Then They Came for the Children

[Guest guest]

K

Wed, 27 Apr 2005 21:41:33 -0700 (PDT)

Then They Came for the Children

 

 

 

 

How do we even begin to convince people these kinds of things are

happening? This country has gone crazy.

KZC

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http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0427-21.htm

Published on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 by UExpress.com

Then They Came for the Children

Feds Arrest Girls for Teen Snottiness

by Ted Rall

 

They've vanished into the netherworld of a Homeland Security gulag and

their story has already disappeared from the headlines, but the

shocking case of two 16-year-old girls from New York City arrested a

month ago ought to inspire outrage among every American worthy of the

name. Since the government's reasons for the girls' imprisonment could

apply to virtually any teenager, it should also spark fear.

 

Like many rebellious teens, I fought with my mother. Local police,

called to my home during at least one particularly impressive clash of

wills and voices, talked us back into the land of the calmly

reasonable. Then they left.

 

Like many young people, I was fascinated by morbid, violent subjects.

After I turned in an essay depicting a political assassination from

the killer's viewpoint, my creative writing teacher sent me to talk to

my guidance counselor. After I assured him that I had no desire to

knock off any politicians, he returned me to class.

 

A quarter century later, my mom and I are best friends and I haven't

done anything the Secret Service ought to worry about. Right now,

however, two girls from New York City are rotting in a HomeSec prison

in Pennsylvania for doing nothing more than I did--one for fighting

with her parents and writing an essay, the other accused of being her

friend.

 

In early March, the New York Times reported on April 7, one girl's

parents " went to the local police station house " in the Queens Village

neighborhood because " their daughter...had defied their authority. "

Things calmed down and the parents, believing their daughter had been

scared straight, asked the NYPD to forget the whole thing.

 

It was too late for that.

 

Without a warrant, NYPD detectives and federal agents burst into the

girl's home--no wonder they don't have time to look for Osama!--where

they " searched her belongings and confiscated her computer and the

essays that she had written as part of a home schooling program, " say

her family. " One essay concerned suicide...[that] asserted that

suicide is against Islamic law. " The family is Bangladeshi. They are

Muslim. That, coupled with the mere mention of suicide bombing in her

essay, was enough to put the fuzz on high alert.

 

Although she is conservative and devout, the girl and her parents

vigorously deny that she is an Islamist extremist (not that such

opinions are illegal), but this is post-9/11 America and post-9/11

America is out of its mind.

 

Based solely on an essay written by one of the two, the FBI says both

girls are " an imminent threat to the security of the United States

based upon evidence that they plan to become suicide bombers. " But the

feds admit that they have no evidence to back their suspicions. Nothing.

 

" There are doubts about these claims, and no evidence has been found

that such a plot was in the works, " one Bush Administration official

admitted to the Times. " The arrests took place after authorities

decided it would be better to lock up the girls than wait and see if

they decided to become terrorists, " another told the New York Post.

The same logic could be used to justify locking up any Muslim, or

anyone at all. Heck, maybe that's the idea.

 

The Bangladeshi girl, who was homeschooled and wears a veil, says she

never even met her outgoing and more Americanized " co-conspirator "

from Guinea before the cops accused them of plotting to

do...something. Maybe.

 

She says FBI agents threatened to deport her parents and place her

American-born siblings, a four-month-old baby and an 11-year-old, in

foster care unless she confessed.

 

Even in PATRIOT Act-era America, alleged fantasies of martyrdom aren't

a crime. So HomeSec's ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is

holding both two girls as illegal immigrants--one for entering the

U.S. without an inspection, the other for overstaying her visa. And

even that charge rests on razor-thin ice: " This is a girl who's been

in this country since she was two years old, " the Guinean girl's

teacher says. Ditto for the one from Bangladesh. Holding kids

accountable for the actions of their parents is crazy, which is why

immigration authorities don't usually do it. Two-year-old babies don't

wade across the Rio Grande or overstay their visas. Deporting American

teenagers--American in every way that matters--to countries they've

never even visited is equally insane.

 

I would be the first to applaud the FBI if they had arrested two

proven would-be suicide bombers before they had the chance to strike.

If they have evidence to that effect, they should make it public and

bring charges in open court. But that's clearly not the case here.

 

When this story first broke I didn't write about it because I assumed

that a public outcry would soon lead to its reasonable resolution.

Sadly, this has not happened.

 

Homes searched without a warrant, kids thrown in prison for thoughts

real and imagined, people's lives destroyed by an out-of-control

federal government--will Americans speak up for what's right? Please

call and write your congressman and senator to demand the release of

the two girls from Queens.

 

© 2005 Ted Rall

 

 

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" For one to be a revolutionary...at all, there must first be a

revolution. Isolated individual endeavor, for all its purity of

ideals, is of no use, and the desire to sacrifice an entire lifetime

to the noblest of ideals serves no purpose if one works alone,

solitarily, in some corner of America, fighting against adverse

governments and social conditions which prevent progress. -- Che Guevara

 

 

 

http://BuzzardsRoost.aimoo.com

http://www.GranniesAgainstGeorge.us

 

 

 

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