Padilla conviction false-victory for Bush demagoguery

by Ray Hanania (Palestine/USA)

Jose Padilla was arrested and accused in a very high profile, public relations stunt in 2002 of planning to build a dirty bomb and detonate it in the United States in an alleged brazen attempt that convinced Americans that terrorists where pounding down the doors of America to come in and destroy this country. Padilla, a low-level street gang member from Chicago, was cited by President Bush and former U.S. Attorney John Ashcroft as the lynch-pin in a network of alleged terror plots that the United States was steadily confronting, and it was the Padilla arrest and the arrest of a handful of other “terrorists” that were used to push Americans into believing that the United States should invade Iraq, where criminals were identified but innocent Iraqi civilians were murdered by American Marines on March 19, 2003.

This week, we learn the truth about Padilla, just as we have learned the truth about other alleged terrorists. (Read the Washington Post story reprint.)

The arrest was a SCAM.

Although Padilla was being held illegally and in violation of his Constitutional Rights as an America — justice is not denied individuals because of accusations and the rule of law demands that you are INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY — for more than five years on the ridiculous claim that he was planning to build a dirty bomb, the U.S. Government, once again, played the Bush shell-game as they have been doing ever since the terrorism cases and terrorism charges were abused, distorted and manipulated. They changed the dynamics of the post-Sept. 11 terrorism American response, redirecting it from Afghnanistan and Pakistan where the terrorist ringleaders remain to this day, to Iraq, a political target favored by Bush and his criminal conspiracy called the White House Administration. They began to arrest anyone rather than admit they are utter and pathetic failures in defending this country from the real terrorist threat.

When the Bush administration was forced to prove its phony claims against Padilla, what did they do in court after five years? They dropped the charges that Padilla was engaged in plans to building a dirty bomb. They DROPPED THE TERRORISM CHARGES they used to illegally hold him in jail for five years. DROPPED.

Instead, the terrorism-hysteria-driven American government did what it has been doing ever since it’s failure to pursure the real terrorists, and they charged Padilla with something else. That something else is the abdusrd claim that somehow because Padilla supported the Islamic war against Russia in Chechneya and in Afghanistan, he is a terrorist. That sounds plausible if we were talking about terrorism training today. But the basis on which Padilla was charged falls in a sheet of paper the U.S. Government alleges they found in Afghanistan which proves Padilla was training and supporting rebel forces there in the early 1990s to liberate Chechnya from Russia oppression.

Washington Post: Padilla was arrested in 2002 for allegedly plotting a radiological “dirty bomb” attack, but prosecutors chose not to pursue those allegations in court here. But after a three-month trial, they convinced the jury that Padilla, 36, participated in a South Florida-based al-Qaida support cell that in the ’90s began to send money and people to wage holy war in Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo and Somalia

The Bush-Ashcroft demagogues did the same thing with Mohammed Salah, a Palestinian arrested and railroaded by Israel as a terrorist, forcing him to sign a confession in Hebrew and then putting him in Jail for five years. He was released by the Israelis and returned to the US where he was left alone and was trying to rebuild his broken life, until Sept. 11, 2001. And a year later, Ashcroft, one of the most villianous demagogues the United States has ever seen, arrested and charged Salah with “terrorism.”

But what happened? During the trial, the terrorism charges against Salah were mysteriously dropped. He was accused of racketeering under a statue intended to go after the MAFIA who may not have committed crimes but were a part of a criminal conspiracy. He BEAT THAT PHONY CHARGE, too. And all that they were left with in the phony Bush terrorism assault was that Salah had allegedly “lied” during an unrelated civil trial involving an American boy killed while allegedly working with settlers in the West Bank, a case Israelis hailed as opening the door to fighting terrorism and that Palestinians have denounced as purely anti-Arab political hate. Regardless, the point is that Salah may have been a member of Hamas in the early 1990s when he was arrested — may have been. But he wasn’t involved in Hamas since (and there has never been ANY evidence suggesting otherwise). So his involvement 17 years ago has now been projected into the future. Why? Because Bush and Ashcroft can’t find today’s terrorists.

And let’s forget about the FACT that even if Salah was engaged in fighting Israel — which he was not — the fight with Israel is NOT RELATED TO THE AL-QAEDA terrorism, although just like in Iraq, which is transforming into an al-Qaeda training camp thanks to Bush, some elements of al-Qaeda are pushing their way (slowly and not very successfully) into the Gaza Strip.

Salah beat the terrorism charges because they were phony! He was sentenced to two years in prison for the minor perjury charge.

In reality, the real terrorism threat in this country is the Bush administration and their abuse of power. Their criminal conduct in invading Iraq and murdering innocent Iraqi civilians, and refusing to prosecute those cthat Brimes. Those few they have been forced to defend have been embarassing to the American Marines — soldiers who have raped, pillaged and murdered innocent civilians in cold blood, only to be released with a slap on their hands.

In America today, it is okay to murder Arabs and Muslims, but if you happen to be Middle Eastern, Muslim or Arab, the Bush Demagogues will arrest you and use you as an excuse to distract the hysteria-driven American people away fromt he reality that Bush is incapable of properly defending America from the real terrorists.

America is more exposed to terrorism today because of Bush’s failed leadership. The invasion of Iraq was an unjustified act of international aggression that one day Bush and his criminal conspiracy called the Bush White House may one-day have to defend in an international criminal court (if there is such a thing as justice and the rule of law). And numerous innocent Arabs, Muslims and people of the Middle East are being persecuted, hunted down, harassed, arrested and railroaded through a kangaroo court system of American injustice all because the American government is incompetent and incapable of sorting through real terrorists and those that satisfy the American vigilante mob mentality.

The level of racist hate in America against Arabs, Muslims and Middle Eastern looking people continues to rise and all they can do about it is hang a banner around an innocent man’s neck and railroad him through a phony terrorism trial.

Pathetic!

– Ray Hanania