http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/2 ... samop.html

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Fine line between security and rights

JAFAR SIDDIQUI
GUEST COLUMNIST

In 1999, Ahmed Ressam was caught with a large amount of explosives while crossing the border from Canada to the United States. After a long period of preparation and trial, he was found guilty and sentenced to 22 years of imprisonment on July 28.

I must say that as a Muslim and as a citizen of this country, I am disappointed, very disappointed.

Any time a person is caught with the intent, the ability and the means to commit mass murder in this country, he should be put away for the rest of his life with absolutely no possibility of parole. The only "plea-bargaining" should be whether the man gives enough information to earn a life sentence instead of the death penalty. Every Muslim I have spoken to on this subject has said the same thing.

Since before the 9/11 tragedy Arabs and Muslims have been persecuted by various administrations; after 9/11, the persecution transformed into a hysterical frenzy where thousands of Muslims' lives have been destroyed as they are imprisoned on suspicions of terrorism. Many illegal Muslim residents have been deported after spending months and years in immigration prisons; many legal and permanent residents also have been deported after flimsy accusations connecting them with terrorism. There is even one extraordinary case where the Bush administration forced one U.S. citizen to renounce his citizenship in exchange for being "deported" instead of being kept in prison indefinitely.

Here's the first tragedy: None of the above cases resulted in convictions. They were not charged with crimes, nor were they tried for any crime. All imprisonments and punishments were done summarily.

Here's the second tragedy: The American public and our Congress have not yet been able to muster the consciousness to stand up to the administration against the blatant subversion of our Constitution; we have been rendered mute in face of images of destruction conjured up by a self-serving administration that seems to make its living on fear.

There have been several cases where Muslims have actually been convicted of terrorism-related crimes, but even those have been farcical at best. In the case of James Ujaama in Seattle, sensationalist photo-ops were prepared for the media with John Ashcroft barely able to contain his glee at having interdicted "one of the greatest threats to American security." Months later, we witnessed charges being watered down from setting up a terrorist training camp in Oregon to giving a computer to the Taliban regime (a school, actually). In some other cases, charges were even dropped altogether, but not until after destroying innocent lives.

When asked why such supposedly monstrous terrorists were given sentences that ranged from time served to just a few years, the answer is, "plea-bargaining." I fail to see why or how we can allow major threats to this country to walk freely here if they were actually bent on destruction in the first place. Unless of course, there never was any real threat and the "plea-bargaining" was actually to cover overzealous incompetence by the FBI and the Bush administration. The "terrorists" are told that they had better plead guilty to a watered-down charge; otherwise they could spend the rest of their lives in prison without being tried. I know how I would plead.

If someone is caught trying to smuggle surface-to-air missiles to use in the United States or is caught with more than 180 cyanide bombs, each capable of killing everyone inside a shopping mall (neither one a Muslim), we should not be identifying the terrorists by their professed faiths, but by the high crime they were involved in.

When U.S. District Judge John Coughenour sentenced Ressam for his attempt at involvement in mass murder in the United States, the judge said it perfectly: "Our system works, we did not need to use a secret military tribunal, or detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant, or deny him the right to counsel ... our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set us apart. We can deal with the threats to our national security without denying the accused fundamental constitutional protections."

Let us hope the administration, Congress and the people of the United States are in a mood to listen.

Jafar Siddiqui is an American Muslim living in Lynnwood. He writes and lectures on terrorism, American foreign policy, Islam and history.