We see it again and again: when someone in the West converts to Islam, he or she no longer considers himself to be a citizen of the country of his birth. Loyalty to the umma, the global Muslim community, supersedes all national allegiances.
Meanwhile, law enforcement officials should consider the fact that while Muslim groups are making concerted efforts to convert young Westerners to Islam, no non-Muslim groups are making any attempt to counter those efforts. One might think, in light of the story of Aaron Driver and so many others like him, that authorities would see doing so as a matter of national security. But that would be “Islamophobic.”
“Aaron Driver defends ISIS, attack on Parliament, but denies he’s a threat,” by Caroline Barghout, CBC News, June 24, 2015:
Aaron Driver doesn’t consider himself a terror threat and doesn’t think Canadians should fear him, despite the Winnipeg man’s justification of the attacks on police and military members here at home.
“I think if a country goes to war with another country, or another people or another community, they have to be prepared for things like that to happen,” Driver said in a nearly 90-minute phone conversation with CBC News.
“And when it does happen, they shouldn’t act surprised. They had it coming to them. They deserved it.”
Driver was arrested near his home in Winnipeg’s Charleswood neighbourhood on June 4 and detained for eight days. RCMP took his custom-made computer, phone, flash drives and Qur’an.
RCMP want a peace bond against him, saying they consider him a terror threat.
Court documents said Driver “will participate in, or contribute to, directly or indirectly, the activity of a terrorist group for the purpose of enhancing the ability of any terrorist group to facilitate or carry out a terrorist activity, pursuant to S.810.01 of the Criminal Code.”
Driver caught the attention of CSIS in October 2014 when he was tweeting his support for ISIS. That activity landed him on a watch list.
The 23-year-old regularly shared his views on social media, and he was regularly shut down by Twitter for doing so.
He calls the Oct. 22 attack in Ottawa “retaliation” and the death of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo “justified” for Canada’s role in bombing Muslims in Syria and Iraq.
“These are not attacks on malls or any kind of public place, like churches. These are attacks on police officers and these are attacks on soldiers. These are people who are part of the system. It’s entirely different,” Driver said.
“That’s my opinion, those are my personal beliefs, and I don’t think my opinions or the things I’ve said online have had a direct impact on anyone else or that I’ve inspired anyone to carry out any kind of attack or anything like that. So I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”
He added, “I think the big issue is I’m a Canadian living in Canada, and I’m OK with soldiers or police officers being targeted for what they’re doing to Muslims.
“I think it’s a little hypocritical that people would take issue with people retaliating against them … when it’s the police and the military who are killing Muslims.”
Interrogated for hoursDriver was arrested as he was walking to a bus stop just before 7 a.m. on June 4. He said an unmarked white van pulled up in the wrong lane and several armed officers surrounded him and took him away.
“I think they were hoping that after arresting me they’d find something, you know, they’d find things on my hard drive or my phone,” he said.
“They probably think they’d find a gold mine and they didn’t, so I think that’s why I’m out right now and I’m not in jail.”…
“Basically I retweeted something from a fighter or recruiter or something in Syria and the interrogator was just asking me over and over again why I did that. What was I thinking, what was the purpose?” Driver said.
Driver doesn’t remember the exact motivation behind the retweet, but said he believes he found it funny at the time.
After eight days in custody, Driver was released on bail under 25 conditions.
He surrendered his passport and must live in Winnipeg for the next 12 months. He has a curfew of 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. He can’t have a computer or smartphone or log into any of his social media accounts.
Driver is forbidden from contacting any members of the Islamic State or own anything with the ISIS logo on it. He’s also supposed to get religious counselling, but he doesn’t know what that entails.
“I feel like I’m living in a prison now, you know, without having access to the internet,” he said.
“I feel really cut off from the outside world. I’m not sure it will be that much different than me being in prison, so yeah, I’m going to fight the peace bond.”
Found Islam onlineDriver was born in Saskatchewan to a Christian family and has lived in New Brunswick, Ontario, Alberta and Manitoba. His mother died when he was seven years old.
His father later remarried and joined the Canadian Forces. Driver said he’s never gotten along with his father or stepmother and isn’t close with them now.
Driver said his father caught him smoking a joint at age 14 and sent him to London, Ont., to live with his sister. For the next three years, he hung out with the wrong people and got into trouble.
But that changed when Driver was 17, after he discovered his girlfriend was pregnant.
“That’s why I stopped drinking and I stopped doing drugs and I stopped partying and stuff, and I started reading the Bible … because, you know, I had a lot of responsibility coming my way very soon,” he said.
The Bible is also what Driver said drove him to Islam.
“I just decided it couldn’t possibly be the word of God, so I started watching debates to find some answers. A lot of debates between Christians and atheists and Christians and Muslims, and the Muslims were always destroying them in these debates,” he said.
When asked how he turned from devout Muslim to a “radical extremist,” Driver said it was a result of reading up on the Middle East online.
“Seeing some of the things that happened in Syria, it infuriates you and it breaks your heart at the same time. And I think that if you know what’s going on, you have to do something. Even if you’re just speaking about it,” he said.
“Something has to be done. People need to know what’s happening to Muslims so I think maybe that’s why.”
And while Driver may justify acts of retaliation for injustices against Muslims, he said violence isn’t in his nature.
“I don’t have a violent history. I’ve only been in a few fistfights in my whole life,” he said.
“No, I don’t think I’m a threat, and I don’t think there’s a reason for Canadians to think that I’m a threat.”
He thinks religious counselling might mean the RCMP want him “deradicalized.”
When asked what would it take to change his views, he said, “for the West to stop killing Muslims, stop bombing, stop arresting Muslims … take responsibility for the crimes they’ve committed and just stay home and work on their own problems.”…
Concerned Canadian says
Another loser losing to “belong”.
Guarantee he has no job.
Trudeau will love him.
voytech says
Sent his ass on a vacation to the middle east asap . We do not need people like the moron in this once great country
Huck Folder says
I believe Trudeau fils thinks the same way.
He has announced that he will stop bombing ISIS;
thus garnering for himself the votes of those moslems
(citizens’) who happen to be living in Canada.
It makes him feel so much larger than his
perpetual adolescent airhead image.
If he is elected, it will bring forward those days
where hundreds of millions will die,
and whole nations perish.
Read the history of WWII and the
UK government’s (McDonald, Baldwin, Chamberlain)
gruesome appeasement policy,
leading to the rape and destruction of Austria,
then Czechoslovakia, then Poland,
Belgium, France and Holland,
and very nearly – England,
inevitably leading to its much more
gruesome and UNNECESSARY*
consequence, the unleashing of:
“I am become death, killer of worlds.”
* Hitler could have been contained
at one thousandth the cost, at The Ruhr.
Isabella says
I think Trudeau is a liability to Canada. His organization must be infiltrated with Islamists. Big security concern!
Huck Folder says
“Another loser losing to “belong”.”
‘loser’ spelled: “Harun Abdurahman”
A big fanboy of his, is one Tim Cushing* at techdirt,
supposedly a technical information website.
He writes a venomous leftard screed against Canada,
while TOTALLY ignoring the moslem’s provocations.
All the leftard/conspiracist comments agree with Tim.
* aka “Capitalist Lion Tamer” – whatever!
He should call himself “Justin Trudeau”
if he wants to get a laugh.
He should share an ankle bracelet with this perp.
Huck Folder says
More information from The [Toronto] Star. Funny, I don’t recall seeing or hearing anything about that.:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/02/20/why-a-young-canadians-dream-turned-to-isis.html
“Harun, who goes by @HarunAbdurahman on Twitter, would speak to the Star only on the condition that his REAL NAME, which is known to the Star, NOT BE PUBLISHED. He fears that going public would jeopardize his employment, harm his family or attract hackers waging an online fight against the Islamic State and its supporters.”
But hackers waging an on-line war ON-BEHALF OF IS etc. are OK, natch.
“…he got a call from a family member in Ontario. They asked him why CSIS agents were asking questions about him, Harun said. He added that it was an “unnerving” moment. [GOOD!]
“There were some people that I didn’t want to know about ‘things’. [treason] For example, my family. They didn’t really know a lot about what I say online but now they do. Now it’s worse because, however they happened upon my Twitter account, I think there might not have been context.”
Please, please, explain the context for cheering MURDERS of Canadian citizens on behalf of a CULT.
“The encounter,[with CSIS] he said, didn’t slow him down or shut him up. Harun said it FREED him.
“At that point, I didn’t really care. As Muslims WE’RE supposed to . . . *fear God only and not fear people and what they can do to us.*”
*..* But it’s OK for Aaron Daniel Driver to make other people fear his CULT-LEADER, his CULT, his CULT-FOLLOWERS, and his loony-tune ‘deity’ aka mo’s sock-puppet?
“There are people who would call me a radical for what I am, and if they want to do so then I’d let them. But I wouldn’t say myself that I’m a radical Muslim because that goes right along with extremism. You may have heard this before, but *THERE ISN’T EXTREMISM IN ISLAM*. #There is [just] Islam and there are things outside of Islam.# It’s semantics, really.”
*…* So the whole world can breathe a collective sigh of relief that there is no extremism, while experiencing pangs of cognitive dissonance.
I wonder what ‘extremism’ would look like?
#…# Divisive? Much?
Apartheid anyone?
“I think it would be better for all Muslims to emigrate to the Islamic State,” he said.”
SIGH! At last something we can all agree on.
Return his passport, set to self-destruct when he lands in an islamic country.
Angemon says
I’d say that being in favour of killing the people who combat those who wished death on the country whose nationality you happen to carry is more than a “big issue”. It’s outright treason.
cranky.white.woman says
I work in the Canadian court system, and I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen charged with failing to comply with the terms of their Peace Bond…Peace Bond breaches happen all the time.
Cecilia Ellis says
“Driver was arrested near his home in Winnipeg’s Charleswood neighbourhood on June 4 and detained for eight days. RCMP took his custom-made computer, phone, flash drives and Qur’an.”
– What! They took his Qur’an? That’s all the evidence they needed to keep him in custody.
“He’s also supposed to get religious counselling, but he doesn’t know what that entails.”
– Not to worry . . . the local, peace-loving imam will clear things right up.
“I don’t have a violent history. I’ve only been in a few fistfights in my whole life.”
– Add him to the list of others who also had no history of violence: Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Hani Hanjour, Ziad jarrah, et al.
“He thinks religious counselling might mean the RCMP want him “deradicalized.”
– An amazingly incredible grasp of the obvious . . . if only the RCMP would just return his Qur’an so he could focus on all the peaceful mandates . . .
Mirren10 says
“” … They took his Qu’ran ? That ‘s all the evidence they needed to keep him in custody.”
I sincerely hope not, Cecilia ! I have three. 🙂
Cecilia Ellis says
LOL! But that’s because you are “Islamophobic” . . . don’t answer your door when you hear the knock . . . it’s the Islamophobe Police . . .
clap says
I agree with him that the West should stay home and work on their own problems. Problems such as Islam and immigration.
gerard says
The Free World was nice while it lasted.
So Long, It’s (been) Good To Know You – Woody Guthrie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v1Lj5E_nVE
Carlos Danger says
Some pos loser like this tosser won’t beat me and a thousand years of Western civilization.
He’s a whinger living in his Mum’s basement.
Dan says
The internet has given people access to the entire world, but it’s cutting us off from our communities.
When you associate with people in your community you learn to get past differences, to get along.
When you only associate online, you’re ALWAYS going to find people who will reenforce your beliefs, right or wrong.
From 1999-2002 and 2009-2012 I sailed the world.
The first time, nobody heard from me for months at a time, all were excited to get sparse group emails about my adventures whenever we got back to some semblance of civilization.
By my second voyage however, between skype and facebook and twitter and emails, I was spending between 2 and 3 hours a day replying to everybody who wanted an update that day.
I finally said, “Hey. I’m wasting several hours every day online while anchored in exotic ports and strange lands when I could be learning about these exotic ports and strange lands.. I’ll send a group email once in a while, and the odd personal response like everybody used to do, but I’m done. Anybody can come visit where ever I am, but I’m not going to post a million selfishies, and loose copyrights them and my adventures to boot.
The best thing to ever happen to this guy, is that he’s back in the “Real World” and will have to deal with reap people saying, “Are you naturally stupid or do you train?”
Dan says
I mean “Real” people.
Benedict says
This has to be put down with brutality no quarter given. This is the only way will decency and freedom survive
Charlie Martel says
One way ticket to the Caliphate.
asap.
rcourtemanche says
Where’s the left-wings types to call for this guy’s prosecution for inciting violence?
Uncle Vladdi says
He’s a self-declared member of an international crime-gang voicing his support and endorsement of other criminals in his gang committing their crimes to “defend” the gang’s right to carry out its crimes.
The really pathetic thing is the RCMP isn’t allowed by it’s political owners to act on this.
Uncle Vladdi says
Back in the 1970s in Canada when the FLQ (Quebec separatist terrorists) bombed a few mail boxes and took some hostages, Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau enacted the War Measures (martial law) Act and suspended civil liberties for everyone; soldiers were on every suburban street corner, and people accepted it.
How much more serious and immanent is the threat of muslim chaos in Canada today, yet the libtards and PC PC’s i charge choose to ignore this far greater threat!