The LA Times is not at all sure that Hamid Hayat should have been convicted just because he had “a jihadi heart and a jihadi mind.” But why not? Someone who demonstrably has a jihadi heart and a jihadi mind is dedicated to destroying Western societies and imposing Sharia law upon them, institutionalizing the mistreatment of women and non-Muslims. Should such people be allowed to enter the United States and operate freely and unhindered here, unless and until they commit an act of terrorism?
SACRAMENTO “” The government had no direct evidence. The confession was vague and even contradictory. And the statements about attacking American targets came only after heavy prompting from FBI interrogators.
But what the three federal prosecutors could “” and did “” show convincingly was that 23-year-old Hamid Hayat of Lodi, Calif., espoused strong anti-American sentiments, supported militant Muslim political parties in Pakistan and had a romantic attachment to the idea of jihad.
In his closing comments to the jury, Assistant U.S. Atty. Robert Tice-Raskin summed it up: “Hamid Hayat had a jihadi heart and a jihadi mind.”
That was the clincher for the jury, which last week found him guilty of one count of providing material support to terrorists and three counts of lying to federal agents. He now faces up to 39 years in prison.
The proof of Hayat’s views were a teenage scrapbook, a slip of paper inscribed with a warrior’s prayer in Arabic, books about jihadi martyrs, and Hayat’s own boastful comments secretly recorded by a man he thought was his best friend but who turned out to be a paid FBI informant….
“In the post-9/11 context,” Scott said, “law enforcement has been given a mission by the president and the attorney general to prevent deadly acts before they occur. That is the new paradigm for law enforcement.”
To some, that paradigm is evocative of the plot in the Steven Spielberg-Tom Cruise movie “Minority Report,” based on the Philip K. Dick short story, in which thought police are deployed to arrest potential criminals before they commit crimes.
Thought police. Nice touch. The implication is that no one supports thought police, and therefore Hamid Hayat has been wrongly convicted.
But is the U.S. forbidden to declare that a particular political ideology is alien to it, and will not be welcome here? U.S. officials did that with revolutionary Communism, although the above-ground Communists were legal and ran Gus Hall for President every four years. The ideology of Sharia has nothing to do with free elections (at least on an ongoing basis) and nothing to do with the equality of rights of all people. Those who believe it is the law of Allah are not willing to negotiate or compromise on various aspects of it, and they aim to subvert and transform Western societies.
Will we continue to welcome adherents of this ideology into the West without even bothering to discover their intentions and goals for our societies?
I am glad Hayat was convicted, and I hope many more steps are taken in the direction of emphasizing that adherents of the jihad ideology have no business being on American soil.