This ivy-league educated neuroscientist had 3 US born children, allegedly disappeared in 2003 in Pakistan, just about the time the FBI wanted to question her about connections to al-Qaeda.
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Aafia Siddiqui, graduating from one of her two US university degrees | Aafia Siddiqui, Terrorist Mom |
| Before the Bin Laden Jihadi Make-over | After the Bin Laden Jihadi Make-over |
Memo to the FBI: next time you want to question someone about terrorists ties, maybe don't tell them why you want to question them beforehand. Just a thought.
Allegedly caught outside "outside the governor’s compound in the central Afghan province of Ghazni on July 17" with a bag full of questionable material (bomb-making books, instructions on how to make certain chemicals, and the oft-media-repeated notebook with US landmarks and something about a "mass casualty attack") this highly educated women was then transferred to US custody whereupon she grabbed a rifle and attempted to shoot her interrogators:
“The warrant officer heard Siddiqui exclaim, ‘Allah akbar!’ Another interpreter heard Siddiqui yell in English, ‘Get the f*** out of here!’ as she fired the rifle.”
An M-4 Assault rifle."Allah akbar", "Get the f**** out of here" could perhaps sound similar. I'm not sure I'd be focusing too much on the enunciation if the enunciator was firing an M-4 rifle at me. Personally, I hope she said she said "Get the f*** out of here" as it sounds much more Hollywood.
Which brings me to my point: how exactly did the West oppress this clearly academically bright individual? A graduate of one of the most prestigious Western tertiary institutions, comfortable enough to have 3 kids in her adopted homeland, and clearly quick enough to rattle off a movie action hero line under duress, if interpreter #2 is to be believed.
The answer to my rhetoric question is of course: the West did nothing of the sort. It may have been the lack of job vacancies at the Bin Laden Neuroscience Institute, or perhaps one of her classmates called her "veily-head" one too many times and she thought "f** this, I'm going on jihad and make this dude and a whole bunch of random innocents pay" or maybe it was the fact that she was married to a nephew of a Khalid Sheik Mohammed (the 'mastermind' of September 11).
Either way, I doubt a couple comments in the classroom could really "radicalise" (jihadise?) someone to that extent. And I have real difficulty believing that even if you felt that strongly about the Iraq-Afghanistan-Chechnya-Palestine-Lebanon-[insert "islamists as the victims conflict" du jour here] that it would necessarily motivate you to go and work out how to blow up a whole bunch of random civilians.
The thought that the West (ok , mostly US) military action over the last 20-40 years is the cause of all this discontent is dangerously deluded at best. It also ignores the actual history of this conflict. We so desperately DO NOT want this to be a clash of civilizations, because in such a conflict, none of the options are good. But to say it is not so, because you want to believe it so, without taking into account what "the other guy" believes, is being shall we say, a little bit intolerant of other belief systems.
Ascribing your own world view on people that clearly do not share it, is dangerous and leads you to making bad decisions.
Suicide bombers, evil masterminds in Afghani caves, fundamentalists of all stripes do. not. want. an. iPod.
Anything you could possibly want, a family, a house, a maserati, fame, fortune, nice clothes, lots of $$$$, all of it is inconsequential to submission and devotion to "the one and only" (and I'm not talking about Obama). To suggest that Western "oppression" and military action today is the sole reason for these grievances, is really an exercise in projection.
Let's contrast the foreign policy expert Traceeeee Hutchinson who "is the author of 3 books – the Australian Music Anthology, ‘Your Name’s On the Door’ (ABC/1992), Rock Chefs for Mirabel – a fundraising cookbook for the Mirabel Foundation featuring over 30 musicians and their recipes – and Laughing Stock: Comedy Chefs for Mirabel – a sequel to Rock Chefs featuring local comedians." (link here) with Ed Husain, who was a member of the openly islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir in the UK and then decided jihad didn't suit him wrote one book "The Islamist"
| Tracee Hutchinson | Ed Husain |
("co-host of the weekly music program DIG TV with Australian rock icon James Reyne.") | (ex-Islamist) |
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| "Or perhaps they were just disenchanted Muslim men reacting with misguided empowerment to the prevailing anti-Muslim sentiment whipped up by the Coalition of the Willing at the time. " | "Islamist terrorism started long before foreign policy blunders of Western government. " |
| link | link |
I leave it up to you to decide who's word carries more weight.
The problem with such intellectual luminaries such as Traceeeee repeating these tropes, is that she and her ideological fellow travellers, want to frame ALL Islamic terrorism as a reaction against Bush, Blair, Howard, [insert hated conservative political figure of choice here]. The reason they do this is because they are too scared to think about the options if they are wrong.
Their world view is strictly binary: "It must be because of misguided conservative policies that these people want to kill us, because a: I hate conservative policies, and b: "Imagine all the people, Living life in peace..." I mean isn't that what EVERYONE wants?" I'm sorry Traceeeee (and John Lennon), but no, that is not the case.
To quote Alfred in the "Batman, The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros, 2008):
"Some people just want to watch the world burn"
It will be interesting to see how the West evolves to deal with an adversary who truly does not care what happens to him/her on this particular plane of existence. And it will be truly enlightening to the Traceeeees of this world when they realise the same.
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