nousdefions
11-14-2010, 12:17
My question is why is this being treated as a crime instead of an act of war?
Arkansas jihadist: "Step by step I became a religiously devout Muslim..." (http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/11/arkansas-jihadist-step-by-step-i-became-a-religiously-devout-muslim-mujahid----meaning-one-who-parti.html)
This lengthy piece contains numerous revealing extracts from writings by Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, who murdered one soldier and wounded another in a jihad attack outside a military recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas. He makes his Islamic motivations fully clear. I didn't reproduce here the material from various learned analysts explaining how Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad has gotten jihad and Islam all wrong, wrong, wrong, because ultimately the article offers no evidence of anything that the Muslims who supposedly reject Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad's understanding of jihad are doing to make sure that other Muslims don't misunderstand Islam the way he did. And that's because they aren't doing anything to ensure that more Muslims will not misunderstand Islam in this way.
Note also that Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad attempted to firebomb the home of a rabbi -- acting out the Islamic antisemitism that he learned in the Qur'an that told him that the Jews are the Muslims' worst enemies (5:82).
"Memphian drifted to dark side of Islamic extremism, plotted one-man jihad vs. homeland," by Kristina Goetz in the Commercial Appeal, November 14 (thanks to Axel):
What I had in mind didn't go as planned but Allah willing He will reward me for my intentions.
He planned for weeks, buying guns secondhand to avoid the FBI.
Then, to test whether the feds were watching, he bought a .22-caliber rifle over the counter at Walmart. He stockpiled ammo and practiced target shooting at empty construction sites.
By his own account, he was preparing for jihad.
From a black Ford Explorer Sport Trac, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Memphis native, watched two soldiers in fatigues smoking outside a military recruiting center in Little Rock. He aimed an assault rifle out the window and fired.
Muhammad sped away, hoping to flee 150 miles to Memphis where he would switch cars. But a wrong turn in a construction zone led him to police.
He stepped out of the SUV wearing a green ammo belt around his waist.
"It's a war going on against Muslims, and that is why I did it," an officer heard him say. "You see how I gave up with no problem."
Much of this account emerges from police reports and an 18-page mental-health evaluation contained in court files. But Muhammad tells a far broader, detailed story in seven handwritten letters to The Commercial Appeal. Taken together, those letters are not just an admission of guilt but a profession of failure for having not caused more death and destruction.
The letters, written in pencil between May and October, provide a rare glimpse into the thoughts of a self-described jihadist, according to one national security expert. Muhammad describes in his own words how he took his declaration of faith in a Memphis mosque; his motives for moving to Yemen and his attempt to travel to Somalia for weapons training; how and why he planned multiple attacks in the U.S, including ones in Nashville and Florence, Ky., that didn't go as intended; and how he allegedly executed the Little Rock assault.
In his own words:
It's a war out against Islam and Muslims and I'm on the side of the Muslims point blank ... The U.S. has to pay for the rape, murder, bloodshed, blasphemy it has done and still doing to the Muslims and Islam. So consider this a small retaliation the best is to come Allah willing. This is not the first attack and won't be the last.
Muhammad is yet to convince U.S. authorities he's anything other than the murderer of Pvt. William A. Long of Conway, Ark. He's being held on state charges, awaiting a February trial.
But one senior consultant to the U.S. government on global terrorism believes Muhammad's self-described attack in June 2009 and others like it -- lone gunmen with no formal al-Qaida training or direction -- illustrate the new nature of an old enemy.
Al-Qaida has shifted from a far away, tough-to-join group to a social network that almost anyone, anywhere can join. Even a middle-class, Baptist kid from Memphis, born Carlos Bledsoe, who played youth basketball and worked at Chuck E. Cheese's. [...]
"Regarding my pre-Islamic past ... I don't like to talk about it," he wrote to the newspaper. "... I was known as Bledsoe in the neighborhood and did things most teenagers do." [...]
During a visit to a Nashville mosque, he watched the synchronized movements of 50 to 75 people as they bowed and prostrated themselves in prayer. He was amazed.
"So I attempted to join and after realizing I didn't know what I was doing, somebody (asked) when did you become Muslim? I said I'm not just interested in it? And when I said that the whole place lit up. I mean brothers shouted 'Allahu Akbar'!! (Allah is the greatest) and embraced me like I was a long (lost) brother."
A man from the mosque explained the religion's fundamentals -- belief in one God, angels, the revealed scriptures, the prophets, predestination and the day of judgment. He also gave Muhammad a copy of the Quran.
Later, at Masjid As-Salam in Memphis, Muhammad recited the Shahada in Arabic: There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.
"They are not Mujahideen or militants or preach jihad," Muhammad wrote about the Memphis mosque. "But that's where I became Muslim."
So to make a long story short I believed in it wholeheartedly and decided to become a Muslim in a local Memphis masjid. I took my declaration or testimony of faith and bore witness to the truth. The year was 2004 and I was 19 years old.
[Much more at above link]
Arkansas jihadist: "Step by step I became a religiously devout Muslim..." (http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/11/arkansas-jihadist-step-by-step-i-became-a-religiously-devout-muslim-mujahid----meaning-one-who-parti.html)
This lengthy piece contains numerous revealing extracts from writings by Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, who murdered one soldier and wounded another in a jihad attack outside a military recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas. He makes his Islamic motivations fully clear. I didn't reproduce here the material from various learned analysts explaining how Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad has gotten jihad and Islam all wrong, wrong, wrong, because ultimately the article offers no evidence of anything that the Muslims who supposedly reject Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad's understanding of jihad are doing to make sure that other Muslims don't misunderstand Islam the way he did. And that's because they aren't doing anything to ensure that more Muslims will not misunderstand Islam in this way.
Note also that Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad attempted to firebomb the home of a rabbi -- acting out the Islamic antisemitism that he learned in the Qur'an that told him that the Jews are the Muslims' worst enemies (5:82).
"Memphian drifted to dark side of Islamic extremism, plotted one-man jihad vs. homeland," by Kristina Goetz in the Commercial Appeal, November 14 (thanks to Axel):
What I had in mind didn't go as planned but Allah willing He will reward me for my intentions.
He planned for weeks, buying guns secondhand to avoid the FBI.
Then, to test whether the feds were watching, he bought a .22-caliber rifle over the counter at Walmart. He stockpiled ammo and practiced target shooting at empty construction sites.
By his own account, he was preparing for jihad.
From a black Ford Explorer Sport Trac, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Memphis native, watched two soldiers in fatigues smoking outside a military recruiting center in Little Rock. He aimed an assault rifle out the window and fired.
Muhammad sped away, hoping to flee 150 miles to Memphis where he would switch cars. But a wrong turn in a construction zone led him to police.
He stepped out of the SUV wearing a green ammo belt around his waist.
"It's a war going on against Muslims, and that is why I did it," an officer heard him say. "You see how I gave up with no problem."
Much of this account emerges from police reports and an 18-page mental-health evaluation contained in court files. But Muhammad tells a far broader, detailed story in seven handwritten letters to The Commercial Appeal. Taken together, those letters are not just an admission of guilt but a profession of failure for having not caused more death and destruction.
The letters, written in pencil between May and October, provide a rare glimpse into the thoughts of a self-described jihadist, according to one national security expert. Muhammad describes in his own words how he took his declaration of faith in a Memphis mosque; his motives for moving to Yemen and his attempt to travel to Somalia for weapons training; how and why he planned multiple attacks in the U.S, including ones in Nashville and Florence, Ky., that didn't go as intended; and how he allegedly executed the Little Rock assault.
In his own words:
It's a war out against Islam and Muslims and I'm on the side of the Muslims point blank ... The U.S. has to pay for the rape, murder, bloodshed, blasphemy it has done and still doing to the Muslims and Islam. So consider this a small retaliation the best is to come Allah willing. This is not the first attack and won't be the last.
Muhammad is yet to convince U.S. authorities he's anything other than the murderer of Pvt. William A. Long of Conway, Ark. He's being held on state charges, awaiting a February trial.
But one senior consultant to the U.S. government on global terrorism believes Muhammad's self-described attack in June 2009 and others like it -- lone gunmen with no formal al-Qaida training or direction -- illustrate the new nature of an old enemy.
Al-Qaida has shifted from a far away, tough-to-join group to a social network that almost anyone, anywhere can join. Even a middle-class, Baptist kid from Memphis, born Carlos Bledsoe, who played youth basketball and worked at Chuck E. Cheese's. [...]
"Regarding my pre-Islamic past ... I don't like to talk about it," he wrote to the newspaper. "... I was known as Bledsoe in the neighborhood and did things most teenagers do." [...]
During a visit to a Nashville mosque, he watched the synchronized movements of 50 to 75 people as they bowed and prostrated themselves in prayer. He was amazed.
"So I attempted to join and after realizing I didn't know what I was doing, somebody (asked) when did you become Muslim? I said I'm not just interested in it? And when I said that the whole place lit up. I mean brothers shouted 'Allahu Akbar'!! (Allah is the greatest) and embraced me like I was a long (lost) brother."
A man from the mosque explained the religion's fundamentals -- belief in one God, angels, the revealed scriptures, the prophets, predestination and the day of judgment. He also gave Muhammad a copy of the Quran.
Later, at Masjid As-Salam in Memphis, Muhammad recited the Shahada in Arabic: There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.
"They are not Mujahideen or militants or preach jihad," Muhammad wrote about the Memphis mosque. "But that's where I became Muslim."
So to make a long story short I believed in it wholeheartedly and decided to become a Muslim in a local Memphis masjid. I took my declaration or testimony of faith and bore witness to the truth. The year was 2004 and I was 19 years old.
[Much more at above link]