It is Better to Try "Conspirators" than "Terrorists"
Three brothers in the United States illegally - who dropped out of high school, had brushes with the law, used drugs through their teens and early 20s, and then became religious Muslims - were sentenced to life in prison for plotting to kill American soldiers at Ft. Dix, NJ. Two were given an additional 30 years for weapons offenses. Two other Muslim men remain to be sentenced in the plot.
Details can be read in earlier JINSA Reports (#661 and #840). In short, a video store clerk copying tapes for a client noticed that the tapes were "jihadist videos," containing men waving guns and shouting "Allahu Akhbar." One of the men was the client. The clerk alerted the FBI, which sent informants to obtain additional information and ultimately arrested five men.
At the trial, the defense made three points: a) nothing actually happened, b) nothing would have happened, and c) the men were entrapped by the informants. Mohamed Younes, president of the American Muslim Union, was quoted saying, "I don't think they actually meant to do anything. I think they were acting stupid, like they thought the whole thing was a joke."
Noting that the first videos were produced before informants were involved, the jury evidently decided it wasn't a joke and "acting stupid" is not a defense. Acquitted of attempted murder charges, all were convicted of conspiracy to kill U.S. soldiers.
The defendants and their families appear to believe everything short of shooting should have been considered irrelevant by the FBI and then the court: trips to a jihadist camp in the Pocono Mountains; dozens of statements they made about striking at America; maps they made of Ft. Dix; guns they bought; and hundreds of hours of violent jihadist videos they downloaded and played endlessly. In what surely must have been a non sequitur, The Philadelphia Inquirer quoted a defense attorney saying, "When they found their religion they thought and still feel they found the keys to their happiness."
"What was their intention?" asked their father as the family asked for leniency because "nothing happened." Another defense attorney called the sentence "unusually lengthy" in a case where "no one was harmed." "We are saying to them, 'We are going to treat you more harshly than a murderer.' Is that good policy?"
The Deputy U.S. Attorney said it was. "These men do not deserve leniency because of the good work of the FBI. They should not receive some benefit because there are not some dead soldiers lying on the ground."
We agree.
There is some space between the intention to commit terrorism and the act itself. The jury got it right by convicting the five for conspiracy, not attempted murder - they hadn't yet attempted it. But the American public - and those who would do our people, civilians or soldiers, harm - should know that law enforcement will do its best to put conspirators out of business before they become terrorists.
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