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Oregon Teen Arrested in Plot to Bomb Holiday Event

MSgt said:
This is very good. Now what?

It's very easy to state that they did this to themselves and close the book. Before 9/11 we could simply dismiss their social issues. But now? Things have become a little more international. There continued path will produce more 9/11s. And with nukes being the weapon of choice in the future? How many Americans have to die before people like you think more than the sophomorics of this issue?
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How many American have to die, before our leadership figures out that handling things with kid gloves and trying to win the good sportsmanship award isn't producing an significant results. You know better than I do, that such a strategy is seen as a sign of weakness, in that part of the world. They don't have cable and don't pick up the NYT in their driveway, every morning. Not to mention, that building schools for them and providing them with infrastructure is seen as condescending.

The enemy we find ourselves engaged with knows only one thing: strength through violence. I say we fight the war on his terms.
 
apdst said:
How many American have to die, before our leadership figures out that handling things with kid gloves and trying to win the good sportsmanship award isn't producing an significant results.
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Well, that's a whole nother matter. Most of Washington don't even know what this enemy is.

apdst said:
The enemy we find ourselves engaged with knows only one thing: strength through violence. I say we fight the war on his terms.
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Spoken like a military man. This is fine, but we have to acknowledge that without dealing with this failing civilization, we will simply involve ourselves in a never ending killing campaign of natural extremists. It is far easier for any elected politician to spend his short term in office to pretend that peace is one dead extremist away. In the end, our children will be fighting this same fight, because this civilization will continue to linger in failure.
 
MSgt said:
Well, that's a whole nother matter. Most of Washington don't even know what this enemy is.
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That's my point.



Spoken like a military man. This is fine, but we have to acknowledge that without dealing with this failing civilization, we will simply involve ourselves in a never ending killing campaign of natural extremists. It is far easier for any elected politician to spend his short term in office to pretend that peace is one dead extremist away. In the end, our children will be fighting this same fight, because this civilization will continue to linger in failure.
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Again, I agree. However, this is a multi-step process. The first step, is to destroy the enemy's ability to operate; which means we have to destroy his ability to exploit the civilian population. As long as he is able to do so, completely unchecked--which is the current situation--then we're only chasing our tails.

It's like when I was a kid and an arsonist drove around the woods, starting fires in random places. The local fire department and sheriff's department spent all their time chasing the fires, rather than chasing the arsonist.
 
samsmart said:
That may be true. However, killing them all won't fix anything either.
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The underwear bomber was quite wealthy and what do we know about this 19 yr old, Mohamed Osman Mohamud? Was he poor?
Do people who grow up poor normally want to go out and bomb as many Americans as possible?
 
apdst said:
Originally Posted by samsmart
But killing more extremist Muslims is only curing the symptoms. The reason why extremist Muslims are militant is because many of them are poor and uneducated and have little way to improve their lot in life. So if you want to cure the disease, the best thing to do is to help Muslim areas promote an economic base and provide modern education rather than let them be ingrained by zealous religious leaders to be militant extremists.

That's no ****in' excuse! Gimme a break!!!!!! !!!!
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I quite agree...its not an excuse and I dont think Samsmart was making an excuse. It IS however true. Having spent several years in the middle east (and I understand you have some time there as well) its EASY to see the disparity between the different groups. Those with nothing to lose are targeted by the extremists. Thats not unique to the middle east or to this time. Its always been the way hate and fear mongers have operated...expolit those with nothing to lose by creating a common enemy and offering them something more. The value is not to find excuse, justification, or rationalization...it is to understand them...to help combat them, and also to find realistic solutions.

Im going to be shocked if we find that this kid came from a healthy home of well adjusted parents and was accepted into the community. My guess is he probably came here from Somalia with anger, never acclimated, never fit into a society, and from an early age began looking at or for people to lash out at. In that sense he is no different than a fairly significant number of American born teens.

I think the Obama admin deserves credit for carrying on the Bush policies and fighting domestic terrorism. It should be noted that they discovered this kid by monitoring his email to contacts in Somalia...so...
 
Barbbtx said:
The underwear bomber was quite wealthy and what do we know about this 19 yr old, Mohamed Osman Mohamud? Was he poor?
Do people who grow up poor normally want to go out and bomb as many Americans as possible?
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No. However, most Islamic suicide bombers are poor, uneducated, without opportunity, and without hope. They are generally dissapointed with this life and eager to join the next where they are to be rewarded for going out in the service of God. There are two types of terrorists. This kid is an "Apocalyptic terrrorists." He does not desire to change a government or negotiate incentives. His goal is to simply punish or to be a tool for god in order to hurry up armegeddon so that all enemies of his faith can be burned.

History has seen these people before. During the religious wars in the Christian faith on the continent of Europe the Catholics had Phillip II and the Protestants had Thomas Munzter. America's John Brown was another type of Apocalyptic terrorist who's only desire really was to punish in the nameof God.

This kid's background involves Somalia, which is a haven for radical Islamists. However, the poor or uneducated immigrant usually cannot afford to move family across the ocean. It is for this reason they usually head into Europe and this is why Europehassuch problems with radical (and extremist) Muslims. I would not be suprised if he attended private school in the U.S. and was taught all about the enemies of his faith by his Islamic teachers. His age suggests that he didn't have a chance and that our enemies sunk their teeth in before he knew it. I'd like to know more about him.



* Ralph Peters (former Army intel officer) wrote an essay for the Center For Emerging Threats and Opportunities. The essay is called "WHEN DEVILS WALK THE EARTH." It lays out the mentality and roots of terrorism and is a very good read.

* Another great read is "Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence" by Mark Juergensmeyer. The author let's the Apocalyptic terrorist off the hook a little, but it is still a very informative read.
 
VanceMack said:
Im going to be shocked if we find that this kid came from a healthy home of well adjusted parents and was accepted into the community. My guess is he probably came here from Somalia with anger, never acclimated, never fit into a society, and from an early age began looking at or for people to lash out at. In that sense he is no different than a fairly significant number of American born teens.
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A healthy home and an accepting community wouldn't tell us much. Serial Killers are often quiet and accepted in their communities. And plenty of Islamist terrorists across Europe are second and third generation immigrants from parents who have nothing to do with radical groups. A convertor often feels that he has to prove his allegiance to Islam (clearly not this kid). But I'd be curious about his situation once he got here. In a public school setting he could have gotten fed up with Muslim jokes or ridicules and used it to legitimize his former radical environment. In a private school setting he could have had a handy dandy Islamic role model that built on his radical background in Somalia.

Of course, we really don't know anything about this kid yet.
 
MSgt said:
A healthy home and an accepting community wouldn't tell us much. Serial Killers are often quiet and accepted in their communities. And plenty of Islamist terrorists across Europe are second and third generation immigrants from parents who have nothing to do with radical groups. A convertor often feels that he has to prove his allegiance to Islam (clearly not this kid). But I'd be curious about his situation once he got here. In a public school setting he could have gotten fed up with Muslim jokes or ridicules and used it to legitimize his former radical environment. In a private school setting he could have had a handy dandy Islamic role model that built on his radical background in Somalia.

Of course, we really don't know anything about this kid yet.
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Id challenge the notion that serial killers often come from healthy homes (a relative term) and communities. But I agree completely that we dont know much about this kid and until we do everything is speculation. I also agree with Apdst...NO excuses...no justification...but thats not what the understanding process is for.
 
VanceMack said:
Id challenge the notion that serial killers often come from healthy homes (a relative term) and communities. But I agree completely that we dont know much about this kid and until we do everything is speculation. I also agree with Apdst...NO excuses...no justification...but thats not what the understanding process is for.
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I would have thought by now the media vultures would have released something about his life in the U.S. Of course, if he did attend a Muslim school, the authorities have more to investigate.
 
Barbbtx said:
I think we need a whole new approach but no idea what.This kid said he'd been thinking about it since he was 15. So something made him hate Americans before that.
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As long as we occupy Muslim countries and kill innocent people your going to get people like this kid. You would do the same thing if the shoe ere on the other foot.
 
pbrauer said:
As long as we occupy Muslim countries and kill innocent people your going to get people like this kid. You would do the same thing if the shoe ere on the other foot.
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Unfortunately, the history of this leaves you standing alone. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan were occupied prior to 9/11. Saudi Arabia didn't have a base in it prior to Saddam Hussein's irrational invasion into Kuwait. And hatred towards the U.S. was preached two decades prior to supporting Israel. You see, prior to the Suez War (1967) it was the French that supportd Israel with arms and before them it was the Soviets. In fact, it was the U.S. that jjumped intothis war and backed Israel, the French, and theBritish away from Egypt. Another fact is that the loudest voices to create Israel in 1947 was the British and the Russians - not the U.S. Yet, that didn't stop Sayyid Qutb from writing about the evils of American culture and designating us as the enemy of Islam in the 1950s. His writings are held dear to the Muslim Brotherhood and virtually every Sunni terrorists (Al-Queda being one organization) are members. Anything after Sayyid Qutb has been mere excuse.

You are out of your league with this, because you immediately default to using their excuses to explain this very complex issue. Did you know that Bin Laden used our UN mission with Iraq to excuse murdering Americans on 9/11? His words were the "starving children of Iraq." Of course, he didn't care about the mutilated and slaughtered non-Arab Muslim and Christian children of Sudan when he was a guest of Bashir's, did he? And did you also know that we can trace Sayyid Qutb's legacy directly to Bin Laden? Every radical organization in the Middle East has an excuse and often they contradict with their own behaviors. Did you know that Al-Queda has murdered far more of their fellow Muslims than Americans? 3,000 Americans dead on 9/11 was a drop in the bucket when considering how freely they murder their own across the African and Middle Eastern region. This is why they largely agree that hating America is the Islamic thing to do, but differ on why. Most of their excuses are exaggerated and embellished because they really only want to usurp their hated established governments and turn back the clock so that their God will smile upon them once again. Failure in the Middle East makes no sense to them because they will notlook at their own culture. The narcotic of blame is too delicious.

You see, we deal with governments. Not their religious radicals who design their hatreds around any event they can. Not their angered masses who hate their secular governments and demand Sharia be the law of the land. Not their wind bags who preach a puritan vision of Islam as if capturing past glory (Rashidun era) is possible in the 21st century. And certainly not their extremist organizations who can't even get their stories straight on why they hate us. The entire world is full of embasies military bases and foriegn visitors. The vermin of the Middle East don't get to pretend that their region has to be placed behind a shatter proof glass of isolation. Hating us for our culture and establishing us as ther God's enemy on earth (Sayyid Qutb..remember?) doesn't make sense to you, does it? It's irrational and senseless. So they use any practical excuse they can to convince you that they have legitimacy in their hatreds. The fact is that we had done very little to the Middle East prior to 9/11. The Soviets were horrible back stabbers and abusers of Muslims and Europeans created their Frankenstein's monster nations and established the elite their people hate. It was theBritish that created the mess between Palestinians and Jews long before America emerged from isolation. Yet...we are the enemy of Allah? You can't explain it because you need it to be as simple as a base in Saudi Arabia, which occurred 40 years after being designated as their enemy.



And by the way, we aren't occupying Somalia. So maybe you can at least think this through enough to see a better truth.
 
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pbrauer said:
As long as we occupy Muslim countries and kill innocent people your going to get people like this kid. You would do the same thing if the shoe ere on the other foot.
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So you are saying that the effect precedes the cause?

It usually works the other way around.;)
 
Gardener said:
So you are saying that the effect precedes the cause?

It usually works the other way around.;)
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It just amazes me. I understand that people want a simple solution, but I don't understand how they can so easily dismiss the history of this to favor a religious zealot's excuses. These same people would condemn a Christian organization that murders Americans and seeks to damage foriegn nations who are allied to the American government. But an Islamic religious zealot must be respected and given legitimacy to his irrational claims?

Makes no sense.
 
MSgt said:
It just amazes me. I understand that people want a simple solution, but I don't understand how they can so easily dismiss the history of this to favor a religious zealot's excuses. These same people would condemn a Christian organization that murders Americans and seeks to damage foriegn nations who are allied to the American government. But an Islamic religious zealot must be respected and given legitimacy to his irrational claims?

Makes no sense.
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It makes no sense to me, either, Gunny -- oops, old habit. I don't know what it is, but saying "it makes no sense to me, Master" just gets my mind travelling at such speed, I end up recreating so many old episodes of "Kung Fu" that I would never get to an actual point. Congrats are in order, if I haven't alreay offered such, though.

Anyway, what I was going to say is that in many cases it is talking points being repeated rather rational analysis that results in this inversion of cause and effect, as the talking points that originate in the rhetorec of Islamists are dressed up and repeated through various influential mouthpieces, often times in western academia, are filtered through western perceptions and then spread through contact. I don't see it as a conscious process, really, but just something more in terms of happens when an idea becomes attached to a political identity.
 
pbrauer said:
As long as we occupy Muslim countries and kill innocent people your going to get people like this kid. You would do the same thing if the shoe ere on the other foot.
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I see...so it IS our fault. We caused it.

Have any CLUE what life is like in Somalia before or after our presence their?
 
pbrauer said:
As long as we occupy Muslim countries and kill innocent people your going to get people like this kid. You would do the same thing if the shoe ere on the other foot.
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So what would you have done about Afghanistan after 9/11?

Given that you're someone who often talks about human rights, I'm sure you were outraged about the Taliban even before 9/11.
 
VanceMack said:
I see...so it IS our fault. We caused it.

Have any CLUE what life is like in Somalia before or after our presence their?
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No he's confused and just throwing out the sophomoric tag line to explain it away. Our UN humanitarian mission in Somalia lasted a couple years and ended in 1993. In the mean time Somali fishermen have resorted to piracy due to nations in Europe and China dumping toxic waste in their seas. Of course, some actually blame us leading tothe conclusion that their reasons to hate are exaggerated and ignorant.

Like wise, the tag line that "we deserve what relgious zealots do because we occupy Muslim lands" is merely ignorance. Prior to 9/11 and the Gulf War, we occupied ****, yet was the target of their relgious rage. Always they will find an excuse for Westerners to believe in.
 
RightinNYC said:
So what would you have done about Afghanistan after 9/11?
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He doesn't know what he is talking about. Prior to our retaliation to 9/11, we were hated for our occupation of Muslim lands in regards to Saudi Arabia (by invite). Before this we were hated for our support for Israel. Before this (1967) were hated for Sayyid Qutb's writings. All excuses and very exaggerated in order to explain away their own civilization's failures.

Along the way, it has been America that has constantly tried to find a way to bring peace to palestinians and Israelis. It has been us that saved Muslims in Kuwait and in Bosnia. It has beenus that spared the entire Muslim region from the fate that hundreds of thousands of Muslims in the Caucusus had suffered under the Soviet Union. And I might go ahead and mention that along the way it has been Muslims that have denied them civil rights, managed to slaughter far more of their fellow Muslim that any Westerner, and encouraged nothing but hatred and violence towards others to satisfy religious bewilderment. So much for the U.S. being their problem.
 
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Barbbtx said:
Fire at Christmas-tree bomber's mosque set 'intentionally' | KATU.com - Portland News, Sports, Traffic Weather and Breaking News - Portland, Oregon - Portland, Oregon | Local & Regional

Did you guys hear about this?
If so, just ignore me.:mrgreen:
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Damn. Americans have to refrain from giving into their frustrations and angers.

This is from your linked article...

Yosof Wanly said he knew Mohamed Osman Mohamud as a student at the center. Wanly said Mohamud started attending the mosque about a year and a half ago, but came on an inconsistent basis.

"I knew him as a student," Wanly said. "He never discussed jihad and it's unfortunate because he is bringing attention to Islam in a negative way. It's unfortunate that this one individual brings negativity to the Islamic religion."
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First, I'd really be interested in knowing the background of his teacher. And two, this "one individual" is merely one among tens of thousands that bring Islam into a negative light. If they continue to pretend that their religious problems (and region) aren't the international menace it is, then they will encourage the average American (and European) to act as the ones above did. If they won't take out their own trash, then others eventually will. For this kid to behave as he did in the name of his religion, then others in this Mosque were encouraging him and fueling his rage attitude. They are also to blame and they themselves set up Islam to be dragged through the mud.
 
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I am wondering why Al Quaida is having that kind of impact on young people. Since 2009-2010 there have been a small number of young people who have been involved in terrorist activity.
 
greatar4 said:
I am wondering why Al Quaida is having that kind of impact on young people. Since 2009-2010 there have been a small number of young people who have been involved in terrorist activity.
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It's less Al-Queda and very much elderly Mullahs preaching hate.
 
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There are many different versions and visions of America. Each is equally valid for the people who subscribe to their vision.

Islamic America is valid and legitimate. The problem is that some members of the community that considers itself Islamic America have heard the inspiring call of the greatest American Muslim in all of history. I refer to the New Mexico born and bred terrorist known as Imam Anwar Al Awlaki. He is the face of Islamic America.

Unfortunately, the Ummah is more important to Muslim Americans than is solidarity with other Americans.

Diversity of consciousness ensures that American unity can never be resurrected.
 
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