Cool Jihadi Dudes
Bitterly confused, resentful, societal loners. They find salvation in extreme interpretations of Islam, and the journey to jihad becomes their vision for their future. They grasp their two desired options: to become a successful jihadist with all that this implies ... the mass murder of innocents is of no particular concern; to become a blessed martyr upon whom Allah casts his kindly appreciation, setting aside the obligatory virgins in a garden of unearthly delights.Amazingly, these are not particularly uneducated youth, they are not devoid of certain cultural values, they have no reason to feel cast out of their traditional societies, they find comfort in the mosques of their choosing and to which their families also belong. These are young men captured by the vision of holy warfare to avenge the perceived slights to their Prophet, and the carnage they see visited upon their co-religionists by the West.
Incredibly, they appear able to casually overlook the atrocities that their own committed groups of terrorists visit upon other Muslims. The mass murders, suicide bombings, abductions and torture, rape, forced migrations and general atmosphere of fear that al-Qaeda has succeeded in imposing upon vast Muslim communities - far greater in number than the critical casualties they have succeeded in bringing to the West.
The star witness that the Government of Canada - in prosecuting its terror trial against the accused Mohammad Momin Khawaja - Mohammed Babar, a co-conspirator and former al-Qaeda member, is a sterling case in point ... his own mother having been situated in the World Trade Centre Towers in New York when it was attacked and thousands killed. She survived and he immediately dispatched himself to Pakistan to train as an Islamist jihadi.
Momin Khawaja's parents, Mahboob and Azra, sit in court, watching the proceedings as their son, having pleaded innocent of all charges, sits eyes glued to the floor. In the first row sits a young Muslim woman who will testify that Mr. Khawaja charged her with setting up a Canadian bank account whose purpose was to transfer funds to the London terror cell, five of whose members have been convicted to life imprisonment in England.
Evidence is inclusive of emails from Momin Khawaja who outlines his hatred against non-Muslims, his devotion to al-Qaeda's agenda of violence in its pursuit of creating a new world order where Islam dominates; a renaissance. The Crown's David McKercher plans to demonstrate the manner in which Momin Khawaja utilized his email account at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade - how ironically fitting.
"They send things everywhere all the time and nobody asks anything", wrote Momin Khawaja to his cool dude bro's in London. He would courier the remote-controlled detonating device he was working on through the auspices of Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs. And while at it, he would also courier similar devices to their terror counterparts in Pakistan. There are other pressing operations to be accounted for, after all.
And that passionate defender of human rights advocates, Lawrence Greenspon, estimable lawyer for Momin Khawaja, will do his utmost to invalidate all the evidence presented before the presiding judge, the Honourable Justice Douglas Rutherford. Earlier manoeuvres since the March 2004 arrest, tried out by Mr. Greenspon bought time and little else.
His ploy of arguing that Momin Khawaja's prosecution be dropped because of the unconstitutionality of Canada's Anti-terrorism Act was denied by Judge Rutherford. He succeeded in creating an adjournment. The Supreme Court of Canada refused the bid to disallow the terrorism charges. The Federal Court rejected the bid to have the national security secrecy law declared unconstitutional.
And then a Federal Court of Appeal panel dismissed the appeal of an earlier ruling finding his right to a fair trial not jeopardized by a secretive court process required as a result of the sensitivity of government information relating to the case. Finally, the Supreme Court of Canada refused a second attempt to quash terrorism charges. Equivocating, stalling techniques - all permitted under the Canadian judicial system.
After Momin Khawaja's arrest at his office at Foreign Affairs where he worked on contract, a search of his family's home revealed electronic tools as well as a detonating device. Along with three assault rifles, and 640 rounds of ammunition. Revealed also was that Momin Khawaja and his brother Qasim, planned to convert their savings into $100 bills to assist jihadists overseas. This does not represent mere circumstantial evidence. This is evidence of substance.
Testimony that Momin Khawaja, along with the London terror ringleader met an al-Qaeda operative was heard. Along with that asserting that Momin Khawaja travelled to Pakistan to attend an al-Qaeda-style training camp in the northwest frontier, where he studiously learned to fire an AK-47, a rocket launcher, and the manner in which he could most cleverly work with explosives, furthering his jihadi education exponentially.
Compelling, both the testimony and the evidence. Fascinating to be reminded that these Western-born and -educated young men maintained some semblances of the street culture to which most young people are exposed, while at the same time supporting and encouraging one another's embrace of jihad.
"How's it goin' niggas, everything OK? Yeah, bro, got home safe. How bout you niggas? Everything cool?" And then the dire warning: "Bro, things are bad. Be prepared, nigga."
Labels: Political Realities, Social-Cultural Deviations, Terrorism, Traditions
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, June 24, 2008
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