From our News Tab we got word that late on Thursday the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta unsealed and indictment against a Pakistani American student at Georgia Tech, as well as another Atlanta-based U.S. citizen who was arrested a few days ago in Dhaka. From CNN:
A Georgia Tech university student has been indicted for material support of terrorism, and another Atlanta-area man has been arrested in Bangladesh in connection with the case, authorities said Thursday.
Though the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta on Thursday unsealed an indictment against Syed Ahmed, 21, details remained sealed. A grand jury indicted him March 23, the same day he was arrested.
“The charge against Mr. Ahmed is serious and involves national security and will be prosecuted with that in mind,” U.S. Attorney David Nahmias said in a news release.
Ahmed is not accused of committing a terrorist act; he is charged only with providing material support, the federal prosecutor said…On Monday, Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, 19, was arrested in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, according to his sisters. He was handed over to the FBI and put on a plane to New York on Thursday, the federal source said. [Link]
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p>We have to remember that grand juries will usually indict anyone with a pulse. More details about the actual indictment will hopefully follow in the next several weeks and we will try to keep an eye on it. I am assuming that this will turn out to be more than just part of the “taking pictures while brown” phenomenon.
Ahmed is studying mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech. He is a naturalized American citizen and the papers detailing his arrest last month on charges related to terrorism have his parents shocked and surprised….Ahmed’s family suspects a videotape of their son made of a building, is what authorities are suspicious of. The family reportedly allowed federal agents to take computer information from their son’s room. [Link]
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p>The article about the incident as reported by the Atlanta Journal Constitution goes a step further and adds some illuminating personal details about Ahmed. The details really resonated with me because of their source. I can imagine this being the type of ordinary family that any of us could come from. Ahmed’s mother and sister seem to implore you to understand that he is a good kid who had been showing only hints of a conservative streak. Maybe I am reading more into the story than is there, or maybe the journalist has simply crafted the article just so, but I can almost feel a touch of regret in their words, like part of them wonders if he is in fact guilty of whatever he is accused of:
Ahmed’s sister and mother spoke Wednesday from a couch at the family’s large home near Dawsonville, where they have lived for five years. They described Syed Ahmed as a likable but reserved young man who was trying to find himself.
They seemed bewildered while talking about the family ordeal, with his mother alternating between smiles and tears.
“He’s very brilliant, very caring,” his sister said. “He has a good sense of humor. He likes to eat. He’s very good working…”Samia Ahmed said her brother’s interest in Islam had been growing. “He’s religious and liked the simple life,” she said. “He wants us to abide by the rules. He isn’t against anyone; he just doesn’t want us to lose our faith.”
Lately, he was getting more interested in Islamic studies and was trying to teach himself Arabic so he could read the Koran.
“He was trying to learn everything,” she said. “He’s still very innocent in his mind. He’s still a child…”Asked what her son thought about the current troubles in the Middle East, Faiqa Ahmed said, “We don’t talk political stuff. We are ladies.”[Link]
Another issue in this is the indictment of the second man, Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, who was arrested in Bangladesh. He better be on his way back to the U.S. right now. Some lawyers may want to comment on this but I would think that it would be illegal for the U.S. to allow him, as a U.S. Citizen, to be interrogated by Bangladeshi authorities, after the U.S. indicted him. At alt.muslim.com Naeem Mohaiemen asks the same question.
Is this a case of extraordinary rendition? Bangladesh currently has a Rightist-Islamist coalition government with one of the worst human rights records in its 35 year history. The country was named “most dangerous for journalists” last year by Committee to Protect Journalists…<
p>Anyone familiar with Bangladesh knows that there is a high possibility that the security forces could torture Ehsanul to coerce a “confession”. We have had numerous cases in the recent past of wanton torture, including the Hindu student who was accused of sending a threatening e-mail to the leader of the opposition. [Link]
CAIR is asking the U.S. government to reveal the status of Sadequee:
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said the family of 19-year-old Ehsanul Islam Sadequee reported that he was taken into custody April 17 by armed security personnel in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital city.
Sadequee was born in Fairfax, Va., is a resident of Atlanta, Ga., and has a sister in Michigan. His family says he was visiting Bangladesh in order to get married and has been ill recently. They suspect he was targeted by Bangladeshi authorities based on information from U.S. law enforcement agencies that have been periodically interviewing family members in this country since August of last year. [Link]
Abhi,
If one were to drop into this debate completely oblivous to reality and read your comments – “We have to remember that grand juries will usually indict anyone with a pulse.” – one would think that not a single Muslim living in America is involved [directly or supportive] in any terror related stuff. And it is all a big conspiracy.
Abhi, Here meet Tunku
Actually, one wouldn’t think that at all if one were reasonable. Right after the grand jury bit, abhi said that he assumes this will turn out to be more than the “taking pictures while brown phenomenon” and, later on, he quotes the family members and wonders whether, deep down, they think he might be guilty of whatever he has been indicted for. And if you knew much about the criminal justice system you’d know that grand juries will, in fact, indict pretty much anyone with a pulse. There is a very low threshold of proof required for a grand jury indictment, grand juries typically hear from no one other than the prosecutor (who is typically not required to present any exculpatory evidence or even evidence that casts doubt on his claims), and the prosecutor is allowed to present evidence that would not be admissible at trial. You may have heard the old saying “the prosecution can get a jury to indict a ham sandwich.” (An unfortunate choice of meat in this context.)
I think everyone needs to be really cautious in drawing any conclusions about this on the basis of the fact that the U.S. government under the Bush Administration has established a terrible human rights record on terror-related prosecutions, detentions, deportations, and that they’re being charged with “material support,” rather than actual complicity in any type of action.
Which is to say, I don’t know much about them or really any thing about what they did, and so I withhold judgement.
NotPC, I think it is clear that you are dropping into this debate completely oblivious to reality.
Terrible – compared to whom/what?
M. Nam
Terrible enough to justify withholding judgment until more facts are known. Anything more about how terrible compared to whom/what is entirely irrelevant to this conversation.
I would think this would be applicable anytime. Not just to the Bush government. Just because someone has a ‘good record’ would not give them a pass from the above statement. Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, whoever. Witholding a concrete position until facts are known is good practice for anytime/anyplace.
Some basic guidelines on the usage of English language in sentences…
When using adjectives like “terrible” or “excellent” to pass judgement, one has to be prepared to justify it based on something comparable.
So – if someone says: “The economy of Britain is terrible“, they need to be prepared to answer the question: “Terrible compared to what?”. When compared to the US or Singapore, the economy of Britain may be terrible, but when compared with Bangladesh or Namibia, it may be excellent.
Similiarly, when someone says the Human rights record of US under Bush is terrible, it begs the question: Terrible compared to what? Saudi Arabia? Britain? Russia? China?
But then you get stupid answers, like “Terrible compared to New Zealand or Iceland” – countries that have not seen any terrorism. And then sometimes you get smarty-pants answers like: “Terrible when compared to Carter or Clinton administration.” And to them I say: “Allright wiseass. Sometime during our lifetime if there is a major terror attack on US under a Democratic administration (hope there isn’t), let’s see what kind of Human rights record they adhere to.”
M. Nam
Gujudude — as a lawyer who cares about things like the legal process, I absolutely agree. But there is also a broad issue of credibility, and the Bush administration has less when it comes to what they say when they arrest suspected terrorists. In general, you look at the source making the allegtations and then judge their credibility. To give an extreme example, if I saw an article that said that CAIR had conducted an investigation into the facts and decided the guy was guilty, I’d be a lot more inclined to think he was even though I wouldn’t know any more of the facts myself.
Actually, one doesn’t need to compare at all, not in this context. If one said, “the US has no business lecturing any other country about human rights because its own human rights record is terrible,” then your argument about comparing our record to that of other countries may hold water. But smart people are entirely capable of coming up with an independent standard that they expect their government to meet when it comes to human rights that doesn’t depend on what other similarly situated countries do. If, in a report on corruption in Africa, I said “Nigeria has a terrible record on corruption, and we should worry about giving money to their government and expecting it to get into the hands of the needy” would you say, “Terrible compared to whom? Kenya, Uganda, etc. have far worse records on corruption!”? Or, if I said that “[insert Islamic country here] has a terrible record at treating its religious minorities,” would you say “But its record is better than that of other Islamic countries!” or would you be able to decide that, regardless of what other countries do, a nation with Islam as its official religion should be able to achieve a certain level of treatment of its religious minorities?
Thanks for the lesson on “usage of English language in sentences,” BTW. I’ve always wished I could go back to school ….
DTK: I see your point, however, there is something that really doesn’t sit well when we ‘the public’ starts to give our judgement based upon credibility (or lack of) of the sources. We have a system in place to do that for us, and applying the appropriate pressure for facts rather than a decision would be more productive.
Sources feed information into the decision loop. With our attention driven culture today, far too many people jump on the guilty/innocent bandwagon. The cart gets ahead of the horse.
Also, it goes into how people perceive the source when you’re trying to sell something in public. CAIR in certain groups as zero credibility just as in others it has absolute credibility. Same goes with the Bush administration.
Now, only if people had the same passion for facts as they do in determining guilt/innocence, we’d be a far more rational group. Then again, we’re humans, not vulcans.
When using adjectives like “terrible” or “excellent” to pass judgement, one has to be prepared to justify it based on something comparable.
Okay, how about “very, very bad.” Is that okay? I didn’t realize the semantics were as important as the content of what the Bush Administration has done, which we all should be quite aware of by now (Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, enormous numbers of detentions and deportations using immigration law as a substitute for the establishment of a criminal case, etc.), and what that means in terms of how we perceive this event.
there is something that really doesn’t sit well when we ‘the public’ starts to give our judgement based upon credibility (or lack of) of the sources. We have a system in place to do that for us, and applying the appropriate pressure for facts rather than a decision would be more productive.
When a source establishes a repeated pattern of deception on a topic, than I think it makes sense to give them less trust in evaluating what it pitches as a fact. I wouldn’t believe the Chinese government on persecution of religious minorities in China, nor would I feel comfortable believing close to anything that the Bush Administration says about terrorism, Iraq, or Social Security. At the end of the day, yes, “facts” need to be the measure of whether you come to believe these two men are guilty or innocent–but honestly, are you going to get to see the documents and hear all of the relevant testimony? Is the press? Is the defendent?
One way to “[apply] the appropriate pressure” is to take the initial step of not believing them anymore until they meet a much higher standard of proof than a remotely neutral party making the same claim. It’s what we do with untrustworthy people in our personal lives and I would advocate doing the same towards current U.S. officials talking about terrorism.
From our News Tab we got word that late on Thursday the U.S. AttorneyÂ’s Office in Atlanta unsealed and indictment against a Pakistani American student at Georgia Tech,
Unrelated to the topic, I came to know of this website because of a discussion involving the question of “South Asian” rather than the “Indian” identiy in US. So the reason behind calling this person a “Pakistani American” instead of a fellow “south asian” shows the bias of the blogger??.. :-))
I guess in cases involving “terrorism”, “pakistani” identiy takes precedence over the “south asian” one..
Oops.. spelling mistake. read “identity” instead of “identiy”..
When the Bush administration pitches something, I don’t simply gobble it up, nor do I dismiss it. When Clinton pitched stuff, I didn’t gobble it up. I’m advocating a more even approach. There are too many agendas in competition with each other. I like to sift through various sources from a multitude of backgrounds before making a decision. By the way, not believing ANYTHING the Bush administration says on the topics you listed would make you blind. The information is there. The spin put on it with the desired response may not sit well with you, which is ok, but when you dust off the spin, information is there. What you do with it is another matter altogether.
Fundamentally, everything is taken with a grain of salt. When people get into the habit of taking the word or any organization as the holy grail, people get spun around.
Yes, being burned many times does make information harder to digest from said source. But would you rather close your eyes and dismiss it as a boy crying wolf again, or take it in and let it settle. I am not arguing exceptions to the case here where one is talking in extremes. Rather, the middle ground, where the most wonderful lies are told by spinning facts just enough.
Again, I’d rather stake my position as a ‘swing vote’. One can’t dismiss it, nor can one guarantee it. I want to make people work to convince me.
I really like this post by Abhi. Doesn’t jump to any conclusion as of yet. The press, in print, television, internet, etc. has more information out there than ever before. We are getting relevant information we need, where in the past it wasn’t possible. Probably the reason why everything seemed so clean, because it was whitewashed.
The problem with Guantanamo Bay isn’t that those men are innocent, or guilty. Its that we don’t know. THAT is the core of the problem. Disposition whatever you have. Simply arresting people and putting them away is not sufficient. Disposition it.
So, this kid could be innocent, could be guilty. What I would like to see is the information be vetted by our ‘check and balance’, in this case a judicial system.
Terrible compared to what?”. When compared to the US or Singapore, the economy of Britain may be terrible, but when compared with Bangladesh or Namibia, it may be excellent
Terrible compared to what it ought to be — that’s the only comparison that matters. For example, Ivan the Terrible was terrible, not compared to Stalin, but compared to what Ivan ought to be. Killing you own son is terrible, not because your neightbour didn’t kill his son, but because objectively, one ought not to kill one’s children.
MoorNam’s attitudes are terrible — compared to what the ideal MoorNam ought to be. See, it’s easy!
Yeah sure!
oh come on Ponniyin! Sounds to me like you just want to ruffle a few feathers and turn this into the whole South Asian/Indian/Pakistani..etc. discussion (that everybody knows and loves!).
Me thinks you’re reading too much into Abhi’s post, and what you’re saying it totally irrelevant to the topic.
compared to bangladesh and pakistan.
The South Asian post you are still harping on came from a different blogger. How is it relevant here?
Update:
The South Asian post you are still harping on came from a different blogger. How is it relevant here?
I din’t know about that blog. But I was talking about this and the dicussion in sulekha
Ponniyin Selvan, For your sake I am not going to engage with you in this topic. I can assure you that if you learned about this from Sulekha then whatever debate you are aware of has been completely misrepresented and skewered beyond reason. There is a good reason that our discussions don’t resemble anything like those on Sulekha. I am not going to subject our readers to this crap once again. Thanks.
Abhi,
Ponniyin Selvan, For your sake I am not going to engage with you in this topic. I can assure you that if you learned about this from Sulekha then whatever debate you are aware of has been completely misrepresented and skewered beyond reason. There is a good reason that our discussions don’t resemble anything like those on Sulekha. I am not going to subject our readers to this crap once again. Thanks.
Ok, Thanks
Let’s say the average timing for a 100 Meter sprint is 6.7 seconds. World record. And I am training a person for Olympics. After months of practice, she clocks in 5.2 secs – while having a fever.
Me: You’re terrible. She: Terrible!!? Compared to whom? Me: Terrible compared to what you ought to clock – that’s the only comparison that matters.
Now, that’s going to encourage her. At least according to Ikram.
M. Nam
Sorry to be picky but no one has ran 100m under 9 seconds. I think it is close to impossible humanly to do so. (That is without designer drugs 🙂 )
Sometime during our lifetime if there is a major terror attack on US under a Democratic administration (hope there isn’t), Actually MoorNam there were two. First was the 1993 bombing of the twin towers in NYC, the second was the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahama.
All, disregard my last comment. I was just trying to show off, that I love athletics.
Get back to substantive discussion.
From the details of the unsealed indictment document I think so…
Suvendra, Oklahoma just doesn’t count. I think only attacks by Muslims can be counted as real terrorism.
Gujudude — I don’t disagree with any of that. As a lawyer, I certainly agree that way too many people jump to hasty conclusions instead of waiting for the legal process to run its course. And as a graduate of Duke University following this incredibly messy lacrosse/rape allegation, I’m quite tired of the painful spectacle of seeing so many people making all sorts of guilt/innocence decisions based on preconceived notions that have next to nothing to do with what actually happened between the accused and the accuser.
Also, the “system in place” that you refer to is what some might call the legal system in general, or “due process,” and it is why many of us detest the Bush administration’s “we decide whether people we don’t like get a real trial or not” policy.
There would have been one more, if it weren’t for some observant customs officers:
Suvendra writes:
Does not count as major. Number of deaths too low.
Thank you. I was waiting for someone to point this out. You should have seen the way Clinton administration went hammer and tongs against Christian Right oraganisations (as it should have). Anyone remotely even suspected of having links with Aryan Nations, White supremacist, Xtian supremacist groups, Anarchists, End-Of-World Cultists were subject to phonetaps, audits, surveillance and in addition, the attention of media (against as it should have.) Many innocents had their civil rights violated , but because they were White and Protestant (read: Big Bad Majority) – nobody cared. Nobody categorized Clinton’s human rights record as “terrible” – even after he bombed aspirin factories in Sudan to divert attention from his scandals under the guise of fighting terrorism.
So when someone calls this administration terrible, I am tempted to sound like a broken record: Compared to who?
M. Nam
So when someone calls this administration terrible, I am tempted to sound like a broken record: Compared to who?
Right, I think the administration has to take Binladen / Zawahiri seriously. If they say a plan is in the works for attacking mainland US with WMD, they really mean it.. I don’t know if anyone here imagined what life would be if such an attack takes place..
I said:
DTK said:
I think we agree on the core issue here. The system needs to do its job. The executive branch needs to execute (arrest, make a case), however, decision of who is a guilty party should be left to the judicial system.
That’s just it. Many of us have imagined it and wondered how it would be much different than what our own government would do after it has seized more and more power from the people and unto themselves. That road, although longer, leads to the same end.
I will cite once again the quote that some attribute to Ben Franklin: “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
Gujudude — I’d missed your Guantanamo quote. We are definitely in agreement for the most part. Thanks for the nice, intelligent discussion.
“Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
I doubt if Ben Franklin would have realised how easy it will be in the future for a group of few fanatics to raze down whole cities in a moment with little or no cost..
This is a tough battle (war on terror / war against religious extremism, however you name it) and there are no easy solutions..
This is an interesting perspective. Are you implying that Big Govt is bad for the security of the people, and that this function should be decentralised? Because that’s the position of NRA as well, and hence their assertion that everyone needs to carry a gun to protect themselves.
He lived in times when someone needed to attack they had to go on a horseback for three weeks. If he had envisaged a time when someone sitting in a cave in Afghanistan could have someone else in Atlanta drive to Chicago to give a package to someone else which would be placed in a public place, so that the person in Afghanistan could trigger a blast during rush hour – then Benjamin Franklin would have had completely different ideas about security.
M. Nam
Clinton was described as having his “brains caught in his zipper”, a fact echoed by the then FBI director Louis Freeh:
And here is what Freeh said about Clinton’s approach to fighting Al Qaeda and terrorism:
Dostevesky’s crime and punishment can be summarized as the leader makes such judgement… The US leadership collective makes these determination. A presidents job as CIC during war is to consider how many folks they should kill at what price and whats the benefit. The US does a much better job when it detainments people w/o trial than any other power in the world Imagine what the other side would have done. Would they even bother detaining if they could. The only time they are detained is if they have some cash value with which they could bargain people with. Is arresting and trying these fellows better than just using UAV and blowing up their neighborhood? The issues are prettymuch who do you trust to do this job w/ the least amount of carnage. The current US administration has done a good job considering the context and the scope of the problems.
Well did Bangladesh give up liberty when they deported the fella? Yeah so as per franklin they will loose liberty and security OMG thats aleady happened there.
A presidents job as CIC during war is to consider how many folks they should kill at
What you describe is a different issue. If I am detained, I’d rather in US federal custody than anywhere else. I’ll probably catch flak for this, but I’m not all that concerned about the ‘humanitarian’ issue of Guantanamo. I know Abu Gharaib is not systemic. A strong undercurrent exists with several of these organizations that keep an unhealthy focus (devoting too many resources) on the mistakes of the United States (which I stand by are not systemic) rather than several other humanitarian issues of far larger magnitude in the world.
Back to prisoners, if on the battlefield a guy fires a bullet at our troops, he will be lit up like a christmas tree. I have no issues with that. But what do you do when you arrest the guy for information? Once you bring him into OUR custody, we run the liability of taking care of it in accordance with our own rules.
Selectively enfocring and then disregarding rules only serves to further problems. Look at immigration. Selectively, those laws were not applied until local communities affected by resource drains (southwest) started to bring the issue up. Fundamentally, the law, 20 years ago, should have been applied to businesses. They are the ones driving the migration. With 11 million here, its already too late to really enforce our law in en mass. It needs to be changed just match up with what reality is.
If the rule is on the book, follow it. If the rule doesn’t work, change it. But don’t selectively apply/disregard it. It only serves to water down our incredible 2 Century old republic.
Oh !!! How convinient. Lyndie England just dreamt it all up.
So when someone calls this administration terrible, I am tempted to sound like a broken record: Compared to who?
Many people have already answered this question in a variety of ways that you’re disinclined to accept. The answers boil down to the following: assessments don’t need to be made in comparison to existing real world examples of other countries engaged in human rights violations or to past precedent; they can be made to an independent standard or an ideal.
A more appropriate question than this annoying insistence on how to use the word “terrible” would be “What exactly do you have an issue with that the Bush Administration has done?” The content of the objections could then be listed, and individuals could make up their own minds as to whether or not they felt it was “terrible” or “good” or “very, very, bad” or “protofascist” or “fundamentally unjust” or “anti-Muslim” any number of other adjectives that can be assessed without a comparison to Nazi Germany or the USSR or the United Kingdom or the Government of Kazakhstan or the Clinton Administration in order to make sense. Here’s why the method I’m suggesting is preferable to yours:
GGK at #42 employs your method of argumentation:
The US does a much better job when it detainments people w/o trial than any other power in the world
It’s only who does it better and who does it worse. In fact, if one has half an ounce of respect for human rights, detention without trial should probably be rejected outright as an option. Like nuclear first strikes. Torturing people for fun. etc.
Oh!!! How convinient. GujuDude just dreamt up another valuable comment from RC. Oh wait, you did say something….
See, that doesn’t really add much to the discussion now, does it?
Lyndie England didn’t dream anything up, she was there, saw it, and engaged in it. Systemic implies that ALL US forces use the same measures everywhere.
Unless you were living under a rock, you would have read one of the million different reports that came out showing the systematic manner in which Abu Gharaib style torture was employed. Endorsed famously by Alberto “torture is Ok” Gonzalez.
Here is one from the Physicians for Human Rights : “Break Them Down: The Systematic Use of Psychological Torture by US Forces”
Hell no! Given the choice of executing the fella vs detaining w/o trial. Detaining w/o trial is good. And in this case in particular he is headed for a trial.
No it was not had it been systmemic you would have trouble finding any info. you will not leave the job to an idiot like england. Sy hersh would be calling up his buddies for the dirt and all info would be treated w/ skepticism.