the lower parts of clouds extending across a horizon
Immediately thought of "Clouds Enterprise"
Thanks. I didn't catch that one. It is easy to let the language and cultural chasms obscure some common traits of socially alienated young middle class and upper class males in their teens and twenties - - no matter language or culture, many seek refuge in the realm of science fiction.
All you have to do is go to the nearest major university and look for the guys walking around campus in their bathrobe at noon. Nothing wrong with sci-fi. Many of those guys are going to be the great scientific minds of the next generation. And even I have to confess that I have a weakness for the new "Battlestar Gallactica" (my one and only current sci-fi vice).
But as in any batch of apples, there are always a few bad ones. And when the apples are marinating in a totally dysfunctional community (say the isolated Islamic communities in London and the rest of Western Europe which have not assimilated to the same degree as those in the US - - hence more potential threats per capita for them) or a completely dysfunctional society (as are almost all those in the Mideast), they become easy prey for jihadi recruitment. It is the same phenomenon you see in our inner cities as young alienated males without adult direction become targets for gang recruitment. For inner city young males, the fictionalized violent rap culture is their version of escapist "sci fi".
Most of the jihadi cannon-fodder is just gang bangers who chant Koranic verses instead of rap lyrics. And they sustain themselves by continually recruiting psychologically vulnerable and socially alienated young men and initiating them by street fighting. You see where I am going with this . . .
The home grown problem here will only intensify after the next attack because the retaliation against the Islamic community will alienate the non-jihadi (and fully American) majority and transform the Muslim population here into the more radicalized types in Europe.
Just as the insurgency in Iraq was predictable (I still have my emails) due to our own colossal misjudgments, I fear that we will import the problems of the Europeans here by public reactions and the inability to control them. It will not drive most of them to become terrorists, but it will drive them to isolate themselves and cease the cooperation with authorities that thousands have done since 9/11.
If your local police raid a drug-infested housing project based on tips and cooperation from the residents, then they better protect those people from retaliation, or they will never cooperate again in order to protect their families. If we do not protect the people who are helping us, then when they become targets, they will go silent and the radicals will come to dominate their communities.
And just as the Iraqi insurgency is largely a product of our own mistakes, the escalating violence/domestic insurgency here is predictable.
Worse yet, there are many of our own "holy warriors" who will manage to create new jihadi problems where there were none in the first place.
Just last week I saw posts on FR saying that anyone that "looked" Mideastern needed to be targeted after the next attack . . . after the poster had been talking about hispanics (not just illegals). And i know that this proto-fascist sentiment is not unique. I daresay thousands of lurking Freepers (a minority of lurkers/posters, but still many)are infected with these pre-jihadi symptoms as well. The most radical of these "pre-jihadis"/proto-fascists intend to express and display their own jihadi mentality by going after entire communities, deliberately "terrorizing", and even killing hundreds or even thousands of innocents across America since they are "all guilty", and they intend to be judge, jury and executioner . . . much in the same way that to a Mideastern jihadi, all infidels are guilty, even women and children.
So after the next major attack, there will be hundreds if not thousands of revenge attacks, almost all of the victims innocent. And many will not even be Muslim. If those who "look foreign" become targets many hispanics and south asians will get killed. And if some of the attackers are black muslims, you can bet that the hundreds of Stormfront sympathizers who lurk here will be loading ammo and cruising to find a black kid on the corner with the bow tie selling moon pies.
Fear and social/political alienation can drive many people, no matter their background, to seek out violent solutions.
And this applies not just to Muslim extremists. Some jihadis are truck driving, flag waving, gun toting, "patriotic" Americans, who, when they perceive that they and their families are being attacked, will lash out at anything and anyone they deem a threat - - even if they are tragically wrong.
The only difference between the ignorant rednecks who will be gunning down Pakistani convenience store owners after the next attack and the young al Qaeda punks in Baghdad busy drilling holes in the skulls of their Shia neighbors, is the zip code.
Otherwise they are blood brothers.
My husband and I were discussing that very thing the other evening. I have Greek relatives on one side of the family - most of whom look like clean-shaven terrorists.
I dread what is to come with the next attack and thereafter.