The Times Square (almost) Massacre

First, the AP story, which has some chilling quotes from Faisal Shahzad:

"Brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun."

"Consider me the first droplet of the blood that will follow."

"We are only Muslims trying to defend our religion, people, homes and land, but if you call us terrorists, then we are proud terrorists and we will keep on terrorizing you until you leave our lands and people at peace."

The judge cut him off at one point to ask if he had sworn allegiance to the U.S. when he became a citizen last year. "I did swear, but I did not mean it," Shahzad said.

In his address to the court, he said Osama bin Laden "will be known as no less than Saladin of the 21st-century crusade" — a reference to the Muslim hero of the Crusades. He also said: "If I'm given 1,000 lives, I will sacrifice them all."

Somehow I doubt the third one.

And beyond the obvious death cult rambling, some questions come to mind:

1) I haven't seen any comment from Mayor Bloomberg, but I wonder if he feels bad for initially waxing detective and pinning this on teabaggers who didn't like the health care bill?

2) I wonder whether Faisal Shahzad supports the Islamic Cultural Center which is not a mosque and is located near Ground Zero but is not at Ground Zero?

3) I wonder what The Falling Man would have thought of the Islamic Cultural Center which is not a mosque and is located near Ground Zero but is not at Ground Zero?

4) How many Muslims take an oath of citizenship but do not "mean it"?

5) How many Faisal Shahzads are out there?

6) Does the punishment fit the crime?

This dude's ranting reminds me of a great column by Mark Goldblatt which says in part:

The war against Islamic totalitarianism — to call the thing what it is — is a war of perception as much as a war of bullets and bombs. Killing and capturing terrorists makes us marginally safer day by day but does not get at the core problem: the false perception among the terrorists' religious sympathizers and financial enablers (and there are millions of them) that their side has a fighting chance. Since the war is not an engagement between sovereign nations, it cannot end with a peace treaty; it can only end with the recognition that a worldwide Caliphate is not a possibility, that sharia law is not going to replace democratic government, that Islamic values are not going to trump Enlightenment values. The outcome of the war, on this level, is not in doubt. What is in doubt is whether the body count will number in the hundreds of thousands — if we continue the long hard slog of spreading democracy — or in the scores of millions — if we retreat from the world stage, defer the combat a generation or two, and bequeath to our children and grandchildren a bloodier but more recognizable world war.

Is it islamophobic to even be linking to and discussing this story? I suppose. I guess this is all just right-wing fear-mongering on my part. What can you do in such confusing times?

I am never sure if I'm supposed to believe the passive multicultists or if I am supposed to believe the jihadists – like Shahzad – who actually tell us what their goals are.

Case closed. Justice is served. We can go back to putting our heads in the sand.