Day late, dollar short

I seem to have gotten into a pattern of, as I wander blogs, finding older items that seem too good to not pass on despite their ancient (in bloggy years) status. So here's one more, learned about from Greg at The Talent Show:

Hartford, Conn., May 6 (AP) - A year after federal agents raided his home in a terrorism investigation, Muslim businessman Syed Maswood is lucky to get on an airplane without being detained and searched. But that didn't stop him from getting an invitation to dine with President Bush.

Maswood, a nuclear engineer who has not been charged with any crime and has been trying for months to get his name off no-fly lists, received an invitation to serve as an honorary chairman at a Republican fundraiser with Bush in Washington next month.

Greg notes that this proves one of two hypotheses: Either (1)the "no-fly" lists are bullshit that contain the names of a large number of innocent people or (2)the GOP takes money from terrorists. (Not that those are mutually exclusive, mind you.)

I noticed something else in the article which Greg didn't mention: Explaining what prompted the raid (a donation to a formerly IRS-approved charity accused of supporting terrorism),

[i]nvestigators also said they uncovered an e-mail Maswood sent indicating support for Islamic rebels in Chechnya....

So now simply expressing an opinion in favor of some Islamic group or another is evidence of terrorist ties? Apparently so, even if the Council on Foreign Relations - about as mainstream a foreign policy group as there is in the US - says

the struggle [in Chechnya] is between local separatists — a loosely organized group, with semi-independent commanders - and the Russian Army. Chechnya's long and very violent guerrilla war has attracted a small number of Islamist militants from outside of Chechnya - some of whom are Arab fighters, with possible links to al-Qaeda. [emphasis added]

What if the email had expressed support for Russia in Chechnya? Putin's government certainly has been responsible for its share of human rights abuses there. Would that have been evidence of "support for terrorism?" (The question is purely rhetorical, as I expect is obvious.)

This of course does not mean I support any of the rebels in Chechnya; I do not support murderous violence (by anyone) and no group that could pull off a Beslan deserves any support - and it got none from other Muslims. But I have expressed support for the idea of independence for peoples that desire it and have repeatedly argued that our conflicts with the Muslim world are to a significant extent of our own making. I've also said that if you accept the legitimacy of violent action, that is, if you are not a pacifist, you by definition accept the right of the insurgency in Iraq to resist violently the American presence there and can dispute only the targets chosen. And I've condemned the limitations on freedom engendered by the War on Terrorism^{(c)(reg.)(pat.pend.)}, an attitude that former AttGen John Cinderfield once said "aids the enemy."

So am I now by virtue of those convictions some sort of "terrorist sympathizer?" No, I don't expect to be raided - but when they run out of Maswoods, what then?

I recall around 1971 having some fun twitting a guy who thought he was outrageously radical in his positions by repeatedly pointing out how his self-described "treasonous" utterances could be defended on free speech grounds, forcing him to become more and more extreme in his assertions, demonstrating how hard it was to actually make a legally treasonous statement. That was, indeed, long ago and far away.