Profile of a Terror Recruit

Padilla's al-Qaeda application. (Go to RCP, link to PDF on Left under Padilla)

Timeline

Powerline makes a good point on preventing terror and prosecuting terrorists.

And Peggy Noonan on the NYPD's report on what turns Westerners into jihadis.

Previous post with updates: Padilla Guilty

UPDATE: WSJ:

The quick verdict yesterday suggests that the prosecution's evidence in the three-month trial was overwhelming and unambiguous. It ought to quiet opponents of the war on terror who claimed that the reason Padilla was originally held as an enemy combatant -- because he was believed to have been involved in a plot to set off a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a U.S. city -- was a figment of President Bush's or John Ashcroft's imagination.

Of course, it won't. Watch instead as they cite Padilla's conviction as evidence for another favorite claim: that the civilian criminal-justice system is adequate to the task of preventing terrorism, and thus the military shouldn't be holding enemy combatants at all.

In fact, Padilla's case demonstrates the opposite.