Daddy always warned me about men like that. Odd too that “Khawaja” is the Arabic word for “Westerner” or “Christian.” “Terrorism claims against Khawaja stunned his ex-fiancée,” from CBC News, July 22:
The ex-fiancée of the Canadian man accused of involvement in a British bomb plot testified at his trial in Ottawa that she was surprised he had been arrested on terrorism charges and that he held views typical of many young Muslim men.
Sure reveals a lot about the “views” of “typical Muslim men.”
Khan, testifying about her e-mail correspondence with Khawaja in late 2003, before they broke off their engagement, said she was stunned when her sister told her that a man with the same name as her one-time fiancé had been arrested.
Khawaja’s involvement with Islam “did not in any way line up to terrorist activity,” Khan said, and was more in the spirit of, “Let’s work in a refugee camp or something.”
Heard that one before. Here, for example.
And Khawaja certainly never suggested setting off a bomb in London during their e-mail correspondence, Khan testified.
“Oh, very definitely no,” Khan said.
The prosecution read excerpts of Khawaja’s letters to the court. In one e-mail, he wrote: “We need [constant] economic J [jihad] blow after blow until they cripple and fall never to rise again.” In another, he asks, “Would you not say that the actions of 19 men on Sept. 11 are the most accurate, effective and honourable way of conducting economic J? Imagine if there were 10 Sept. 11s.”
Such “views” may be problematic indeed, if “they are typical of young Muslim men”
In response, Khan explained that “jihad” to her has a much broader meaning, referring to engaging with life’s big struggles. “So, of course I believe in jihad,” she said. “It does not mean that I believe in blowing things up.”
Tell that to the typical young Muslim man.