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MSNBC – April 25, 2008:
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When driving someone around and helping to ship a perfectly legal item gets someone a 15 year felony, you know we’re all screwed.
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Very disturbing.
Someone in the State Department should also do jail time for approving the entry visa of the so called terrorist leader?
And Mattel should be prosecuted for making the paint pellets.
This is so twisted, if I hadn’t read about the first sentencing, I would go to Snopes to check the validity.
I don’t feel safer when Homeland Security shows this kind of incompetence. Hopefully the Appeals Court will step in and do more than provide a hint, but I doubt it.
Further details, Bobster:
“They showed evidence that Chandia, 29, trained at a jihad camp in Lahore, Pakistan, run by the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, an al-Qaida subcontractor that also trained some of the London bombers. He helped Lashkar ship 50,000 paintball pellets, unmanned aerial vehicles, night-vision gear and wireless video cameras from the U.S. to Pakistan for paramilitary training. He even chauffeured a Lashkar lieutenant around Washington on trips the officer made here after 9-11.”
What think you now?
#2–Mustard. Nevermind.
But seriously–if the man is actually being convicted of activities NOT MENTIONED in the OT, then it gets difficult to discuss.
I don’t care if the guy DID send paintballs to Pakistan or chauffeur a person legally in this country==those are legal activities and should remain free from prosecution regardless of a larger context they can be plugged into.
There is too much “guilt by association” in our political non-think.
If he did that other stuff you mention–sounds like a jail term is appropriate.
Let’s take something like dollar bills. Perfectly legal but if you send it to terrorists they are illegal. The crime is not shipping the stuff it is supporting terrorists.
Shipping anything, even twinkies, to known terrorists is illegal.
As for paintballs, they are used by terror training camps in training recruits in tactics in fire fights.
“What think you now?”
Except for the vague “trained at a jihad camp” all of those activities are perfectly legal. Well, legal unless the government decides otherwise.
Really, this is such a weak case. Paintballs? What is the primary method with these Jihadists? 50,000 paint pellets? How about Khans? The kind that barter high-tech newkwooler toys to the likes of stiff dicks with bones to pick. In the meanwhile professing deeper veins to climb.
#4-5==I agree on those points.
What do you think of driving a guy around who is in the USA legally?
ZOMGZ!!1!1! hes dark skin and haz a beerd!11 TERRRIIIST!!!
#2, MM,
Sorry, but this is too far away from a crime. This is guilt by association. When the government gains convictions on evidence such as this, we need all hang our heads in shame.
At trial the prosecution presented a CD that supposedly showed Muslims cheering the 9/11 attacks. The CD was not shown to be Chandia’s. Yet, something like that presented against a Muslim sure is prejudicial. Especially with an all white jury.
The prosecution also decided that model airplanes have military potential. Maybe someone should mention that to all the model airplane clubs out there.
Night vision goggles, wireless video cameras, and paint balls are all legal in this country.
The prosecution could find NO evidence that Chandia actually attended a training camp. There were several witnesses that claimed he was in Pakistan to visit a sick brother.
If I had a dollar for every time someone in the press said “when this does that, you know we’re all screwed” I would be a billionaire. Paintballs have hurt people and can in a split second either blind someone, or if they have goggles, blind them “temporarily” long enough to be KILLED. This story as are most in the media that try to find fault with the war and bush and our intelligence is more drama. There are 6 billion reasons for keeping people from “helping Khan ship 50,000 paintball pellets from the United States to Pakistan”.
>>If he did that other stuff you
>>mention–sounds like a jail term
>>is appropriate.
Hey, I’m just quoting from the article. I have no idea what he actually did.
>>Night vision goggles, wireless video cameras,
>>and paint balls are all legal in this country.
Maybe so, but is shipping them to terrorist insurgents in Pakistan legal? And if it is, is it a good idea?
>>This story as are most in the media that
>>try to find fault with the war and
>>bush and our intelligence
I didn’t realize that any “looking” was required to find fault with the war and bush and our “intelligence”. I think that, based on prior bad acts, the war, bush, and our “intelligence” have been irretrievably tainted. That guy fucked us, but good.
What I want to know is, where in the heck do jihadi terrorist ever get the time for paintball and model airplanes? I can’t find the time to read the newspaper with a coffee.
RBG
Everybody Pakistani knows this is a banned terrorist group.
This guy can’t please ignorance about that and he knew that doing any kind of business with them was illegal.
He surely knew Lashkar-e-Tiba wasn’t using the paintball equipment for recreation between attacks on India.
“Non resident Pakistani” support of terrorism and radicalism in Pakistan is actually a serious problem. These guys send money to these groups but then live safely far away from where the bombs are going off.
To my understanding, this was the same problem with Irish Americans who used to send money to the IRA.
#12, MM,
>>Night vision goggles, wireless video cameras,
>>and paint balls are all legal in this country.
Maybe so, but is shipping them to terrorist insurgents in Pakistan legal? And if it is, is it a good idea?
There is the guilt by association. He didn’t send anything to Pakistan. The other person, who got nine years, did. There was no evidence (that I found) showing he knew these other items were even being bought.
This reminds me of a few years ago in Georgia when the ATF visited some “Quiky-Marts”. They bought ordinary things such as batteries, coffee filters, some engine starter, and whatever else. Then arrested the clerks (mostly middle eastern type immigrants) for helping to manufacture meth.
#14, Greg,
To my understanding, this was the same problem with Irish Americans who used to send money to the IRA.
To the best of my knowledge no American was ever charged with assisting the IRA. Much to the displeasure of Great Britain.
‘I didn’t realize that any “looking” was required to find fault with the war and bush and our “intelligence”. I think that, based on prior bad acts, the war, bush, and our “intelligence” have been irretrievably tainted. That guy fucked us, but good.’
You said it in a nutshell friend.
15 Catcaca
It’s a Global Warming sort of thing. Not everyone agrees with the obvious and the consequences of being wrong are too horrific compared to the status quo.
But you really need to stop getting your news from The Simpsons.
16 Jack. Any day now the Democrat House of Representatives is going to stop that war.
RBG
And after a couple great paintball games to loosen up, what’s so wrong about a bunch of perfectly innocent guys wanting to take a few completely legal Boeing 767-200 lessons, anyway?
RBG
I’ve got no problems with this. The guy knew he was doing wrong, and he got caught. Time to stop this kind of bs activity in the states. He is rnjoying amenities and luxuries afforded by our tax dollars, and he needs to play by our rules.