction for conspiracy to violate the Neutrality Act by aiding military action against a nation with whom the United States was at peace, Duncan wrote: The record contains evidence that Chapman continued to provide support to two members of the group who expressly acknowledged going to Pakistan and firing on Indian troops while there. Sufficient evidence, therefore, supports the district courts findings and, accordingly, the conspiracy conviction.
Jihadists allied with LET trained in the suburbs of our capital city. The outgoing administration deserves credit for the vigilance it showed in catching and convicting them. Will the incoming administration show equal vigilance?
#1
One of the big appeals to many of socialism is the perception of risk avoidance, that's why when people get comfy they forget they got there by a natural process of social dynamics. By removing the dynamic to preserve what you got, you end up at various measures that result in stagnation and eventually decline. You then throw ever growing and consuming bureaucracy and its rules and regulations at the prospect of the decline only to feed the monster and not stave it off. So we all go down rather than just those elements within the society which are losing the evolutionary adaption game.
Having such a booming economy with more and more safety nets has made Americans not risk averse, but consequences averse. The time of economic bubbles bursting with little or no consequences led to the current disaster. There was no risk because there would be no consequences no matter how big the flop.
We'll see if this flop was big enough to re-introduce the concept. If it is than that staticists will take over with the bureaucratic monster stomping in to avert risk with the economic version of the precautionary principle.
This is all just another perspective on the kind of problem we have with civil rights. There are no rights without responsibilities and duties. So, you get gov't to regulate away responsibility and your rights go with it.
#3
"Frontier spirit" > And now you know, Virginia -again - why that guy from Guam favored and argued for Hollyweird to make J. F. Cooper's
"Leatherstocking Tales" [e.g. LAST OF THE MOHICANS], and other, into Trilogy Movies = Serials.
NOTHING SAYS "FRONTIER SPIRIT" LIKE COOPER'S
"NOBLE SAVAGE" INDIANS, ACORN-EATING DANIEL BOONES = HUNTER-SCOUTS, + MILYUHNS AND ZILYUHNS OF "INJUN VERSUS INJUN", INJUN VERSUS SETTLER", "SETTLER VERSUS ARMY/GOVT", "BRITS VERSUS FRENCH VERSUS EUROS", ETC, EARLY AMER WARS + CONSPIRACIES + MASSAKREEES IN RIGHTEOUS, GOD-HELL FEARING, INDIGNATION.
* A YOUNG JOHN WAYNE in "THE SCOUT" > "WE GOTTA SUFFER, WE CAN'T GIVE UP ... BECUZ WE'RE TRYING TO BUILD A NATION/COUNTRY"!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
