[Reader-list] Jihadi Cool: Terrorist Recruiters' Latest Weapon - by DINA TEMPLE-RASTON

[Rajendra Bhat Uppinangadi]

America has a special section in covert and operations all over the world,
for the interests of the nation, America has neither the ethics nor the
morals as a nation of survivors, immigrents with 3 centuries of history
which only records victory at any cost, not the fair means to that victory.!
Rajen.

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 6:01 PM, anupam chakravartty <c.anupam at gmail.com>wrote:

> this clearly means that americans are funding jehad knowingly or
> unknowingly. thanks Pawan for posting this gem of a piece.
>
> anupam
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 12:29 PM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125186382
> > March 26, 2010
> >
> > With so many terrorism cases emerging in the U.S. in the past nine
> > months, experts are trying to understand why so much is happening now.
> > One explanation has less to do with religion than with adventure. The
> > latest wave of jihadists traveling to Pakistan and elsewhere for
> > training may have been motivated by a sense of jihadi cool.
> >
> > The recent Jihad Jane case may be the latest example of this trend.
> >
> > Colleen LaRose, 46, was a housebound woman from the Philadelphia area.
> > She converted to Islam, but investigators say she was never connected
> > to any particular mosque. Even her live-in boyfriend says he didn't
> > know she was Muslim.
> >
> > And yet, she is accused of calling herself Jihad Jane in Internet chat
> > rooms, and soon after her conversion allegedly went trolling for
> > people who might join forces with her to wage jihad on behalf of other
> > Muslims.
> >
> > Recruitment More MTV Than Mosque
> >
> > That's a far cry from what is seen as the traditional route to jihad.
> > It used to be that jihadi recruitment videos opened with the call to
> > prayer and readings from the Quran.
> >
> > These days, many of them are decidedly less religious. They look more
> > like something that would appear on MTV.
> >
> > If you type "jihadi rap videos" into any Internet search engine,
> > you'll find dozens of videos with thumping bass lines and forced
> > rhymes about beheading non-Muslims and making them pay for the
> > indignities they have leveled against Islam.
> >
> >
> > Traditionally, jihadi recruitment videos opened with the call to
> > prayer and readings from the Quran. Now, they look and sound more like
> > something that would appear on MTV and seem to be targeting people
> > with resentments and who are seeking thrills.
> > The productions are clearly aimed at young people nursing resentments
> > and looking for thrills. One video raps about the "angels in green,
> > helping the mujahedeen" while cutting to photographs of prisoner abuse
> > at Abu Ghraib and homemade videos of holy warriors firing
> > rocket-propelled grenades in the desert and shooting up cars with
> > machine guns.
> >
> > 'A New Generation Of Lazy Muslims'
> >
> > Intelligence officials say there is a wave of young people who are
> > attracted to the adventure of jihad but would like to skip all the
> > rigors of Islam, such as reading the Quran and fasting.
> >
> > "I think what we are seeing is sort of what I like to term a new
> > generation of lazy Muslims," says Arsalan Iftikhar, a human rights
> > lawyer and the former national legal director of the Council on
> > American-Islamic Relations.
> >
> > "These are people who might not be theologically devout or even have a
> > sound religious foundation, but they are using this new jihadi cool to
> > justify criminal acts of terrorism," Iftikhar says.
> >
> > Experts who study these kinds of movements say that while religion may
> > be an initial motivation to sign up, in the fullness of time, it
> > becomes less important.
> >
> > Seeking Adventure
> >
> > Consider the case of the two dozen young Somali-Americans from
> > Minneapolis who were recruited to join a militant group in Somalia a
> > couple of years ago.
> >
> > Initially, investigators say recruiters used a religious pitch.
> > Ethiopians — who were largely Christian — had invaded Somalia, a
> > Muslim country. The young Minnesotans were told it was their duty,
> > both as Somalis and Muslims, to go to Somalia and fight there for an
> > Islamist group called al-Shabab.
> >
> > We have ethnographies where they actually ask militants what drew you
> > to this movement. The top three answers were motorcycles, guns and
> > access to women. You had to go pretty far down the list to get to
> > religious motivation.
> > - Christine Fair, Georgetown University
> > When the Ethiopian troops withdrew, FBI officials say the pitch
> > changed. Recruiters told the young men that going to Somalia would be,
> > in their words, fun. The young men would get to shoot guns. They would
> > become jihad warriors. It would be cool.
> >
> > Christine Fair is a professor at Georgetown University who is an
> > expert in these kinds of religious movements. She says jihad chic is
> > not so unusual.
> >
> > "We have ethnographies where they actually ask militants what drew you
> > to this movement," she says. "The top three answers were motorcycles,
> > guns and access to women. You had to go pretty far down the list to
> > get to religious motivation."
> >
> > The Web And Jihad Warriors
> >
> > The Internet appears to have made signing up for a holy war infinitely
> > easier — and because it is open to all comers, the standards have
> > dropped. People who might not have even considered becoming a Muslim,
> > much less turning to jihad, can do both with just the click of a
> > mouse.
> >
> > That's what officials think happened with Jihad Jane. They allege that
> > she trolled the Internet while she was housebound, caring for her
> > boyfriend's ailing father, and that signing up for a holy war was
> > something that attracted a lonely woman. It gave her something to
> > belong to, officials say.
> >
> > "Just putting my human hat on, I don't think it is remotely remarkable
> > that Jihad Jane happened," says Fair, who is also a fellow at West
> > Point's Combating Terrorism Center.
> >
> > "In fact, if you sort of think about misfits — I'm a social misfit so
> > I feel somewhat comfortable saying this — the Internet is one of the
> > best places for social misfits to reside," Fair says. "They can be
> > whomever they want to be, so I am just surprised we haven't had more
> > Jihad Janes."
> >
> > This is not to minimize what is going on for the past year on the
> > terrorism front. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, 2009 was the busiest year
> > for U.S. counterterrorism officials. They prosecuted more than a dozen
> > cases; the annual average is generally one-third of that.
> >
> > FBI Director Robert Mueller says the Internet is partly to blame for
> > speeding up the recruitment process. He says the Web now not only
> > radicalizes young Muslims but helps connect them to organizations that
> > launch attacks. Jihadi cool may be a different motivation for taking
> > up arms, but it isn't necessarily any less lethal.
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-- 
Rajen.