Re: Why strike Canada?

This is exactly the direction that we should not be taking. No one reported him because we live in a free country in which we have free speech. He is free to say what ever he wants, as we are free to criticize Islam.


Mike wrote:
Why strike Canada?
By Joel Mowbray
Published June 12, 2006
www.townhall.com

In the predictable stories reporting the "astonishment" of friends and
neighbors about the Canadian terror suspects arrested last weekend, one
tidbit serves as a cautionary tale for the threat of homegrown
terrorism in the United States.
One of the 17 arrested, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, was an imam at a small
storefront mosque in suburban Toronto. Those who listened to his
sermons have told reporters that they didn't promote violent jihad or
advocate killing non-Muslims. In a post-September 11 environment less
hospitable to such rhetoric, these denials actually could be true.
But the arrested imam didn't need to preach violence in order to
prime the terror pump.
A local Muslim community center director explained to the
Associated Press that Mr. Jamal had told his congregants "that the
Canadian Forces were going to Afghanistan to rape women." And this
slander almost certainly was not uttered in isolation.
In many ways, such outrageous propaganda is more troubling than
chants of "Jihad! Jihad!" or "Death to America." Convincing
impressionable youths that their fellow Muslims are under attack can
have a profound impact, simultaneously dehumanizingnon-Muslim neighbors
while building the case that killing them is not just morally
acceptable, but in fact, obligatory.
What makes propaganda so pernicious is that it doesn't raise the
same red flags. It appears no one reported the imam's slanders, and
even followers who don't support violence probably wouldn't have
considered the vile lies particularly dangerous. But they are.
Just ask the former valedictorian of the Saudi Academy.
After he was arrested for plotting to assassinate President Bush,
Abu Ali gave a videotaped confession in which he explained why he
"immediately" accepted al Qaeda's offer to join the jihad. His reason?
His "hatred of the U.S." -- the country where he was born and raised.
He doesn't appear ever to have suffered any oppression or been
victimized because of his Muslim faith. But that didn't matter. His
hatred for his home country was fueled by "what I felt was [the U.S.]
support of Israel against the Palestinian people."
Abu Ali was an American kid, and his affiliations with Palestinians
were at best loose. Yet he was willing to give his life -- and wage
holy war against his neighbors -- for reasons having little to do with
his personal experience.
Some would no doubt seek to blame Israel or the United States for
his turn to terrorism, just as a disturbing number of apologists have
taken at face value jihadists who point the finger at the U.S. presence
in Iraq or the Jewish one in "Palestine."
But if the real motivation for Islamic terror is an aggressive U.S.
foreign policy or Israel's supposed oppression of the Palestinians, why
did 17 young Muslim men allegedly plot to strike Canada?
Canada has no soldiers in Iraq. Few would consider it a good friend
of Israel. Canada has offered its warm embrace for Muslims from around
the globe. Canadian Muslims experience minimal discrimination, let
alone anything even resembling oppression.
Why Canada?
Leaders of Islamic terrorist groups, from Osama bin Laden to Shiekh
Ahmad Yassin (the late "handicapped" and "elderly" founder of Hamas),
universally agree that no government is legitimate unless it is
Islamic. Establishing an Islamic state is, in fact, what most unifies
jihadists around the world.
So why Canada? Because it is not an Islamic state.
But the drive for an Islamic state is probably not enough of a
salient motivator for foot soldiers, as it is still a somewhat
intellectual ideal. Hence the slanders. Telling young Muslims that
their non-Muslim neighbors are going halfway around the world to rape
Muslim women strikes a raw nerve.
Believing that members of the Ummah (the world body of Muslims)
need to be defended makes someone far more susceptible to messages that
violence should be waged in the name of Islam.
How many Imam Jamals are there in the United States? How many imams
are brainwashing their followers with vicious lies about their fellow
Americans? How many American Muslims believe that their Jewish and
Christian neighbors -- and not jihadists -- are the ones responsible
for the mass murder of innocent Iraqis? How many believe that Israeli
soldiers slaughter Palestinian women and children for sport -- and that
the U.S. openly supports it?
The answer to all of the above is: At least some. We know this from
the public record, particularly information stemming from various
terror arrests.
Here is the more pertinent question: Who is actually fighting the
propaganda? Who is combating the spread of radical Islam?
Law enforcement can intervene to thwart planned violence, but what
can it do about hate speech? Not much. Even fire-breathing imams enjoy
constitutional protections. They don't, however, enjoy freedom from
condemnation. Their followers are free to run them out of town for
spewing venom and demonizing non-Muslims.
Thus the most important question of all is not how many Imam Jamals
there are here in the United States, but rather, how many American
Muslims will take a stand against indoctrination that pushes kids in
the direction -- if not into the arms -- of terrorists?


*** you spy.
.