It's a shame when a columnist like Pete Waldmeir (January 14 column) makes pronouncements based on hearsay, but maybe that's the nature of the beast.

Where is due process in all this? According to Waldmeir, Pastor Rabih Haddad is guilty before proven innocent. Everything regarding his case has been conducted in secret: his move to Chicago by US Marshalls was even kept secret from his lawyers and family. His wife, Salma al-Rashaid, was frantic for the four days she did not receive his usual daily phone call. She learned of the move from the Associated Press. If you were Rabih Haddad's lawyer, how would you mount a defense for your client against charges that are kept secret even from you because of " threats to national security?"

It is easy to point the finger at Arab Muslim non-citizens and say they are all tied to the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, especially when such paranoia is fueled by wartime propaganda sent out by a government eager to get public support behind its merciless bombing of a suffering people.

Waldmeir laughs at the Rev. Al Sharpton's warnings that if they come for the Arabs, they can come for the African Americans and all recognizably "different" persons in this predominantly white Christian nation. Does he remember Hitler's Germany, or is that laughable as well.

sincerely

Patricia Lay-Dorsey