There is an interesting case for Muslim moderates: they could explain why Abdulmutallab would actually be found guilty under Islamic law. Unfortunately, no moderate spokesmen in the West will take up this challenge.
Abdulmutallab also said: “My Muslim brothers in the Arabian Peninsula, you have to answer the call of jihad because the enemy is in your land along with the Jewish and Christian armies.” But make no mistake: the jihad would not end if what Abdulmutallab sees as “Jewish and Christian armies” left Muslim land. The pretext would shift; the jihad imperative would remain. Still more on this story. “Nigerian Man Pleads Guilty in Qaeda Plane Bombing Case,” by Monica Davey in the New York Times, October 12:
DETROIT “” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a commercial airliner with a bomb in his underwear in 2009, abruptly pleaded guilty Wednesday morning to each of the eight counts against him, officials said.
The sudden reversal came before the start of the second day of proceedings in the jury trial of Mr. Abdulmutallab, who is not a lawyer but who was representing himself and had pleaded not guilty months ago.
After officially entering his guilty plea, Mr. Abdulmutallab, dressed in a gold-shaded tunic, calmly read a six-minute speech to the courtroom in which he suggested that his crimes had been a fitting payback for American-led killings of people in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, and that he would never be judged as guilty under Islamic law.
“I intended to wreck a U.S. aircraft for the U.S. wreckage of Muslim lands and property,” the Associated Press quoted him as saying….
In an opening statement, Jonathan Tukel, an assistant United States attorney, told jurors that Mr. Abdulmutallab had admitted to a fellow passenger that he had been trying to ignite an explosive device aboard the plane, en route from Amsterdam to Detroit, and that Mr. Abdulmutallab had made similar admissions to a paramedic and a federal agent, who Mr. Abdulmutallab told, “I”m with Al Qaeda.”…
“He wanted jihad, he sought it out and he found it,” Mr. Tukel said of Mr. Abdulmutallab….
“My Muslim brothers in the Arabian Peninsula, you have to answer the call of jihad because the enemy is in your land along with the Jewish and Christian armies,” Mr. Abdulmutallab said in the video, according to Mr. Tukel….