Blowing up a Mall Near You.

[sleuth]

Different portraits emerge of man accused in Ohio mall bombing plot
Tuesday, June 15, 2004 Posted: 2:49 PM EDT (1849 GMT)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Like thousands of fellow Somalis who had left behind brutal clan warfare, Nuradin Abdi decided this Midwestern city was an agreeable place to raise a family and start a small business, friends and family say.

The government, however, says that just months after Abdi was granted asylum, he was plotting to blow up one of the city's shopping malls, exactly the type of target some feared would be next on terrorists' lists.

linkage: http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/06/15/shopping.mall.plot.ap/

Get your thoughts in. Guilty or innocent?

This hits home for me. With family and friends in the midwest... Indianapolis (just one city down the interstate), Terre Haute, and St. Louis, kinda makes me shudder.

 

[vraiblonde]

But the portrait painted of Abdi by the government is in sharp contrast to the one offered by his family, who insist he is innocent and describe a man who hated terrorists.

"Mah boah dint do nuttin! He's a GOOT boah!"

Contrary to what the liberal nutties think, the FBI doesn't just go round up innocent citizens without any evidence of wrongdoing.

Put me down for "guilty as hell".

 

[dems4me]

[Put me down for "guilty as hell". [/B][/QUOTE]


Dear Vria

I agree
Look - we have agreed on something today


Love ya, Chumley

 

[soul4sale]

Originally posted by vraiblonde
Contrary to what the liberal nutties think, the FBI doesn't just go round up innocent citizens without any evidence of wrongdoing.

Put me down for "guilty as hell".

Put me down for "prove it." I feel like being contrary...or constitutuional, take your pick. I'm going to take this with a grain of salt for two reasons:

1. This is happening in white bread Terre Haute (my wife's family is from there; I do know what I'm talking about), not NoVA or SoCal. Only white people live in Terre Haute, so it stands to reason that any Arab that moves there HAS to be a terrorist, right?

2. This is all too familiar. Asscroft likes to throw huge, terrible-sounding announcements out just as he's about to have his rump handed to him by the press. Anyone remember Jose Padilla? Yeah, he was the DIRTY BOMBER. Made great headlines...and a lousey case, so The Croft just locked him in a military brig incommunicado, even though he's a US citizen. Real nazi stuff this, as Paul Krugman rather shrilly noted today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/15/opinion/15KRUG.html

This sounds too good to be true, and it's timed too well. Happened to pop up just as the WaPo got its mits on that creepy torture memo...

BTW, vrai, your opinion of the FBI is awful high for a self-styled conservative. I thought libertarians like ourselves weren't supposed to like big, bumbling federal agencies.

 

[sleuth]

Originally posted by soul4sale
Put me down for "prove it." I feel like being contrary...or constitutuional, take your pick. I'm going to take this with a grain of salt for two reasons:

1. This is happening in white bread Terre Haute (my wife's family is from there; I do know what I'm talking about), not NoVA or SoCal. Only white people live in Terre Haute, so it stands to reason that any Arab that moves there HAS to be a terrorist, right?

Stop right there Gomer. First off, this is happening in Columbus, Ohio, which is about 300 miles from Terre Haute, so maybe you ought to read the article a little more closely.

Second, I (not my friend of my sister's boyfriend's nephew's kids) am from Terre Haute ... the home of Coca Cola, the Crossroads of America, the Land of High Ground... and you've got it all wrong. There are 5 universities and Terre Haute is one of the largest cities in Indiana. Like any small city in America, Terre Haute has its problems, but you apparently don't understand the racial makeup of the place. Terre Haute is home to people of all creeds, and while it is predominately white, there are thousands of black and hispanic Americans that make up the population. And like any place where many races mix, there is discrimination and prejudice in some pockets of the city, too. Even still people from all areas in the world live in Terre Haute in relative peace and quiet.

So before you go taking a crap on a whole town's heritage and history, maybe you oughta spend a little time there, like the 24 years that I have.

 

[vraiblonde]

Originally posted by soul4sale
BTW, vrai, your opinion of the FBI is awful high for a self-styled conservative. I thought libertarians like ourselves weren't supposed to like big, bumbling federal agencies.

I love the FBI and the CIA - mostly when they're arresting and torturing criminals.

And I'm not a Libertarian - I don't believe in drug legalization, except in the case of lethal injection.

About Jose Padilla: The NYT is a liberal nutball paper and their editors should be executed for treason. Jose Padilla is guilty as sin and everyone knows it. Somehow, some nutties have decided that terrorists must actually commit a crime, not just be involved in one or planning one, before you can take them into custody. Of course we all know that by the time they take out a building and kill a bunch of people, it's too late. I'm totally into terrorism prevention, and if it means holding some dirtbag in a jail cell while the lawyers make a case, so be it.

 

[czygvtwkr]

Ever been to Colombus OH? Im white and I felt like a minority there. Dipshit.

 

[soul4sale]

Originally posted by sleuth
Stop right there Gomer. First off, this is happening in Columbus, Ohio, which is about 300 miles from Terre Haute, so maybe you ought to read the article a little more closely.

Touche. It all blurs together in an 80mph haze out there for me. Except for Tom Raper RV's (http://www.tomraper.com). Cracks me up every time. Maybe Columbus and TH seem so close, because I sleep between Columbus and Indy. BTW, I stand by my original political assessment - Ashcroft is a douche.

So before you go taking a crap on a whole town's heritage and history, maybe you oughta spend a little time there, like the 24 years that I have.

OH! It's over. Thought I heard faint strains of "God Bless America" there for a second. Twenty-four years. Jesus. Boggles the mind. Anyway, in the interest of equal time:

AHEM!

Terre Haute blows. (No, really, it does. And what's that smell!?)

Thank you and good night.

 

[soul4sale]

Originally posted by vraiblonde
I love the FBI and the CIA - mostly when they're arresting and torturing criminals.

Because that's a good way to limit our options, destroy our credability, and get crappy intel in the process. It should be our goal to rise above cathartic barbarism.

About Jose Padilla: The NYT is a liberal nutball paper and their editors should be executed for treason.

Yeah, them free press bastards. Kill 'em all! Especially those ass-kissers at Fox News!

Jose Padilla is guilty as sin and everyone knows it.

Not me! I don't see a conviction. Just a stalled case and a piss-soaked writ of habeas corpus. If he's so guilty, then let's have a public trial. Let's hear the government's case. If not, let the bastard go and keep an eye on him.

Somehow, some nutties have decided that terrorists must actually commit a crime, not just be involved in one or planning one, before you can take them into custody.

Those damn forefathers. Crazy guys! Must have been too stoked up on that whole "freedom" thing to write the thought police into the Constitution. But, never fear, Ashcroft is working on that problem.

I'm totally into terrorism prevention, and if it means holding some dirtbag in a jail cell while the lawyers make a case, so be it.

Hey, me too! Seriously. But that's why we have a bond system. Padilla should be arraigned, assigned council and denied bail, just like any other U.S. CITIZEN. Locking him in a brig under some bogus "enemy combatant" crap just weakens the Bill of Rights and opens doors to lots of scary Nazi precidents that I don't want to consider. As for the rabble locked up in Gitmo and Abu Grahib(?), I consider their fate to be more a matter of international relations rather than U.S. law. Different kettle of fish. But Padilla is a citizen. He could be a deranged, treasonous one, but he deserves due process on his way to the gurney...as do we all.

 

[aps45819]

Small business owner, married & parent. Sounds like crap.

 

[Vince]

If the government granted this guy asylum, you got to figure they were keeping a close eye on him. They probably tracked the idiot when he took his overseas vacation for terrorist school.

 

[Hot N Bothered]

Wow, what a liberal spin. It makes me dizzy.

1. He is not a citizen. He was granted asylum a few months before his arrest, he hasn't had resident status long enough to be a citizen. His cousin said he was "another good American"

2. The above article says he was arrested on immigration violations. The article I read and can't find the link to anymore said those immigration violations were that he falsified the documentation that his asylum status was based on and that he took a trip out of the country, supposedly to Mecca, but in fact, went to a town in Ethiopia near a known terrorist training camp.

Let's leave off the happy feel-good crap and stick to the facts.

 

[huntr1]

Originally posted by Hot N Bothered
Wow, what a liberal spin. It makes me dizzy.

1. He is not a citizen. He was granted asylum a few months before his arrest, he hasn't had resident status long enough to be a citizen. His cousin said he was "another good American"

2. The above article says he was arrested on immigration violations. The article I read and can't find the link to anymore said those immigration violations were that he falsified the documentation that his asylum status was based on and that he took a trip out of the country, supposedly to Mecca, but in fact, went to a town in Ethiopia near a known terrorist training camp.

Let's leave off the happy feel-good crap and stick to the facts.