Mixed Emotions...

…about this:

The New York lawyer who was convicted of material support for terrorism after carrying messages for her client, terrorist sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, is scheduled to be sentenced today to as much as 30 years in prison.

She and her allies are pinning their hopes for leniency on a strategy that argues she became so emotionally involved in the sheik's case that she acted irrationally — a strategy that is underpinned by a sealed letter to the court from a psychiatrist.

[…]

Stewart was convicted in 2005 of providing material support for terrorism for passing on the messages Abdel Rahman gave her and her translator during visits with him in federal prison in Minnesota. Abdel Rahman, the spiritual leader of a terrorist group in Egypt, is serving a life term following his 1995 conviction in a conspiracy to blow up landmarks around New York. Following a conversation with Abdel Rahman in 2000, Stewart called a Reuters reporter in Cairo to say that Abdel Rahman had withdrawn his support from a ceasefire that his terrorist organization, the Islamic Group, was observing in Egypt.

On the one hand, I think the judge should throw the book at her. There’s more than enough justification for the maximum sentence…in addition to aiding and abetting a known terrorist, her reprehensible actions during the period of time between her indictment and sentencing should also be considered, to wit: her numerous appearances at International A.N.S.W.E.R rallies and other ultra-left-wing organizations. This article in FrontPageMag.com is revealing, and I’ll just quote it briefly:

Stewart shares the Communist beliefs of the WWP and IAC and the Center for Constitutional Rights. She is anti-capitalist and believes the USA is an imperialistic nation, and that anti-capitalist violence is justified. In a 1995 New York Times interview she said, "I don't believe in anarchistic violence, but in directed violence. That would be violence directed at the institutions which perpetuate capitalism, racism, and sexism, and at the people who are the appointed guardians of those institutions, and accompanied by popular support." Obviously, Stewart's worldview meshes seamlessly with that of Saddam Hussein, Yassir Arafat, the blind sheik and Osama Bin Laden. And with that of Deirdre Griswold Brian, Becker, Ramsey Clark and the Workers World Party.

Andrew McCarthy, the lead government prosecutor in the Blind Sheik case wrote an article in National Review that is well worth the read. McCarthy came to know Stewart very well, and admits he likes the woman. But he also believes the following:

There is something wrong with Lynne's brain. Obviously, she loves being a darling of the loony Left — a Left so loony it now makes common cause with theocratic, homo-phobic, misogynistic psycho-killers, since, after all, they too hate America. Nestled among this element, her humanity synapse disengages, such that she can spout about faraway terrorist kidnapping victims and other unknown civilians as legitimate targets with all the contemplative depth of a dinner companion asking you to pass the salt.

But she is not without humanity. What has happened to her here is very far from a tragedy — a tragedy is when someone unwittingly crosses the path of Abdel Rahman's ilk and is ruthlessly murdered for the great offense of being an American, or a Jew, or a Christian, or anything other than an Islamic militant. This is what Lynne Stewart promoted, and for that she must pay dearly. At 65, it may mean she pays with the rest of her life. Many will understandably celebrate that. I will pray she perceives that she has done enormous harm, and that the real civil rights she might have honored are those of the innocent victims of terror.

So, that’s the one hand. On the other is the fact that she is a 67 year-old woman recovering from breast cancer. I believe mercy is in order for this woman. She should receive the maximum sentence, true. But if I were the judge I’d suspend all but 90 days of the sentence, put her on probation and possibly house arrest, and order her to perform 1,000 hours of community service under the supervision and direction of the court. I’d also bar her from further public appearances on behalf of radical left-wing groups…but that might not be constitutionally legal.

Others with political views similar to mine do not agree…and those others include Gaius at Blue Crab Boulevard, Captain Ed, and Billy at Outside the Beltway.