The Enemy Within

Much like Obi-Wan Kenobi, I sense a great disturbance in The Force.

It was bad enough when we had Muslim extremists trying to kill us off in other countries overseas for perceived wrongs against Islam, chief among these being non-Muslims. It was exponentially worse when the Jihadists decided to bring their bullshit over here and kill us on our own soil. But we have now sunk to a new low in the murky mire.

We are growing our own US-born Jihadi flakes right here in our literal back yards and they want to kill their neighbors, who happen to be who? You guessed it, Chummy; you and me.

Three years ago we had a group of Islamic converts trying to become an al-Qaeda cell in Miami, but they got ratted out by a Yemeni-born store clerk after they asked him for help in finding support from Middle Eastern terrorists. According to prosecutors, the men wanted to bring down the U.S. government and sought an alliance with al-Qaeda to carry out attacks. Their aims included blowing up the Sears Tower in Chicago, poisoning salt shakers in restaurants, and launching terrorist attacks "just as good or greater than 9-11," prosecutors said. Lovely.

Back in 2005, local authorities foiled a plot by a group of Muslim ex-cons that was preparing terrorist attacks on Jewish and government targets around greater Los Angeles. Randall Todd Royer, an American-born convert to Islam, was convicted in 2004for his role in leading the so-called "Virginia jihad network," a group of Islamic radicals training for attacks on the United States. Royer and another conspirator had trained in Pakistan in 1999 and 2000 with the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is believed responsible for the attacks late last year that killed nearly 200 people in Mumbai, India. Royer was one of four American converts to Islam arrested in connection with the Virginia plot.

James Ujaama, who was born James Ernest Thompson in Denver, tried to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon in the late 1990s. It was an idea he developed with his spiritual mentor Abu Hamza al-Masri, a radical imam based in London. In April 2003, the government dropped those charges and filed a complaint accusing Ujaama of providing money, computer equipment and women to Taliban officials in Afghanistan. Eventually, Ujaama pled guilty; in a plea bargain for a two year sentence, he would provide information for ongoing terrorism investigations, especially for what he knew about al-Masri.


C'mon...would this guy ask someone to open a terrorist training camp?

Just a few weeks ago, the FBI and New York police conducted a sting and broke up another terror cell of American prison-converts. The group bought what they thought were blocks of C-4 plastic explosives, detonators, and (no shit) a Stinger anti-aircraft missile. Their targets: a couple synagogues and Jewish community centers, and the Air National Guard base in Newburgh, New York. All of the weapons were elaborate inert fakes.

They were arrested after they planted 37 pounds of the inert C-4 explosives in each of two cars parked outside each synagogue. From there they had planned to travel to the Air National Guard base at Stewart International Airport in hopes of shooting down something with the Stinger. Last I knew, the Guard flew big, lumbering C-5 Galaxy transports out of Stewart. A Stinger is reliable, deadly accurate, and pretty easy to operate. Even I learned a bit about operating them while I was in Germany. The last thing a Guard pilot driving a fatbody cargo monster is expecting is a heat-seeker up one of his intakes in upstate New York…the results would be catastrophic.

James Cromitie, 55, David Daoud Williams, 28, Onta Williams, 32, and Haitian citizen Laguerre Payen, 27, were said by friends and family to have become Muslims while in prison, where they began on a path toward terrorist violence. Cromitie, the apparent ringleader, told an FBI informant that "he was upset about the war" in Afghanistan and "unhappy that many Muslim people were being killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan by the United States Military forces." Officials say he chose synagogues after having said: "The best target (the World Trade Center) was hit already."




But...that C-4 and the Stinger looked so real, didn't they?

And now this week, another turd floated to the top of the shitter. Carlos Bledsoe, aged 23, opting these days to call himself Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, rolled up on a recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas and opened fire with a Soviet-designed SKS carbine, killing one soldier and wounding another. The soldiers were standing outside, sharing a smoke. They weren’t even actual recruiters, either. They were brand-spanking new privates straight out of training, helping out at the local recruiting station on a special duty called the Hometown Recruiters Assistance Program, by where you score a couple extra weeks of leave after training by coming in and helping the local full-time recruiters by talking to prospective recruits about their recent experiences and successes.

Did Carlos Bledsoe write an essay in school about how he wanted to be a terrorist when he grew up?

Our latest homegrown terrorist, originally from Tennessee, killed William A. Long, the 23-year old son of a decorated Marine Corps veteran. Wounded in the attack was 18-year old Quinton Ezeagwula. Neither of these young men had ever been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. In fact, neither soldier had been deployed anywhere; they had just completed training and were pending their first actual assignments.

Prosecutors say Muhammad was targeting U.S. soldiers "because of what they had done to Muslims in the past" and was angry about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The biter irony is that his two targets had been to neither and had done nothing to no one. And it’s a shame that no one ever seems to mention the huge numbers of Afghans and Iraqis we’ve helped with medical care, digging wells, building schools, etc.

Unlike most of our converts, Muhammad never had been incarcerated, and it remains unclear how he became radicalized, but according to law enforcement officials he was already on the FBI's radar even before the attack. He was under investigation by the Joint Terrorism Task Force after visiting Yemen and being arrested there for using a Somali passport. Now, what exactly was a US citizen doing with a Somali passport? Why, he "studied jihad with an Islamic scholar" during his visit, according to the website JihadWatch.org, that’s what he was doing.

It ain’t like Yemen is a big tourist destination. Hey, ya’ll, come on down to see the oil fields, camel shit, and the world’s largest ball of C-4.

Authorities cracked open his hard drive’s files and found that in addition to a list of other targets he had on him at the time of his arrest, ole’ Bledsoe had been using Google to map out targets of opportunity, including Jewish organizations, a child care center, a Baptist church, a post office and even more military recruiting centers in the southeastern U.S. and New York and Philadelphia. A one-man jihad…or was it? He’s likely part of a cell. I expect more of the little bastards to be rounded up soon.

He had the balls to plead Not Guilty at his arraignment. Typical.

My friend Angel provided this tidbit for me:
These are the four names the gunman chose upon his conversion:
Abdul - which means Servant (as in Servant of Allah)
Hakim - which means Wise (a tad narcissistic, no?)
Mujahid - which means Fighter (as in Holy Warrior)
Muhammad - which means Praised Be (and it’s the name of the Prophet of Islam)

Our wise, blessed, warrior servant of Allah told investigators that "he would have killed more soldiers had they been in the parking lot." This is the kind of shit we’re dealing with now. So, if he wants to be all Jihadi & what not, declare his ass an Enemy Combatant and ship him off to Gitmo while it’s still open. I’m sure the real Jihadi turds stored there will welcome some American pretender with open arms. Three hots & a cot, and a brandy-new prayer rug and Koran, too. I hear they’re serving goatburgers tonight. Good times.

And since our two soldiers were shot by an Enemy Combatant using a weapon common to terrorists, I say both men should be awarded Purple Hearts for having been ambushed in a terrorist attack. They were actively serving their nation, were in uniform at the time of the attack, and were attacked by a sworn enemy of America. A medal won’t heal the trauma suffered by Quinton Ezeagwula and a folded flag with a medal attached will be little comfort to the family of William Long, but soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines don’t serve for pretty medals. We serve because we love our country and the freedoms it gives us. We serve to protect those freedoms and to protect our fellow Americans. And we serve because there are enemies, both foreign and domestic, who wish to kill us all.

William A. Long, killed by an American terrorist. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13 ...