Wonkette
- BIN LADEN’S DRIVER CONVICTED: Salim Hamdan was found guilty of providing material support for terrorism, but was acquitted of conspiring with al-Qaeda. [CBC News]
GUANTANAMO UPDATE
10:40 AM
on Wed August 6 2008
By
Sara K. Smith
643 Views
Barry will pardon him.
Hey America: Franz Kafka called and he wants his oeuvre back.
I guess, ‘if the turban doesn’t fit, you must acquit’ didn’t work.
First Osama’s driver…next Obama’s driver
He’s going to the slammer and he’s going to be someone’s bitch in less than twelve hours. I pity his ass, really.
6 years for 1 conviction, 80 more planned. Let’s see, 80 times 6 = just 480 more years!! And they don’t say what they will do with the rest of the guys.
Glad Harold and Kumar made it out of there anyway.
If he says he’s sorry, we should let him out of prison.
A fair and balanced “trial”…and then we have Shrub, railing at China over detainees and Human Rights, what a fuckin’ pair that dick must swing from…
By this standard, the cabbies who take Republican senators from National Airport to the Hill are guilty of conspiracy to commit pagefucking.
Wait, he’s supposedly bin Laden’s driver and he was acquitted of helping al Qaeda.
Who was he helping? The IRA?
Guilt or Innocent, everyone gets sodomized in Gitmo!
Well that was it folks — our first and showiest trial, with the most overwhelming amount of evidence. We convicted a guy for driving the car for bin Laden. After we convict bin Laden’s florist and some poor bastard who held the door for him going into a restaurant, we got nothing. USA! USA! USA!
convicted? i don’t believe it.
what were the odds?
well…he got a fair trial…at least, that’s how the arab world will
view it, don’t you think?
Did they fing the commie guilty of serving cake on Red China?
…isn’t this just another FAIL in the long line of epic-fails of the Bush administration? He couldn’t convict this guy on ALL charges in his own kangaroo court and then on top of that that it took 3 days for them to comeback with a verdict. Then again they were the ones that raised expectations by calling him “Bin Laden’s Driver” and essentially convicting him the court of public opinion. Secondly the fact that he was convicted of only supplying “Material Support” and not “Conspiring with Al Queda” is disturbing because if he he was only a glorified taxi driver should we be spending our resources and effort prosecuting him? Ever since the news of his arrest came out this wreaked of desperation on the Bush administrations part.
AngryBlakGuy: Yeah, that about sums it up.
SayItWithWookies: Yep, they picked their best open-and-shut case ’cause they knew it would get the most attention. Next: Osama’s pedicurist. What makes it even more ironic, in a Kafka-esque sort of way, is that even if he’d been acquitted, they were stillgoing to keep him at Gitmo for the rest of his life. Because if he wasn’t angry at the US when we picked him up, he sure is now!
Nice work, Bush & Co. Making enemies for America since 2001.
This is it? This is our big win in The Global War on Terror?
Proud tuh be an Murken…..
…just in case anyone was wondering what is covered by “Material Support”:
“currency or monetary instruments of financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safe houses, false documentation or identification, communications, equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel transportation, and other physical assets, except medicine or religious materials.
So when do we begin the prosecution of the CIA?
Ya know, they could kill two birds with one stone if they arrested UBL’s dialysis tech.
Bastards. Barry’s got his work cut out for him.
AngryBlakGuy: This. You have to wonder if the administration thought it would be clever to acquit on the al Qaeda charge to make it look fair.
Not quite.
Just wait til they get to the guy who used to make Bin Laden’s lattes. They’re gonna fuck that guy up.
I read recently that Hitler’s driver was acquitted at the Nuremburg trials. But of course bin Laden was responsible for far more heinous crimes than Hitler.
Now you can play Guantanamo (waterboarding too) at Coney Island!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/arts/design/06wate.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Maybe Osama’s a really bad driver and the CIA are hoping he’ll now get stuck while backing out of a space at the Kabul branch of WalMart, kind of like the “golf cart doing a U-turn in a narrow tunnel” scene in Austin Powers, thus making him easier to pick off from the sky.
Funny thing this morning on NPR - it’s a good thing they found him of something, cuz it’s not like they had any plans to let him go.
I hope you are all convicted, you terrorists.
But I want to know, was the taxi a Mercedes, a Toyota?
This is important. Aspiring terrorists will now be driving the same make and model.
Let that be a lesson to us all: be careful who you drive around.
Osama’s dry cleaner, barber and veterenarian are the next to face justice. Too bad no one seems too worried about Osama himself.
SayItWithWookies: The mental image of bin Laden ordering flowers is too awesome to contemplate all at once.
lumpenprole: Did you hear Steve Inskeep get all high-pitched about that? That was weird.
AnnieGetYourFun:
You could almost hear him thinking “Wait a sec. Can I say `show trial’ without being banished to Pacifica?”
AngryBlakGuy: Your missing the point. Do you really think that this administration want anyone to hold any leadership responsible for anything, even Al Queda leadership?
OK, so he was found guilty of providing material support for terrorism, but was acquitted of conspiring with al-Qaeda. So he did it on his own? He was a volunteer aid-provider?
He gave them support they did not want? He forced them to let him drive? By this measure, every cabbie and hirecar driver everywhere better start making sure no customer they have ever served has done anything illegal.
I am getting all exercised about this, and probably should actually read the underlying story, but basically, driving someone bad makes you bad? Respondeat inferior? A Mafioso’s maid is guilty? Everyone employed by a criminal is a criminal? Everyone in the Bush admin is therefore guilty of a lot.
Oh well. I guess I must want the terrorists to win, and i must hate Anerica. If you don’t hear from me again, it is because I have been hauled off to Guantanamo when these postings were traced to me.
lumpenprole: LOLZ. He’s got nothing on Amy Goodman and he knows it.
Doglessliberal: More than anything, they want to prove that simply BELIEVING in the cause makes you guilty, really. It’s not just that he drove Osama around, it’s that he really, really wanted Osama to succeed, and we don’t like that kind of can-do attitude.
AnnieGetYourFun: He was an uppity Muslim!
The fix was in. It’s either “guilty! Life in prison/gitmo” or “Innocent! Congrats. Now go back to your cell here in sunny Gitmo.”
In any case, they were gonna convict this guy of shoplifting if that’s what it took to make the “system work.”
They say that a civilian DA can indict a ham sandwich. The military has it easier: they can automatically convict one. Which is even more ironic, ‘cos ham ain’t halal.