Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and tried to light it?

If this is not a hoax, it is a great speech. Kindly advise in case this is a hoax. Cheers,

Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and tried to light it?

  Did you know his trial is over?
  Did you know he was sentenced?
  Did you see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV or Radio?

  Didn't think so.

Everyone should hear what the judge had to say.

  Ruling by Judge William Young, US District Court.

Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he had anything to say.  His response: After admitting his guilt to the court for the record, Reid also admi tted his "allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the religion of Allah," defiantly stating, "I think I will not apologize for my actions," and told the court "I am at war with your country."

Judge Young then delivered the statement quoted below:

January 30, 2003, United States vs. Reid.  

Judge Young:   "Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you.

On counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in prison in the custody of the United States Attorney General.  On counts 2, 3, 4 and 7, the Court sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run consecutively.  (That's 80 years.)

On count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years again, to be served consecutively to the 80 years just imposed.  The Court imposes upon you for each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 that's an aggregate fine of $2 million.  The Court ac cepts the government's recommendation with respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines.

The Court imposes upon you an $800 special assessment. The Court imposes upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it. But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further.

This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes.  It is a fair and just sentence.  It is a righteous sentence.

Now, let me explain this to you.  We are not afraid of you or any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid.  We are Americans.  We have been through the fire before.  There is too much war talk here and I say that to everyone with the utmost respect.  Here in this court, we deal with individuals as individuals and care for individuals as individuals.  As human beings, we reach out for justice.

You are not an enemy combatant.  You are a terrorist.  You are not a soldier in any war.  You are a terrorist.  To give you that reference, to call you a soldier, gives you far too much stature. Whether the officers of government do it or your attorney does it, or if you think you are a soldier.  You are not----- you are a terrorist.  And we do not negotiate with terrorists.  We do not meet with terrorists.  We do not sign documents with terrorists.  We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

So war talk is way out of line in this court.  You are a big fellow. But you are not that big.  You're no warrior.  I've known warriors. You are a terrorist.  A species of criminal that is guilty of multiple attempted murders.  In a very real sense, State Trooper Santiago had it right when you first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and the TV crews were, and he said: "You're no big d eal."

You are no big deal.

What your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific.  What was it that led you here to this courtroom today?

I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing?  And, I have an answer for you.  It may not satisfy you, but as I search this entire record, it comes as close to understanding as I know.

It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom.  Our individual freedom.  Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose.  Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom.  It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea.  It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom.  So that everyone can see, truly see, that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely.  It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf, have filed appeals, will go on in their representation of you before other judges.

We Americans are all about freedom.  Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own l iberties.  Make no mistake though.  It is yet t rue that we will bare any burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms.  Look around this courtroom.  Mark it well.  The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here.  The day after tomorrow, it will be forgotten, but this, however, will long endure.

Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done.  The very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.

See that flag, Mr. Reid?  That's the flag of the United States

of America.  That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten .  That flag stands for freedom.  And it always will.

Mr. Custody Officer.  Stand him down.


So, how much of this Judge's comments did we hear on our TV sets?  We need more judges like Judge Young, but that's another subject.  Pass this around.  Everyone should and needs to hear what this fine judge had to say.  Powerful words that strike home.  God bless America
 

Russion bases in Syria and Syrian security moves

Farid Ghadry thinks Syria is making a mistake giving Russia bases in the Mediterranean. Maybe, Maybe not.

 

Of special interest. Ghadry thinks that Syria is taking precautions against the day when the US breaks off negotiations with it:

 

In preparation for that day, RPS received information that Syria's securities services has opted to insure the safety of its knowledge base, accumulated over the years on the movement of its citizenry and the intelligence the regime relies on for its survival, has been triplicated and moved to the cities of Homs and Latakiya for fear that a strike against the Syrian security apparatus in Damascus may strip it of its most potent weapons. To many, these are actions of a regime fearful for its future and not basking in the glory of its survival as some pundits claim.

Or else, it is preparation for a war with Israel.

 

Ami Isseroff

Faulty Syrian Calculations

Washington DC, August 11, 2007/RPS Opinion - Farid Ghadry/ -- The Russian Navy is attempting to establish a beachhead in the Mediterranean by striking an agreement with Damascus that along the way partially forgives Syria's debt accumulated during the Soviet era in return for a warm water port in Tartous and Latakiya.

 

 

Denials by Damascus have accompanied such claims. In reality though, Syria's isolation and its war against Iraqi democracy is costing Damascus billions. Money it can only find either through more revenues or less expenditures and in this case, Russia, in 2005, was willing to write-off $10billion worth of debt in return for Russian naval presence in Tartous and Latakiya.

 

 

Besides the money factor, Assad is dousing himself with gasoline by inviting Russia to play, once again, in the politics of the Middle East that are too reminiscent of the Cold War era. With Syria's national security compromised, Assad has taken a direction that may end-up costing him more than the fear he has of American soldiers stationed in Iraq. But do not tell this to a regime whose faulty calculations have resulted so far in four anti-Syrian/pro-Lebanon UN Resolutions, tensions on its borders with Lebanon and Israel, supporting extremists in Iraq, which resulted in tensions inside Syria as the flooding of Iraqi refugees inadvertently caused inflationary pressure on a Syrian population, under normal circumstances, unable to cope with the Ba'athist policies of depriving it from its rights to a reasonable income. All of these problems are due to miscalculations by Assad, who, by inviting Russia, has dug the hole he is in a little too deep.

 

Russia will undoubtedly deploy sophisticated air defenses around both Syrian cities that could, according to Assad's calculations, use to protect Syria from a certain future when the Iraq theater comes under scrutiny from a US military not too happy to see its assets come under attacks by Syria and Iran. What Assad is not taking into account is the unreliability of Russia as a partner when and if the US comes calling for pay day. The US knows very well what Russian conditions must be met to disengage from protecting Syrian air space or for that matter the whole Syrian regime if necessary. By playing with the big boys in a game where the stakes are a bit too high for a small country like Syria, Assad has sealed his fate by wedging himself between two giants facing each other in his own backyard. Their fight is his to absorb and their disengagement is for his regime to pay the price for.
As long as Assad remains in a defensive posture and reacting to international pressure, Damascus will continue to swallow painful pills until it no longer can sustain immunity of its corrupt system of government. Its use of the Russian naval base is just another ploy to impose its will on a Lebanon too eager to rid itself of the Assad regime and its humiliating security apparatus.

 

Meanwhile, discussions between the US and Syria on Iraq's security are on-going. Assad is hedging his bets on a complacent US State Department eager to save Iraq but not to give-up on Lebanon. When the discussions freeze at this juncture six months from now as is expected, the US will have to make the hard choices of dealing with Assad once and for all. Assad knows that too well and it explains his Russian naval play, which is his only insurance policy left against the dismantlement of his terror regime. 

 

 

In preparation for that day, RPS received information that Syria's securities services has opted to insure the safety of its knowledge base, accumulated over the years on the movement of its citizenry and the intelligence the regime relies on for its survival, has been triplicated and moved to the cities of Homs and Latakiya for fear that a strike against the Syrian security apparatus in Damascus may strip it of its most potent weapons. To many, these are actions of a regime fearful for its future and not basking in the glory of its survival as some pundits claim.

 

Cross posted: Israel News  Middle East Analysis

Bashar Assad Crusade against Farid Ghadry and Reform Party of Syria

"What is Assad scared of?" asks Farid Ghadry of Reform Party Syria  (Web site is in Arabic).

Assad got up a petition against Gadry. The answer, IMO is that paranoid people and totalitarian regimes are always paranoid, and that it is in the nature of secret police regimes and investigative agencies to pursue the important along with the trivial or the unimportant. There is no way of knowing if Ghadry is important based on the fact that he is persecuted.

 

Remember that during the McCarthy era, the FBI pursued many harmless groups and inviduals, and generally missed actual Soviet spies. Their file on Albert Einstein was a lot bigger than their file on some actual communists and spies.

Ami Isseroff

 

---

Washington DC, August 11, 2007/RPS Blog - Farid Ghadry/ -- Once in a while, we get these uncanny signals from Damascus that have no explanation. Such is the case of the latest attacks on RPS by the Assad regime. While RPS has been called by every name possible (traitor seem to be their favorite), the latest came from one corner we did not expect: The Ghadry clan in Syria.

In a scathing attack on RPS, its people, and yours truly, the Ghadrys of Syria have signed a petition (in Arabic) asking Baschar al-Assad to rescind my Syrian citizenship, and to add to the voracity of their attacks, they promised to file several lawsuits against me in Syria and abroad for high treason. All that because I visited Israel last June.

 

I must admit that the Assad imagination never ceases to amaze us. The problem with that scenario is that I am in touch with my family inside Syria and many support RPS work. Intimidation and vengeance are Assad's trademarks, so it comes as no surprise that Assad intimidated some members of the Ghadry family to sign such a petition in order to make us look weak inside Syria. But its effect will have the exact opposite as it was brought to my attention by a Syrian I never talked to before who told me that Assad must be really scared of RPS. In another call, one RPS member told me that he does not know anymore whether to laugh or to cry when he sees such troubling signals from a regime supposedly leading a country.

 

Never, not even during the height of our anti-Assad dissident work since 2003, has RPS received so many calls and emails of support to our visit to Israel. One gentleman from Hama called and said the following verbatim: "RPS is known by 70% of the people of Syria and its name is being mentioned constantly and positively by Syrians after your visit to Israel". Since we have no way of gauging the Syrian street except through what people inside Syria tell us, we will accept this assessment and even consider that the latest unprovoked attack by Assad, through pressuring my own family inside Syria, is testimony to what our supporters in Syria have claimed. If RPS does not represent a danger to the regime, Assad would not bother.

 

So what is Assad scared of? Is he sacred because RPS represents moderate Sunni Muslims in the country yet respects all minorities and all religions? Or is he sacred because its leadership and its supporters are Syrians who have never stolen money from the people of Syria and never been involved in any corrupt act? Or is he scared because RPS never used violence against the people of Syria? Or is he scared because we demonstrated our belief in transparency when we visited Israel openly and not secretly as is the habit of Arab leaders or his own people at the UN who pursue Israeli diplomats to men's toilets to talk to them? Or is he scared because we are supported by a west, tired of seeing Muslims commit self-suicide, because of our message of moderation and peace? Or is he troubled by the success of our trip to Israel and his intelligence services cannot break through the Israelis with their usual messages of extortion? An Israeli high official told me, when I was in Israel, that he has information that Assad was sh***ing in his pants because of RPS visit.

Syrians expect a regime change in Syria to be replaced by a true democratic system of government. They want the freedom to make peace with Israel and the freedom to help their country come out of the dark tunnel Assad has led the whole country into. Syrians want to have good relations with Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, the United States and the EU. Syrians want respectful politicians serving them and be accountable to their needs and future. It is not about the popularity of RPS or Baschar al-Assad attacks on dissidents but it is about the freedom and dignity of the Syrian people, which have been hijacked by a corrupt and violent family running the country as a fiefdom.

Finally, our message to Assad is the following: "Unless this regime breaks its cycle of oppression against Syrians and violence against its neighbors, RPS will always carry the banner of human rights and freedom until this regime falls".

 

Cross posted: Israel News  Middle East Analysis

18 Nigerians Charged With Sodomy

18 Nigerians Charged With Sodomy

Saturday August 11, 2007 12:01 AM

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) - Eighteen men face charges of sodomy in a Nigerian Islamic court after they were arrested while allegedly preparing to take part in a gay wedding, state media reported.

Gay sex is illegal across Nigeria, and defendants convicted under the Muslim code, called Shariah, may face death by stoning. However, no Shariah court-ordered execution has been carried out since the Islamic law was implemented in 12 northern Nigeria states seven years ago.

The 18 men were arrested on Aug. 5 in remote northern Bauchi state, where they were found with women's apparel as they prepared for a gay wedding, Nigeria's state news agency reported.

 

Complet article: 18 Nigerians Charged With Sodomy

Surefire political and human rights integrity test

Are you ready for this? This is a test that is guaranteed to tell the hypocrites from the real believers in human rights.

 

Suppose there was the following headline:

 

Bush government arrests four anti-War Democrats

 

Story:

 

FBI agents arrested four anti-war Democrats  late Friday in Washington D.C. for "violating the law," according to the government, sparking a protest from relatives of those arrested.

Some 150 woman and children took to the streets, storming the justice department, demanding their relatives be freed. Witnesses said the protesters were beaten with sticks. Ten were evacuated to a local clinic for treatment, medical officials said.

The arrests mark the first time the Bush administration acknowledged it had arrested people because of their anti-war stance. In the past, the Bush administration had claimed to only arrest individuals for specific crimes such as terrorist activity.

What is your opinion of these arrests in Washington? Please write down your answer - no cheating.

1- Justified because of the national emergency.

2- Unjustified, but understandable given the provocations of the opposition.

3- Unjustified infringement on civil liberties.

4 - Outrage that is the result of Zionist machinations and neocon fanaticism.

 

Now here is the real headline.

The headline: Hamas arrests 4 Fatah members in n. Gaza Strip

Hamas forces arrested four Fatah members late Friday in the northern Gaza Strip for "violating the law," Hamas said, sparking a protest from relatives of those arrested.

Some 150 woman and children took to the streets, storming Hamas headquarters in the town of Beit Hanoun, demanding their relatives be freed. Witnesses said the protesters were beaten with sticks. Ten were evacuated to a local clinic for treatment, medical officials said.

The arrests mark the first time since Hamas's bloody takeover of the Gaza Strip that it acknowledged it had arrested Fatah members because of their affiliation. In the past, Hamas had claimed to only arrest individuals for specific crimes.

What is your opinion of these arrests in Gaza? Please write down your answer - no cheating.

1- Justified because of the national emergency.

2- Unjustified, but understandable given the provocations of the opposition.

3- Unjustified infringement on civil liberties.

4 - Outrage that is the result of Islamist fanaicism and Syrian machinations.

 

Compare your answers. Are they the same in both cases? Subtract the value of the first answer from the second and square it. Subtract the result from 10.

EG 4-1 = 3; Squared = 9; Subract from 10 = 1

1-3= -2 Squared = 4 Subtract from 10 = 6.

2-3 = -1 Squared = 1 Subtract from 10 = 9.

1-1= 0. Squared = 0; subtract from 10 = 10.

 

 Scoring:

10 - You are perfectly consistent in your views.

  9 - You tend to make "allowances" for one side or the other.

  6-  You probably read Counterpunch or Frontpage magazine.

  1-  Are you a Guantanamo detainee, living in a cave in Afghanistan or a friend of Dick Cheney?

 

Ami Isseroff

Cross posted: Israel News  Middle East Analysis

Is it the time to clip the wings?

I am writing this with a heavy heart. Having pen friends (and personal friends) on the left and on the right, I have come with time to one simple motto - my friend must be a mensch first. And last. Everything else is secondary. And this blog has consistently avoided fiery political rhetorics attacking this or other side, unless we are talking about absolute moral imperatives. It seems to me that looking for common ground is a better alternative.

But the last case, that of a learned professor* cursing a senior IDF officer, using words suitable for a souk brawl and expressing wishes more consistent with addressing an absolute evil the likes of which I can hardly imagine - this case just broke the seal.

Police opened on Wednesday a criminal investigation against Professor Hillel Weiss for his bombastic public statements against Judea Division commander Col. Yehuda Fuchs during Tuesday's evacuation of the Hebron marketplace.

Weiss cursed Fuchs, saying "may his wife be a widow, his mother bereaved, and his children orphans."

Read the rest here.

Complexities of Peace and Israeli Politics

"Distorting truth, telling lies, are all part of the plan to create revulsion and disdain for the Israelis. When victimized by suicide bombers, and after every attack resulting in the death of Israeli citizens, the government of Israel is told that is their fault and Israel must put a halt to the "cycle of violence" in the Arab-Palestinian conflict with Israel. That slanderous lie has been disproved time and again. There is no cycle of violence. Israel does not initiate terrorism. It never has. When Israel strikes back it does so to eliminate the cause of violence. When Israel offers more than anyone else ever has, to give up what 95% of Samaria and Judea for peace those offers are answered with more violence because the Arab-Palestinians never, ever wanted peace. They want Israel to cease to exist. That is the only thing that will ever satisfy their blood lust."

 

......

 

"The Muslims in the region who consider themselves "Palestinians" are part of the pan-Islamic nationhood and are not a minority and not the victim. Losing a war makes them losers but not victims. They have not been victimized by Jews. It is exactly the opposite. Jews were always the minority in Arab lands and were victimized as were all other minorities who lived there. Muslims often play the minority card but it does not wash. They are and have been part of a larger and more broader, greater-Islamic nationhood who turned this perception of being victimized and the minority, to their advantage as a propaganda ploy to win sympathy. It has worked. Many on the Left are aligned with Arab/Palestinian liberation."

 

Complete article: Complexities of Peace and Israeli Politics

 

Thomas Braun, Lima, Peru

A grim milestone

From the post "Grim milestone" reached: 500 Palestinian Arabs killed by each other this year by our (younger) colleague Elder Of Ziyon:

We have reached the "grim milestone" of 500 PalArabs that we have been able to document violently killed by each other this year.

Go and read the whole post. Just another quote:

Don't expect any press releases about this milestone, though.

Yeah....

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