If This Is Proven True,

Stu Farish

Director / Webmaster
Staff member
we should execute his sorry ass. I also read more detail in a seperate report, I'll see if I can find it & add it:

http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/385040|top|02-13-2004::00:33|reuters.html

U.S. Soldier Charged in Al Qaeda Sting

Feb 13, 12:13 AM (ET)

By Chris Stetkiewicz
SEATTLE (Reuters) - A U.S. National Guardsman in Washington state has been charged with trying to pass military secrets to the Islamic militant group al Qaeda after being caught in a sting operation, military officials said on Thursday.

Army Spc. Ryan Anderson, a tank crewman, was slated for deployment to Iraq this summer from Fort Lewis, near Tacoma, Washington, where his unit is based.

U.S. officials have said al Qaeda, accused of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities and of targeting other American facilities around the world, was also involved in some attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq.

Anderson was arrested on Thursday for "aiding the enemy by wrongfully attempting to give information to the al Qaeda terrorist network," according to Lt. Col. Stephen Barger, a spokesman at Fort Lewis.

Barger said Anderson would be held at Fort Lewis and that more information would likely be released in four or five days.

Anderson was to be mobilized as part of a rotation of U.S. troops in the Iraq occupation force.

Local media said Anderson was 26 and a converted Muslim who grew up in Everett, Washington, and graduated from Washington State University in 2002.

Barger did not discuss Anderson's religious beliefs, however, saying that "religious preferences are an individual right and responsibility."

The Pacific Northwest region has witnessed a series of arrests in the past year over al Qaeda-linked activities.

Earlier this week, Maher "Mike" Hawash, a 39-year-old former Intel Corp. software engineer in Portland, Oregon, was sentenced to seven years in prison for trying to aid Taliban forces in 2001.

Hawash had tried to travel with others, most of whom have also been sentenced to prison terms, to link up with Taliban forces, a journey which reached a dead end in China in October 2001.

James Ujaama, of Seattle, is due to be formally sentenced on Friday of plotting to set up an al Qaeda training camp in the United States.

(Additional reporting by Reed Stevenson)
 
Here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4252095/

U.S. soldier accused of trying to aid al-Qaida

Army says he attempted to pass
information to terrorist network

040212_vsml_anderson_6p.vsmall.jpg


Ryan Anderson is shown in a high school yearbook photo. He is a 1995 graduate of Cascade High School in Everett, Wash.

The Associated Press
Updated: 12:13 a.m. ET Feb. 13, 2004FORT LEWIS,

Wash. - A National Guardsman was arrested Thursday and accused of trying to provide information to the al-Qaida terrorist network, the Army said.

Defense officials speaking on the condition of anonymity said Spc. Ryan G. Anderson, 26, signed onto extremist Internet chat rooms and tried to get in touch with al-Qaida operatives, offering the organization information on U.S. military capabilities and weaponry.

It is unclear how the government got wind of his alleged offer, but authorities began monitoring his communications, the officials said. It does not appear he transmitted any information to al-Qaida, the officials said.

Anderson, from Everett, became a Muslim during the last five years, officials said.

Army Lt. Col. Stephen Barger said Anderson was being held at Fort Lewis “pending criminal charges of aiding the enemy by wrongfully attempting to communicate and give intelligence to the al-Qaida terrorist network.”

Subject of joint investigation
Barger said Anderson was taken into custody without incident as part of a joint investigation by the Army, Justice Department and FBI. He was being held at the Fort Lewis Regional Corrections Facility near Tacoma.

Barger declined to give any details on the arrest, and it was not immediately clear if Anderson had a lawyer.

Jack Roberts, a neighbor, said he talked to Anderson’s wife, Erin, after federal agents left the couple’s apartment Thursday.

“She was pretty damned shocked, as I was,” Roberts said.

Phone messages left by The Associated Press at the couple’s apartment were not immediately returned Thursday.

Anderson is a tank crew member from the National Guard’s 81st Armor Brigade, a 4,200-member unit set to depart for Iraq. It is the biggest deployment for the Washington Army National Guard since World War II.

2002 college graduate
Washington State University spokeswoman Charleen Taylor said Anderson was a 2002 graduate with a degree in history. Anderson graduated from high school in Everett in 1995, the Herald of Everett reported, and at WSU studied military history with an emphasis on the Middle East.

The brigade has been training at Fort Lewis since November. Eighty percent of the soldiers — 3,200 — are from Washington state, and 1,000 are from guard units in California and Minnesota. It includes two tank battalions, a mechanized infantry battalion, engineers, support troops, artillery and an intelligence company.

Anderson is the second Muslim soldier with Fort Lewis connections to be accused of wrongdoing related to the war on terrorism.

Capt. James Yee, 35, a former Fort Lewis chaplain, is accused of mishandling classified information from the U.S. prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yee ministered to Muslim prisoners there.

There were initial reports that Yee was being investigated as part of an espionage probe, but he was never charged with spying.
 
This is giving me the immpression that musslims in the US military are not to be trusted. this is at least the 2nd instance of a US Soldier that has converted to islam that has jeopardized (or flat out killed) his brothers in the service.

I'm sure it will be called biggotry or worse but how can we trust musslims with military secrets?
 
I work at an Air Force Base and though that does not make me an authority on the topic at hand I am privy to some good scuttlebutt.

Some of what I’ve heard on the news today cooperates this.

This hunk of **** was apparently turned in by fellow Muslims in the Seattle area when he joined an Internet chat room sponsored by the local Muslim community.

In this chat room he used the name “Gun Fighter” and advertised himself as a trained Army marksman and offered to teach fellow Muslims how to shoot. To the credit of the other Muslims on the chat board they notified the FBI and local authorities that this guy might be a militant.

The Army and the FBI then set up a sting to see how far this guy was willing to take it.

The FBI found out who he was and what his job was with the reserves, it turns out he was a tank crewmember. The FBI then asked him to provide information on the strengths and weakness’ of the M1A Abrams tank that he was a crewman in. In the communications that he had the authorities pretended to be Al Quieda seeking information on the deployment of the Army reserve unit that was just called to duty.

**** Ball did more than that. He told them how they would deploy armor in certain battle situations, where a rocket propelled grenade could do the most damage to a tank, how to knock out the Bradley Fighting Vehicles carrying troops in support of the armor, and how foot solders on the ground would react in support of the armor.

This piece of **** could have got many people killed had this information really gone to the bad guys.

If all of this is true it’s time to the Army to have it’s first firing squad execution since WW II. Or turn him over to his old unit.
 
You guys are just insensitive. This guy has the right in this country to do what he wants with the information that he has been given.

I can't believ that you would go as far as suggest that he be executed for trying to protect other muslim. HOW BARBARIC!

JUST KIDDING! In my opinion, firing squad is just to quick. I am more into the "barbaric types of execution myself"

I'd drag him throug the muslim communities behind a horse. Only stopping once in a while to bring him out of shock so that his screams could be heard.

By the way, has anyone heard what's up with the little piece of caw caw that through the grenades in on the troops a while back? AW
 
Looks like he REALLY got off course. Here are some letters to the editor that he wrote & the paper published:

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking-news-story.asp?submitdate=2004212212933

Letters to the editor from Ryan Anderson


During his time in Pullman, Ryan Anderson had three published letters to The Spokesman-Review. In them, he warned against allowing the government to take away personal freedoms, chiefly the right to own firearms. Those letters are reprinted below.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This war could cost us our freedoms

Some compare our current situation with World War II. However, other than some very basic similarities, there is no comparison.

There are no hordes of enemy tanks and fighter planes. There will be no massive drives against organized, well-equipped, well-defined enemy armies.

Our evil mastermind is a monster of our own creation, much the same as the Columbine shooters. This needs to be a war of hearts and minds, where in order to win we have to defeat ignorance and hatred with information and cooperation. The retribution that is necessary needs to be quick, surgical and effective.

A war in Afghanistan will bleed us dry as it did the Soviets and the British before them.

I fear war for another reason, that being that the elements in our own society who would rob us of our individual liberties and freedoms can use the auspices of national security to steal them. Already in the past century we have given up an alarming amount of individual liberty to feel safe.

No amount of gun control, press restriction or racial or religious profiling will save us from a body count like that of Sept. 11. But if you get a chance to read some of the bills due to go before Congress, some people obviously aren't going to let that stop them from continuing their crusade to save us from ourselves.

Think before calling for indiscriminate war because it may end up being an indiscriminate war on us all.

Ryan G. Anderson

Pullman, Wash.

Published Oct. 5, 2001

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Militia means irregulars - citizens

Walter Becker (Letters, April 22) tries to offer proof that the Second Amendment only applies to the militia, but his reasoning is faulty.

What does he think the militia is? The National Guard? I think not; it's closer to being a standing army than was most of the Royal Army that invaded the then-rebellious 13 colonies!

A militia by definition is an irregular force. It usually includes all able-bodied citizens between the ages of 17 and 45. In simplest terms, a militia is a group of armed citizens who have banded together temporarily to defend their homes and community.

If we went with Becker's interpretation, the Second Amendment would grant a standing army and a police force the right to maintain weapons, a right that has no need to be declared in a document such as the Bill of Rights, even in the 1770s.

I am in favor of intelligent gun control. Should the United States adopt a system along the lines of Switzerland's, I could not be happier. To shooters and collectors like me, it would mean more well-maintained ranges, inexpensive ammunition and, best of all, one free weapon issued to every responsible citizen. But it's not going to happen. Why? Because too many people out there don't mean gun control, they mean total annihilation of private firearms ownership. Until gun control advocates start respecting shooters, we will have no choice but to fight you, tooth and nail, every chance we get.

Ryan G. Anderson

Pullman

Published April 27, 1998

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Firearms not the problem

Once again our eyes and ears are inundated with yet another tragedy, this time in Arkansas, involving the cold-blooded murder of our children by our children.

Although I feel appalled by the carnage, I think I'm even more worried by the response of the citizens of this country. Rather than blaming themselves for allowing their children access to bloody video-games and graphically violent television programs, they choose to blame the easy culprits: firearms.

Our problem these days is that we want to generalize situations and fix problems with a cookie-cutter solution. I don't have all the answers, but I do have some. The solution to the gun issue is to have gun-control spearheaded by level-headed and responsible shooters, people who know and are directly affected by such regulations. Anything else will just be temporary, and doomed to both failure and tragedy.

I fear that my voice, however, is but a calm whisper in a room of angry shouts. Today I am a young soldier, sworn to protect and defend this country, but if tomorrow I find that this nation is no longer the one based upon the freedom I was taught to love, I'll have little choice but to go where I can live in freedom. When you people out there who would give up liberty for safety, stand up to be counted, you'll not find me among you, because you deserve neither. Free men can possess arms, slaves cannot.

Ryan G. Anderson

Pullman

Published April 9, 1998
 
Back
Top