No Terrorists Convicted
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James Joyner | Tuesday, June 15, 2004 |
In today’s column, Paul Krugman observes that John Ashcroft’s Justice Department has not had “any major successful prosecutions” or “any major captures.” Michele Malkin notes some exceptions:
What about shoebomber Richard Reid? What about Taliban solider John Walker Lindh? What about Yahya Goba, Shafal Mosed, Yasein Taher, Taysal Galab, Mukhtar al-Bakri and Sahim Alwan of Lackawanna, New York? What about Jeffrey Battle, Patrice Ford, Ahmed Bilal, Muhammad Bilal, and October Lewis of Portland, Oregon? And Mike Hawash? How about Masoud Ahmad Khan, Seifullah Chapman, Yong Ki Kwon, Donald Surratt, and Hammad Abdur-Raheem from the Washington DC area? What about James Ujaama? And Iyman Faris? [Malkin provides hyperlinks, which I omit here, for most names.]
Of course, “major” is a slippery modifier. But considering that Don Rumsfeld’s department is killing top level al Qaeda terrorists on a regular basis, and the fact that Ashcroft’s jurisdiction is the territorial United States, the list seems impressive enough.
Update: Add Nuradin M. Abdi to the list. Unless thwarting the killing of hundreds of people in flyover country doesn’t qualify as “major,” of course.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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Krugman has gone from being a left-leaning economist to a professional liar. He should be ignored.
I think what Krugman meant was "successful" terrorists. Of course I'd much rather we arrest failures.
Well, it seems the most "successful" terrorists on US soil (I'm thinking of the 19 hijackers on 9/11) killed themselves and saved us the trouble (and money) of a long judicial process.
Eric,
Successful terrorists are often dead. Perhaps Krugman is advocating trying them Mohammed Atta posthumously.
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