Mark Steyn: Faisal Shahzad, Subprime Terrorist?

Well, one way of falling behind with your house payments is to take half a year off to go to Pakistan and train in a terrorist camp.

The story of the Times Square bomber reads like some Urdu dinner-theater production of Mel Brooks’s The Producers that got lost in translation between here and Peshawar: A man sets out to produce the biggest bomb on Broadway since Dance a Little Closer closed on its opening night in 1983. Everything goes right: He gets a parking space right next to Viacom, owners of the hated Comedy Central! But then he gets careless: He buys the wrong fertilizer. He fails to open the valve on the propane tank. And next thing you know, his ingenious plot is the non-stop laugh riot of the Great White Way. Ha-ha! What a loser! Why, the whole thing’s totally — what’s the word? — “amateurish,” according to multiple officials. It “looked amateurish,” scoffed New York’s Mayor Bloomberg. “Amateurish,” agreed Janet Napolitano, the White House amateurishness czar.

Ha-ha-ha! How many jihadists does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Twenty-seven. Twenty-six terrorist masterminds to supervise six months of rigorous training at a camp in Waziristan, after which the 27th flies back to Newark, goes to Home Depot, and buys a quart of lamp oil and a wick.

Is it so unreasonable to foresee that one day one of these guys will buy the wrong lamp oil and a defective wick and drop the Camp Osama book of matches in a puddle as he’s trying to light the bomb, and yet, this time, amazingly, it actually goes off? Not really. Last year, not one but two “terrorism task forces” discovered that U.S. Army psychiatrisat Nidal Hasan was in regular e-mail contact with the American-born, Yemeni-based cleric Ayman al-Awlaki but concluded that this was consistent with the major’s “research interests,” so there was nothing to worry about. A few months later, Major Hasan gunned down dozens of his comrades while standing on a table shouting “Allahu Akbar!” That was also consistent with his “research interests,” by the way. A policy of relying on stupid jihadists to screw it up every time will inevitably allow one or two to wiggle through. Hopefully not on a nuclear scale.

Faisal Shahzad’s curriculum vitae rang a vague bell with me. A couple of years back, I read a bestselling novel by Mohsin Hamid called The Reluctant Fundamentalist. His protagonist, Changez, is not so very different from young Faisal: They’re both young, educated, Westernized Muslims from prominent Pakistani families. Changez went to Princeton; Faisal went to the non-Ivy University of Bridgeport, but he nevertheless emerged with an MBA. Both men graduate to the high-flying sector of Wall Street analysts. On returning to New York from overseas, both men get singled out and questioned by Immigration officials. Both men sour on America, and grow beards. Previously “moderate,” they are now “radicalized.”

The difference is that Faisal tries to blow up midtown Manhattan while Changez becomes the amused, detached narrator of a critically acclaimed novel genially mocking America’s parochialism and paranoia. Mohsin Hamed’s book was hailed as “elegant” (the Observer), “charming” (the Village Voice), “playful” (the Financial Times), “rich in irony” (the Sydney Morning Herald), and “finely tuned to the ironies of mutual — but especially American – prejudice” (the Guardian). If only life were like an elegantly playful novel rich in irony. Instead, the real-life counterpart to the elegant charmer holes up in a jihadist training camp for months, flies back “home,” and parks a fully loaded SUV in Times Square.

He’s not an exception, he’s the rule. The Pantybomber is a wealthy Nigerian who lived in a London flat worth £2 million. Kafeel Ahmed, who died driving a flaming SUV into the concourse of Glasgow Airport, was president of the Islamic Society of Queen’s University, Belfast. Omar Sheikh, the man who beheaded Daniel Pearl, was a graduate of the London School of Economics. Mohammed Atta was a Hamburg University engineering student. Osama bin Laden went to summer school at Oxford. Educated men. Westernized men. Men who could be pulling down big six-figure salaries anywhere on the planet — were it not that their Islamic identity trumps everything else: elite education, high-paying job, Western passport.

As for the idea that America has become fanatically “Islamophobic” since 9/11, au contraire: Were America even mildly “Islamophobic,” it would have curtailed Muslim immigration, or at least subjected immigrants from Pakistan, Yemen, and a handful of other hotbeds to an additional level of screening. Instead, Muslim immigration to the West has accelerated in the last nine years, and, as the case of Faisal Shahzad demonstrates, being investigated by terrorism task forces is no obstacle to breezing through your U.S. citizenship application. An “Islamophobic” America might have pondered whether the more extreme elements of self-segregation were compatible with participation in a pluralist society: Instead, President Obama makes fawning speeches boasting that he supports the rights of women to be “covered” — rather than the rights of the ever lengthening numbers of European and North American Muslim women beaten, brutalized, and murdered for not wanting to be covered. America is so un-Islamophobic that at Ground Zero they’re building a 13-story mosque — on the site of an old Burlington Coat Factory damaged by airplane debris that Tuesday morning.

So, in the ruins of a building reduced to rubble in the name of Islam, a temple to Islam will arise.

And, whenever the marshmallow illusions are momentarily discombobulated, the entire political-media class rushes forward to tell us that the thwarted killer was a “lone wolf,” an “isolated extremist.” According to Mayor Bloomberg a day or two before Shahzad’s arrest, the most likely culprit was “someone who doesn’t like the health-care bill” (that would be me, if your SWAT team’s at a loose end this weekend). Even after Shahzad’s arrest, the Associated Press, CNN, and the Washington Post attached huge significance to the problems the young jihadist had had keeping up his mortgage payments. Just as, after Major Hasan, the “experts” effortlessly redefined “post-traumatic stress disorder” to apply to a psychiatrist who’d never been anywhere near a war zone, so now the housing market is the root cause of terrorism: Subprime terrorism is a far greater threat to America than anything to do with certain words beginning with I- and ending in -slam.

Incidentally, one way of falling behind with your house payments is to take half a year off to go to Pakistan and train in a terrorist camp. Perhaps Congress could pass some sort of jihadist housing credit?

Given the demographic advance of Islam in Europe and the de jure advance of sharia in Europe (the Geert Wilders blasphemy trial) and de facto in America (Comedy Central’s and Yale University Press’s submission to Islamic proscriptions on representations of Mohammed), you wonder why excitable types like Faisal Shahzad are so eager to jump the gun. The Islamization of the West proceeds apace; why draw attention to it and risk a backlash?

Because the reactions of Bloomberg & Co. are a useful glimpse into the decayed and corroded heart of a civilization. One day the bomb will explode. Dozens dead? Hundreds? Thousands? Would we then restrict immigration from certain parts of the world? Or at least subject them to extra roadblocks on the fast-track to citizenship?

What do you think?

I see, as part of the new, culturally sensitive warmongering, that the NATO commander in Afghanistan is considering giving out awards to soldiers for “courageous restraint.” Maybe we could hand them out at home, too. Hopefully not posthumously.

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone. © 2010 Mark Steyn.

That is just an attempt to soften jihad

--- a common ploy of "moderate" Islamists. If they were truly serious, wouldn't they be turning in the "fanatic" Muslims? As prominent Muslims, wouldn't they bring pressure on the entire Muslim community to out the violence-oriented jihadists among them, instead of making tepid remarks of disavowal about the jihadists "misinterpreted" Islamic philosophy?

There is a multitude of prominent Muslims publicly professing a "moderate" Islam, when in fact their own statements and actions betray their public posture of Islamic "moderateness."

Like Rauf, they go unchallenged by the MSM, are invited into the BHO regime, the halls of Congress, and our universities. Moreover, they are championed by the globalists who imagine them a part of the "new religion."

Here are profiles of just two in the news recently. Some of them, like Fethullah Gulen [called by Paul Williams the "World’s ‘Most Dangerous Islamist’], have become brand franchises. NOTE the difference in Williams' profile and mine below to see what we are up against. He pulls the curtain away. I show his public image and reach:

The verbal assault on Islam (unbelievable!)

INTERESTING TIMING! (Did somebody have that in the hopper--- waiting for an opportune moment? [immediately after Shahzad's NYC bombing attempt])

Re: MUQTEDAR KHAN

Coddling Islamists By: Winfield Myers
FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, February 20, 2008

The U.S. Department of State has awarded a grant worth $494,368 to University of Delaware political scientist, Brookings Institution fellow, and Pentagon consultant Muqtedar Khan, who last fall objected to serving on a panel with a veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces. According to a UD press release, the grant is to be used, “to initiate a dialogue on religion and politics between key members of religious and community organizations in the Middle East and the United States.”

The press release continued:

Under the grant, participants from Egypt and Saudi Arabia will be on campus this summer for a brief period before traveling to other locations, including New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Later a group of American scholars will travel to Egypt and Saudi Arabia to take part in similar activities in those countries. A documentary film is planned of the visit to the U.S.

The choice of Khan to oversee a program dedicated to expanding dialogue between religious communities is beyond parody, as Khan himself has a record of thwarting dialogue, at least with Israeli veterans. Moreover, his award is part of a larger pattern of coddling Islamists within the bureaucracies of the State Department and Pentagon.

Last October 23, Khan objected to the presence of IDF veteran and Campus Watch associate fellow Asaf Romirowsky on an academic panel at UD. Organized by students to discuss “Anti-Americanism in the Middle East,” the panel was set to go when Khan—writing from Washington, DC, where he had delivered a workshop at the Pentagon—sent the following email to undergraduate Lara Rausch, one of the key organizers of the event:

Laura, I have to speak at the Pentagon tomorrow. My workshop is from 12-4. I hope to catch the 5 pm Acela from DC and will be back in town by 7 pm. I will come directly, but may be late. I am also not sure how I feel about being on the same panel with an Israeli soldier who was stationed in West Bank. Some people see IDF as an occupying force in the West Bank. I am not sure that I will be comfortable occupying the same space with him. It is not fair to spring this surprise on me at the last moment.

Romirowsky, contacted via email, was asked what he thought of the State Department’s action of singling out Khan for a substantial award to encourage dialogue, was taken aback.

“I seriously question the type of dialogue this will promote given the fact that he wouldn't share space with me on an academic panel,” Romirowsky replied.

“Dialogue is good if you have something to dialogue about—starting with accepting the others’ right to exist,” he continued. “Yet, by not sitting on a panel with me due to my IDF service, he basically questioned Israel’s right to exist within safe and secure borders.”

“That itself should throw into question the integrity of any dialogue he might initiate.”

In the two months following the story’s October debut, Khan offered no fewer than three additional explanations for why he acted as he did. I documented these in December, and concluded that the reasons he gave in the October 23 email above rang truest: IDF vets are off-limits on panels in which he participates. The other excuses were little more than a smokescreen, set off in a vain attempt to reduce the embarrassment his intolerance had brought to himself and the University.

Khan’s large grant from the State Department, coupled with his role as a Pentagon advisor, further exposes a troubling trend within those federal departments of coddling Islamists and turning a blind eye toward intolerance. Hesham Islam, special assistant for international affairs in the office of Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, has made news lately for allegedly calling Joint Chief analyst on counterterrorism Major Stephen Coughlin, who also reported to England, a “Christian zealot with a pen” and pressing for his removal.

Coughlin is widely celebrated as one of a small number of Pentagon analysts who are consistently tough on Islamism—a stance that has made enemies within the Defense bureaucracy. His thesis from the National Defense Intelligence College, titled “‘To Our Great Detriment’: Ignoring What Extremists Say about Jihad,” is celebrated by terrorism experts as a clear-sighted warning that too few in Washington care to heed.

FrontPage
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I recently posted a lengthy post on Stephen Couglin, his firing, and his courageous analysis here on the Threat Matrix thread. Below is a short excerpt from that post:

Former Defense Department analyst Stephen Coughlin was exceedingly informative, and his point that official American self-censorship regarding Islam and jihad has given the enemy a "decisive victory in the information battlespace" was truly chilling.

Coughlin, whose perceptions got him crosswise with Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England’s Muslim sidekick Hesham Islam and later excluded from the DoD, insisted that those entrusted with protecting Americans from Islamic terrorism have a “professional duty to know” about the roots of said terrorism’s doctrine in Islamic scripture and tradition.

After all, he pointed out, the murderous rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, by Muslim U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan had a “doctrinal driver,” as evinced by Hasan’s own presentation to his Army medical colleagues calling for Muslim service personnel to be accorded conscientious objector status lest “adverse events” occur.

The enemy, Coughlin observed, has stated his doctrine. Can we, he enquired, be politically correct and threat-focused at the same time? No way – because, he concluded, “You cannot defeat an enemy you will not define.” Coughlin's thesis on jihad doctrine may be accessed here. It is lengthy but gripping, and is a must-read.

Greenspiece Blogspot

Stephen Couglin:
"The enemy has stated his doctrine. Can we, be politically correct and threat-focused at the same time?" No... because, “You cannot defeat an enemy you will not define.”
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Exclusive: World’s ‘Most Dangerous Islamist’ Alive, Well, and Living in Pennsylvania

You got it all wrong! /sarc
Fethullah Gulen is one of the protected class---a brand franchise promoting peace, understanding, respect, and tolerance

Fethullah Gulen’s discourse cherishes and his life exemplifies values like empathic acceptance, altruistic service of one’s community and humanity in general, complementary roles of the intellect and the heart, sincerity, holistic view of the human, deepening faith and love of the creation.

He is noted for his pro-democracy, pro-science, pro-dialogue and non-violence stances in critical junctures of the history of his society. In July 2008, Fethullah Gulen was listed among the top hundred public intellectuals in the world by Foreign Policy magazine .

Fethullah Gulen.org

Fethullah Gulen Movement.net

Fethullah Gulen's Website

Qualifications

Extensive knowledge and teaching experience in Islamic scholarship. Proficient author with more than sixty books translated into many world languages. Recognized as the world's top public intellectual in Foreign Policy / Prospect poll in 2008. Years of service as an imam, preacher, and civil society activist with acclaimed competence as a speaker on Islam, education, and dialogue in Turkey.

Education

Classical education in Islamic scholarship at various divinity schools (Kurşunlu, Kemhan, Taşmescid) under a number of Turkey's renowned Sufi scholars and masters, such as Ramiz Gülen, Muhammed Lütfi, Haci Sıtkı, Sadi Efendi, and Osman Bektaş (1951–1956)

Compulsory elementary education (1946–1949)

Home schooling along with memorization of the whole Qur'an and mastering recitation skills (before 1946)

Employment

Imam / Preacher

* Voluntary Imam / Preacher, Erzurum, Amasya, Tokat, Sivas (1955–1958)
* Deputy Imam, Üçşerefeli Mosque, Edirne (1959–1961)
* Imam / Lecturer, Iskenderun, while serving compulsory military service (1961–1963)
* Member of the Public Hall, Erzurum (1963). Convened conferences and lectured on Rumi
* Qur'an Teacher / Imam, Dar'ul Hadis Mosque, Edirne (1964)
* Senior Preacher (Merkez Vaizi), Kırklareli (1965)
* Senior Preacher, Izmir (1966–1971)
* Director / Teacher, Kestanepazarı Boarding Qur'anic School (1966–1971)
* Senior Preacher, Edremit (1972–1974)
* Senior Preacher, Manisa (1974–1976)
* Senior Preacher, Izmir, Bornova (1976–1980)
* Voluntary Preacher, Istanbul, Izmir, and throughout Turkey (post-retirement service) (1986–1989)

Speaker

* Delivered a series of talks in Turkey and Europe (1975–1977)
* Talks on social, cultural, and religious matters recorded and broadcast every week on www.herkul.org (2003– present)

Honorary President / Civil Society Leader

* Founder member of the Journalists and Writers Foundation (1994)
* Participated in interfaith gatherings and promoted dialogue through a number of events organized by this foundation. (1994–1998)
* Honorary president of Rumi Forum, Washington D.C. (1999–present)

THE GULEN INSTITUTE

The Gülen Institute was established in October 2007 as a non-profit organization and a joint initiative of the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work and the Institute of Interfaith Dialog.

The perspectives of the institute are inspired by the life and works of the distinguished contemporary scholar and civic leader Fethullah Gülen. Visit Fethullah Gulen Forum for updates on Mr. Gulen and Gulen Movement.

Dialog of Civilizations Platform on January 23, 2010

Luncheon Forum: Dr. Robert Pape

"Occupation, violence and religion: A look at dynamics of conflicts in the light of Afghanistan troop surge"

Gulen Institute welcomes Dr. Robert A. Pape, a distinguished political science professor, from the University of Chicago at a luncheon forum.

This luncheon will take place during the Dialog of Civilizations Platform on January 23, 2010. After Dr. Pape's speech, there will be a session where high school students participate as panelists. Their topic is 'Improving Family Relations".

OPENING REMARKS: Harris County Judge Ed Emmett
SESSION: Social Conflicts and Peaceful Coexistence

SESSION: Substance Abuse and Youth

HIGH SCHOOLS SESSION: Improving Family Relations

SESSION: Public Role of Women around the World

SESSION: Poverty and Social Justice

Hon. Kofi Annan at the Gülen Institute
April 12, 2010

Secretary-General of the United Nations, 1997-2006
Nobel Peace Prize Recipient

Speech Topic: The Global Compact: Challenging Business to Become Leading Actors in Sustainable Development

Gülen Institute's Youtube Channel

Fethullah Gulen Conference.org

International Conferences on Islam in the Contemporary World: The Fethullah Gülen Movement in Thought and Practice

Fethullah Gülen is a Turkish Muslim scholar, thinker, author, poet, opinion leader, educational activist, and preacher emeritus. He is regarded as the initiator and inspirer of the worldwide social movement of human values known as the Hizmet (Service) Movement or the Gülen Movement.>

2005 Islam in the Contemporary World: The Fethullah Gülen Movement in Thought and Practice
November 12-13, 2005, Rice University, Houston, TX, U.S.A.

2006 The Second International Conference on Islam in the Contemporary World: The Fethullah Gülen Movement in Thought and Practice
March 4-5, 2006, Southern Methodist University, Dallas,

2006 The Second Annual Conference on Islam in the Contemporary World: The Fethullah Gülen Movement in Thought and Practice
November 4-5, 2006, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, U.S.A.

2007 The Third Annual Conference on Islam in the Contemporary World: The Fethullah Gülen Movement in Thought and Practice
November 3, 2007, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio,

2009 The Fifth International Conference on Islam in the Contemporary World: The Gülen Movement in Thought and Practice
March 6-7, 2009, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S.A.

NOTE: There is no information on the Fourth International Conference on the website

Fethullah Gulen Forum is an online discussion board of issues related to Fethullah Gülen. By creating active discussions, FG Forum aims to offer in depth analysis on Fethullah Gülen and the Gülen Movement.

Recent Articles

* Defamation of Gulen as a Smoke Screen Abdullah Ademoglu. April 5, 2010

* Responses to Soner Cagaptay Fethullah Gulen Forum. March 13, 2010

* Fethullah Gülen: Spiritual Leader in a Global Islamic Context Salih Yucel, PhD- Journal of Religion and Society. February 4, 2010

* Fethullah Gülen and Al-Ghazzali on Tolerance J. B. Schlubach, Ph.D.. January 7, 2010

* Fethullah Gulen's Thoughts on State, Democracy, Politics, Terrorism and ... Zeki Saritoprak, PhD.

* “Fethullah Gülen's Grand Ambition”: A Biased, Selective, Misleading, Misrepresentative and Miscalculated Article Dogan Koc. January 29, 2010

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Jihad: The Political Third Rail: What They Are Not Telling You---Guest Speaker Steve Coughlin

Eavesdropping on a Sunni Muslim Scholar Upon the Passing of One of Islam's National Leaders (see Post #421 for obit)

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