He is “deradicalized,” he has renounced al-Qaeda, he’s comfortably “moderate” now. Now blames the U.S. for jihad terror, wants to dismantle the U.S.’s entire counterterrorism apparatus (such as it is), and wants to provide “holistic socio-pschological [sic] -political-economic alternatives based in the shariah” to fighting against jihad activity. And this man is teaching at George Washington University.
EXPOSED: Writings of GWU’s ‘ex-jihadist’ reveal he’s not so reformed after all,” by Benjamin Weingarten, Conservative Review, September 11, 2016:
Among the inexplicable ways in which the United States has responded to Islamic supremacism in the 15 years since September 11 — beyond enabling the world’s leading state sponsor of jihad in Iran, supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and other “moderate jihadists” over relatively secular strongmen, and transitioning from a global war on terror (a tactic) to a program against “violent extremism” (a nebulous non-entity) — a recent story out of the American academy is quite telling.
George Washington University has given a research position within its Center for Cyber and Homeland Security to Jesse Morton (formerly known as Younus Abdullah Muhammad), an ex-jihadist sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for threatening the creators of “South Park” for depicting Muhammad in a bear suit.Having chosen to serve as an informant for the FBI because of his expertise ‘jihadizing’ fellow Americans through Revolution Muslim (the Al Qaeda-supporting “activist” group that he led on U.S. soil), law enforcement officials and GWU firmly believe Morton is not only no longer a threat, but also an asset.
They believe there is much that can be learned from his experience transforming from regular American to jihadist and back again.
In his defense, some like Nadia Oweidat of the New America think tank have said that Morton’s decision to come out publicly as someone working to counter “radicalism” puts Morton’s life at risk.
Morton himself claims to have been rehabilitated through hours spent in prison supposedly grappling with the great works of the Western canon, such as the writings of John Locke and Thomas Paine, and his interactions with certain friendly law enforcement officers.
He asserts that he is contrite and seeks to rectify his actions according to an interview with CNN, stating:
This is an opportunity for me to make amends, to some degree … I realize that I was completely wrong in my perspectives.
I suffer from a tremendous amount of guilt … I have seen things that people have done and to know that I once sympathized and supported that view — it sickens me.
Yet nowhere in Morton’s mea culpa is there an overt disavowal of Islamic supremacism, condemnation of Sharia law, or renunciation of his faith as in the case of other notable ex-Islamic supremacists like Hirsi Ali or ex-Communists like Whittaker Chambers.
Interestingly, Morton publicized his release from prison on an Islamic website, but that announcement as well as the website have since disappeared. As The Washington Post noted earlier this year:
Efforts to locate Morton, a father of two who has a master’s degree from Columbia University, were unsuccessful. The Bureau of Prisons website indicates that he was released in February 2015, and he appears to have announced it on the website islampolicy.com.
“While I am no doubt bewildered by the prospects of facing the currents of American society, labeled American Al-Qaeda, I do want to remain cognizant that this opportunity to be a freeman, a husband, a father, and citizen comes from Allah alone,” he wrote.
It turns out that Islampolicy.com was the successor website to Revolution Muslim. And this quotation captured by the Post, indicates that Morton remains a Muslim and harbors a victim-like mentality rather than acknowledging that he was the aggressor.
Thanks to the web archives, we can read further into Morton’s statement upon his release:
I remember being flown home in a private government jet after five months of incarceration in Morocco and finding out I was facing life imprisonment in the United States. At that moment, when one’s freedom seems to be lost forever, simply for speaking their mind, the soul has nothing left to do but turn to Allah, aza wa jaal. Today I can guarantee that a relief from hardship comes in ways that are mostly unexpected. The reflective one realizes that Allah relieves hardship in ways that oftentimes connect to pathways of deeper, spiritual healing the. Therefore, we must always pay attention to the experiences Allah puts us through, and try to remember that there are lessons to be learned from each and every passing wind. [Emphasis mine]
Clearly Morton viewed his arrest and release as being intrinsic to his Islamic experience and believed his arrest was unjustified. After all, he was just exercising his right to free speech.
Yet nowhere in Morton’s mea culpa is there an overt disavowal of Islamic supremacism, condemnation of Sharia law, or renunciation of his faith.
He continues:
I have been particularly intrigued by what has been classified as countering violent extremism (CVE). While this has led me to contemplate ways of preventing others from throwing their lives away, I remain staunchly opposed to the national security or counterterrorism state and its connection to the elite, neoliberal order, or what Dwight D. Eisenhower referred to as far back as 1961 as the ‘military-industrial complex.’ I believe that today’s counterterrorist, or national security state isn’t merely dangerous to Islam and Muslims, but to humanity and civilization generally.
I must also emphatically state that I absolutely reject the conception that terrorism is justified in any which way and by anybody. I ask Allah to accept repentance for my not having made that absolutely clear in the past. It seems to me definite that we are suffering from an era the prophet (saws) foretold; one marked by ignorant youth who recite the best of speech but do not embody it. If we are to truly stand for the ummah’s liberation, we will have to locate a balanced position between the day’s extremes. [Emphasis mine]
Morton’s views morphed from the jihadist notion that the Great Satan must be destroyed to the Left’s notion that efforts to root out and defeat jihadis represent an immoral, un-American, tyrannical enterprise.
Further, Morton puts forth the argument echoed by many Islamic supremacists that “terrorism,” is never justified. But as Daniel Greenfield has written, while some Islamic leaders have gone so far as to issue fatwas against terrorism, they fail to define the term:
Muslim religious leaders have occasionally issued fatwas against terrorism, but terrorism for Muslim clerics … is a matter of definition. The tactics of terrorism, including suicide bombing and the murder of civilians, have been approved by fatwas from many of the same Islamic religious leaders that our establishment deems moderate. And the objective of terrorism, the subjugation of non-Muslims, has been the most fundamental Islamic imperative for the expansionistic religion since the days of Mohammed.
How to square these sentiments? As Stephen Coughlin notes in his magnum opus, “Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad,” the Quran’s definition of terrorism is essentially the killing of a Muslim without right. Is this the definition Morton had in mind when he proscribed terror?
In a later post from August 19, 2015 (note: the Wayback Machine page takes a few moments to load), “Obama’s Support for Sisi’s Counterterrorism Legislation Highlights the Hypocrisy of War on Radicalization,” Morton asserts,
[T]he global war on terror, having been rebranded as a war on Islamic extremism under Obama, has become a war on radicalization that now threatens the very essence of free expression democratic societies depend on.
Morton believes that targeting of individuals on the basis of jihadist ideology is in fact detrimental and that the goal of U.S. policy is to end “Islamism” (which of course would appear to be the exact opposite of President Obama’s policy with respect to the growing global jihad):
Legislation that concentrates on ideology conflates radical belief with violence and will only guarantee perpetual conflict. This seems to be the intended effect of counterterrorism policy everywhere. It suggests that the counterterrorism community itself desires confrontation to the end, until the very existence of Islamism on earth is eradicated.
This sentiment has expanded by way of rising right-wing and anti-Islamic populism. It is aided and abided by an Islamophobia industry that serves to brandish all conservative Muslims as barbarian. Whether in London, Paris, Cairo, or Washington, governments everywhere are utilizing counterterrorism policy and practice to silence dissent and criminalize critique of government policy, particularly if one is an Islamist.
Islamists apparently are the real victims during this age of jihadist metastasization.
While recasting himself as an agent for good with a new home in the academy, he airbrushes his views to make them palatable to a progressive audience.
Morton contends, hyperbolically, that ideology is not the key driver of jihadist violence, but rather that Western (imperialist) actions are the sine qua non of jihad — that again, jihadists are merely reacting to Western aggression:
[I]t is argued that all Islamists, nonviolent and violent, must be silenced. That position, given credence by way of government allegiance with ‘moderate Muslims’, is girded in the belief that radical political preachers create the ‘mood music to which suicide bombers dance.’ That’s a fancy way of saying that radical beliefs precede and incite violent action. In fact, very few of those holding radical beliefs ever go on to commit acts of terrorism and there is no established empirical evidence for such a causal relationship.
The one common denominator in the overwhelming majority of empirical research into violent Islamic extremist incidents is actually an attempt to justify or frame violence as a reaction to western policies. Yet, this fact conveniently goes missing from most expert analysis. When pointed to as the actual cause, any citation of western policy is ruled out as conspiracy theory or paranoid delusion. It is important to note that in exposition after exposition, Osama bin Laden claimed that jihadists were engaging in terrorism not because they hate democracy but “because you (the United States) attach us and continue to attack us.”
In other words, we create jihadis with our policy.
Apparently, ISIS also never cared about the West, until we meddled:
[T]he western press hardly recognizes that ISIS mostly rejected the ‘far enemy’ doctrine and instead preferred regional or localized violence, at least until Obama announced his plan to “degrade and destroy” the movement.
Most dumbfounding of all is this quote:
Were the U.S. and its allies not in such blatant betrayal of the very “set of core principles” Obama claimed to defend at the time of the Egyptian coup, there might be a diminishing appeal of jihadism. Instead, it’s viewed as the only alternative. The only solution is a global grassroots movement dedicated to ending such blatant hypocrisy. This movement must focus on dismantling the entire counterterrorism component of the military-industrial complex. Only then might a paradigm unfold that could first rid that “one indispensable nation” of its own despots and dictatorship, and thereby encourage people across the globe to do the same. Until then, terrorism at the hand of the state and Orwellian legislation will only enhance radicalization, at home and abroad. [Emphasis mine]
Thus, this deradicalized ex-jihadist proclaims that the way to end jihadism is to dismantle the “entire counterterrorism component” of American policy. No wonder he has been so welcomed at an American institution of higher education….
One thing I realize about some of my previous work at Revolution Muslim was the way it allowed authoritiesto [sic] fulfill their own agenda. It was a lesson that all those seeking authentic Islam could benefit from. May Allah aza wa jaal liberate this ummah from its ignorance and give us insight to see through a massive propaganda war. We should be at the forefront of providing holistic socio-pschological [sic] -political-economic alternatives based in the shariah. [Emphasis mine]
Read the rest here.

jayell says
“Writings of GWU’s ‘ex-jihadist’ reveal he’s not so reformed after all”…….Should we be surprised? Islam isn’t open to reform, so neither can its followers be. Then there’s the recurring matter of ‘taqqyia’ – they can say whatever they like to pull the wool over peoples’ eyes, but their ‘faith’ (sic) never demands honesty of them, least of all when dealing with the ‘unbeliever’. So he SAID he was ‘reformed’? Codswallop.
eagle says
Exactly right! Has he burned the Quran? Does he read the bible? This guy is all taqqyia and what makes the grass grow greener!!! Also, if anyone wants to become a gold star family like Kahn, Obama is looking for creative ways to rig the vote against Trump.
Carmel says
Real ex-muslims have apeased eyes .
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Being a Moslem means never having to say you’re sorry. Even fake apologies are out of scope, the pro-murder crowd is having a happy fifteenth birthday, there are so many Infidels left to kill. GWU should be shut down as the worthless piece of crap institution it is.
Karen says
So funny….I love it when ex-cons expect trust from their former victims. I hope someone is watching Morton closely.
Dear Mr. Morton, please keep your Sharia “holistic socio-pschological-political-economic alternatives” to yourself. We won’t be needing any of that.
Lion of Judah's Cub says
It is ridiculous that the MSM, and now Universities, are hiring “former” terrorists to comment on how best to fight islamic terrorism. These people are likely all double agents. Would the US have allowed “former” Nazis to advise the nation how to beat the Hitler regime during WWII? Absurd. The conduct of these institutions is treasonous.
The display of crocodile tears for the victims and survivors of 9/11 by members of these treacherous institutions (media, academia, government) is also deplorable.
For anyone uninformed, violent jihadists are just the military wing of islam. Just like all US citizens do not engage in military combat, not all muslims engage in violent jihad but most still support the military wing (jihadists) by financial or stealth support (including lawfare and migration jihad). It is also noteworthy that the goal of jihad is to impose sharia law everywhere.
Lesley says
Who is the backwards idiot who hired this person for a university position??
Jay Boo says
That would be a very long list.
Who in leadership at a typical university is not a backwards idiot?
Jaladhi says
A wolf in sheep’s clothing always shows his real self in due time! Why do we give such credence to Muslims who were part a al Qaeda or ISIS and now they denounce it. Don’t ever believe a Muslim.
cheryl s. says
No muslim, unless he has converted to Christianity and completely grasping the concept that islam is profoundly evil, should be allowed to call this country home.
In addition, every detail of the violent history of islam along with it’s demonically inspired henchman, mohammad should be taught in ALL American schools starting at the Elementary level.
That this self proclaimed, sharia believing, so-called “former” jihadist, Jesse Morton, is even allowed NEAR a school, let alone, teach in it, is absolute insanity!!!
Jihadist Morton needs to have ALL ties with America severed BECAUSE of his history.
His non- denunciation of the law that he lives by and is obviously willing to die for, the sharia, continues to play a paramount role in his life and in my opinion, disqualifies him and every other sharia believing muslim, from living in America. They need to be returned to the country of their choosing immediately regardless of being born here as the Constitution and the American value system are completely and wholly incompatible.
Jerry says
That’s a fancy way of saying that radical beliefs precede and incite violent action. In fact, very few of those holding radical beliefs ever go on to commit acts of terrorism and there is no established empirical evidence for such a causal relationship.
That seems rather lame to me. We could say the same about Hitler who never personally killed a Jew. Yet his antisemitic rhetoric and laws created the “mood music” to which the Nazis danced. Compare that to islam’s discriminatory laws and threats of murder and then tell me those who preach such radical violence aren’t a contributing factor. Of course they are. Those muslims who preach violence can be expected to have the same propagandist effects that Goebbel’s tactics did on the Germans. It provided them a kind of moral justification and motivation to conduct war and islam inspires the same in muslims. Violent jihad is a big part of islam, and it goes back long before the United States was even born. So the suggestion that islam’s war against non-muslims is a response to our military actions is ludicrous. This guy is just one more muslim infiltrator in our educational system. And I like this:
We should be at the forefront of providing holistic socio-pschological-political-economic alternatives based in the shariah.
Which is another way of saying, just ignore the true ideological motivation for muslims’ cultural and violent jihad and instead look in areas that bear no causal relationship whatsoever. To put it simply, that’s him trying to distract us with, “Hey everyone, look over there!” And then we’re dead.
KnowThyEnemy says
So Morton was a jihadist, and has now promoted himself to stealth jihadist. That GWU has hired him shows he is quite good at his new career. No, that’s an understatement. Upon hiring Morton, the deputy director of the Program on Extremism at GWU’s Center for Cyber & Homeland Security said, “I trust him. We did our due diligence.”
Source: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/08/george-washington-university-hires-muslim-convicted-of-soliciting-jihad-murder
Westman says
The enemy within. My relative, who graduated from GWU and also saw what happened nearby to the Pentagon on 9/11, must think the university has lost its collective mind.
Champ says
Evil perp has been “EXPOSED” …of course those familiar with islamic deception aren’t at all surprised, since lying is allah & quran approved.
Jay Boo says
Reliance of The Deceiver
Other books in the ( ‘Reliance of’ ) Muhammad series:
Child Didler, Murderer. Molester, Liar
rubiconcrest says
He has obviously not changed his belief; he has merely come to the conclusion that he can be more effective in his current position than he would be in jail. GWU did not do their ‘due diligence’ in vetting him. He still believes in Sharia and is a master dissimulator.
JAR says
Indeed. Same product, new packaging.
Nigel GFF says
“Many “experts” today believe that it is anger at the West’s foreign policy towards the Muslim world that drives the young to become jihadists; I see it differently.
For me, these youngsters, are instead articulating a pre-existing anger and animosity, whether it is to do with child abuse or trauma, a lack of integration and assimilation, or socio-economic grievances. The foreign policy grievance is simply something that allows them to release tensions held deep within them.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/i-believed-al-qaeda-when-they-said-911-was-justified-15-years-on/
An extract from an article by Mr Morton demonstrates his belief that Islam clearly makes no contribution Islamic terrorist thinking. This “pre-existing anger and animosity” is rooted in the Koran, not exclusion, Mr Morton.
Slavonian says
To the contrary, he’s saying that Islam attracts agitated, frustrated, aggressive individuals from all walks of life. It’s rebellion with a cause, albeit a screwed up one.
“In the Koran and the Hadith (the compiled sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), I found an abundance of verses that I believed justified heinous violence in support of the establishment of an Islamic state for the whole world. Yet for my entire life before I became a Muslim, I had completely rejected and opposed violence.”
It’s perfectly clear that if he has found in the Koran and Hadiths plenty of sayings by God or Mohamed which call for and justify violence, he must now know that those sayings won’t go anywhere. By being ever available, they constitute an ever present threat of radicalisation. He knows it but doesn’t believe it.
Is that normal, or is our Mr. Morton just another Muslim basketcase of this summer’s epidemic? He’s an unfortunate man as it’s likely he’s in the cross-hairs of vigilante implementers of Sharia. He had to be kept apart from the Muslim territory if he was to survive. The sword is ready to strike at his neck, but he renounces violence, and thus blasphemes. He betrayed those that trusted him (mujaheddin) so he could save himself from a lengthy stay in jail. He did so before having time to think about it and rationalize his betrayal. He knows that he’s a goner to the Muslim Hell if the Koran is true, but he still professes Islam! Hmm, I think that his high IQ afforded him the insight that Islam is a lot of bull, by now, however, admitting it would make him even more of a target. And so he treads the high wire pf serving two masters.
berserker says
Allah has made the Dhimmis truly stupid.
pdxnag says
He won. He and his Islamist brothers all know it. He has no reason not to play the role of MacArthur to Japan, except the change he demands is full embrace of Islam and Sharia.
Ashley says
OT:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-attacks-france-idUSKCN11H0MR
guide inside says
These days I would seriously resist sending my kids to ANY of the so-called institutes of higher learning. There are a few, however, very few.
overman says
Tarek Fatah [a muslim] warned the Canadian Senate that de-radicalization programs never work.
Today in France they were re-opening a ‘de-radicalization centre’, while just down the road is a ‘nuclear power plant].
From jihad to rehab: France to open its 1st deradicalization center for potential extremists:
billybob says
Investing all that money without having a program proven to produce the desired results?
Kay says
God help us!
“based in the Shariah”
No matter what the gobbledygook attached, it is bad.
We already have a Constitution!
I noted that his “us” was someone else: not Americans.
Maybe he feels guilty. But he hasn’t found the path to forgiveness. Just more Mohammeden specialty: justification and obfuscation.
Angemon says
That’s all I need to know about him.
Michael says
The Father of our country’s namesake university becomes a front for jihad conquest.
I could just weep…
Mark A says
I seems this guy just wants to implement sharia through channels other than terrorism.
But the key is that he still wants to implement sharia in western countries.
Eric Jones says
Jesse Morton is a taqqiya operation through and through. Just like Huma Abidin. In their minds both are making sacrifices for Allah.
Eric
KrazyKafir says
Misleading people about Islam, and absolute real danger it poses to freedom and human decency, is more dangerous than the Jihadists by a long shot.
duh swami says
I suffer from a tremendous amount of guilt … I have seen things that people have done and to know that I once sympathized and supported that view — it sickens me.
He was an accessory to the crimes he feels guilty about…Crocodile tears, he should be in prison…
Praeceptor Maximus says
Jesse Morton is not an ex-jihadist but a jihadist through and through. He went to prison and saw that he didn’t like it, so he had a wee chat with Allah and came up with a better plan of dealing with infidels. After all, there is more than one way to skin a cat. He has now a new strategy. Dare we say a better scheme? Let’s not forget that Allah is the best schemer. He must be laughing his head off the way he is fooling everyone. But he is not the only one. Obama fooled everyone twice and will go on fooling people if Hillary gets elected. He became president for one thing and it was not to make America great again or safe again. He became president so that he could destroy America as a western nation and as a superpower. And that is the reason why he despises Trump. Trump is a patriot and stands for everything that he hates. Why does the mainstream media love both Obama and Hillary, while the opposite is true for Trump? Well, the answer is simple – PATRIOTISM IS DEAD.
Carmel says
” ,,,and if their llives were threatened it was acceptable to publicly renounce their faith but remain Muslim at heart ….”
http : // wikiislam.net /wiki//Taqiya
rickMT says
Use advanced interrogation techniques on this sand flea to find out what’s really on his mindbefore dumping him in pig fecal matter.