(2)US indicts 14 people for supporting Shabaab
Just one day after a Chicago man was arrested for attempting to travel to Somalia to assist the al Qaeda-aligned terror group Shabaab, the FBI has unsealed four indictments announcing arrests and charges against more than a dozen Somali-Americans for raising funds for the group.
Among those arrested are two women, Amina Farah and Hawo Mohamed Hassan, naturalized citizens who are accused by federal prosecutors of door-to-door soliciting on behalf of Shabaab under the guise of "giving the funds to the poor and needy." At least a dozen other persons in Minnesota, Alabama, and California are charged with helping facilitate the transfer of funds to Somali-based conspirators or are fighting in Somalia alongside the terror group
From the Attorney General's press conference:
An indictment was unsealed in Minnesota charging 10 men with terrorism offenses for leaving the United States to join al-Shabaab as foreign fighters. Seven of these defendants had been previously charged by either indictment or criminal complaint. The remaining three defendants had not been charged before.In the District of Minnesota alone, a total of 19 defendants have been charged in connection with this investigation. Nine of these defendants have been arrested in the United States or overseas, five of whom pleaded guilty. Ten of the charged defendants are not in custody and are believed to be overseas.
Additionally, two U.S. citizens and former residents of Alabama and California -- Omar Shafik Hammami and Jehad Serwan Mostafa, have been charged in separate cases with providing material support to al-Shabaab. Both are believed to be in Somalia and fighting on behalf of al-Shabaab.
Shabaab recently took credit for the attacks in Uganda that killed 74 civilians, displaying its ability to execute potential attacks outside its Somali base. Shabaab has been on the federal authorities' radar since the disappearance of more than a dozen Somali-American youths from Minneapolis who traveled to Somalia to fight with the terrorist group; notably, a majority of those recently arrested are from Minneapolis.
Omar Hammami, a young Alabama native, is certainly the most troubling name on the indictment list for federal authorities. Since joining Shabaab in Somalia several years ago, Hammami has starred in recruitment videos aimed at luring Americans to take up arms in Somalia, and has worked his way up to the position of military commander within the group.
READER COMMENTS: "US indicts 14 people for supporting Shabaab"
Posted by DANNY at August 6, 2010 10:31 PM ET:
At first glance of this headline I thought the ACLU was finally getting their just due. lol
Posted by Neo at August 7, 2010 10:23 PM ET:
Danny said: "At first glance of this headline I thought the ACLU was finally getting their just due. Lol"
It isn't the fact that the ACLU defends these folks that bothers me. Someone has to do it. It's the fact that the ACLU uses these cases as a continuous legal bombardment for the purpose of promoting their own legal agenda.
The ACLU has reached a new low on the slippery slope they have been descending the last three decades. Two generations ago the ACLU was a positive force, defending the political rights of minorities and dissidents who wanted equality under the law and fair representation within the system. The ACLU are now defending people whose expressed political purpose is purging all forms of secular law and secular society. The logical and moral structure that the ACLU built itself upon, is considered a godless abomination by the very extremists they represent. Talk about a marriage of polar opposites.
The question in this becomes, what does the ACLU see in these Jihadi's? I realize the simplest answer is, they need to be vigorously defended, and that military tribunals have not adequately provided for them means to defend themselves. In that, the ACLU has a point. The military tribunal system never got its act together and never fleshed out its procedures. A big part of the problem stems from the fact that the US military tribunal system is temporary and acts in an largely ad hoc basis at time of military conflict. Making things worse the Bush administration tended to run interference rather than get their ducks in order. The ACLU for it's part had a vested interest in having things run amok. The ensuing legal chaos opened up opportunities for challenge.
Enter the ACLU with its agenda. For starters the ACLU thinks that the very idea of military tribunals is inherently extra-constitutional. They don't agree that we are formally at war in Afghanistan because congress has made no formal declaration. They argue that the executive branch's duties, under the constitution, to military action only extends to very limited immediate and proportionate defense. They don't believe a war in Afghanistan or against Al Qaeda has any real legal standing. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are technically civilian, because they are neither part of a formal army or government. One can go on-and-on outlining the huge legal rift between what the ACLU thinks should be constitutional practice and historical constitutional precedent.
The central irony of this is, the ACLU sees itself as the vanguard of post-modern enlightened legal thought. The Jihadi's on the other hand are the vanguard of the most violent form of pre-enlightenment rejectionism. Yet the two will bed with each other, if only uncomfortably under the age old principle of my enemies enemy, is my friend. The ACLU sees nothing in radical Islam. In fact, the ACLU are purposefully blind to the motives of their clients. To the ACLU the Muslim extremists represent a series of legal challenges to current law and the political establishment, nothing more. These cases present a series of opportunities to make legal precedent in the furtherance of what they see as greater political good. In the mean time whatever havoc these Muslim extremists bring is unfortunate collateral damage that must be suffered, while more important issues of legal and moral clarity are slowly pursued through the legal system. It's not that the ACLU doesn't care. We must understand that they working the higher moral and intellectual plane of logical positivism. The details of grubby little wars and daily politics, disgust them.
I've gone on too long, but one last point. It's obvious that the ACLU doesn't take extremist Muslim rhetoric at face value. They tend to put it into terms they can themselves relate to and redefine. That is to redefine it in terms of cultural identity politics coupled with bad American foreign policy. Don't you fret, if only we give the Muslim fundamentalists their rights along with some understanding, than eventually everything will turn out fine.
Now, if it were the Inquisition blowing up non-believers left and right, the ACLU would be absolutely for killing every last one of them immediately. Those guys are already on the "Big Historical List O' Mortal Enemies".