It’s becoming a sickeningly familiar story; a young man who seems at home in the “western world” ends up fundamentally altered. This. This is what terrifies me. Someone who had the same $70k/year programming job which so many people whom we all know do, someone who was a Yankees fan, incredibly, someone whose own mother escaped one of the towers before it fell…is someone who hates us. When a man can sympathize, nay, enthusiastically support and participate in a movement that almost killed his own mother…we’re fcuked.
From today’s WaPo:
It is safe to assume that most people would not react to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in quite the same way as Mohammed Junaid Babar. After all, the longtime resident of Queens, N.Y., told a Canadian television network that his own mother had been one of the survivors — barely escaping from the ninth floor of one of the towers before it collapsed.
Yet, Babar said in that same interview from Pakistan in the fall of 2001, his “loyalty is to the Muslims, not the Americans.”
“I will kill every American that I see in Afghanistan, and while I am in Pakistan, if I see them in Pakistan, I will kill every American soldier I can in Pakistan,” he said during the interview with ITN Five News.
Abhi wrote an SM post about Babar almost a year ago, after the erstwhile New Yorker attended a “terrorist summit” in Pakistan:
from Queens in New York City came Mohammed Junaid Babar, a Pakistani American who arrived with cash, sleeping bags, ponchos, waterproof socks and other supplies for the mountain-bound jihadis.
The “boy scout” of Al Qaeda also brough along night-vision goggles, helpfully enough. In that SM post, Abhi mentioned that Babar was wanted in connection with a “future terrorist attack”. As of two weeks ago, that future is here. This naturalized U.S. Citizen turned Jihadi joined al Qaeda just so he could battle U.S. soldiers…and civilians in Britain. Such bravery.
At least the Son-of-a…woman who is apparently expendable is useful:
Now in U.S. custody after pleading guilty to terrorism charges last year, Babar has proved invaluable to U.S. and British investigators probing this month’s attacks on the London transit system, numerous officials said. He has identified at least one of the suicide bombers, Mohammed Sidique Khan, through photographs and has provided other details that may be helpful in unraveling the plot, according to law enforcement and intelligence sources.
The revelation that Babar is linked to the July 7 London attacks, which killed at least 56 including the four suicide bombers, is only the latest connection to emerge between the grandson of Pakistani immigrants and al Qaeda.
In addition to his connection to the London bombers, Babar has admitted in court proceedings to supplying bomb-making materials to a Pakistani cell in the United Kingdom that had plotted to blow up restaurants, pubs and train stations there. (When the cell was broken up in 2004, British authorities discovered more than 1,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, the same material used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.)
If your skin isn’t crawling at THAT, know that Babar also set up terrorist training camps…that is, when he wasn’t connecting with Issa al-Hindi. al-Hindi is the man who is responsible for that anxious feeling many of us get whenever we pull out a camera to document pretty architecture; he is the person who observed and took notes on financial targets in the U.S. pre-9/11.
Speaking of abusing good activities, there’s a special place in hell for those who use the temple of my childhood for evil.
In an interview last fall, Frances Fragos Townsend, now the White House national security adviser, pointed to the Babar case as an example of a major prosecution. Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey also said in an interview during the same period that Babar’s case provided a lesson on the importance of greater surveillance powers for the government, citing evidence that he checked e-mail at a library despite having access in his home.
Sigh. I’m not a fan of the Patriot Act or big government…but I’d be a damned liar if I said that I wasn’t relieved that we’ve got someone this significant in custody. Now if you’ll excuse me, instead of counting sheep, I’m going to count the number of minutes it takes for Saurav or someone similarly-inclined to ream me for quarter-heartedly appreciating “surveillance”. (I keed, I keed.)
Well that’s an unfortunate way to start a conversation.
saurav, as you and everyone else may notice, i rewrote it almost instantly. well before you commented, after seeing what it looked like when published, i changed it the way a few other mutineers are wont to do. we tweak. often. i wasn’t trying to start anything. i’m just not as talented at 2 in the morning, and when i am more able, i’m at work where i can’t blog all day long.
even if i hadn’t thrown in that last bit of snark, i just had this feeling you’d be the first person to comment on this one. that’s not unfortunate. that’s familiar. if it clarifies anything, there was no malice from my end.
There was a programme on BBC 2 last night about this dude – and how he was helped by a guy from Manchester – and there was this next dude from London called Babbar Ahmad who is going to be exported to America for doing websites for the Jihadis.
Then they showed an Arab living in London who hosts websites which show British troops being killed and American contractors being beheaded and he thought it was all very good and nice – and he hates western civilisation. But strangely enough like lots of these Jihadis from overseas, and like two of the latest (failed) suicide bombers – he received thousands of pounds in state welfare benefits – which means that British tax payers have been paying and subsidising these phoookers.
There are not words in the English lexicon to describe the wickedness and hypocrisy of these men – it is hypocrisy on a scale rarely seen before – and I wish they would go and eat themselves because they are bastards from Hell.
Make sure you watch the documentary next week about the Madrid bombings!
This is the website
They also showed a middle ages American lady who goes online and infiltrates Jihadi websites and pretends to be an al-Qaeda sympathiser and she has caught a few of them by luring them into her trap!
Tangential comment : I don’t speak arabic, but “Issa al-Hindi” sounds to my ears like “Jesus-of-India”. That’s a pretty strange name. Turns out he’s an Indian convert to Islam.
This is funny: scroll down
No-More-Stares-Rucksack
Bingo!
Take away the state support, and these worthies will have to actually work for a living. When the mind is thinking about catching the 5:32 home, there will be fewer 7/7’s.
M. Nam
i think it is important to have a complex, sociological view on why people go in this direction in order to really get at solutions. anna’s vitriol in this post is unhelpful to figuring that out. especially since he didnt actually do anything to harm anyone.
whats his story beyond the 70k? who is his family? what motivated him to get involved with al qaeda? it doesn’t help to essentialize people for something they say at one point in their lives…how many times have you said something mean/evil that you regret? besides, if he was so evil, why did he help the british with their investigation?
Are you for real? Are you being satirical? Are you a comedian?
whats his story beyond the 70k? who is his family? what motivated him to get involved with al qaeda? it doesn’t help to essentialize people for something they say at one point in their lives…how many times have you said something mean/evil that you regret? besides, if he was so evil, why did he help the british with their investigation?
dude, this guy set up terror camps and assisted other cells w/ bomb making and assisted w/ the planned death of hundreds if not thousands of potential innocent civilians…and you want to talk to him? This is what’s wrong nowadays, the world is too soft…the hell w/ this a$$hole, i say nothing short of the chair is punishment enough for him, make an example out of him.
btw, he’s only talking to save his own hide as much as he can….there’s nothing benevolent about him.
Like I said elsewhere – if Combat 18 (kind of like the British modern equivalent of the KKK) blew some brown people up, would we be sitting around saying “Let’s examine why people go in this direction in order to really get at solutions”?
Would we b*llocks.
As soon as he supplied bomb-making materials to a Pakistani cell in the United Kingdom and goods to jihadists in Pakistan, he did harm to plenty of people, ya joker.
no war will ever be (re)solved by simply demonizing the enemy and acting as if they have no motivation.
as for the kkk, isnt white power a bit different than current and historical third world repression/postcolonialism/resistance?
don’t we try to understand the logic of rumsfeld, bush and blair to stop the killing and abuse of thousands of innocents in iraq in order to persuasively argue against the war in iraq?
jez
I cannot take you seriously – you are quite literally clueless – and a man who gets vexed with ANNA for showing ‘vitriol’ to a grade A Bastard and weeping over the hurt to him caused by those words (oh! poor flower!) shows that you either have a moral compass so screwed it is pointing South when it should be pointing North, or you are actively in sympathy with his fascist ideology and took her ‘vitriol’ (hahaha) as a personal attack.
Either way, you are funny.
This just proves my point about Yankees fans.
Unfortunately, there are others who think like jez.
This just proves my point about Yankees fans.
damnit Saurav, you stole my joke!
no war will ever be (re)solved by simply demonizing the enemy and acting as if they have no motivation.
as for the kkk, isnt white power a bit different than current and historical third world repression/postcolonialism/resistance?
you assume that these people who are so willing to kill could be talked down off their moral pedestal rationally. That is a dangerous assumption to make. As humans, we do try to find logic in any event but certain people and certain events don’t deserve the respect of an explanation. These guys only deserve public humiliation
There’s a middle range between what jez is saying–which doesn’t seem to acknowledge that whatever the social conditions that produced him, this guy’s acting like a bastard (kind of like Kissinger)–and saying that they’re all a bunch of fascists that leave it at that.
It’s in our interests (by us, i mean everyone who stands to get killed or abused in a “war on terror”) to try and understand what the f#$k’s going on in a real way rather than getting played by one side or the other–and this includes figuring out where these people are coming from (even when they are bastards). Otherwise, you end up employing really foolhardy strategies and/or overrelying on authority figures that have clearly proven themselves lackluster at doing anything about stemming this problem or reducing its effects.
Its both. The policies of USA/UK that causes tension in the world and fascist nature of OBL and his franchisees get an excuse.
Everyone is US/UK should be ready to be a collateral damage as long as their government continue imperialistic policies. Consider that to be the “cost” of doing business in the west.
At the same time it must be realized that OBL’s extremists are more religiously motivated (by ummah) than anything else. Otherwise how can one explain a Pakistani killing a Jew. There is a preety good chance that the Pakistani has never seen a Jew in his life, let alone have any grivence. Its all for the Ummah.
RC
Why pretend that you disapprove of the fascists and their ideology? Just go with it – I have more respect for you if you do instead of pretending to disapprove of them.
I am not pretending that I disapprove. I strongly DIS-APPROVE the Islamic extremists. They absolutely HAVE NO real reason other than ideology to attack westerners and Indian citizens. For example in Kashmir the militants have oppressed the minority Hindu population and the militants are still carrying out terrorism. That is only Jihadism.
But anyone who is directly affected by imperialistic policy of imperialist govt. acting out against that govt. is understandable (at least to me)
Basically what I meant in the last comment that the fact that Islamic extremists are carrying out attacks does not give a pass to US/UK for imperialistic policies.
Heck, even Pat Buchanan says that.
This is a good point. It’s too late to talk to them, someone should have done it a long time ago.
Yet, no harm will come out of bombing these bastards out of the water and trying to understand what motivates them. Perhaps it can get rid of some behaviors and/or social substrates that create and foster such an intense lack of respect for life.
Way to show respect for life in that statement.
its about the means, not ideology. as for my moral compass, i disavow all violence because as we are all too tragically seeing, an eye for an eye leaves the world blind.
Really well put, Saurav, I couldn’t agree more.
Jez, I sympathize with your pacifism, but using knee-jerk liberal phrases doesn’t really help deepen our understanding of anything…and unfortunately, turns people off to what you’re trying to say. I also don’t think Hammurabi’s idea of justice is particularly beneficial in the long term.
But we have to acknoweldge the fact that some people are just blindingly stupid, selfish, greedy, and/or homicidal, and need to be put away for the betterment of society. This guy, clearly, fits the bill.
Looks like some of his friends were just intercepted…
Better the perpetrators of such horrendous acts (emphasis on the actual and identified criminals – not an ephemeral group) than me because a) they have no respect for their own lives to begin with, b) after they’ve turned into depraved killers, I no longer consider them very human and don’t believe in catch-and-release programs, and c) I have a life to lead without having to watch out for “ists” or enforcers.
My concern lies with grokking people like you and me before they acquire FundieRabies.
Way to show respect for life in that statement
anyone who kills someone else for no reason loses all rights to be respected in any way, shape or form. They deserve a worse punishment than death.
Jez
The enemy of my enemy can still be my enemy. Especially if that enemy is actively trying to kill me, and is racist, anti-gay, anti-woman, and anti-democratic. Jihadis are imperialists. They’d love to rule the world, and killing you in the process is just the first step.
I find it rather strange when I see someone try and justify the ‘resistance’ in places like Iraq on the basis that it is anti-imperialist. People who purposely place bombs in mosques or blow up little kids, or kill United Nations workers (have you forgotten the bombing in Iraq that killed so many United Nations workers?) are not simply resisting occupiers. They are fighting a war to impose their own vision of occupation on others. To be a freedom fighter, you have to actually fight for freedom. Personally, I have a problem with pacifism at all costs, but that’s just me.
Both sides of this conflict claim that that is what they are doing and, in the meanwhile, many innocents lose their lives. I do believe in standing up for my life and those of my loved ones — it’s unfortunate if it comes down to violence, but that’s a cross I’m willing to bear. But, at what point do we say we are making progress with a War Begets Peace mindset?
What I’m trying to say that is peace may never happen. And, no, it’s not a defeatist attitude, but a rather pragmatic outlook on the world as we’re handling it today.
The truth is: I don’t know … I’m as confused about all of this as everyone else and don’t know how to feel. Just tired and a bit afraid of it all. How can we move on?
We can all construct narratives of grievance – when a racist decides to let off a bomb in a mosque because of Muslim opression of whoever or whatever, will you understand that?
Maitri, I hear you all right and you make a good point, but actually, I think one side is not claiming to fight for freedom in the sense most of us understand it. If the Americans leave, how many of the insurgents would help turn Iraq into a democracy? Why are they killing people who are simply trying to write a constitution? Why did they try and bomb people standing in line to vote? The Kurdish part of Iraq is fairly peaceful and has very little US troops. If the bombings stopped, and the democratic process was moving forward quickly, US troops would be coming home tommorrow.
We cannot extricate ourselves from the Iraq situation NOW, but how long do we babysit that nation? How many American soldiers have to lose their lives before the mission is accomplished? What is the mission again?
Furthermore, if the poison seeps in from outside of Iraq, what are we doing as an international community to locate and actively boycott those regimes that support this jihadist tripe? Right-wingers on the various blogs I frequent assure me that the war in Iraq is a big ruse to distract the world, while the real war is sub rosa and that the coalition’s “on it.” Yeah, tell it to the marines.
War in Iraq on the one hand and favorite nation status to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan on the other is a very dangerous mixed message on so many levels.
In closing, after living in Kuwait for 15 years, I know how capricious Gulf Islamists are when it comes to adopting progress and the ways of the future. They do what suits them at any given time — feminism and tolerance is all well and good to get the UN and the west off their backs, and then, boom, back to the Dark Ages. Whatever we do has got to be lasting and preferably on their dime.
Authorities Arrest Men With NYC Maps, Video
I dunno, I’m as anxious and suspicious as the next person (watching that BBC “jihad.com” doc last night really made me sick and frightened) but to me all I can think about the above story is “um, probably your average illegal immigrant.” Of course they can’t explain why they have maps and lots of money, what illegal foreigner COULD? Heck, I was endlessly consulting maps and carrying the max amount of daily ATM cash when I visited NYC. They’re going to start clearing the streets of EVERYBODY, aren’t they?
A weird and creepy coincidence that one of the men has a very similar name to the ringleader
of the 9/11 hijackers
you are all gays!!! i am on knwones side fuck america and fuck you american hateing prick. dont you have anything elis better to do then rip on americans??? really get a life. there is know reason for your outburst of anger? i dont understand you people why do you think you are all better then other people? go russia!!! if you want to chit chat some more about shit thea doesn’t even matter you can email me at jcash@yahoo.com or call me at774-258-0482 so i can shit on your chests some more. bring it bitches!