Slog - Comments on Dan was Wrong About the War, and I was Wrong About This...

Comment by Tiffany

Tiffany — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:07:02 -0800

I think we need to ask ourselves what drives someone from a place like Seattle, certainly no impoverished third world terrorist enclave, to want to participate in this kind of violent religious extremism. The normal things that the jihadi apologists usually cite as the reasons for jihad definitely don't apply in this case.

Comment by lostboy

lostboy — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:49:56 -0800

Josh gets serious karma for saying publicly, "I was wrong about this," but even more so for taking initiative to say it, pointing out a blown call that might not otherwise have been noticed, rather than making the admission only after being publicly called on it.

Comment by Fnarf

Fnarf — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:50:33 -0800

That's EXACTLY typical, Tiffany. This kind of terrorist ALWAYS comes from an educated background with exposure to modern ideas. The 9/11 terrorists were relatively well-off engineers and students, not impoverished mud-hut-dwelling victims. Terrorism is a very modern, very Western approach. The godfather of the modern Islamic terror movement, Sayyid Qutb, had a master's degree from the University of Colorado, and his philosophy of hate has as many parallels in the Western Nihilist tradition (Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, etc.) as it does in Islam itself.

In a sense Islamic radicalism is related to both Western campus radicalism of the anti-WTO sort, as well as the Christianist anti-Western ideas like those of "lesbians caused 9/11" Jerry Falwell. They're all against the modern world: modernity is the enemy. Modernity has no place for them. Their education and values turned out to be a lie. Or so they think.

Jonathan Raban wrote a great piece in The Stranger a while back about this.

Comment by butterw

butterw — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:53:50 -0800

C'mon, Josh. I don't know if he's guilty,
but neither do you. He plead guilty in a
plea agreement. While this may indicate
guilt, it may also indicate that he was
being badgered or threatened by the administration so much that he decided it was better for him (or his family) to cop a plea. You don't have
to be guilty for the government to make your life miserable. Poor schmucks plead
guilty to stuff they don't do all the time because they don't think they'll win their case against bigoted or politically motivated prosecutors and/or lying "witnesses".

Comment by SDA in SEA

SDA in SEA — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 17:21:35 -0800

Crap. Is this going to lead to thousands of comments from the same jerk that keeps posting that the whole war is entirely Dan's fault?

Comment by RonK, Seattle

RonK, Seattle — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 17:38:15 -0800

I read this one wrong, too. Figured his worst crime was an overdeveloped fantasy life, that he got trapped in a situation where the feds could fuck him over without limit, so he plead out, etc.

In other news, Neubert/Tietjen testimony sustains a conviction, despite defense use of the Patterson tape.

Comment by Will in Seattle

Will in Seattle — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 17:39:46 -0800

Look, let's get real.

Terrorists look and act like you and I.

They tend not to stick out very much.

So, don't beat yourself up over it.

Comment by Boomer in NYC

Boomer in NYC — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:36:50 -0800

You can't be faulted for taking a position of skepticism--there are plenty of good reason to take such a stance, but none better than the fact that it's a journalist's job to be skeptical when it comes to his government.

And in the end, there's a great deal of difference between an error in judgment that could have led to the deaths of thousands of innocent people and an error that actually did.

Comment by dw

dw — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:50:58 -0800

The godfather of the modern Islamic terror movement, Sayyid Qutb, had a master's degree from the University of Colorado

University of NORTHERN Colorado.

My alma mater has produced more than its fair share of wastes of a college education, but Qutb is UNC's bete noire.

Comment by Gitai

Gitai — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 19:44:45 -0800

Well, two things:

1. The Lackawanna Six were told that if they didn't plead guilty, they'd be declared enemy combatants and sent to Gitmo. Why did the government do this? Because their evidence was so pathetic.

2. Your thoughts about him being a minor player in a plot that was all talk, no action, has been the government's MO for all the big terror busts. Well, they generally start talking after the FBI informant joins the group and chides them for their cowardice.

Therefore, I wouldn't feel too bad.

Comment by Luigi Giovanni

Luigi Giovanni — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 21:47:40 -0800

You had to out yourself before Stefan did.

Comment by Trey

Trey — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 23:33:58 -0800

My question is: will King County Councilmember Larry Gossett be withdrawing the strong public character reference he gave Ujaama at the peak of the story several years ago? He should...