There are other disturbing statistics here, after the obligatory expressions of shock from the neighbors. "American-Bred Terrorists Causing Alarm For Law Enforcement," by Jason Ryan, Pierre Thomas, and Xorje Olivares for ABC News, July 22:
A Virginia man charged with providing material support to terrorists abroad appeared in court today requesting an attorney be appointed to him.
Zachary Chesser, 20, is accused of trying to join Al-Shabaab, a Somali-based Islamist militant group suspected in the recent bombing attacks in Uganda that left 73 dead and dozens more injured as they watched the World Cup final.
"I'm shocked--I'm just surprised," said Yvette Deale, Chesser's former neighbor. "It's not the kind of thing I would have expected in this neighborhood."
Chesser, who just two years ago was a high school football player and crew member in Fairfax, VA, is now one of 34 Americans accused of and charged with having ties to international terrorists in the past 18 months.
Sources say this trend represents an unprecedented spike in homegrown terror and is an emerging threat that has them deeply concerned. What they consider to be most alarming is the fact that many of those charged were radicalized on the Internet, with thousands of Americans reportedly frequenting terror websites that espouse mass murder.
"This Is What We Have Feared"
A recently disclosed FBI Directorate of Intelligence document from July 2009 estimated that there were as many as 15,000 websites and web forums that were supportive of terrorist activities. Yet, officials say the number of websites is constantly changing since many of the sites and forums are not maintained, with current estimates indicating as many as 10,000 active sites.
The FBI analysis noted that about 80 percent of those sites existed on U.S.-based computer servers. U.S. officials say these type of sites rapidly gained popularity when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, began to post beheading videos on the Internet in 2003.
"This is what we have feared for a very long time--that finally the ideology of radical Islam is effectively reaching into the United States to disaffected people here over the Internet," said Richard Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism adviser. [...]
There's a long way to go from being your garden-variety "disaffected," usually young person, to embracing a brutal supremacist ideology. And that doesn't explain the relatively well-to-do jihadists who otherwise had everything going for them.
With so many potential threats, authorities say they are in a race against time to find these radicals before they launch a successful attack on the land they grew up on.
"In the last six to nine months," Clark said, "the FBI has seen more domestic Islamist extremist activity than at any time since immediately right after 9/11."
Modernity offers much to man that has never been so much as dreamed of before, and that even today on a day-by-day basis. Modernity offers us long life, good health, personal privacy, positive personal relationships, the best in the best of all possible worlds, and more each day to astound us and make us happier and better people. But it's not enough. It might be, if fact, too much. It might be that the easier and the better life is the more the average guy comes to hate the banality of it. How much pot can a kid smoke, how many computer games can be play, and how much time wasted at the shopping mall buying stuff to fill the parent's basement with is enough, and then too much? The point of all our good gets lost under piles of stuff, the stuff of a good life smothered and buried under all our Modernity.
Islam, in it's perverted fashion, allows men to be men, though at the least level, something akin to brutes on the edge of forests. That has its attractions. Martial life and the wilderness draw. So what do we offer men? Not to slag it, but careers in business are not the same and not as good for many men who prefer the more physical aspects of competition and the bonds that grow from it.
Life being what it is for men, we need to give our men something that appeals to men. Sensitivity training, anger management, green tea therapy? I think that's not so good for us.
An interesting word, "disaffected". In my dictionary (a 1950 model) it means "to take away the affection of; to make discontented or unfriendly". So a "disaffected" person would seem to be the passive partner of the relationship, the other being the wilful destroyer of his contentedness or friendliness. The word doesn't fit, unless perhaps the person using it thinks it is America's fault that these would-be terrorists are behaving in these ways.
While it may be alarming to read this stuff, it's far more entertaining - to me anyway - than the usual Hollywood gossip on pop tarts. At this rate there might be a "jihad confidential" item in the news, along with sports and the weather.
When I watched the sufis in lines doing their exhausting breathing and chanting and bending routines for literally hours in Ramadan, it seemed like a spiritual kind of militarism, quite scary to watch but obviously satisfying to them. I can't see any spirituality in Islam, and I don't know where and when it became incorporated into sufism (India, maybe, centuries ago?) but all this ritual, as well as the hugging, back-patting, the "brother" talk and so on, gives the men a lot of satisfaction, and as part of Islam, but more specialized, makes them feel strong, purposeful, devout and all the rest of it. It is very seductive and their womenfolk are quite jealous, having to remain on the outskirts of all the fun and cameraderie.
Immigration policies being what they are...and multiculturalism being super-imposed as the secular religion that it is, it doesn't take a clairvoyant to envision that this number - 34 in 18 months - will, in 5 to 10 years time, sound comparatively minuscule.
It's just going to get worse, folks. Minus 9-11, these will soon be looked back upon as 'the good old days'.
Tip of the iceberg, but the captain has told the crew it's a mirage. And they believe it.
These are the psychically and economically marginal. The nearly-moronic Richard Reids, the spoiled bewildered John Walker Lindhs, the terminally hysterical Yvonne Ridleys. What a galere! While the economically marginal are subject to steady campaigns of Da'wa especially in the prison systems of the Western world. But the semi-demented are always with us, what with Durkehaimian anomie, an epidemic of self-aggrandizement and self-pity, and general societal disarray. And now along come Muslims, sure of themselves, and this faith that offers One-Stop Shopping, where if you choose Islam, you never have to make any choices again. It's all there, from soup to nuts, what you must do about this, and what you must do about that. And you are spared from the pain of thinking for yourself -- you are even commanded not to think of yourself. You get to manufacture a special Arabic name. And you get to learn, and use, a few Arabic phrases, even some from the Qur'an that can be laboriously memorized. And you get to feel you are part of a Community (just add Islam, then stir), and your life now has meaning. What meaning? Oh, now you are fighting the Infidels. Now you are on the side of right. Now whatever you do that you did before -- steal or attack or murder -- is not criminal activity, but you, as a Brave Muslim Jihadi, fighting the Infidel, seizing the Jizyah to which you are entitled, or threatening the "enemies of Islam" here in this country, or going off to fight abroad. Now your life has meaning. Now you are oomeone special, because now you are no one at all, but just part of a collective. And you don't have to think, which is good, because thinking was never your strong suit in the first place.
And tomorrow -- well, Tomorrow Belongs To You.
I agree with alot of what you write. Islam is idolatry and the West offers them nothing but materialism. Idolatry will trump materialism every time, so it is just a waste of time and money building roads and bridges in Afghanistan because they will just go right back to worshiping their idols. One thing we do have to offer them is the truth. The truth of a triune God. The truth of Christianity, and not that feel good Jesus is my personal savior and friend crapola that passes for Christianity these days. Femenism has emasculated our men in the West. Who would want that?
Wonder if anyone has pointed out to the FBI that Chesser's RevolutionMuslim pals were in Times Square the afternoon the car bomb was supposed to go off, and that their video ends with a "stay tuned for the rest of the event inshallah" that was never followed up. Did they know about the smoking SUV in advance? If Chesser keeps singing with that be in the playlist?
Islam psych is virtually identical to cult psych in general. Yesterday I sent an email to one of the remaining veteran cult investigators/"deprogrammers" asking if he knew of anyone with that sort of background who was monitoring Islam. Nobody. "Islamophobia" is apparently a thought-stopping word even for them.
"In the last six to nine months," Clark said, "the FBI has seen more domestic Islamist extremist activity than at any time since immediately right after 9/11."
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I think something's up. They're ramping up to something. I said it here recently that I've sensed a real escalation of hostilities as of late -- worldwide.
It seems they're getting louder, more violent, and growing bolder every day.
Who knows where it will lead?
Lilredbird - re. the cult deprogrammers - interesting.
However: Ayaan Hirsi Ali studied psychology at Leiden and found it very helpful as she slowly self-exorcised. Wafa Sultan, I think, studied psychiatry. Ali Sina has Western-style psychological training, I think. And I think Nonie Darwish has studied psychology.
Interesting, that we've got at least four high-profile ex-Muslims who all found western psychology and/ or psychiatry helpful; who all studied those subjects at a time when they were not yet full-on apostates. I don't think that's a coincidence. Did they choose the subject or did it choose them?
Maybe it is Ali Sina and Wafa Sultan, say, who can be encouraged to look into the professional literature produced by psychologists and psychiatrists who have worked on deprogramming people from, for example, cults like the Moonies, Scientologists, and Mormons, and then to develop a tailormade program for thoroughly deprogramming Muslims who want to get out - and preventing the vulnerable non-Muslims from being suckered into Islam in the first place.
It might also be worthwhile reading about techniques that work to crack people out of cults, and then watch some of Fr Botros' programs that are specifically aimed at getting through the walls of dar al Islam, to check out whether he's intuitively using some of those techniques. I know he uses shock tactics, sometimes, combined with humour.
OT:
"TWO MUSLIM WOMEN MARCHED OUT OF SWIMMING POOL IN FRENCH HOLIDAY VILLAGE BECAUSE THEY WERE WEARING BURKINIS"
Police called when husbands (naturally) threatened violence:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1296821/Two-Muslim-women-marched-swimming-pool-French-holiday-village-wearing-burkinis.html
Eleanor
you said
"I think something's up. They're ramping up to something. I said it here recently that I've sensed a real escalation of hostilities as of late -- worldwide.
"It seems they're getting louder, more violent, and growing bolder every day."
You know what I think? I think this escalation is due largely to their perception that, under Obama, the single most powerful Infidel country, the USA, is either weakened, or not going to use its power against them.
Jihad always rises when the Ummah perceives itself strong and its intended targets as weakened; conversely, decisive acts of force and resistance from perceptibly stronger non-Muslims tend to cause Jihad to abate.
Every time, anywhere in the non-Muslim lands, a large number of non-Muslims gets together and loudly says NO to Muslims about anything (and then back it up, if necessary) I think the Muslims get a message.
The French parliament sent a NO message the other day. Now, if the ordinary French and the gendarmes aggressively back that up (just the other day, two Muslimas who entered a French pool in burqinis rather than normal bathing dress, were BOOTED OUT; I think that was a case of the French citizenry having been heartened by the example of their parliament) - and if the French army, say, were used to crush Muslim rioting, just once or twice, as occasion arose - then Jihad in France would simmer down remarkably.
Right now, the Muslims think Uncle Sam is asleep or else submitted to their will; so they are pushing the envelope everywhere.
That's hilarious! The husband of one of the women threatened a lifeguard with a bowling bowl. lol. You can't make this stuff up. hahaha.
Eleanor
Snap!
I wrote and posted my posting of 7.42 PM, mentioning that very same incident with the burqini-wearing Muslimas in France, even while you were writing your posting of 7.41. I wrote and sent my posting *before* I refreshed the page and read *your* posting.
"Snap! We've got the Power!" "Girl Power!!" LOL
Regarding your first reply to me, yes, here in the U.S. we are weak right now. Obama is lost, and even his liberal base is starting to admit it and is showing serious fatigue. They have no positive record to speak of so they're hurling "racist" at every perceived enemy.
Important issues (economy, immigration, national security)
are being pushed aside in order to rattle on and on about "race."
Someone coined the term "Most Racial Presidency," and it really is true. Obama is a thin-skinned elitist, and a racist.
Islam senses the weakness, and oh boy do they try and exploit it, you're absolutely right. Due to this, I fully expect something major to happen during this Obamanation Administration's period of self-inflicted weakness.
I just hope he doesn't get a lot of Americans, and other westerners, killed with his incompetence.
"In the last six to nine months," Clark said, "the FBI has seen more domestic Islamist extremist activity than at any time since immediately right after 9/11."
Perhaps this is because the Islamists figure there's no need to fear any arrests or prosecutions from the BHO administration, which has dished out billions of dollars to Islamists world-wide, which has ordered that the terms "Islamic" and "terrorism" never be used together, which has refused to make the Islamic connection in a number of terrorist incidents -- such as the Fort Hood killings -- and which has refused to prosecute other terrorists such as the Black Panthers in Philadelphia. The cat's away, the mice have realized that, and they're coming out to play in increasing numbers.
I can just feel the peace and love of the Obama Been Rotten administration in the air.
They will clog the system with all the little foolish fish. These must be dealt with quickly and efficiently so that our focus and money is not used up before the real threats surface. We also need to bring home our troops before they are effectively picked off and weakened before the home front war begins.
We have to be very alert to those other elements that we've witnessed in the past; The Venveremmos Brigades, The Che` Cheerleaders, committees to read in awe Mao's Red Book, the Scientogy runaways, Moonies and those who thought Jane Fonda was a foundation for Welt-Politik.
There will be the dilletantes who will seek sprituality in the terrorist chic`.
Look at it this way, for each of those who have been uncovered there is a logistical support system. And for each there are the drool for the ghoul who believe someone else need thier message supported. They will be the first to worry about poor Machine-Gun-Malik, out there alone and nobody undertanding him. Watch for them morph from once-fashionable keffiya's to hajibs(sic) (their wisps of blond or auburn curlettes flicking out).
For all the claims of iconoclasm, these people will be icons to extremism, will have their support system, their "ins" and mestacisizing numbers of disciples, cancer cells.
The rest of us must live in ways that are more attractive than the nihilism they have chosen.