Radical Rock Stars

Terrorism suspects have been known to be treated like 'radical rock stars' in prisons across the world where they become pseudo-celebrities and makeshift Imam's for the prison's Muslim community (although there are certainly examples of the opposite being true).

We've seen this with the 1993 World Trade Center terrorists (imprisoned here in America) and in Australia's Supermax; we've seen this with many of England's Class A terrorism suspects/prisoners, as well as with members of the Dutch Hofstad network and the Spanish National Court plot.

Put in the right place, at that the right time and close to the right kind of prisoner former Guantanamo detainee Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani - pictured above in his younger document forging days - who is being tried here in my hometown New York, could be equally lauded.

In New York prisons, as much as 20% of the population is Muslim and the vast majority are African American (estimates place the number of African American Muslims in U.S. prisons as high as 95%).

Yet, across the entire American prison system Muslims are estimated to represent less then 10% of all inmates.

So this Tanzanian born al-Qaeda terror suspect might just be able to continue his "resistance behind the wire," if Lady Circumstance smiles down upon him from his cell.

This is what Barack Obama fails to understand in his haste to close Camp X-Ray. He places us all in much greater peril with the detainees on the American mainland then if he just let them stay in Cuba (or, in the case of the beleaguered Uighurs, Bermuda).

I will keep you updated on Ghailani as his trial as it unfolds.

Update... June 26, 2009
This, from a former NYPD official (God Bless the NYPD!) Richard Falkenrath.