Homegrown

From Reuters: Miami men hit with "home-grown terrorism" charges.

Seven men were charged on Friday with conspiring to attack the landmark Sears Tower in Chicago and the FBI building in Miami in a mission they hoped would be "just as good or greater" than September 11, U.S. officials said.

But Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told a news conference in Washington that the plotting of the "home-grown terrorism cell" never went beyond the earliest stages.

"There was no immediate threat," Gonzales said, acknowledging the defendants never had contact with al Qaeda and did not have weapons or explosives. ...

A south Florida grand jury indicted the men on Thursday. The indictment said the men pledged loyalty to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda in order to seek support from it for their desire to "wage war" against the U.S. government and build an Islamic army. ...

"On or about December 16, 2005, Narseal Batiste provided the 'al Qaeda representative' (actually the FBI informant) with a list of materials and equipment needed in order to wage jihad, which list included boots, uniforms, machine guns, radios and vehicles," the indictment also said.

Their aim was to "'kill all the devils we can' in a mission that would 'be just as good or greater than 9/11,' beginning with the destruction of the Sears Tower," it said.

Earlier this month, when the Canadian Jihad was exposed, it was also reported:

[Last July, the FBI's Counterterrorism 6] was alerted after police detectives stumbled across a cache of firearms, ammunition and military vests in a Los Angeles apartment during a robbery investigation. Also seized were books on Islam and Osama bin Laden, plus a list of synagogues, military recruiting centers and other sites.

Federal prosecutors later charged that the facilities were being targeted by homegrown terror suspects who planned to kill scores of people in shooting rampages. Four men -- three of them U.S.-born -- now face counts of conspiring to wage war against the U.S. government, kill armed service members or murder foreign officials.

What motivates a person to wage war against their own country and sympathize with the likes of Osama bin Laden? Part of the answer lies in the spread of multiculturalist ideas. These citizens have been taught by our intellectuals to hate their home countries, and that hate is fertile ground for Islamism.

In February, Keith Windschuttle explained how cultural relativism undermines Western culture from within: The Adversary Culture.

Cultural relativism claims there are no absolute standards for assessing human culture. Hence all cultures should be regarded as equal, though different. ...

The moral rationale of cultural relativism is a plea for tolerance and respect of other cultures, no matter how uncomfortable we might be with their beliefs and practices. However, there is one culture conspicuous by its absence from all this. The plea for acceptance and open-mindedness does not extend to Western culture itself, whose history is regarded as little more than a crime against the rest of humanity. The West cannot judge other cultures but must condemn its own.

Since the 1960s, academic historians on the left have worked to generate a widespread cynicism about the nature of Western democracies, with the aim of questioning their legitimacy and undermining their ability to command loyalty. ...

The anti-Westernism of which I am speaking is not only about the past but has as much to say about current affairs.

The aftermath to the assaults on New York and Washington on September 11 2001 provided a stark illustration of its values. Within days of the terrorist assault, a number of influential Western intellectuals, including Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag and youthful counterparts such as Naomi Klein of the anti-globalisation protest movement, responded in ways that, morally and symbolically, were no different to the celebrations of the crowds on the streets of Palestine and Islamabad who cheered as they watched the towers of the World Trade Centre come crashing down. Stripped of its obligatory jargon, their argument was straightforward: America deserved what it got. ...

Enclosed by a mindset of cultural relativism, most Westerners are loath to censure Muslims who go on violent rampages, burn down embassies and threaten death to their fellow citizens. Many of us regard this as somehow understandable, even acceptable, since we have no right to judge another religion and culture. ...

Their real aim is not religious respect but cultural change in the West. They want to prevent criticism of its Muslim minority and accord that group special privilege not available to the faithful of other religions. Instead of them changing to integrate into our way of life, they want to force us to change to accept their way of life.

Posted by Forkum at June 25, 2006 10:49 AM