Hawash Pleads Guilty

Mike Hawash, the former Intel programmer whose arrest on terror charges spawned an outcry from friends and family, signed a plea agreement that declares that Hawash did intend to go fight for the Taliban in 2001. He'll serve between seven and 10 years and pledges to cooperate with the feds in further investigations.

Comments

[dude]

I don't know, but I assume he plead guilty to avoid designation as an enemy combatant and indefinite detention without trial. Anyone know? I imagine the DOJ wouldn't be public about that sort of thing.

[Leftmeme]

He is completely 100% innocent. The government just made him sign a confession because the government is always evil, unless it is giving money to the poor, minorities, or homosexuals.

[Brad S]

I think that Hawash being arrested is Hogwash...

[Ray]

Guilty?

Yeah right. He can't be guilty.

[chris]

i would agree with dude. it is also possible that mike was under some "duress" to confess, is it not?

[Brady]

I think that Dilbert cartoon from the post below could represent this topic pretty well. "I don't have a clue of what I'm talking about but here's my opinion..."

[dude]

Um Brady, it's a chat board on the internet. You expecting Ascroft himself to post all the details or something?

[Brady]

Um, dude, most topics on here we have at least some information to make inferences on. This one is about as interesting as debating whether Kobe raped that girl or not. No offense, but I don't have a freaking clue, and don't care to hear your guess cause you don't either. Very much an instance of the Dilbert cartoon.

[Nicholas Weininger]

It's entirely plausible that he's guilty. It's also entirely plausible that he was coerced into signing a completely false confession, NKVD-style, by the threat of being disappeared into "enemy combatant"-land.

We have absolutely no way of knowing, and probably never will; there is no accountability mechanism which enables an ordinary citizen to find out anything useful about the facts. That's part of the horror of the Bush/Ashcroft destruction of the rule of law: it means that the justice system's outcome no longer gives any useful information on guilt or innocence.

[Brady]

point taken, nicholas.