Millenium Bomber Back For another Sentencing

You know how the current US Justice Department wants to try terrorists under the "rule of law?"  They are against that Military Tribunal thing, because for some reason, they believe that terrorists should enjoy protected rights under the US Constitution whether they are a citizen of the United States or not. 

Well, get in your wayback machine and travel back to 1999.

On two previous occasions, in 2005 and 2008, Coughenour has imposed 22-year sentences against Ressam for attempting to bring powerful bomb-making materials into the U.S. from Canada on Dec. 14, 1999, with plans to build and detonate a powerful bomb at Los Angeles International Airport during the millennium celebration. Ressam had trained in al-Qaida-sponsored training camps in Afghanistan and was part of a larger terrorist cell based in Montreal with ties to Islamic terrorists in France and Bosnia.
 

The US Justice Department touted this as a premier case showing that trying the crimes under the US Court system was the right thing to do.  Well, it didn't work out too well.  The reason there is a third Sentencing Hearing is reflective of just why you don't want to involve the US Courts in dealing with enemy combatants.

 Federal prosecutors have appealed both times, arguing variously that Ressam had stopped cooperating and had sabotaged the cases they had built with his help. According to prosecutors and federal agents, Ressam has again embraced his radical beliefs.

So, if Captain Terrorism gets released in the 22 short years he was originally sentenced, he'll only be 51 years old.  And, he'll still be a radical jihadist.  The Federal prosecutors are trying to save face by extending the sentence.  And, what is Captain Terrorist doing in the meantime?  Why he's issuing letters on record in the Court denouncing the US Government.

For his part, Ressam just wants the proceedings over. He will represent himself in court again — Hillier is acting as his standby lawyer — and in a letter addressed to Coughenour dated Oct. 16, he again renounced his cooperation with the U.S. — an irony since his initial decision to cooperate came after he told investigators he was impressed by the fairness of his 2001 trial.

In a letter translated from Arabic and filed with the court last week, Ressam again apologized for his "action," but pointed out that nobody died and that he is "against killing innocent people of any gender, color or religion."

"Look truthfully at yourselves you will see how many innocent people you have killed under the guise of various slogans," he wrote.
 

If we could all just be a bit more understanding...right?