Jihad Joe (34 page)

Therein lies a sticky, painful problem. The narrative of Muslim victimization does not originate with al Qaeda. It is a pervasive theme that is deeply entrenched in mainstream Muslim thought, both in America and abroad.

In preparing for this book, I read nearly two hundred issues of the monthly English-language magazine published by the Saudi-supported Muslim World League, arguably the single most influential Muslim organization in the world. Month after month, the magazine trumpets the alarm: Islam is under attack from enemies everywhere. Islam is misunderstood because of vicious lies by its enemies. Muslims are persecuted and discriminated against on the global stage and in individual countries.

This isn't only a Saudi predilection. It can be found, to a greater and lesser extent, around the world. In the United States, the most visible example is the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit whose daily e-mail newsletter enumerates grievance after grievance, from workplace discrimination to alleged hate crimes, which can be anything from a nasty word to murder or arson. CAIR's message is more carefully calibrated than that of the MWL, but it contributes to the echo chamber.

Some of the specific complaints aired by both organizations are entirely valid. Muslims in the United States and around the world suffer their share of travails and persecution, sometimes more than their share in a given time and place.

Muslim advocates absolutely deserve to have a voice, but they must also ask themselves whether they are—sometimes inadvertently—helping to perpetuate a counterproductive narrative about how the United States collectively treats Muslims.

CAIR follows in the footsteps of the American Muslim Council, founded by Abdurrahman Alamoudi. AMC was, in its day, as prominent as CAIR is today, but it faded from the scene after Alamoudi's arrest for trying to assassinate the Saudi crown prince Abdullah. During his time in the spotlight, Alamoudi gave voice to the same litany of grievances and the same sometimes-explicit argument that America, as it currently exists, is fundamentally inhospitable to Muslims.

This dynamic is made more complicated by the fact that all three of the aforementioned organizations have meaningful ties to jihadist movements. The
Muslim World League was Abdullah Azzam's employer (see chapter 1), and its personnel have been linked to al Qaeda and a number of terrorist plots. Abdurrahman Alamoudi was funneling money from Osama bin Laden to Omar Abdel Rahman even as he advocated for American Muslims as head of AMC (chapter 4). And CAIR's incorporators can be found in the personnel rolls of Hamas support groups in North America during the early 1990s.
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While acknowledging the deep complexity of this issue and the clear need for advocacy by and on behalf of American Muslims, it is important to realize that the path to radicalization begins with a rock-solid belief that Muslims are a victim class. Potential radicals do not have to look far to find reinforcement for this view. I will not belabor the point, because I think Muslims must resolve the issue themselves, and excessive input by outsiders can heighten the problem rather than ease it (as will be discussed later in this chapter). But those who encourage American Muslims to see themselves as disenfranchised victims must accept some degree of responsibility for the result.

Almost every jihadist profiled in this book started on his path with the idea that Muslims are being attacked by non-Muslims, whether in a specific circumstance or on a global level. The line that must be crossed to proceed to military jihad requires defining those attacks as a “war on Islam” (although not everyone who uses that language means to endorse jihad). War must be met by war, and by that logic, people move from angry talk to violent action.

Jihadist recruiters cynically exploit aggression and atrocities committed against Muslims, as in Bosnia. Once drawn in, recruits often find the sphere of attacks on Muslims that justify an armed response quickly expands. The list of provocations starts with military violence but grows to include “economic oppression,” which is blamed for poverty in Muslim nations; the “immodest” display of women's bodies on television, which is blamed for corrupting Muslims' morals; and even simple insults or criticisms of Islam.

Accepting that someone, or everyone, is engaged in a war with Islam is only a precondition to the radicalization process. To complete the transaction, American jihadists will usually need one or more of the following traits:

Idealism/altruism:
Many American jihadists act—in the beginning, at least—out of good intentions and the simple belief that their actions can bring about a
positive change in the world. Ismail Royer is an example of someone who defends his actions with an intellectualized appeal to the better angels of our nature. Abdullah Rashid, in a simpler way, continually calls back to the basic idea of doing good. For both men, the complexity of the real world (and their real personalities) outpaced the simplicity of the stories they like to tell about themselves. Idealism burns brightly in the heart, and it is often impervious to reality.

Violent tendencies or an obsession with violence:
Military jihad and terrorism are inherently violent activities. Those who become jihadists must come to terms with that violence, and some fully embrace it. In certain cases, violent impulses are the primary driver that leads someone to jihad, even more than the defensive rationale. Tarek Mehanna watched and cheered videos of gory beheadings the way other Americans watch football. Isa Abdullah Ali, the veteran of Lebanon and Bosnia, is riveting when he describes himself as a professional soldier and killing machine. His adoption of jihad seems at times like an effort to ennoble a preexisting attraction to violence. Sometimes people seek out a convenient rationalization for their worst impulses, and sometimes that rationalization happens to be jihad.

Ideology:
As discussed in previous chapters, the role of ideology has changed significantly in the last thirty years. During the 1980s people were often recruited to jihad out of a sense of adventure or due to the personal charisma of leaders such as Abdullah Azzam, only becoming seriously indoctrinated with religious rationales after they arrived in Afghanistan or other fields of jihad. Today, the Internet offers a path to ideological radicalization before action. Recruits such as Tarek Mehanna and Zach Chesser absorbed the philosophy of politicized Islam and more advanced radical belief structures, like
takfir
, before ever taking action.

Identity politics:
On paper, Islam is color-blind. In practice, Muslims can be as racist as anyone else, and radical American movements like Al Fuqra— whose members are mostly black separatists—have a strong component of racial and identity politics. Islam itself can also be experienced as an exclusive political or social identity. Some American jihadists, such as Jose Padilla, have a history of gang identification prior to converting to Islam. The allure of joining a seemingly empowered social network should not be underestimated.

Alienation:
In Europe, social alienation is seen as a significant driver of radicalization among Muslims, but American Muslims tend to be more assimilated than their European counterparts. Nevertheless, some American Muslims— such as Daniel Maldonado—took steps toward radicalism because of a feeling that they could not practice Islam in the United States due to social pressures. Millions of American Muslims would disagree with Maldonado on this point, but it should be recognized as a potential risk factor.

Fetishization of sex and women:
The psychology of sex and gender is incredibly complicated, and I will not attempt a detailed deconstruction here. Yet it's worth noting that sex often makes an appearance in these stories. Many American jihadists, such as Nidal Hasan and Omar Hammami, were described by friends as “desperate” to get married but only to extraordinarily chaste women. Some jihadist clerics even allow followers to have sex outside of marriage as part of their recruitment pitch.
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Jihadists can also show clear signs of sexual dysfunction, such as Anwar Awlaki's penchant for hanging around schoolyards and patronizing teenage prostitutes. The ubiquitous use of rape stories in jihadist propaganda also points toward a fetishized view of sex and women. It's admirable to act to prevent rape and assist its victims, but the recurring tales of jihadists whose dreams are haunted by the screaming of Muslim women raise some questions worthy of deeper consideration.

The mix of these qualities is fluid and has changed over time. For instance, the number of jihadist recruits who start from the broad platform of politicized Islam has increased, compared to those who react to specific situations of clearly defined aggression. The motivation of creating an Islamic state is more visible among Americans who want to fight in Somalia but have no ethnic ties to the conflict, to pick the most obvious example.

The ready availability of sometimes shockingly brutal jihadist propaganda on the Internet also attracts a large cheering section of bottom-feeders: violence junkies, anti-Semites, and small men gripped by hate and self-loathing who lack the will to act themselves but are willing to provide a social context for those who would.

In the 1980s and well into the 1990s, being a jihadist did not by definition alone
make someone an enemy of the United States. But since September 11, the practice of military jihad has been criminalized and inextricably linked to terrorism.

Even those who would take part in jihad overseas, forgoing American targets, are subject to prosecution or death by drone. The most active jihadists overseas are declared enemies of the United States, even when their concerns are primarily local. The participation of American citizens and long-term residents in any sort of jihadist activity is now treated as a security threat in itself, regardless of the nature of that activity.

Several factors have contributed to that change, aside from the broad shift in American attitudes after September 11. U.S. diplomatic and intelligence efforts have deliberately linked jihadism to terrorism in the sphere of international relations, with a considerable amount of success.
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And the jihadists themselves have almost universally come to define America as the enemy. Although this war was launched by al Qaeda in almost every meaningful sense, the subsequent invasion of Iraq on the basis of unfounded claims about weapons of mass destruction has provided jihadist ideologues with all the ammunition they need to deflect and avoid the question of “who started it.” No future change in the course of U.S. policy can fully erase the impact of that mistake.

In Iraq and Afghanistan today, U.S. military forces are directly fighting jihadists on the battlefield. In Somalia and Yemen, the “hidden hand” of U.S. military and political influence is seen as manipulating events on the ground, not without some justification.

For better or worse, America is embroiled in a global war with jihadism, and there is no immediately foreseeable end to that conflict. The ultimate direction of that war is beyond the scope of this book. The goal here is evaluating the threat from the self-styled jihadists in our midst. There are three major considerations:

Quality of entry-level recruits:
As noted in
chapter 11
, early jihadist recruits generally had relevant skills, often some kind of traditional military training. As the Internet replaced the real-world network of recruiters and personal connections, jihadist volunteers began to reflect a different demographic. The most rabid supporters of jihad today are very young converts with little practical experience in Islam, fighting, or life. They're often not even particularly good at using the Internet securely. Abdullah Azzam, writing in 1988,
complained about the immaturity and the shallow Islamic learning of his followers.
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He would likely have been horrified to see the state of jihad in 2010.

Numbers:
Offsetting the low quality of many of these volunteers is the Internet's reach. Before 9/11 you had to find and engage a real world social network in order to learn about and eventually win an invitation to jihad. Now anyone with a computer can find himself hip-deep in jihad-friendly social circles in no time flat and can e-mail someone like Anwar Awlaki for encouragement and instructions on how to proceed with mayhem. The pool of people with more than a casual interest in jihad is much larger, and it's easier for them to find social reinforcement to go deeper. There are more traps and dead ends for aspiring jihadists online than there were for someone walking down Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn in 1990, but generally anyone with enough persistence can move from talk to action with active support from serious players met online. A 2010 report claiming that three hundred Americans had trained with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula raises alarm bells.
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I'm a bit skeptical about this estimate, but if it's true, that could be more Americans than took part in the wars in 1980s Afghanistan and 1990s Bosnia combined.

Lack of training:
The devastation wrought on al Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan has paid dividends to U.S. national security. No one has ever come close to replicating the success of al Qaeda's training network, in terms of length of training, quality of graduates, and relative ease of access. It's not uncommon for modern-day American recruits to try several times before gaining access to any terrorist training camp, if they make it at all. Once they get there, their handlers are usually in a hurry to give them a bare minimum of instruction and send them off on an attack. As seen most memorably in the attempted Times Square bombing, inadequate training has a tendency to lead to failure.

In light of these considerations, the danger posed by American jihadists cannot be measured on a linear scale over time. During the 1990s jihadists based in the United States were relatively professional: more experienced, better trained, and likely to have a military background. Their schemes—such as the World Trade Center bombing and the “Day of Terror” plot—were carefully planned, fairly well financed, and staffed by more people.