The Lackawanna Six (AP/CBS photo)
Andrew Whitehead of Anti-CAIR has issued a press release about the sentencing of the “Lackawanna Six,” the Al-Qaeda cell operating in an upstate New York mosque:
Sentencing Debate over “Lackawanna Six”?
On 02 December, 2003, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), issued a press release (link not available) linking to an article in The Buffalo News concerning the sentencing of several Yemeni-Americans for providing material assistance and personnel to the al-Qaida Islamist terror group.
Why did CAIR print this article in their “American Muslim News Brief”? The article is clearly not balanced and presents all those convicted as victims of an over-zealous government. The first paragraph of the article reads:
“They never built a bomb, never hijacked an airliner and, as far as the U.S. Justice Department can determine, never made any plans to commit terrorism.”
Is this the criteria we can expect Ameriphobes to use in the war on terror? We can do absolutely nothing to the terrorists until they either build a bomb, hijack a plane or make voluminous notes in planning a terrorist attack? Law enforcement is to adopt a hands-off policy regarding Islamist terrorists until such time as planes begin to fall out of the sky? Bombs go off in our streets? Is this the policy CAIR wants? Is this the policy the American people want?
It bears mentioning that not only did all six men plead guilty, they cooperated with law enforcement for reduced sentences. According to prosecutor Mr. William J. Hochul Jr., the men provided information regarding al-Qaida’s methods of recruitment, training and communication, along with locations of “guest houses” in the Middle East.
All six [pled] guilty. All six provided accurate intelligence information to the government.
Sure sounds like they are innocent to us!
Andrew Whitehead
Anti-CAIR