A local Philadelphia Imam (whose preachings included references to "our hero, bin Laden") has been deported back to his native Egypt:

An Egyptian cleric arrested during a high-profile federal raid last year on his East Frankford mosque has finally been deported.

Mohamed Ghorab, the imam or spiritual leader at the Ansaar Allaah Islamic Society on Wakeling Street, arrived in Cairo escorted by U.S. immigration agents yesterday morning.

The cleric had sought asylum in the United States, saying he feared persecution in his native country as a member of Dawaa Salafia, an Islamic sect whose members have been repeatedly imprisoned by Egyptian authorities.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled last week that Ghorab had waited too long to ask for asylum.

He came to the United States in 2000 on a tourist visa that soon expired. First he tried to stay by claiming marriage to a U.S. citizen, and then by applying for a religious worker's visa. Immigration judges rejected both petitions.

What kind of legal system are we running? It's bad enough that terrorist supporters of bin Laden manage to get themselves into the United States in the first place. But if they can then turn right around and claim "asylum" status when they're discovered, what are we to do?

Am I allowed to ask who's running the asylum?

And where does it end?

Seriously, if he isn't treated well in Egypt, I wouldn't surprised to see this same Imam accuse the United States of conspiracy to torture him by sending him back to Egypt.

A hell of a way to run a war.

(But fortunately, I'm not supposed to be a war blogger.)