Shockingly, it turns out the alleged would-be terrorist isn't an Episcopalian. Fancy that:
A 26-year-old Massachusetts man was arrested and charged today in connection with a plot to attack the Pentagon and the Capitol, the Justice Department announced. Rezwan Ferdaus, a U.S. citizen, is accused of planning to use a remote-controlled aircraft filled with explosives to attack the buildings. He was also charged with attempting to provide support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization — specifically al-Qaida, the organization behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
I know what you're thinking, PC police: "That's unfair, you Islamophobe! Just because his name is Rezwan doesn't mean he's a Muslim, or that his planned attacks were inspired by a jihadist worldview." No, it doesn't. But this does:
The FBI used undercover operatives and worked with local law enforcement during its investigation of Ferdaus, a Northeastern University graduate with a degree in physics. The Justice Department alleged that Ferdaus “began planning to commit a violent ‘jihad’ against the U.S. in early 2010.” He allegedly modified mobile phones to act as switches for improvised explosive devices and supplied eight of them to undercover FBI employees in the course of the investigation, according to a Justice Department news release.
The Justice Department says it possesses recorded conversations of Ferdaus discussing his plans for attacking the Pentagon and Capitol and calling Americans "enemies of Allah." According to its statement, Ferdaus traveled from Boston to Washington, D.C., in May to conduct surveillance of the buildings and to photograph East Potomac Park, his planned launch site. He later told undercover FBI employees that he intended to expand his aerial plan to include a ground assault of six armed individuals.
National Review's Dan Foster dug up the MySpace page of a Boston-based "free style punk band," of which this degenerate was apparently a member. Foster posts an image of a young man presumed to be Mr. Ferdaus, drumming is little jihadi heart out and wearing a Chicago Bulls jersey:
This guy is a 26-year-old US citizen who was educated at a major American University, is interested in international politics, and seems -- or seemed -- pretty thoroughly saturated in American culture. Sounds a lot like...me, come to think of it. Except my mind isn't poisoned by the radical, violent, and distressingly widespread strain of Islam that compelled Ferdaus to plan the mass-slaughter of his fellow countrymen. My point here is not to fan the flames of suspicion and hatred. It is to remind us that this threat is still very real, that Islamism is its provenance, and that we must remain vigilant. Our lives, quite literally, may depend on it. Speaking of vigilance, a brief word of deep gratitude to the FBI is in order for tracking and capturing this barbarian before he could carry out his murderous designs. I suspect they didn't ensnare Ferdaus by adhering to this sort of feel-good, self-deluding idiocy.
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