Terrorists in America

They are here, and they want to kill us. I can't wait to see the details from this case:

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - A former Virginia high school valedictorian who had been detained in Saudi Arabia as a suspected terrorist was charged Tuesday with conspiring to assassinate President Bush and with supporting the al-Qaida terrorist network.

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 23, a U.S. citizen, made an initial appearance Tuesday in U.S. District Court but did not enter a plea. He claimed that he was tortured while detained in Saudi Arabia since June of 2003 and offered through his lawyer to show the judge his scars.

The federal indictment said that in 2002 and 2003 Abu Ali and an unidentified co-conspirator discussed plans for Abu Ali to assassinate Bush. They discussed two scenarios, the indictment said, one in which Abu Ali "would get close enough to the president to shoot him on the street" and, alternatively, "an operation in which Abu Ali would detonate a car bomb."

According to the indictment, Abu Ali obtained a religious blessing from another unidentified co-conspirator to assassinate the president.

More than 100 supporters of Abu Ali crowded the courtroom and laughed when the charge was read aloud alleging that he conspired to assassinate Bush.

The indictment means that federal grand jury thinks that there is probable cause that the defendant committed the crimes he is charged with. The fact that he is actually being charged, and not just held for questioning, suggests to me that investigators have rounded up as many "unidentified co-conspirators" as they will be able to. Hopefully some useful intelligence was gleaned from the defendants before their arrest. Look for defense counsel to try to create a media circus over the torture issue, which should be absolutely irrelevant with respect to a plot concocted in Virginia to assassinate the President.

I wonder if Bush will continue to mouth the stale old "Religion of Peace" platitudes. Probably. It really has reached the morbidly humorous stage at this point. Muslims plot murder and mayhem in the name of Allah, but we are told time and again to overlook the behavior of "a radical minority." Sorry, but I refuse to overlook the consistent religious sanction of indiscriminate (and in this case, discriminate) murder. Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here.