Not “Sami, we hardly knew thee,” but “Sami, we know thee all too well”
Just think of how much money the investigation and prosecution of this unscrupulous abetter of murderers has cost the American taxpayers.
He was investigated for years, beginning in the early 1990s or even earlier. Steven Emerson had the goods on him by the mid-1990s. The investigations continued. There are the salaries of the investigators. The costs involved in the investigations: travel, equipment, legal work, who knows what else. Then the trial dragged on for months, and ended unsatisfactorily. And then there was the guilty plea, in which Al-Arian admitted his guilt in no uncertain terms. And now there will be an appeal.
$500,000? A million? Even more?
Is this a good way to spend American resources? I am not saying he should not have been investigated and tried. I’m saying that we could spare ourselves an immense amount of time and expense if we developed a more focused line of defense, based on a recognition that the jihad ideology is the enemy, and those who hold it are likely to be working for our destruction or subjugation. The first step would be to stop allowing adherents of that ideology into the country: asking them hard questions, and criminalizing any action that indicates they were lying in their answers to those questions.
I believe that the money lavished on getting this execrable dissembling mujahid out of the United States would have been better spent on research to find alternative energy sources. He shouldn’t have been allowed in, or he should have been deported as soon as his jihadist sensibilities became clear. What do you think?
From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
TAMPA, FL (AP) — Sami Al-Arian, a former Tampa professor, will appeal a judge’s decision to sentence him to additional prison time for his role in a terrorism financing case.
Attorney C. Peter Erlinder says he filed the notice of appeal to keep Al-Arian’s options open, but he says that it’s not clear if Al-Arian will want to pursue an appeal.
I’m betting he will. Perhaps he and Moussaoui are trying to pursue a courtroom jihad, wasting our time, tying up our manpower, draining our money, and diverting our attention with endless courtroom reconsiderations and recriminations.