Torture & 4 NYC Terrorists

Reference: USA TODAY - THURSDAY, MAY 21, 2009 - 3A

Lately all the talk has been Torture or Not Torture. I think the mistake people who support the water boarding of terrorists are making is denying that it IS torture. Rather than playing the nuanced game of what is and what isn't, why not just agree that it is. Instead, we can start talking about what really matters: Does torture work? Should torture be used in certain cases?

Anti-torture advocates are using the game of playing language and then deflecting the issue. It all depends on what IS is. Right? Pres. Clinton's perjury became a question of morality, deflecting the issue and saving his presidency. Holier than thou Republicans fell into the trap and dismantled their own weapon.

While all this is going on 4 Muslim men are arrested in NYC last Wednesday as they planned to bomb a synagogue and shoot military planes.

"While the bombs these terrorists attempted to plant tonight were - unbeknownst to them - fake, this latest attempt to attack our freedoms shows that the homeland security threats against New York City are sadly all too real," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement.

According to the USA Today article, the FBI had been acting undercover, and were told by one of the terrorists, Cromitie, that his parents had lived in Afghanistan and that he was upset by the amount of Muslims killed there.


Really, Cromitie? This reminds me of Black on Black crime, ignored by Black Americans. Instead the focus is always on the everyone-else-on Black crime. What about the period of Taliban rule? How well did the people of Afghanistan fare? Muslim on Muslim crime?

I assume, Cromitie expects us all to understand his logic that the USA only came into Afghanistan to cause murder and destruction post-9-11.

Cromitie said if he died a martyr, he would go to paradise and that he wanted to do "something to America," the complaint said.

Unfortunately, this very important development was buried towards the back end of the USA Today issue. How is that not front page news? Especially considering our current Terrorist / Torture topic?

Rep. Pete King, the senior Republican on the House of Representatives' Homeland Security Committee, said the four men were born in the United States and were all Muslim, one born to a Muslim family of Afghan descent and three who converted in prison.

Homegrown American-Muslim terrorists and the possibility of prison being a new breeding ground for conversion to Radical-Islam are all important and dark facts which we need to wake up to.

And yet Pres Obama and company expect us to accept Gitmo Terrorists into our Prison system.

Let's now turn to the next buried page 8A of the same USA Today issue.

According to an unreleased Pentagon report, "...one in seven of the 534 prisoners transferred abroad from the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have returned to terrorism or militant activity..."

And more incredibly:

Two adminstration officials who spoke to the Times on condition of anonymity said the report was being held up by Pentagon employees fearful of upsetting the White House.

Imagine that. Our White House is upset people are learning about the dangers of bringing the terrorists into our backyard, instead of being upset that the terrorists are even allowed to return to killing us. Is something a big backward here? Anyone? Yay or Nay? The President is making molotov cocktails.