THEY'RE JUST FRESH AIR KIDS WITH AN ATTITUDE PROBLEM

No Choice but Guilty: Lackawanna Case Highlights Legal Tilt (Michael Powell, July 29, 2003, Washington Post)

Even now, after the arrests and the anger and the world media spotlight, the mystery for neighbors in this old steel town remains this: Why would six of their young men so readily agree to plead guilty to terror charges, accepting long prison terms far from home?

"These knuckleheads betrayed our trust, and we're disgusted with their attendance at the camps in Afghanistan," Mohammed Albanna, 52, a leader in the Yemeni community here, said of the six men who have admitted to attending an al Qaeda training camp two years ago. "But the punishment doesn't fit the crime, or the government's rhetoric. It's ridiculous."

But defense attorneys say the answer is straightforward: The federal government implicitly threatened to toss the defendants into a secret military prison without trial, where they could languish indefinitely without access to courts or lawyers.

That prospect terrified the men. They accepted prison terms of 6 1/2 to 9 years.

Okay, we'll bite: what should be the penalty for attending the training camp of a terrorist organization that's trying to destroy your country? Posted by Orrin Judd at July 29, 2003 8:50 PM