Terrorist Suspect
Reader comment on item: [Maher Hawash:] The Terrorist Next Door

Submitted by Peter Herz (Taiwan), Aug 12, 2003 at 23:09

I applaud the FBI is nabbing Mr. Hawash and getting him to come clean and cooperate with the American authorities. I hope as well that the information he gives may get us just one step closer to the day when an American or Afghan government soldier reaches into a hole and pulls Osama Bin Laden out by his beard--or, better, as they say here in Taiwan, by his wai luan.

Also, the FBI can't be accused of racism when it remains on the job in watching Ku Kluxers and Timothy McVeigh types, as well as possible al-Qaeda sympathizers.

But, I have a few more thoughts.

Up around Boston, New York, and other places, there are people quietly living and working and supporting the IRA, which for decades has been waging a vicious terrorist campaign against Great Britain, the mother of all democracies (if we forget about Iceland) and staunch US ally. The same organization, to drive home its point to Northern Irish Unionists living scattered in predominantly Catholic rural areas of Ulster, doesn't think twice about sending its supporters out to run down a pre-teen Protestant boy on a bicycle. The IRA also has a history of dealing with every enemy of Western civilization (and friend of Western and non-Western barbarism) to come down the pike, including the East German secret services and Moammar Qaddafi.

Given that UK nationals can enter the USA visa-free if they declare an intention to remain for no more than 90 days, it wouldn't be hard for IRA terrorists to slip away from British justice by illegally immigrating to the USA. I do not doubt for a minute that many have done so. Is the FBI Watching?

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