Abdullah Al Muhajir, formerly known as Jose Padilla, stands accused of plotting to create and denote a radioacive "dirty bomb" somewhere in the United States. He was arrested by the FBI a month ago. In a callous attempt to play on the fears of Americans, the Attorney General used a special news conference in Moscow to announce this to the world. Before dealing with anythig else, this should be addressed.
If Al Muhajir is in custody, and has been for a month, why is it necessary for this special news conference from a foreign land? Why not wait until Ashcroft returns to the United States? Why not have it treated as a normal daily press conference? Why wait a month before making the announcement? It certainly appears to be a "Wag the Dog" tactic to me, but maybe I'm just getting cynical and suspicious.
A bigger issue may be that Al Muhajir has been in federal custody for a month without being charged with a crime, and without access to a lawyer. This is due, according to the President and Attorney Gerneral, to the fact that he is an "enemy combatant" or "unlawful combatant" who can be held indefintely without charges.
I could've sworn that both of those designations could only apply to non-citizens, and that even then those determinations were supposed to be made by a military tribunal. I've not heard that there's been a tribunal, but from the Administration's statements, it wuold appear that there has not been, and wil not be one. Why? Because Al Muhajir is an American citizen.
I could've sworn there was this cool thing called habeus corpus that applied to citizens accused of crimes. Ashcroft claims that habeus corpus doesn't apply because Al Muhajir is a "soldier" in the terror war against the United States. Perhaps he can explain how you can be a US Citizen, and still be a "soldier" for any organization but the US Army? I can't think of any.
The word "soldier", of course, denotes someone in the armed forces of a nation. Not a terrorist, who is nothing more than a politically motivated criminal. The days, the word terrorist has been expanded to include civil rights protesters, dissenters, hackers, and pretty much anyone who disagrees with th President, but the idea is the same. A terrorist, is not, and can not be, a soldier.
All of this means one thing. Al Muhajir is being held in a US Navy brig illegally. He is a US civilian. An American citizen, and regardless of the crime he is accused with, deserves the full protection of the law. That means access to a lawyer. It means he must be either charged with a crime, or released. It's that simple. The government can charge him with many things but conspiracy and terrorism seem to top the list.
The fact is, if the government is treating Al Muhajir, an American citizen, this way, they can do it to anyone. This is your only warning.