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Today's
Stories
March 27 / 28, 2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
A Journey to Rafah
March 26, 2004
Christopher Brauchli
There's
a Chill Over the Country
Robert Fisk
The Man Who Knew Too Much: the Ordeal
of Mordechai Vanunu
Joe DeRaymond
Democracy in El Salvador? Think Again
Mike Whitney
Lessons on Apartheid from Ariel Sharon
Mickey Z.
Somalia and Iraq: Looking Back and Ahead
Chris Floyd
The Pentagon Archipelago
CounterPunch Photo Wire
Cheney's Close Shave?
John Breneman
Bush's Comic Bomb
Website of the Day
Dick
is a Killer
March 25, 2004
Lee Sustar
Who
is to Blame for Lost Jobs?
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Offshore Banking Centers
Roger Burbach
Lula vs. the IMF: Brazil Begins
to Throw Off the Austerity Planners
Jimmer Endres
Elections Without Politics: The Military Budget Is Not an "Issue"
Larry Tuttle
Acting in Your Name: Identity Theft and Public Interest Groups
Toni Solo
Misreporting Venezuela
Dan Bacher
A Memorial Wall for Iraq War's Dead and Wounded
Saul Landau
Is
Venezuela Next?
Website of the Day
The Spiral Railway
March 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
General
Musharraf's IOU
Richard Oxman
Shakespeare
for Kerry
William Lind
The Beginning
of Phase Three: 4G Warfare Hits Iraq
Rep. Ron Paul
Iraq One Year Later
Michael Dempsey
Killing Rachel Corrie Again
Alan Farago
The Bad Math of Mercury: Bush's War on the Unborn
Benjamin Dangl
and April Howard
Media
in Cuba
John L. Hess
No Lie Left Behind: Judy Miller Does Dick Clarke
Greg Weiher
Two Cheers for Dems: "We're Not as Bad as George"
Eva Golinger
An Open Letter to John Kerry on Venezuela
Grayson Childs
Where's Cynthia McKinney?
Steve Niva
Israel's Assassinations will Only
Fuel More Suicide Bombings
Website of the Day
The Bushiad and the Idiossey
March 23, 2004
Phillip Cryan
The
Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's National Parks
Ron Jacobs
They Shoot Men in Wheelchairs, Too?
Dave Lindorff
A Spanish Parallel: Scare Tactics and Elections
Mike Whitney
Richard Clarke and Teflon George
Brian McKinlay
Bush's Lil' Buddy in Trouble: John Howard Starts to Wobble
JG
Driving Mr. Koon: "Jim Crow Lives Next Door"
Phyllis Pollack
Gettin' Jigga with Metallica: the Battle Over the Double Black
CD
Ahmed Bouzid
Sharon's One-Way Track
Sean Carter
The G-Word Goes to Court: One Nation Under [Your Logo Here]
M. Shahid Alam
World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie
March 22, 2004
Mazin Qumsiyeh
On Extrajudicial
Executions
Uri Avnery
The
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon's Rampage
Mike Whitney
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee
Jason Leopold
Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy
Scam
Greg Moses
Stop
Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March
Phil Gasper
San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation
Lenni Brenner
Report
from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace
Julian Borger
The Clarke Revelations
Steve Perry
Karl Rove's Moment
Website of the Day
Enviros Against War
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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Weekend
Edition
March 27 / 28, 2004
Is Playing Paintball Terrorism?
Three
Convictions Reveal Official Discrimination Against Muslim Americans
By ELAINE CASSEL
On March 5, in federal district court in Alexandria,
Virginia, Judge Leonie Brinkema delivered her verdict in the
case of three American citizens -- Masoud Khan, 32, Seifullah
Chapman, 31, and Hammad Abdur-Raheem, 35 -- who were charged
with participating in a conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism.
(The three had waived their right to a jury trial.)
Brinkema found the three men guilty.
As a result of the finding of being labeled "terrorists,"
the men now face prison terms of fifty to one hundred years.
Yet plainly, these men are no terrorists,
as I will explain below. Instead, defense attorneys have made
a convincing case that the men were indicted and convicted primarily
because they are Muslims.
Even the Government
Did Not Initially See This as a Terrorism Case
You need not take my word for the fact
that these men weren't terrorists. Take the government's word,
instead.
According to a report in a June 28, 2003
Washington Post article, Michael E. Rolince, in charge of the
Washington FBI field office, conceded that the government had
no evidence of specific plots against U.S. targets at home or
abroad. "A lot of this is about preemption," he said.
A lot? How about the entire case? And
since when is "preemptive" prosecution constitutional?
Apparently, when you are a Muslim in post-September 11-America.
The government did not initially charge
these men with terrorism. Instead, the government charged the
three men, along with eight others, with conspiracy to violate
the Neutrality Acts -- obscure, longstanding, yet rarely-enforced
laws that make it a crime for Americans to attack countries with
which the United States itself is at peace.
The basis for these charges was that
all eleven men were, in the past, supporters of Lashkar-i-Taiba
-- an Islamic group that would like to oust India from Kashmir,
and that has been accused by India of mass killings of Sikhs,
and of partial responsibility for a December 2001 attack on India's
Parliament.
In late 2001, the U.S. declared Lashkar-i-Taiba
a terrorist organization. However, at the time the eleven men
were alleged to have plotted to support the group, the organization
was not yet on the list.
Nor did the men "attack" anyone,
or any country -- as the Neutrality Act requires. Instead, prosecutors
alleged that they played paintball, and fired legally owned firearms
in the Virginia countryside, in order to prepare to someday help
Lashkar-i-Taiba if necessary. (Two of the men also admitted to
being in a training camp in Pakistan, and one of said he helped
to recruit others to join in support of Lashkar-i-Taiba. But
again, these activities preceded Lashkar-i-Taiba's designation
as a terrorist organization.)
Prosecutors called these activities "paramilitary
training" and "preparation for violent jihad"
-- although both playing paintball and firing a gun are perfectly
legal in Virginia.
To shoehorn these facts into a Neutrality
Act prosecution, the prosecution also had to insinuate that this
"training," alone, was in effect an attack on India.
Indeed, the government's whole case was based on speculation
that these men might someday go to fight on the side of Pakistan
-- ironically, an American ally. That's a far cry from actually
going right now to fight for a U.S. foe -- the kind of conduct
the Neutrality Act seeks to punish.
Plainly, the Neutrality Act charges were
not strong. After all, the Neutrality Act generally allows prosecutions
of Americans who go to war to fight against American allies --
not Virginians who play paintball and politics in their own backyards,
imagining they may someday aid a political organization they
support.
The Terrorism Charges
Were a Coercive Plea Bargaining Tactic
Perhaps realizing the weakness of the
Neutrality Act charges, the government offered three-to-eleven-year
sentences to the 11 men, if they would plead guilty. Of course,
these are hardly the harsh sentence we would expect the Bush
Administration to mete out to true terrorists.
Unsurprisingly, four of the 11 pled guilty
early on. Even innocent persons may rationally choose a three-year
prison term over the chance of a 50-year sentence. And Muslims,
after September 11, may have seen a 50-year sentence as a certainty.
The remaining seven men were then the
subjects of superseding indictments in which new charges of conspiracy
to aid and abet terrorism were added. And this was not terrorism
by Lashkar-i-Taiba, but terrorism by the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Such charges, of course, made it even
less likely that the seven men could receive a fair trial --
especially in the conservative Eastern District of Virginia.
So, not surprisingly, two more men -- including the two who actually
went to the training camp -- pled guilty shortly after the superseding
indictments were handed down. For their cooperation, they too
received promises of sentences of 3 to 11 years.
That left five men. Charges against two
were completely dropped. Three insisted on going to trial --
the three that were just convicted by Judge Brinkema.
Why did these three Americans insist
on going to trial? My guess is that they were innocent. Why else
would they fight what they knew to be an uphill battle, at great
risk, rather than accept a few-year plea bargain, as others in
a similar situation had done?
Discriminatory Prosecutions
Consider the following hypotheticals:
Would Irish Americans who played paintball and played with guns
in order to support the IRA have been similarly treated?
What about Jewish Americans who played
paintball and engaged in target practice to train to support
the Israeli army's actions in the Palestinian territories?
And even if these Irish and Jewish Americans
were charged, would anyone possibly suggest that they were terrorists
who might someday attack the United States as well?
Judge Brinkema suggested exactly this
with respect to the three Muslim American defendants. She said
she believed that those convicted might someday take up arms
against the United States.
Yet the defendants' only proven animosity--if
any -- was toward India, over its actions in Kashmir. There was
no evidence to support the claim that they had any political
animosity toward the U.S. -- let alone that they would ever violently
attack their own country.
A Prejudiced Verdict? Using Religious
Belief As a Sword Against Defendants.
The evidence against the three men came
from three basic sources, all of which are troubling.
One source was the testimony of their
co-defendants who had pled guilty in exchange for light sentences,
based on their willingness to give this very testimony. Again,
these co-defendants had been under tremendous pressure to take
these plea bargains, regardless of their own guilt or innocence
-- and to testify in support of the government, regardless of
the guilt or innocence of the men they were testifying against.
Can testimony be truly credible when it is given in exchange
for freedom?
Another source was the three men's political
beliefs: They thought India ought to get out of Kashmir, and
said as much. But of course, that was their right, as Americans
protected by the First Amendment's free speech clause.
Another source was the three men's place
of worship. They attended a Virginia mosque in which the Kashmir
issue was discussed, and India's actions criticized. But of course,
that was their right, as Americans protected by the First Amendment's
free exercise clause.
Three tainted sources of evidence led
to three convictions.
Obviously, the government does not --
and cannot -- prosecute every supporter of a cause of which it
does not approve. But Muslims today are easy targets. The evidence
suggests that these prosecutions and convictions were motivated
by discrimination and a desire to send a message to Muslims,
not out of concern for national security or justice.
The evidence also suggests that the three
men who exercised their right to a trial will serve long prison
terms--what in effect will be life sentences--not for their actions,
but rather for their insistence on exercising that constitutional
rights.
The prosecutorial strategy of "Plead
guilty or be labeled a terrorist" is coercive, and wrong
for our government to employ in any case, terrorism or no terrorism.
Elaine Cassel
practices law in Virginia and the District of Columbia, teachers
law and psychology, and follows the Bush regime's dismantling
of the Constitution at Civil
Liberties Watch. Her book, The War on Civil Liberties: How
Bush and Ashcroft Have Dismantled the Bill of Rights, will be
published by Lawrence Hill this summer. She can be reached at:
ecassel1@cox.net
Weekend
Edition Features for March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
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