Thursday, August 23, 2007

Homeland Security


Some say America's not fertile ground for jihadists, that all the radicals are overseas. The arrest of two Muslims near a South Carolina Naval base with pipe bombs reminds us such thinking is wishful.
Two college students from Tampa — Ahmed Mohamed and Yousef Megahed — were caught speeding toward the Goose Creek naval weapons station. Police found lead pipe bombs in their trunk. They've been charged with possession of explosives, and the FBI is investigating them as possible "terrorists," say neighbors interviewed by agents.
These cases seem to pop up every few months. For those paying attention, it spells a trend. But you'd never know it from the spotty news coverage they receive. If they are covered, the media plays them almost as random crime stories.
Terror plots and arrests on the other side of the pond, however, get major play. To hear pundits, Europe has the Islamic terror problem, not us. The Christian Science Monitor says "European-style homegrown terror cells" are just not seen here.
In fact, we've had more homegrown terror. You just don't hear about it as much because we've already had our 9/11.
In addition to the Muslim snipers who terrorized the Washington area for weeks on the first anniversary of 9/11, the U.S. has been plagued by dozens of terror attacks or disrupted plots over the past several years, including:
• The "Lackawanna Six" from upstate New York who were caught training for terror with al-Qaida overseas.
• The Columbus, Ohio, trucker who helped al-Qaida case the Brooklyn Bridge for attack.
• The Los Angeles man who fatally shot two and wounded three at an Israeli airline ticket counter at LAX.
• The New Yorker found guilty of plotting to blow up a Manhattan subway station.
• The Lodi, Calif., native who trained with al-Qaida in Pakistan to blow up fellow Americans at supermarkets.
• The three black Muslim converts from Torrance, Calif., jailed for plotting to attack Army recruiting stations and synagogues.
• The Virginia jihadists busted for training to kill U.S. soldiers overseas.
• The San Francisco Muslim who took his SUV on a hit-and-run killing spree.
• The black Muslim cell in Miami which plotted to attack the Sears Tower.
• The jihadist who went on a shooting rampage at a Jewish community center in Seattle, announcing "I'm a Muslim American; I'm angry at Israel."
• The Fort Dix Six who planned to penetrate the New Jersey base as pizza delivery men, then open fire on troops.
• The black Muslim converts who recently plotted to blow up JFK airport.
• The honors student-turned-jihadist who rented an SUV and rammed it into a crowd at the University of North Carolina.
• The pro-Taliban operatives caught training for jihad in the Oregon woods.
• The shotgun-toting 18-year-old Muslim who murdered five shoppers inside a Salt Lake City mall.
• The black convert recently busted for plotting to blow up Illinois shopping malls with grenades.
And on and on.
Some argue that these cases, as many as there are, are isolated and don't add up to the kind of intense radicalism seen in Britain. They say our Muslims are moderate by comparison. A recent Pew poll, however, reveals that more than one in four young Muslim Americans favors suicide bombing as a way to even scores.
Some pundits also claim our mosques don't preach hatred. It's fairly common for imams to preach assimilation, claims pro-Arab lobbyist James Zogby. That's not as true in Europe, where sermons can be laced with extremism, he says.
"The success of Saudi-inspired religious zealotry in Europe was in large part because the Saudis put up the money to build mosques and pay for imams," says Ian Cuthbertson, a counterterrorism expert at the World Policy Institute at the New School for Social Research. "The American Muslim community was rich enough not to require Saudi money to build its mosques."
In fact, eight in 10 mosques in America are funded and controlled by the Saudis.
The notion that America doesn't have a radical Muslim problem unfortunately is a myth. Pundits need to quit fooling people. That is the mission of this blog. It is our hope here to stimulate discussion, in the hope that understanding Militant Islam; It's Origins, History, and Motivation, can lead to defeating it.

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