Michael, I had not been aware of this, and it raises for me a troubling point. I am a lawyer (in New York), and as a libertarian I find the idea that US citizens can be detained without judicial review to be abhorrent, which is why I find the Padilla case so troubling. But this story raises a nagging doubt in the back of my mind. If al-Qaeda, or one of the numerous other terrorist organizations, made a concerted effort to use US citizens in its operations, particularly the operations within the US - much the same way as Padilla - then the fact these are US citizens within the country converts the governing rules from the rules of war to the rules of criminal law. That means the detainees could tie up investigations forever, refuse to answer questions without a lawyer present, insist on speedy trials, etc etc etc.

Where do my libertarian instincts go when confronted with this tactic, where the bad guys use our best instincts against us? What a dilemma.......

Posted by: Stuart at May 7, 2004 10:14 AM

This story essentially can't be interpreted until we at least find out what "bomb-related evidence" means. Right?

Material witness is a lot different from "suspected terrorist" after all. I guess time will tell.

Posted by: bk at May 7, 2004 10:14 AM

I am too busy being ashamed for a few bad soliders to care about this.

Posted by: Air American at May 7, 2004 10:17 AM

We say that we are at war with Al-Qaeda (or Terrorism).

If there is enough evidence to bring this man to trial, then there is a very good basis for such trial. He aided and abetted, a entity that we are at war with. Ergo, if there is enough evidence to take to court, then he should be tried for treason.

If there is not enough evidence to bring him to court, then we should not simply toss him into the enemy combatant camps, no evidence == not guilty in the US. If we let the terrorists change us, they win.

I would recommend this course of action for any American aiding a wartime enemy.

Tosk

Posted by: Ratatosk at May 7, 2004 10:30 AM

Hey, bk, if you took the time to read the article, you'd know what the evidence was, and I quote - "a fingerprint that turned up on a bag containing detonators and other bomb-related equipment left in the bombers' stolen van found at the Alcala de Henares train station outside Madrid hours after the bombings."

Still waiting for that apology and retraction you owe me.

Posted by: Hipocrite at May 7, 2004 10:31 AM

"LOOKS LIKE he might have done"?!...

Dude, if his fingerprint is on the, whatever the hell his fingerprint is on, he's got something to do with it. "Bomb Related Materials" from Madrid wouldn't logically wind up in a Portland, Oregon man's hands accidentally. Would they?

It's funny, because this isn't the first time I've heard of stuff like this. We need to be very careful when we tread onto religious ground, but alot of these mosques don't take the time to discriminate out exactly who they're giving money to. There's a big one here in Indiana that's in all kinds of trouble because they've been pretty much not even checking out who the people are that ask them for cash. Turns out some of the ones they were giving support to were turning around and funding Hamas. The mosque didn't know, and I can honestly tell you that because a friend of mine investigating it has told me as much, but it just goes to show how lax alot of these places can be. Kinda spooky, huh?

Posted by: Grant McEntire at May 7, 2004 10:33 AM

Retaining my healthy suspicion of the accused, I see no reason to believe that "Bomb Related Materials" from Madrid wound up in a Portland, Oregon man's hands" at all.

One additional corrections - he was not arrested, according to the article. This should be corrected on the front page.

Posted by: Hipocrite at May 7, 2004 10:40 AM

Uh, Hipocrite, you left out the part about the guy having past military experience and the fact that he's already under investigation for suspected terrorist activity. I think that kind of makes a difference, at least a big enough difference to mention in your quote.

Posted by: Grant McEntire at May 7, 2004 10:42 AM

Wow, this is a big story. Perhaps not surprising, but it certainly calls into doubt the notion of Islam as a religion of peace.

Posted by: Pat Curley at May 7, 2004 10:45 AM

We say that we are at war with Al-Qaeda (or Terrorism).

If there is enough evidence to bring this man to trial, then there is a very good basis for such trial. He aided and abetted, a entity that we are at war with. Ergo, if there is enough evidence to take to court, then he should be tried for treason.

Here's the sticky part - assuming he did aid Al Qaeda in their bomb plot, and could be assumed to be "aiding and abetting the enemy", wouldn't the aid be required to be in an attack directly against Americans or American interest/property to be called actual "treason"? I mean, sure Spain is an ally, but would the charge of treason still apply?

Not defending, just wondering how the letter and the spirit of that statute are interpreted.

Posted by: Barry at May 7, 2004 10:46 AM

Okay, here you have a guy that has personally defended terrorists before for cases having nothing to do with terrorism. He has the connections and his fingerprint is on the bag that winds up in Madrid. I think that's a pretty strong lead, if I do say so myself.

I'm not so headstrong as to declare the guy guilty already, but I do wonder why it is your way to instinctually defend the man in the face of all that, Hipocrite.

Posted by: Grant McEntire at May 7, 2004 10:47 AM

When you said that "the fact that he's already under investigation for suspected terrorist activity" you neglected to mention that he was not actually already under investigation - "FBI sources said one of the fingerprints matched Mayfield's. There had been no previous indication that Mayfield had been under investigation for suspected terrorist activity."

Perhaps you confused him with the other potential match, which is discussed in the previous pargraph to the one I just quoted.

Beyond that innacuracy, you have yet to retract your assertion that "Bomb Related Materials" from Madrid [wound] up in a Portland, Oregon man's hands," which, of course, there is absolutly 0 evidence of.

Posted by: Hipocrite at May 7, 2004 10:48 AM

A fingerprint from Portland, in Madrid with bomb making stuff.

The fingerprint is owned by someone who has recently converted to the same faith as the bomber.

The bombing was religously motavaited.

The owner of the fingerprint has a millitary background and was perhaps already under suspicion of terrorist connections.

I would say that if they arrest this man, they have reason to. Of course, if the fingerprint is only partial, or if the man happened to bag groceries for a charity for his Mosque (and the bag made the trip to Spain) then he deserves Due Process. If he's a traitor, he deserves Due Process and execution.

Tosk

Posted by: Ratatosk at May 7, 2004 10:48 AM

Sigh. Pat, you're a smarter guy than to say something like that. Timothy McVeigh was a Christian. Would you "call into doubt the notion of" Christianity being "a religion of peace" because of it? There are whackos and nutjobs in every organized religion. That doesn't make the religion bad. Just the whackos.

Posted by: Grant McEntire at May 7, 2004 10:50 AM

I'm not defending the man from the truth, I'm defending him from the fictions - "Bomb Related materials in his hands," "Arrested," "Already under investigation," that someone has fabricated into a very clear story about the case to date.

Posted by: Hipocrite at May 7, 2004 10:50 AM

Barry,

It is a tricky issue... but if the US is indeed at War with an ideal (terrorism). Then acts that support that ideal would be treasonous, to my mind. Of course, I'm not a lawyer, and I could be wrong.

However, I'd rather he be tried for treason, than simply disappear down the enemy-combatant hole.

Posted by: Ratatosk at May 7, 2004 10:52 AM

Very interesting story. Im a Portland resident too.

Heres my question: Is it possible for a fingerprint on a bag to survive completely intact after a trip from Portland to Spain, and passed through the hands of a large terrorist organization?

Posted by: dave at May 7, 2004 10:54 AM

Grant,

When someone looks at a group of people as [GROUP] they tend to paint with a very broad brush. It is difficult for humans to consider that individuals make individual decisions, factions act out of step with other factions etc.

It would be a miracle if more Americans looked at
[Muslim1 Muslim2 Muslim3...] instead of [Muslim]. However, its not how most people's brains are programmed.

Tosk

Posted by: Ratatosk at May 7, 2004 10:55 AM

Dave,

Yes. The point here is not that, say, they found the print on TNT or somesuch nonsense. Suppose they found the print on a timing device, or a cellphone used to set off the charges. Fingerprints can easily survive a transatlantic crossing.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

Posted by: section9 at May 7, 2004 11:00 AM

Is it just me, or does he look like Mr. Peck, the EPA guy from "Ghostbusters"?

Posted by: Barry at May 7, 2004 11:02 AM

Venkmen: It is true, that man has no dick.

Posted by: Ex at May 7, 2004 11:06 AM

Oh, you're such a bastard, EX. I was so ready to whip out that line and you beat me to it.

Posted by: Grant McEntire at May 7, 2004 11:08 AM

RATATOSK...

You make a good point, man. I'd go even further to say that people ought to look at the religion, seperate from the faith. Islam and Christianity and whatever the hell else faiths are perfectly benign until they get into the hands of human beings.

That's the problem with religion, I think. It's not Allah or Christ that's to blame. It's the people who followed after them and tried to make a religion out of it. Religion is faith in organized practice and faith in organized practice can lead to some pretty horrific things. Especially when, as you said, it's not just MUSLIMS and CHRISTIANS but it's more like MUSLIM-1 and MUSLIM-2 and on and on.

Posted by: Grant McEntire at May 7, 2004 11:15 AM

I don't know about the resemblence to William Atherton, the actor in Ghostbusters, but he really looks like somebody named Brandon Mayfield.

Posted by: Zhombre at May 7, 2004 11:16 AM

but he really looks like somebody named Brandon Mayfield.

Mmmm..no, I don't see it.

Posted by: Barry at May 7, 2004 11:18 AM

Can we have a serious film discussion about Ghostbusters, though? I'd really enjoy that.

Did anybody pick up on some of the pretty heavy political messages in the first movie, besides me? It was the Era of Reagan, when it was cool to be conservative. Demonizing Mr. Peck made alot of sense, even dates the film if you ask me, as he was kind of playing the role of "evil EPA bureaucrat". I remember picking up on this at a really early age, even, that Ghostbusters was a very pro-business movie. Maybe that's just sad, or maybe it was merely a foretelling of my future poli-sci genius, but it's true.

Posted by: Grant McEntire at May 7, 2004 11:22 AM

Definitely a Peck look-alike.

Nearly 80% of the mosques in America are influenced by Wahhabi fundamentalism & cash. It does seem that they’re trying to recruit Americans.

Just going by the facts we know right now, this makes me wonder about the CIA’s claim that al Qaeda is nearly impossible for them to infiltrate.

Posted by: mary at May 7, 2004 11:23 AM

Glad you're highlighting this Michael. I think this case is another perfect example of the Patriot Act supporters v the Patriot Act opponents.

A couple of questions to clear up right away.

Mr. Mayfield was not "arrested". He was "seized". His rights were not read to him, there was no friendly "knock knock" on the door. As the LA Times reports
The FBI "document exploitation" team compared the evidence with past terrorism cases and discovered the potential match between one of the numerous fingerprints found in the van and a U.S. citizen with military experience who was already under investigation for suspected terrorist activity.
The article does not say this suspect is Mayfield, but they sure do imply it.

The Times tells us more.
A senior Spanish investigator told the Los Angeles Times three weeks ago that a fingerprint found in the investigation of the train bombings resembled the fingerprint of a man described as a "U.S. military veteran" wanted by U.S. agents in connection with Islamic terrorism.

In subsequent days, two high-ranking Spanish police officials and a U.S. law enforcement official confirmed to The Times that the lead, involving a U.S. veteran connected to Al Qaeda, was being pursued. The veteran was someone who had been under investigation by U.S. agents for some time, the investigators said.

The relevant facts:
Mayfield is a veteran.
Mayfield was defense counsel for Jeffery Leon Battle(one of the "Portland Seven" that pled guilty to conspiracy to commit crimes against the United States) in a child custody battle in 2002.
Mayfield attended the same Beaverton mosque as the Portland Seven which was also the adopted mosque of known Al Qaida organizer, and veteran Afghan War Mujahideen Habis Abdulla al Saoub. Saoub was killed by Pakistani troops in the tribal city of Baghar, which is along the Pak-Afghan border among one of the many regions that the United States military has tried to convince Musharaaf to enter.

At this point, Mayfield is getting the Jose Padilla treatment - no lawyer, no charges, no rights.

Finally, I'll highlight one more piece of quasi related material. Mayfield's client, Jeffrey Battle, was the recipient of ACLU attempts to disqualify foreign intelligence evidence as a test case to challenge the Patriot Act. The ACLU was rebuked. The information the ACLU was trying to exclude included this statement from Mr. Battle to an FBI Informat.

"Because we don't have support. Everybody's scared to give up money to help us. You know what I'm saying? Because that law that Bush wrote about, you know, supporting terrorism, whatever, the whole thing. Everybody's scared. He made a law that says, for instance, if I left out of the country and I fought, right, but I wasn't able to afford a ticket but you bought my plane ticket, you gave me the money to do it. By me going and me fighting and doing that they can, by this new law, they can come and take you and put you in jail."

Those statements from Battle were entered into the 9-11 Commission records in Larry Thompson's(former Deputy AG at DOJ) opening statement.

Posted by: Brennan Stout at May 7, 2004 11:28 AM

Um, the "evil, inept bureaucrat" type transcends the Age of Reagan. See: Kafka, Baghdad Bob, et. al.

Posted by: David Warner at May 7, 2004 11:34 AM

The "muslim" worries considering Mayfield are the least of my worries. I'm more concerned with the fact that US agents have ex military people they are surveilling for connections to terrorists.

Ali Mohammed is perhaps the worst example. He wasn't supposed to enter the country and he ended up getting in AND joining the US Military.

Posted by: Brennan Stout at May 7, 2004 11:36 AM

"That's the problem with religion, I think. It's not Allah or Christ that's to blame. It's the people who followed after them and tried to make a religion out of it. Religion is faith in organized practice and faith in organized practice can lead to some pretty horrific things."

If one defines religion as faith in the practice itself (is this what you're claiming?) instead of that which inspired the practice in the first place, then you are correct.

Such faith in practice itself is not the only definition of religion, however.

Posted by: David Warner at May 7, 2004 11:40 AM

"But if this man did what it looks like he might have done, the only thing that prevents him from being a traitor and a fifth columnist amounts in my mind to a technicality."

Since fifth columnist is not a legal term, I assume you are not talking legal definitions here. So I don't think you need to worry about technicalities. The guy, if the facts are solid, was involved in a murderous foreign conspiracy to undermine the government of a wartime ally-- it is pretty clear that the Spain train bombings were designed to bring about Aznar's defeat in the election. Even if we are talking legal definitions, that sounds traitorous to me.

Gerry

Posted by: Gerry at May 7, 2004 11:48 AM

"Would you "call into doubt the notion of" Christianity being "a religion of peace" because of it?"

Grant,

I am not big on all the Islam-bashing that goes on in the US. Thankfully, most of it is just rhetoric.

That said, there is a big difference. McVeigh was a single, horrible, monsterous example. A single data point. Throughout the world there are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Muslims who openly support Al Qeada, Hamas, and hundreds of other terrorist organizations.

During the Crusades, it may have been appropriate to question if Christianity was a religion of peace. Today, it is pretty clear that it is. Is it really clear that Islam is, given the prevalence of Islamic terrorism?

At a certain point, one can't help but wonder. I don't like wondering in this way. I have had, and do have, Muslim friends. Logically, just the fact that there are not thousands of bombings every day in the US with our large Muslim population tells me it is not the religion but a virulent strain. But the more terrorist activity there is tied to that strain, and the more that strain grows, the harder it is to simply dismiss it as an abberation.

Gerry

Posted by: Gerry at May 7, 2004 11:55 AM

"pretty clear that it is"

What a typo! I obviously meant it is pretty clear that it is not!

Mea culpa, Gerry

Posted by: Gerry at May 7, 2004 11:57 AM

Brennan-

While it may be that this discussion highlights a difference in Patriot Act supporters and detractors, one of the prime differences between the two groups is that the detractors generally don't seem to understand what is actually in the Patriot Act.

For example, the Material Witness Warrant, one of which was used to bring Mayfield into custody, is not part of the Patriot Act. It is part of a 1984 statute. Further, a person so detained is entitled to both a bond hearing and to a court-appointed attorney.

Gerry

Posted by: Gerry at May 7, 2004 12:03 PM

I could be wrong, but I think that story's content is perhaps being edited as new facts arise over time. I did read that story. And I know that at one point it DID say "arrested" on a material witness warrant because while composing, I went back and checked on what it said about the material witness stuff. Now it says "held." The past military experience stuff is also new, I think.

Don't know for sure if I was guilty of missing that stuff about the fingerprint. If so, my bad. But even so, a fingerprint on a bag is not especially damning. It's definitely "let's talk to this guy" evidence and definitely not "this guy is guilty" evidence all by itself.

Posted by: bk at May 7, 2004 12:03 PM

bk: That gap is filled in by the reports of US Agents surveilling Mr. Mayfield. The LA Times reports that Mayfield was already under suspicion, but no reports of questioning, charges, etc. The finger print was the icing as is often the case in picking up a suspect.

Posted by: Brennan Stout at May 7, 2004 12:12 PM

Okay, folks, we're not talking about the cultural significance of Ghostbusters here. What gives?!

Posted by: Grant McEntire at May 7, 2004 12:43 PM

Hmmmn, Looking at the pics, side by side on the main page, I'm thinking that if we had Michael turn his goatee in to a full beard & throw on some specs, he could play Mayfield in the made-for-tv movie of the week based on the book Mayfield will write when he gets out of prison... ;-)

Posted by: Cybrludite at May 7, 2004 12:48 PM

Gerry,

Actually, some Christians could be blamed for serious genocidal acts. Christians vs Muslims in Bosnia, Catholics vs. Protestants in Ireland, early struggles in Vietnam (keeping the Catholic church in power, while keeping Buddahism out... then Communisim as well), The Phillipines, East Timor, Kosovo, Nigeria...

All of these places are Christian vs. (other idea) wars. In some cases the Christians are peresecuted, in some they persecute. This is the sort of thing that I really mean when I rant on Dogma.

Christians, Muslims, and many other religions, have the idea that somehow they have the only correct and direct line to God. Then, once they have that, its much easier for manipulative people to use that Dogmatic religious fervor to instigate attacks.

As Ghandi once said, "I love Christ, but I do not love Christians, for they do not live as Christ did."

Its a broad generalization, but the point is still there. There is a loud and active minority of Christians who act as though they follow a God of Hate, not a God of Love. The same is true of Muslims... of course they are a bit more willing to kill and die due to the belief that they'll go to Heaven.

Any religion, political affiliation, or social issue can polarize people and allow them to be manipulated by a few.

Or I could be wrong.

Posted by: Ratatosk at May 7, 2004 12:50 PM

Cyberludite,

Yeah, the guy kinda looks like me. I noticed that right away. Freaky. I don't want to look like an Islamofascist from Portland, really I don't.

Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 7, 2004 12:59 PM

Article III
Section 3.
Clause 1.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the overt act, or on confession in open court.

"Giving them aid and comfort."

Seems to fit the description to me. The only problem is we need two witnesses to the act.

Posted by: FH at May 7, 2004 01:02 PM

Any information on what Brandon Mayfield did in the military? I've been googling and haven't been able to dig anything up.

Posted by: Mark Poling at May 7, 2004 01:27 PM

No offense was intended, Michael. At least we don't have to worry about you playing Sydney Carlton to his Chales Darnay...

Posted by: Cybrludite at May 7, 2004 01:28 PM

No offense was intended, Michael.

Oh, I know.

Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 7, 2004 01:33 PM

This guy could very well have participated in planning the Madrid bombings.

Or he could have innocuously left his prints on some canvas bag that one of Islamofascist buddies took from him and then used to transport explosives to the bombing site half a world away.
And, yes, fingerprints could easily survive a trans-Atlantic crossing.

A lot more information has to come out before we really know.

Posted by: Matt Ward at May 7, 2004 01:33 PM

So there's probably not enough evidence to try him as a traitor in a criminal court.

But the whole point of detaining enemy combatants isn't to give them a trial, or due process, or determine their guilt (if any).

Rather, the point is to prevent them from contributing to the battle. Thus, they are detained until the conflict is resolved. Then they're either simply released under the terms of the truce or treaty that marks the end of the conflict, or they're subjected to criminal proceedings as appropriate.

Obviously, something as open-ended as "the war on terrorism" will require some adjustments to the basic practice of detaining enemy combatants. But it's important to note that POWs aren't about justice. They're about stopping the fighting. POW logic is actually the opposite of U.S. criminal court logic. Instead of assuming the prisoner is innocent until proven guilty, POW logic assumes the prisoner is guilty until the issue is no longer relevant.

I'd say there's ample justification to detain this man as an enemy combatant until such time as the Judiciary rules that he can no longer be so held. At that point, let him enjoy the full rights and privileges of an American citizen in a criminal court. Until then, I have no qualms about letting him cool his heels in any POW camp but Abu Ghraib.

Posted by: Peter A. at May 7, 2004 02:23 PM

"some Christians could be blamed for serious genocidal acts."

I agree up to a point, but disagree on others. For example, the case you site of Northern Ireland has little to do with anything beyond regional tension between Ireland and England. I believe that it has more to do with the IRA's flirtation with Marxism than with Christianity, especially since both sides are Christian.

Similarly, Bosnia is an ethnic battle.

Until you come up with some sort of modern day Christian equivalent to the concept of violent Jihad, and show how it extends across borders to many different nations, I doubt you will convince me of the equivalence.

Gerry

Posted by: Gerry at May 7, 2004 02:24 PM

MT,

Getchoo a pair o' them smart lil' glasses and go 'round scaring Portlandians tonight.

But seriously, I don't see much resemblance.

Posted by: Jim at May 7, 2004 02:48 PM

It's the "Little Drummer Girl" scenario (out of le Carre). Or rather, "Little Drummer Boy." I've been expecting this kind of thing for a long time.

Posted by: miklos rosza at May 7, 2004 03:04 PM

Gerry,

Not equivalent. There is no equivalent to mass terror in the current Christian system. However, Ireland was very much a Catholic vs Protestant issue, as Bosnia was Christian vs. Muslim. Yes, it also included other factors, but then every war includes more than one factor. This war includes more than just one factor.

Any ideology or dogma can be used to incite people to perform acts of violence. Most members of the KKK would claim to be Christian, yet their dogma is something most Christians abhor. Yes, the ideology and dogmas of Islam are being used by some to incite Terror. It is not the fault of the ideology, but of those who twist it.

Posted by: Ratatosk at May 7, 2004 04:16 PM

"Ireland was very much a Catholic vs Protestant issue, as Bosnia was Christian vs. Muslim"

Seeing as there seem to be problems with certain Muslim factions everywhere, I'll leave that aside.

The claim that Northern Ireland was and is a Catholic v. Protestant issue is undercut by the fact that nowhere else do you find violence between Catholics and Protestants. Don't confuse correlation with causation.

Gerry

Posted by: Gerry at May 7, 2004 04:50 PM

The troubles in the North were caused by the British policy of allowing Scots and British (who happened to be Protestant) to settle in the area. These settlers were given privileges and land that were taken away from the natives (who happened to be Catholic)

Speaking the native language (Gaelic) was forbidden. In some cases, Catholics were not allowed to attend school. There were hundreds of years of similar oppressive laws, culminating in a famine that took nearly a million (mostly Catholic) lives. That oppression was the cause of the Irish war of Independence, and led to the rebellion in the 70’s which (very unfortunately) was overrun by terrorist thugs.

Posted by: mary at May 7, 2004 05:18 PM

I am sure our society will provide a relatively moral excuse for the actions of this bad guy.

After all, we do have a habit of easily condemning the morality of the good guys simply because the good are moral.

It is better to be amoral in our society than moral. Can't even utter the word God without being shamed and ridiculed for believing in such a thing.

This guy will be free to commit more crimes in no time.

Posted by: syn at May 7, 2004 05:20 PM

"It is not the fault of the ideology, but of those who twist it. "

Got called away to dinner, but I wanted to comment on this point. I agree. But I think that the sane portions of an ideology have to actively take the lead in rejecting a virulent strain. The KKK ebbed and vanished when American Christians repudiated it; before then, it spread.

Muslims have to take the lead or Wahhabism will swallow it.

Gerry

Posted by: Gerry at May 7, 2004 05:31 PM

A Muslim involved in terrorism? Now I've seen everything.

Posted by: Moonbat_One at May 7, 2004 07:09 PM

"The KKK ebbed and vanished when American Christians repudiated it; before then, it spread."

Glad to see some folks picking up on the analogy I suggested earlier. The broader parallels between the American South in the 19th century and the Mid-East today could shed a great deal of light on our current challenges.

THe KKK ebbed for a lot of reasons (don't kid yourself into thinking it's completely vanished), including Christian repudiation but also due to the outside intervention of the federal govmint, perceived by many southerners at the time as being outside agitators, as we are widely perceived in Iraq today.

Posted by: David Warner at May 7, 2004 08:39 PM

"American South in the 19th century"

More accurately the period from 1850-1970. There's a long haul ahead in the ME to get to the region to busy to hate...

;-)

Posted by: David Warner at May 7, 2004 08:42 PM

Well, personally I am going to wait and see how the evidence develops. My recollection is that finger prints are not all that reliable, certainly not in the same class as DNA matching. Now, if there was travel, or some other reason to suspect contact, that would add a lot to the suspicion.

Posted by: chuck at May 7, 2004 09:42 PM

Chuck,

Fingerprints are unreliable in the sense that it's difficult to find usable ones. (appx 1% chance, according to the post-trial chit-chat with the judge the last time I had jury duty) Depending on just how smudged the print is, it may or may not provide proper ID. With DNA evidence, you don't have to worry about smudging, & the level of confidance in the ID is much higher. Since fingerprints form at random, there's not much in the way of hard percentages as to what percentage of the population might have similar prints.

Posted by: Cybrludite at May 8, 2004 03:27 AM

Brandon Mayfield is a shock, like John Walker Lindh. But the real shock comes from putting his picture next to yours, Michael. And both from Portland. Anything you'd like to tell us Michael?

Posted by: Michael at May 8, 2004 04:37 AM

Tosk,

When someone looks at a group of people as [GROUP] they tend to paint with a very broad brush. It is difficult for humans to consider that individuals make individual decisions, factions act out of step with other factions etc.

Good, you make the correct observation...

It would be a miracle if more Americans looked at
[Muslim1 Muslim2 Muslim3...] instead of [Muslim]. However, its not how most people's brains are programmed.

...OOOPS! You draw the wrong conclusion.

Every muslim is obviously an individual and each has the capacity to defy the demands of his or her peer group. But Islam is a demanding faith, and it demands jihad from its adherents. The real miracle is that ANY of THEM defy the demands of their faith and allow the good side of their human nature to surface.

American society has tremendous respect for individualism that no other society has. Our problem isn't the inability to distinguish between individuals. Our problem is a refusal to recognize the group behavior when it is standing right in front of us. We aren't aggregating a group of individuals that don't belong together. We are dis-aggregating a cohesive group.

In a way, this is admirable. But Brandon Mayfield is just one drop in the sea. The waves will keep crashing ashore and washing away our multi-culti, post-modern sand castles.

And here comes another wave:

BASRA, Iraq - A senior aide of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr told worshippers during a Friday sermon in southern Iraq (news - web sites) that anyone capturing a female British soldier can keep her as a slave.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040507/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_al_sadr_british_2

In another comment you pointed out that as a duelist you try to understand your opponent. That is all fine as long as you draw the correct understanding. If you don't, you'll end up getting sliced.

Posted by: HA at May 8, 2004 06:27 AM

" kid yourself into thinking it's completely vanished"

Yeah, sloppy writing on my part. They still exist, but thankfully in a much smaller, less influential manner. Robert Byrd notwithstanding.

I agree with most of the rest of your post. It was not just one thing, it was a bunch of things, including the use of force by others, to accomplish the goal.

Gerry

Posted by: Gerry at May 8, 2004 08:37 AM

Say...do you notice how he looks a bit like you??

This isn't trying to make some point - I mean this only literally.

Both have somwehat narrow faces - similar hair -the beards are a little different, but not that much.

And the hair, is like a mirror image!

You have met your bizarro person!

JC

Posted by: JC at May 8, 2004 07:23 PM

Oops. Posted before reading comments, and this has already been covered. Ignore this and the above.

Posted by: JC at May 8, 2004 07:25 PM

Some grist for the mill:

The newspaper El Pais reported Saturday that Spanish investigators have serious doubts as to whether the fingerprint found on a plastic bag tied to March 11 explosions on commuter trains is that of Portland-area lawyer Brandon Mayfield.

Leaks and counter leaks. Doesn't jibe with the reports I read earlier about the Spanish wanting Mayfield arrested. Posted by: lewy14 at May 8, 2004 07:33 PM

He looks a little like you, Michale :)

Posted by: somebody at May 8, 2004 11:18 PM

I disagree about the resemblance between the suspect and MJT. Mr Mayfield looks haunted by all kinds of demons and ghosts. It's in the eyes. MJT is a reasonably goodlooking male of his sort. No one would ever call (or has called) Mayfield goodlooking. A quality of wimpishness will stick to him however many push-ups he ever does.

And Mayfield's wife has been beaten with the ugly stick within an inch of her life.

MJT would never get stuck with anyone like that.

(There, Michael, is that good enough? Do I get the 6 month free subscription now?)

Posted by: miklos rosza at May 9, 2004 01:18 AM

Apparently, the police have been watching Mr. Mayfield for some time but couldn't be bothered to arrest him until now. What a coincidence this has happened while the US is distracted by the Iraq prison torture scandal.

And more news about Westerners raping Muslim women, oh wait, no, they were having sex with a female prisoner, because you see, the US doesn't have "rape rooms", they have "having sex with a female prisoner"-rooms

Posted by: DVE at May 9, 2004 06:20 AM

Interesting chain of inferences here. There doesn't seem to be much of consensus on what some U.S. news sources are calling a "perfect match" of Mayfield's fingerprint.

An article in a Kansas City paper speaks of Spanish authorities finding "8 points of resemblance" - good enough for some, not the "15 points of resemblance" that others might require.

For all we know, Mayfield might have idealistically defended some jihadists who manipulated him. A bag he touched might have been considered quite valuable by some of them, and precisely because it could be planted as evidence against him. Is Brandon Mayfield a Sunni? Some Shi'ite extremists would think nothing of making his life hell. Is he a Shi'ite? Stick the same shoe on another foot. Islamic extremists make martyrs of dupes - we know they do this already. It happens in the Middle East all the time. So why can't someone like Mayfield get the benefit of the doubt?

What we have here is what's called "circumstantial evidence", and pretty flimsy evidence so far. And yet we also have Michael Totten's inference that anyone who might have materially aided in the Spanish terror bombing would also be party to toasting a whole city with a nuclear weapon. Whoa. Slow down, guy.

You're not batting a thousand these days, Michael. Let's look at some recent swings.

"Michael Moore - Ann Coulter of the left"? Hey, take any Ann Coulter column and count the slanders and innuendos. Try to come up with the same count for any same-size sample of words from Michael Moore. I won't say you won't find something on that level in some stretch of his writings, but you'll have to look a little harder. Moore can be a real clown, don't get me wrong. But he's not in her league.

Rush Limbaugh gets skewered appropriately, but only afterMichael is woken up to an unpleasant fact: actually, there are plenty of Americans who defend the use of torture against "enemy combatants." (Don't call them POWs - you might have to start talking about Geneva conventions or something.) "Who defends torture?" he asked rhetorically. He seemed unprepared for the answer.

Earlier still, "sell your al Qaeda stock" - presumably a tracking stock of Global Jihad Incorporated - because "We're winning." Substantiated by ... a news report that didn't delve into how the State Department cooked the books. We're winning the war against terror in much the same way that - well, dare I say it? - James K. Glassman was winning the war against irrational investor pessimism when he published "Dow 36,000". Juggle enough numbers and you can always make a convincing case to those who desperately want to believe.

You have to go all the way back to "Fallujah and the Fog of War" to get Michael Totten saying anything as rational and even-handed as "I don't know."

Oh, but somewhere in between all that he wrote a piece for Tech Central Station that tells us who we're at war with, without ever explaining why we're not at war with North Korea, when North Korea fits the general (Berman-derived) description of The Enemy to a 'T'. North Korea just doesn't happen to fit the loosey-goosey definitionn of "islamofascist" that somehow includes Syria (run by non-Islams) and, not so long ago, Saddam Hussein (a muslim of convenience, at best.) It kinda reminded me of that great cartoon where Dubya's rumbling up in a tank, and Kim Jong Il is yelling, almost from under the treads: "We have WMD! We want oil!" George, looking bored and disappointed, says: "The opposite would have interested me." At some point, you have to ask yourself: is there a spreadsheet, anywhere, with a scoring system that rationally computes the Bush administration's priorities in a way that doesn't include the $1 trillion of oil under Iraq's sands?

Michael Totten writes well. Very well. There's just one problem: he needs to see it all either black or white. He needs it to be simple. And unambiguous. But in fact, the only honest answer to a question such as whether George W. Bush condones torture of the kind that Americans were inflicting at Abu Ghraib is: "I don't know." Why would he tell you, or anybody he didn't implicitly trust, if the answer was "yes"? You don't know whether he hit the ceiling because he was morally outraged, or whether he hit the ceiling because he hadn't realized, until he saw the abuses on network television, how far the leak had leaked. In fact, you don't know whether he hit the ceiling at all. We only have his inner circle's word on the matter. He's a politician, politicians are actors and calculators. Not to mention liars.

It's utterly unthinkable that Mayfield's fingerprint could have been planted by some shadowy network of character assassins working for the Bush administration. That's just crazy lefty fundamentalist talk. Just as it was utterly unthinkable that Richard Nixon would have hired a wacko like G. Gordon Liddy. And just as it is still utterly unthinkable that Iraq prisoners were being tortured by American GIs and contractors in the very same prison whose reputation as a hell on Earth was established by Saddam Hussein. And equally unthinkable that a decent guy like Paul Bremer, being told quite a while ago by the Iraqi human rights minister he helped appoint, would turn a blind eye, and also not tell a decent person like Condoleeza Rice, and of course it's unthinkable that if she knew, she wouldn't tell George. They are so close, after all. At least according to press reports.

No. These things just don't happen in real life. Real life is distinctly recognizable to any rational person: the good guys wear white hats, and the bad guys wear ... um ... turbans.

Posted by: Michael Turner at May 9, 2004 07:09 AM

The host is simplistic and anti-turban? I think you got this mixed up with some other blog.

Posted by: Jim at May 9, 2004 07:39 AM

dve-

Say it loud. Say it often.

Let the whole world know that people who share your political ideology see no difference between the United States and the former Ba'athist regime.

Let the whole world know that people who share your political ideology think that the military's true nature is represented by the abuse which took place at this prison.

I can't think of anything I would rather have happen politically here at home, than for people like you to be seen as often as possible.

Gerry

Posted by: Gerry at May 9, 2004 08:38 AM

Apparently he is refusing to talk.

Huh? So he's compeltely innocent and his fingerprints turned up on a bag full of detonators used to kill 197 people and injure 2,000 others. Spanish people, yes, but still people. The police come calling looking for information on how this could have happened and he has NOTHING to contribute to the investigation? Nothing?

And another thing. Take a closer look at this Ted Nelson who has been descrfibed in the media as just a 'Portland attorney', as if he was an average US lawyer. He's a lot more than that.

Posted by: ZD at May 9, 2004 08:58 AM

@Gerry:

I see you have taken a page from Schopenhauers's Art of Controversy where he stated that, if all else fails, become personal, insulting, rude, as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand, and that you are going to come off worst.

Please, stop these mindless ad hominems.

Now, my question is: Do you really believe that it is possible for prison guards to have consentual sex with their prisoners?

What disturbs me the most is not that these abuses have taken place, but how the American media (eg MSNBC) is trying to downplay them. Yes, everyone knows that you will find sadists in every large group, but the Defense Department should also have known that and planned accordingly. But that would have meant that more troops would have to be sent to Iraq to supervise each other, but apparently that went against Rumsfeld's doctrine of a small, professional high-tech army.

Posted by: DVE at May 9, 2004 09:12 AM

Gerry uttered insulting ad hominems? I don't see any in Gerry's post.

Posted by: Jim at May 9, 2004 11:28 AM

I've long thought persons like Mayfield (i.e. white, American or European, Christian name, "normal" looking) would be the ideal terrorist operatives for al Quaeda. It looks like, unfortunately, they may have realized it as well.

Posted by: Kevin Boyd at May 9, 2004 12:46 PM

dve-

I am sorry that you took my wish for your views to get a wider audience as an ad hominem.

I'll consider changing my views to hoping that no one ever hears your views. But I'll have to think about it.

Gerry

Posted by: Gerry at May 9, 2004 01:03 PM

I wrote: "Real life is distinctly recognizable to any rational person: the good guys wear white hats, and the bad guys wear ... um ... turbans."

Jim responded: "The host is simplistic and anti-turban? I think you got this mixed up with some other blog."

No, what I did was read "Naming the Enemy" and note that Paul Berman's description of the enemy fits the Kim Jong Il regime perfectly, and that the North Korea fits the profile of a dictatorial state developing WMD, but that, somehow (someone please explain it to me) North Korea doesn't merit a single mention in Michael's article.

Clear thinking? Not. Bias toward regarding the Middle East as the only source of enemies worth worrying about? Glaringly obvious.

Terror of the kind that Michael worries about stems almost entirely from an uneasy status quo: tolerating Arab dictatorships, their propaganda systems aimed at Israel, and their sponsorship of terror, because America needs the oil. You'll hear about Syria from Michael as somehow part of the "islamofascist" terror complex, even though it's not an "islamofascist" state (it's run by a non-muslim family). However, you won't hear about the torture chambers of Uzbekistan, that nice country that lent us aid in invading Afghanistan. It would never occur to Michael Totten to note that Hafez Assad slaughtered thousands of "islamofascists" in putting down rebellions in his own country. Sometimes life is complicated. Sometimes it's the bad guys versus the bad guys, and getting involved in it all just rubs off on you at best, and sucks you into a tar pit at worst.

Welcome to the tar pit, Michael. A year ago, would you have dreamed that Americans would be torturing Iraqis in the same prison where Saddam had people tortured? No, if someone had suggested that, you would have derided them as a screaming leftist lunatic paranoid conspiracy theorist. "We're better than that," you would have said. You would have been indignant.

A year ago, if someone would have suggested that idea, I would have shrugged and said, "if there was no decent oversight system in place, of course we'll be doing that. It's human nature. It happened in the POW camps in the first Gulf War, after all. Given a much longer time, and fighting an insurgency, of course it would happen again."

I know this because I know people who saw torture and abuse in POW camps in the first Gulf War. But what went on there wasn't the least of the abuses. The worst part is: they shipped many of those poor guys off to camps Saudi Arabia afterward. A whole human rights violation in itself.

Kurt Vonnegut, after the first Gulf War, said: "It's like we're at a cocktail party and this stench is rising through the floor, but we're too polite to talk about it." Well, people, now there's a real stink, and it appears that someone has barred and locked the door FROM THE OUTSIDE. You can't get out. You're an American.

Posted by: Michael Turner at May 9, 2004 10:35 PM

The old post about the bomb found on the light rail happens to be infested with comment referral spam.

Posted by: triticale at May 10, 2004 02:43 PM

sounds like another eunice stone type story, minus eunice stone...

Posted by: calibar at May 11, 2004 10:29 AM

another day goes by and this eunice stone like story seems to be going nowhere.

Posted by: calibar at May 12, 2004 07:00 AM

another day goes by and still no news. wow...sounds like they really caught a dangerous terrorist in portland there.

Posted by: calibar at May 12, 2004 08:17 PM

another day goes by, again nothing new to this 'breakthrough'. another 'victory against the terrorists' i guess.

Posted by: calibar at May 13, 2004 04:38 PM

stop it, calibar, stop it! he's a "freedom fighter", not a terrorist!

Posted by: dviess at May 14, 2004 12:41 PM

Okay, now something has happened -- Mayfield has been released.

The fingerprint on the bag wasn't his. He was totally innocent.

But Michael had Mayfield's picture at the top of his website for an entire weekend, essentially calling him a terrorist.

Hopefully he'll keep the apology at the top of the page just as long.

Posted by: Swopa at May 20, 2004 04:51 PM

Swopa wrote: "Michael had Mayfield's picture at the top of his website for an entire weekend, essentially calling him a terrorist."

Michael Totten's words were "... if this man did what it looks like he might have done ..."

So he's off the hook on that count. Totten didn't actually say that Mayfield was a terrorist.

But isn't this how terror works? By provoking quick, irrational, emotional responses that undermine the basis for civil society? Responses in which rationally covering your own ass with an "if" is an afterthought?

One way in which terrorism works is that it spurs the targeted government to begin compromising the rule of law that it's supposed to embody and uphold. In this debasement of government, terror works in another way as well: the government's itchy trigger finger finds support among some of the people. The citizenry starts to support witch hunts. When it's a revolutionary group seeking to undermine its own country, terror tactics can stir civil war, out of which the revolutionaries might hope to find exploitable opportunities. When it's terror against another country, inciting that country to violence against yet other countries, self-styled revolutionaries are still basically working the same game, just on an international level.

The case for terrorism is built on a moral grounds: "It's OK," terrorists reason (for their followers, if not necessarily to themselves), "to kill innocent people to provoke a government to do whatever works for our political agenda. After all, it will expose that government for what we think it is: evil and corrupt."

Pretty soon, the process has corrupted the citizenry of a democracy - people will start signing on to all sorts of oppressive agendas, if it seems that those projects make them feel safer in their beds at night.

The problem with the whole idea of a "war" on terrorism - using military force in ways that will almost certainly, even if unintentionally, kill innocent people - is that it's tantamount to accepting terrorist logic yourself. You say "we will kill as few innocent people as possible." The terrorists say "we will kill as many innocent people as necessary." The moral difference is not all that great, and to those receptive to the terrorist's message, and sympathetic to their cause, the difference is non-existent.

If I were running al Qaeda, I'd be overjoyed that there were liberal commentators in America writing about detention of suspects on very flimsy grounds not in their usual civil libertarian terms, but instead in a worried tone about the genocidal potential of other Americans. If I were running al Qaeda, I'd find such a development very encouraging indeed. "See," I'd say to my inner circle, waving the press clippings, "we're winning."

Posted by: Michael Turner at May 20, 2004 09:39 PM