Yes, There Are Muslim Terrorists In America, No Doubt About It

What that article did say in 2005 was this, among other things:

But the British and American cases are not the same. It's true that extremist messages exist in American Muslim communities, and there have been a few instances of American Muslims becoming terrorists. Those extremely rare cases, however, are far better explained by individual pathology than by rising Islamic militancy due to group disaffection. Europe's growing Muslim culture of alienation, marginalization, and jihad isn't taking root here.

This comment still seems to be borne out by the facts. I don't believe that too much evidence exists of widespread disaffection and certainly the existence of even a few hundred violent fundamentalist fanatics (or people on their way there) doesn't suggest a kind of quisling community, disloyal to and uninvested in the nation as a whole.

zimmerman:

Well, I fin'ly started thinkin' straight
When I run outa things to investigate.
Couldn't imagine doin' anything else,
So now I'm sittin' home investigatin' myself!
Hope I don't find out anything . . . hmm, great God!

Marty,

When it claws this far down into your psyche, I'll have to start charging you for the sessions.

That there are Islamic terrorists in the country would surprise only someone who slipped into a coma the week before the first World Trade Center bombing...and is now just coming out of it.

Instead, in pointing this out it's just another reminder to Obama: What more proof do you want that Iran needs to be taken out?

There are over 3,000,000 Arab-American citizens. How many do you suspect of being Muslim terrorists? Surely not the 1,950,000 who are Christians.

george

I believe the Zazi case shows that Muslim terrorists have made and are making inroads. I think it also shows that intelligence and law enforcement officials have their act more together than eight years ago, even if their coordination still needs some work.

But if you want to have someone think a story about heightened threats to national security is a crock, quote one written by Judith Miller. She swallowed whole all of the lies the Cheyney-Rumsfeld administration fed her in the months before the Iraq war resolution, and used her job at the Times to give them credibility. In truth she was not a reporter, but a stenographer for those liars. C'mon, it's like citing a story in Drudge to prove Obama's a socialist.

"I believe the Zazi case shows that Muslim terrorists have made and are making inroads."

Maybe.

On Sunday night [I believe] National Geographic [I believe] is airing another documentary in a series on right wingnut extremists. This time, American Nazis [I believe].

These folks have REALLY being making inroads of late. Maybe Marty will find the time to mention them [way, way] down the road. If for no other reason they hate Muslims as much as Jews. Or close to it.

george

"Those extremely rare cases, however, are far better explained by individual pathology than by rising Islamic militancy due to group disaffection. Europe's growing Muslim culture of alienation, marginalization, and jihad isn't taking root here."

But Irony this certainly wasn't the case with people like Zazi.

Then there is the problem of Jew hatred among Muslims in America which is a driving force in acts of terror.

How do you differentiate between personal pathology and ideology in such a case?

Then there is the bizarre case of George Walton:

is it personal pathology that motivates his anti-Americanism cum antisemitism or is it ideology?

JD, I agree that one can't draw a neat line between ideology and pathology, neither for islamic extremism nor indeed perhaps for other kinds. And even an extreme ideology can be obscured by a patina of social normality (indeed it's not necessarily opposed to normality).

But it seems to me -- and I stand to be corrected by any evidence anyone has -- that American muslims tend to be comparatively non-ideological because the nature of American society permits a kind of group religious identity to be maintained while an individual's secular identity is formed by mixing with others. Groups such as Mormons can try to neutralize the growth of secular identity but the possibility of leaving the group is always there.

To put it another way, there is little difference between the way Muslim immigrants and their children find their niche in American life and the way generations of other immigrants have done so in the past.

There are several bumps and blind alleys on the way, but it's not possible to capture and theologize wide sectors of experience in the U.S., for the mosque any more than for the evangelical mega-church. American civic values such as fairness and openness to difference are more present (natch!) in America than in say Britain or France, where a certain homogeneity is always assumed.

For every Zazi, there are a lot more Muslim soldiers in the U.S. military.

"To put it another way, there is little difference between the way Muslim immigrants and their children find their niche in American life and the way generations of other immigrants have done so in the past.

For every Zazi, there are a lot more Muslim soldiers in the U.S. military."

Lots of problems with your post, Irony.

Won't deal with them all at this time, but it seems to me that you analogy with the Christian Mega Churches is way off.

There might have been some truth to the comparison with the Mormons had they opted early on for trying to impose their faith on other instead of moving West and seeking to establish their communities in isolation.

Moreover, Muslims in the US today are being watvhed very closely by the many government agencies both local and federal hence since they don't live in a way that other immigrnat groups lived in the past it's difficult to say that "Muslim immigrants and their children find their niche in American life and the way generations of other immigrants have done so in the past."

I am not an expert on Muslims in the military, there were some cases of Muslim soldiers attacking their non Muslim soldiers:

"Soldiers Detail Trauma of GI's Attack on Base
By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer|April 26, 2005
FT. BRAGG, N.C. — Military prosecutors argued Monday that the Army sergeant convicted last week of murdering two of his officers in Kuwait should be put to death. They bolstered their argument with the testimony of 15 officers who described the loss of the two men and the attack's lingering physical and emotional wounds.

Testifying in the penalty phase of the trial of Sgt. Hasan Akbar, the officers said they feared loud noises, could not sleep, and compulsively locked and unlocked doors. Some who had planned Army careers said they were seeking to leave the military. Several cried on the witness stand."

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/apr/26/nation/na-akbar26

I don't see the comparisons, you are trying to draw, as applicable.

Again, single incidents don't say a hell of a lot, JD. I'd make a wild guess that more Muslim service members have died in Iraq or Afghanistan doing their duty than have been guilty of fragging an officers' tent and murdering their comrades or superiors.

I wouldn't dispute the obvious point that the nature of the wars we are engaged in now mean that clashes of national vs. religious loyalty could emerge, even where you might not expect them. It will probably continue to happen. But the Muslim soldiers that I've seen interviewed seem not to have any problems identifying terrorism packaged in religious justification as exactly that. Indeed, one probably couldn't serve in Iraq without that fact burning itself into one's mind.

Incidentally, one should probably also distinguish between converts to Islam and people who are immigrants (or their children) from Islamic societies -- African-American Muslims always had a more politically hostile attitude to the U.S., for example, than immigrants. Curiously enough, however, when I worked for the Army in Germany, there was a Nation of Islam group among black GIs on that post.

In any case, they seem to be out there:

http://www.muslimmilitarymembers.org/

ironyroad
"Again, single incidents don't say a hell of a lot, JD."

Yes, isolated incidents treated singly are well, isolated incidents. It's up to the analyst to put them together and make some sense out of these "single incidents."

You do have a small point, though, when you say,

"Incidentally, one should probably also distinguish between converts to Islam and people who are immigrants (or their children) from Islamic societies -- African-American Muslims always had a more politically hostile attitude to the U.S., for example, than immigrants."

But, Irony, lots of people convert to Catholicism, to various protestant sects, or to Judaism and I don't see them using their knew faith to spread hatred or indulge in violence.

I know a number of African Americans who have become Jewish. Over the years they have picked up many Jewish views and cultural attitudes. None of them use their religion for the purposes of hating other Americans.

Converts tend to conform to the norms of the faith they embrace and if Islam attracts lots of converts who become violent that's because the religion comes with a ready made ideology of Jihad which justifies them in their violent attitudes.

There are many Muslim soldiers serving in the IDF. There have been a few cases of Israeli-Arabs conspiring with, aiding and abetting, Palestinian terrorists. In Israeli society, there is absolutely no connection between these two circumstances. And the fact that there are Arab and Muslim soldiers in the IDF is not ever employed as an excuse or a reason for reducing the vigilance about potential terrorist activities.

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=84862

interesting thread irony and jackon.