And so we see yet again that Islamic jihadists identify themselves wholly and solely as Muslims; “moderate” Muslim spokesmen, meanwhile, deny that those jihadists have anything to do with Islam and seem most intent on making sure that non-Muslims do not refer to those jihadists in ways that have anything to do with Islam. Yet all the while, the “moderates” do not offer any alternative vision of Islam, or show any evidence that they’re teaching against the jihadist form of Islam in their schools and mosques, and no one in the mainstream media seems to notice or call them on it.
More on this story. “NYC car bomb suspect pleads guilty, calls it `war,'” by Tom Hays and Larry Neumeister for Associated Press, June 21 (thanks to Pamela Geller):
NEW YORK – Calling himself a Muslim soldier, a defiant Pakistan-born U.S. citizen pleaded guilty Monday to carrying out the failed Times Square car bombing and left a sinister warning that unless the U.S. leaves Muslim lands alone, “we will be attacking U.S.”
Faisal Shahzad entered the plea in U.S. District Court in Manhattan just days after a federal grand jury indicted him on 10 terrorism and weapons counts, some of which carry mandatory life sentences. He pleaded guilty to them all….
U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum challenged Shahzad repeatedly with questions such as whether he looked at the people in Times Square, especially the children, to see who they were or whether he really built the bomb by himself. He repeatedly insisted he acted without help from others in the U.S. and built the bomb “all by myself.”
“One has to understand where I’m coming from,” Shahzad said calmly. “I consider myself … a Muslim soldier.”
The 30-year-old described his effort to set off a bomb in an SUV he parked in Times Square on May 1, saying he chose the warm Saturday night because it would be crowded with people he could injure or kill. He said he conspired with the Pakistan Taliban, which provided more than $15,000 to fund his operation and five days of explosives training late last year and early this year, just months after he became a U.S. citizen….
“I was waiting to hear a sound but I didn’t hear a sound. … So I walked to Grand Central and went home,” he said.
The judge repeatedly interrupted Shahzad, including when he said his plot was to retaliate against the U.S. and the forces of up to 50 other countries that had “attacked the Muslim lands.”
Cedarbaum said: “But not the people who were walking in Times Square that night. Did you look around to see who they were?”
“Well, the people select the government,” Shahzad said. “We consider them all the same. The drones, when they hit … ”
Cedarbaum interrupted again: “Including the children?”
Shahzad answered: “Well, the drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don’t see children, they don’t see anybody. They kill women, children, they kill everybody. It’s a war, and in war, they kill people. They’re killing all Muslims.”
Later, he added: “I am part of the answer to the U.S. terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people. And, on behalf of that, I’m avenging the attack. Living in the United States, Americans only care about their own people, but they don’t care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die.”…