Burnt Orange Report

Liberals Need to Condemn Lynne Stewart

By Andrew Dobbs

Yesterday I got an email from a reader talking about one subject or another that I can no longer remember. I can't remember what it was because of something in the email itself- an image that said "Support Lynne Stewart." I knew that I couldn't take anything this person said seriously at that point.

For those of you not familiar with Lynne Stewart, this is a good non-ideological starting point. In short, she is an old school radical- communist, still talks nice about Stalin and Mao, etc.- and was an activist attorney for years. Her highest profile client was Sheik Omar Abdel Rachman, also known as the "Blind Sheik" and the mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombings as well as an attempt to blow up the UN building, an FBI building, 2 tunnels and a bridge in New York City. A high profile Egyptian terrorist, Rachman's organization the Islamic Group killed 62 tourists, many American, in Luxor, Egypt in 1997. In short- he's a really bad dude who wants to kill a lot of Americans.

Stewart was his attorney, which is fine. He was given the right to representation (though as a non-citizen he really isn't entitled to such a thing) and it is Stewart's job to make the state prove their case. Unfortunately, Stewart decided to do one better and to break the legal agreement she entered when becoming the terrorist mastermind's attorney and started secretly passing messages from the Sheik to his terrorist group in Egypt. One of these orders was to end the ceasefire they had declared towards the Egyptian government, meaning that she transmitted a call to war to terrorists. She also had her translator send messages from Rachman's group to the Sheik and praised groups that were perpetuating terror in the name of seeking the Sheik's release. In short, she supported, promoted and facilitated terrorism against the United States and its allies by a bunch of religious fanatic fascists.

Stewart was indicted on several charges of supporting terrorism and after taking the stand and calling for the violent overthrow of the American government during a trial that made it very clear that she was quite guilty, she was speedily convicted of the crimes. That's the good news.

The bad news is that now a bunch of far Left groups- the type that thought that 9/11 was something we deserved, that opposed the campaign in Afghanistan, you know the type- have started calling for her release and have actually tried to explain away or praise her work. One of those people appears to be the person who emailed me yesterday. Some Republicans are trying to stain our entire party with the inanities of a few people who typically don't support us anyways (because we are part of the corporate/capitalist/imperialist/blah blah blah system) by saying that we are the party of Lynne Stewart. Most notably the new NY State GOP Chair claimed this and has since been repudiated by several Democrats as well as the Republican governor of that state. In the end, they might succeed in making us out to be a terrorist sponsoring party if we don't speak up.

The answer? Liberals need to speak out against Lynne Stewart, in support of her conviction and against the GOP slanderers who would associate a woman as far to the Left of our party as neo Nazis are to the right of the GOP with the Democratic Party. Anyone- Left, Right or otherwise- who seeks to kill innocents to promote their worldview is evil and ought to be condemned, and anyone who facilitates that and supports that ought to be called out and taken to task for this crime. Lynne Stewart is a wacky woman to begin with and when you throw in support for terrorism we must speak out.

I'm proud to see the mainstream of our party standing with the mainstream of our country in condemning this woman and her actions. This isn't attorney client privelege- that exists to ensure that an attorney can effectively and confidently represent his or her client. This is an attorney abusing that sacred right in order to promote her criminal client's illegal activities. No different from a mob lawyer ordering hits from a jailed client, and the punishment should be at least as severe.

Please join with me in supporting Stewart's recent conviction and in condemning her criminal activities. Unless the Democratic Party is recognized for what it is- the only mainstream party left in this country- we will continue to lose.