Posted on 10/28/2002 2:39:49 PM PST by knighthawk
WASHINGTON - A gunman named Muhammad has terrorized the Washington area for weeks. He was a follower of Louis Farrakhan and joined the security detail at the Million Man March in Washington in 1996. He had expressed admiration for the 9/11 terrorists and violent hatred for the infidel United States. So: Could this murderous rampage have anything to do with, um, Islamic terror? If you have been watching television you already know the answer: Naaaah.
Sometimes it seems that the single most important prerequisite for a successful media career is a talent for ignoring the obvious. Every interviewer on television congratulates himself or herself on "asking the tough questions." But the questions that most urgently need to be answered are the easy questions: Who are John Muhammad and John Malvo? What was their relationship? What was their background?
The police have been very quick to reassure the public that John Muhammad did not take orders from al-Qaeda. Unlike the shoe bomber, Richard Reid, and the dirty-nuke bomber, Jose Padilla, Muhammad seems to have been acting for motives and purposes of his own: his own disappointments and resentments, his own greed and rage, and quite possibly his own weird personal dynamic with his "stepson." In other words, Muhammad was not a Muslim who became a killer. He was a killer who became a Muslim.
This reassurance, however, is no reassurance at all. It raises what may be the single most important issue in the next phase of the war on terror: Is radical Islam becoming what black nationalism and communism and fascism each were in their day -- the ideology of choice for psychopaths with a murderous grievance against the world?
Disturbed personalities can be found in every society and in every culture. In the West, they tend to be drawn to the animal-rights movement, to anti-globalization, and to radical environmentalism. But none of these movements looks very much like a threat to the existing order of society, especially not compared to al-Qaeda or Hezbollah. No wonder that at this April's big anti-globalization march in Washington, the anti-Nike protesters wore Palestinian keffiyehs. No wonder that the star attraction at the anti-Iraq-war march in Madrid last month were two young European women dressed in suicide-bomber bikinis. There was an undercurrent of effeteness and silliness about the protests of the 1990s -- all those ridiculous papier mâché puppets! Compared to that, from the point of view of the radically alienated, radical Islam is the real thing.
So what can we do to protect ourselves?
One lesson taught by the snipers is the comparative futility of what we now call "homeland security": measures to improve the defence of aircraft, refineries, nuclear reactors and other potential targets. Homeland security protects things -- and terrorists target people.
Better to continue to demand better police and intelligence work. The Patriot Act of 2001 gave the FBI, at long last, authority to send agents to listen to the sermons preached in mosques and to read the postings on extremist Web sites -- and that will help. Ultimately, though, the police depend for their information on the help of alert citizens. It was good detective work that identified John Muhammad and John Malvo as the killers -- it was a tip from a motorist that actually turned them in.
And this is the supreme lesson of the sniper case: It is the North American Muslim community that must be the first line of defence against Islamic terror.
In September, Assistant Attorney General Larry Thompson thanked the Muslim community of western New York for turning in six Buffalo men of Yemeni origin who had undergone training at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and who were allegedly plotting terrorist attacks inside the United States. This patriotic act apparently split the area's Yemeni immigrant community. The imam of the mosque accused the police of harassment, and passed the hat around his not-very-affluent membership to raise $700,000 bail. The Pakistani newspaper, The Dawn, quoted one unnamed mosque member's excuse for the arrested men: "These men were looking for adventure and thought it was exciting to visit an al-Qaeda camp and listen to their leaders. They never wanted to commit an act of terrorism. They love America." Uh-huh.
It's been rightly said that the war on terror is not a war between the West and Islam -- it is a civil war within Islam about the future of the Islamic world. The writer Christopher Hitchens has termed Islamic extremists "Islamo-fascists" and that term is taxonomically exact. Just as European fascism sought to beat back democracy and liberty in the 20th century by invoking a medieval past that never was, so now do the Islamic fascists of al-Qaeda and Hezbollah and their many sympathizers invoke the myths of ancient Arabia against democratization and westernizatoin in the 21st.
The Muslim communities of the West are one of the most decisive theatres of this civil war. And the case of John Muhammad reminds us that in this theatre, our victory is far from won.
dfrum@aei.org
Islam-list
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The guy who shot Pim Fortuyn, the unabomber and the people who drive metal stakes into trees to break the logger's chainsaws.
They are the same goons who rally in support of the Pali's as the author points out later.
I am very sure that the prosecuters will bring out any Islamic influence issues if those will help convict him. You can be sure there is something fishy if he just pleads guilty so that there is no need for a trial.
I agree with this statement. Unfortunately, it has little to do with this situation.
Louis Farrahkhan's organization is not recognized as Islamic by any of the other Islamic organizations in the U.S. or anywhere else, so the Islamic community in the U.S. is unlikely to have much information about what's going on. Also, this guy apparently hadn't had anything to do with Farrahkhan's group much in the last year, so they didn't know what he was up to, either. Finally, Islam overall is much more decentralized than Christianity or Judaism is, both in the U.S. and elsewhere, so there's no single or small number of organizations you can go to and get effective information or assistance. Any scholar or leader can issue a fatwa, and it's influence is proportional to people's personal feelings about it and it's author; there's no Islamic Pope, or Presiding Bishop.
Do Amerian Moslems need to fish or cut bait on whether they owe allegance to America more than they owe allegiance to criminals they happen to share a religious faith with? Yes. Would that have made a difference here? No.
After joining the reserves and going through two court marshals and beating his wife unmercifully, this poor man really suffered a blow to his self esteem when his wife gathered up the children and disappeared. After stealing the children when he found them and going to Antigua he survived by running a illegal immigrant smuggling ring. As he got tired of having the children and found they were cramping his style, he returned and delivered them to their mother.
This unfortunate man then pal-ed up with a seventeenager and trained him to make a living in the crime of robbery. When one robbery ended in murder, this wretch went on a sniping spree to show his SUPERIOR intelligence. He proved this by phoning in a tip to the police to check with Montgomery, Al. for information on an unsolved murder there.
This poor unfortunate gentleman was rewarded for this act by being discovered and arrested. To make a long story short, this idiot should be put up in front of a firing squad of relatives of his victims that are novices with firearms. The press that expresses any sympathy for this animal should stand along side him and his pal.
There are unsolved crimes in several states that may have been committed by one or both of these two cretins.
The prosecution will prove that it was Muhammad's gun, and his ammo and his finger and his young buddies finger on the trigger that killed people. Why has nothing to do with guilt or innocence. The only question before a jury is did they do what they are charged with doing. Why they did it has no meaning as to guilt or innocence. And Allah ordered him to do it is last thing the prosecute will want to tell the blacks on that jury. He hated ordinary people including black men and killed them is what the prosecutor will want to say.
You are arguing that his guilt or innocence will be decided on why he did it, not what he did. Only in an "innocent by reason of insanity" plea is motive much of a factor.
On all of these jurisdictions guilt or innocence will be based on what they did. Not why they did it. At sentence time the judge can take into account why they did it. The prosecution will say at that time. that the convicted are glad they did it and that they show no remorse. Any one who tries to make the case that either the Devil or Allah made them do it won't be allowed to talk.
Don't expect revelations in a trial. It will not happen.
I agree with this statement. Unfortunately, it has little to do with this situation.
The Nation of Islam is a very violent cult. Remember the Zebra murders in San Francisco, 1972-74? Seventy-one whites were randomly murdered.
Excerpt: The majority of the attacks were carried out by five members of a group within Louis Farrakhan?s Nation of Islam called the "Death Angels." Jesse Lee Cooks, J.C. Simon, Larry Green, Manuel Moore and Anthony Harris were part of this group which believed that whites were created 3,000 years ago by a black mad scientist named Yacub who wanted a race of inferiors to rule over. Death Angels believed they could earn "points" towards going to heaven when they died if they killed whites. For them, whites were not human beings but "grafted snakes," "blue-eyed devils" and "white motherf-----s."
Why? Because they are muslims.
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - yorktown
I'll bet they've broken Malvo by now. The fed clean-up team is tidying up the connections, so that there will be none. In time, Muhammad will confess to anything and everything that he's been charged with. Even if it isn't true. That's how these things work. Ask Tim McVeigh or Terry Nichols.
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