Expect Muslims in America to denounce and demonstrate against Ali Hamza al Bahlul’s misuse of the word “jihad” forthwith. Expect MSA’s on campuses all over the country to hold rallies denouncing Bahlul’s linking of jihad with blood and destruction.
What’s that? None of that will happen? Instead they will call me an “Islamophobe” for daring to point out what Bahlul said? Oh, of course. I forgot how things work there for a minute.
“Al Qaeda media man waged ‘jihad by pen,’ U.S. says,” by Jane Sutton for Reuters, October 28:
GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) – An accused al Qaeda media director waged “jihad by word and pen” and made a video aimed at overcoming trainees’ resistance to carrying out suicide attacks, a prosecutor in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal said on Tuesday.
The prosecutor, Army Maj. Dan Cowhig, outlined the case against Yemeni captive Ali Hamza al Bahlul at his trial at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba. His opening statement suggested the nine U.S. military officers on the jury will have to decide whether creating propaganda is a war crime.
Cowhig read from Bahlul’s journal, which was seized in Afghanistan, and from letters he said Bahlul wrote from Guantanamo to al Qaeda leaders, lamenting that he could not join the September 11 hijackers he hailed as heroes.
…”Only jihad by word and pen is left,” he quoted Bahlul as writing.
“I am an officer of al Qaeda,” he quoted him as writing elsewhere. “Blood, blood, destruction, destruction.”
Bahlul also is accused of scripting the videotaped wills of his former roommates, September 11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Ziad al Jarrah. He set up a satellite link so bin Laden could hear news reports of those attacks on his laptop computer, but couldn’t get the audio portion to work, Cowhig said….