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 * US man sentenced in plot to help Al Qaeda **
 * 12 April, 2012 **

Recently in the news, a 29-year-old man has been accused as to helping out with plans Al Qaeda. He is currently sentenced to 17 years or more in jail. Tarek Mehanna grew up in the suburbs of Boston. He has traveled to Yemen in order to receive training with terrorists. He had done this to fight U.S. troops in Iraq. He then came back to the United States and helped promote products and methods for jihad. His attorneys had tried to defend him by saying that he went to Yemen for religious and educational reasons and that his publications were just his rights of free speech. The prosecutors had also attacked him by showing the many messages that were between him and his friends about joining the fight in jihad. It has been said that he had admired some of the things Osama bin Laden had done, but lawyers say he didn’t fully agree with all the tactics.
 * Summary **

I think this is pretty relevant to our course in many ways. This article explains how the U.S. has been faced with people who are trying to hurt the U.S. by just being citizens. During the aftermath of WWII, there were many Russian spies that were trying to figure out how we fought and also potentially taking over with communism. There had been much commotion and change within America during the time of the communists. The same thing has occurred today with terrorists and participants of jihad. Many are trying to take over from the inside out. The U.S. had to take care of many people that were accused of being communist or spies. They had many trials for not just regular citizens, but celebrities as well. Today there is more laws that apply to accusing people, but there is still a large amount of people who are being accused.
 * Relevance to Course **

The theme of war and diplomacy relates directly to this article. Because of the war, there has been more serious “spy” crimes and thoughts of people that may be after attacking the U.S. from the inside. The war against Al Qaeda has brought more supporters for their beliefs to America. This effects how we view the war out against the bad guys as well as the war here at home. As we try to make peace with these people, constant terroristic acts have come up that affect attempts at peace. The hand full of Al Qaeda supporters in other countries changes our thoughts on certain countries that may not actually agree with them. Our war and diplomacy all revolve around the people of the nations that we may or may not agree with. We are only able to work with people who have same beliefs.
 * Relevance to Theme **


 * Questions **
 * 1) What are the current laws on accusations of terroristic threats?
 * 2) How do the judges determine the severity of the terroristic act?
 * 3) Are there different punishments between the different types of terrorism?
 * 4) How long do these types of cases take to process?
 * 5) How many different terroristic cases have come up in the past year?

“US man sentenced in plot to help Al Qaeda “. Foxnews.com. Fox News, 12 April. 2012. Web. 12 April. 2012. <[]>