Shahzad's Terrorist Video (Sleeper Agent or Failed Assimilation?)
07/16/2010
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When Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad was first arrested by law enforcement, the press did its usual bang-up job of reporting, using its favored narrative of just another Muslim in the neighborhood, nothing to worry about; the neighbors were shocked, shocked that such a nice family could be connected with terrorist activity, etc.
Neighbors Recall Faisal Shahzad as Quiet, Normal, NBC Connecticut, May 5, 2010

Many people who knew Faisal Shahzad said they are surprised he is accused in the Times Square attempted bombing.

The 30-year-old son of a retired official in Pakistan’s air force had a master’s degree from the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, a job as a budget analyst for a marketing firm in Norwalk, two children and a well-educated wife who posted his smiling picture and lovingly called him ”my everything” on a social networking website.

But shortly after becoming a U.S. citizen a year ago, he gave up his job, stopped paying his mortgage and told a real estate agent to let the bank take the house because he was returning to Pakistan.

Shahzad was charged Tuesday with trying to blow up a crude gasoline and propane device inside a parked SUV amid tourists and Broadway theatergoers. Some say he seemed quiet, but normal. Others say that, as they look back, there were some red flags.

However, at some point before he built his failed bomb, he filmed an explanatory video about the joy of jihad for Allah, which appeared recently.

It’s possible that the guy could have gone Islamo-wacko after he arrived as an immigrant. Such things do happen, as was pointed out in a Wall Street Journal article (Infiltrating Jihadis’ World) about an undercover operation that noted, ”At times, [the radicalization process] was so rapid that a year or two could separate clubbing in Miami from prayer five times a day.”

More details in my blog item, Jihadists Grow in Brooklyn.

But either way – sleeper agent or radicalized here – Faisal Shahzad illustrates what a dumb idea Muslim immigration is. Muslims can go off the deep end into violent jihad anywhere, including nice American suburbs, so let’s not admit them in the first place.

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