Ali Saleh Khalah al Marri, an al Qaeda sleeper agent who returned to the U.S. on September 10, 2001, has agreed to a plea bargain with federal prosecutors. Al Marri was held as an enemy combatant by the Bush administration (the only one held in the continental U.S.) since 2003, and then the Obama administration decided to prosecute al Marri's case. That prosecution has now ended in a deal that could net al Marri 15 years in prison.
The ACLU and lefty activists have advocated for al Marri repeatedly. Based on their rhetoric, you would think that the Bush administration was more of a danger to America than terrorists such as al Marri, who was sent by top 9-11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) to orchestrate follow-on attacks against American citizens. In July of 2008, for example, the New York Times took advocacy on behalf of al Marri's case to new lows. The Times editorial board wrote:
"The government, which says he has ties to Al Qaeda, designated him an enemy combatant, even though it never alleged that he was in an army or carried arms on a battlefield. He was held on the basis of extremely thin hearsay evidence."
In reality, al Marri's battlefield was to be right here in America. KSM tasked him with investigating several types of attacks, including poisoning water reservoirs. As part of his plea bargain, al Marri admitted that KSM had sent him to the United States and that he communicated via coded messages with the master terrorist after the September 11 attacks. And among the evidence accumulated against al Marri was his laptop, which was loaded with al Qaeda propaganda videos, unsent messages to KSM, and research on cyanide and sulfuric acid. This is hardly "extremely thin hearsay evidence," as the Times would have it.
Al Marri's plea bargain explains the purpose of his chemicals research (emphasis added):
The defendant researched online information related to various cyanide compounds. The defendant's focus was on various cyanide substances, including hydrogen cyanide, potassium cyanide, and sodium cyanide. The defendant reviewed toxicity levels, the locations where these items could be purchased, and specific pricing of the compounds. The defendant also studied various commercial uses for cyanide compounds. The defendant also explored obtaining sulfuric acid. The defendant agrees that the government would prove at trial that sulfuric acid is a well known binary agent which is used in a hydrogen cyanide binary device to create cyanide gas, and that this is the method taught by al Qaeda for manufacturing cyanide gas. The defendant further agrees that the government would prove at trial that his research into various cyanide compounds is consistent with the type of research conducted by persons trained in camps teaching advanced poisons courses to terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda. The defendant also agrees that the government would prove at trial that an almanac recovered in the defendant's residence was bookmarked at pages showing dams, waterways and tunnels in the United States, which is also consistent with al Qaeda attack planning regarding the use of cyanide gases.
In other words, al Marri was in the midst of plotting an attack using a form of cyanide gas on "dams, waterways, and tunnels in the United States" when he was captured.
This is the man whose case "raises critically important issues for a free society," the New York Times argued.
What al Marri's case really demonstrates is that some cannot tell the difference between American citizens and al Qaeda sleeper agents (including those, like al Marri, who gamed the system to obtain legal residency) who are sent to this country to kill them. Lefty lawyers have complained ad nauseam about al Marri's detention, claiming that the entire U.S. constitutional order was at stake. This perspective was taken to extreme lengths, to the point that some, like the Times, even pretended that the case against al Marri was weak.
Meanwhile, al Marri was KSM's hit man and planned the indiscriminate massacre of American citizens on behalf of al Qaeda. Al Marri and his master could not care less about the U.S. Constitution or a "free society." As for the ACLU and the Times, well, someone needs to be al Qaeda's "useful idiots."
