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IT'S ALL ABOUT IRAQ

Imagine how much happier this Ahmed Ressam timeline may have turned out had Iraq not been invaded, thus sparing us the terrorism provoked by that awful event:

March 17, 1998:
Ressam leaves Montreal for Afghanistan. He spends several months at a camp funded and administered by Osama bin Laden. He receives training in light arms – including machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades – the use of explosives and poison gas, methods for assassination, sabotage and urban warfare. Ressam would later testify that it was during this time that he began planning on attack on U.S. soil.

August 1999:
Ressam begins working out the details of his plan to bomb the Los Angeles airport. By fall, he is building timing devices for the bomb and gathering other chemical ingredients.

Dec. 17, 1999:
Ressam is charged with bringing explosives into the United States three days after he was stopped at the Port Angeles, Wash., border crossing. He arrived in the U.S. by ferry from Victoria, B.C. He was carrying two Canadian driver’s licences, each in a different name, and a Canadian passport – and 50 kilograms of explosives.

April 2, 2001:
Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere – described as the world’s foremost terrorism expert – tells the trial that Ressam had links to Osama bin Laden. He says as early as 1996, French intelligence learned that Ressam and six other Montreal men were trafficking in fake passports that were used to send people to train as terrorists in Afghanistan.

July 6, 2001:
Ressam describes a plot two years earlier to set off a bomb in a neighbourhood in Canada with “Israeli interests."

October 23, 2002:
US President George W. Bush announces “no invasion of Iraq will take place”.

November 3, 2002:
Ressam, through his lawyers, issues this statement: “I wish to renounce my career as an Islamic terrorist, which was entirely based upon the belief that following September 11 the US would invade Iraq. Boy, was I ever wrong! You guys are the best—Ressam.”

(Via Alan R.M. Jones)

Posted by Tim B. on 07/28/2005 at 08:42 AM
  1. I wonder how Hollywood would have reacted to a Bomb in Los Angeles?

    Would they still all line up to excuse the sorry bastard that did it, whilst skulking in their palaces out of harms way?

    Posted by EU Serf on 2005 07 28 at 10:19 AM • permalink

  2. See Tim, you proved it. Iraq causes errorism, I mean terrorism.

    Posted by tim maguire on 2005 07 28 at 10:58 AM • permalink

  3. You must read the sermon by the idiot judge who gave Ressam a reduced sentence.

    Boldy Going where No Sane Judge Dare...

    Posted by Patricia on 2005 07 28 at 10:03 PM • permalink

  4. Judge Coughenour is merely perpetuating one of the most wrong-headed beliefs of Democrats and the left in general:  that the acts committed by these people are law enforcement problems rather than acts of war.  I believe in the US Constitution, but I do not believe that it necessarily applies to non-citizens committing acts of war against my country.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2005 07 28 at 10:20 PM • permalink

  5. Aren’t you being a bit harsh on the judge? One thing the sentence had to reflect was that Ressam was an “informant for many years following his arrest”, according to reports. If, despite that, you gave him the death penalty or life without parole, there’s not much incentive for others to cooperate with the authorities, is there?

    By the way, the judge is not a Democrat - he was a Reagan appointee. His comments just reflect a commitment to due process and the rule of law - things many conservatives believe in used to believe in.

    Posted by Lionel Mandrake on 2005 07 28 at 11:38 PM • permalink

  6. But Ressam has refused to talk for 2-3 years now and several cases are in jeopardy: deal’s off.  He should have got the 35 years.

    Posted by Patricia on 2005 07 29 at 01:20 AM • permalink

  7. Due process has become a weakness and will continue to be exploited.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2005 07 31 at 02:26 AM • permalink

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