The Empty Piety of Terrorists

The trial of Faisal Shahzad, the Time Square would-be bomber, once again spotlighted the twisted reasoning of terrorists. Taking advantage of the publicity that comes with this trial and knowing full well that his words would be used by other terrorists to justify their murderous plots, Shahzad announced his case against America. Pleading guilty to terrorism-related charges, he said:

I want to plead guilty and I'm going to plead guilty a hundred times forward because – until the hour the U.S. pulls it forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stops the drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan and stops the occupation of Muslim lands and stops killing the Muslims and stops reporting the Muslims to its government – we will be attacking [the] U.S., and I plead guilty to that.

He also said that he intended to damage buildings and injure or kill people because: "I am part of the answer to the U.S. terrorizing [of] the Muslim nations and the Muslim people, and on behalf of that, I'm avenging the attacks . . . We Muslims are one community." When asked about why he would have killed innocent pedestrians in Times Square, he replied: "Well, the [American] people select the government. We consider them all the same."

I had blogged before about themes similar to Shahzad’s self-righteous indignation: “Does Suicide Bombing Have a Moral Equivalence?” and “The Jihadi Elite and the Communist Elite.” There is no need to repeat the arguments here. But I do want to add that unless the civilized world is quick to offer direct rebuttal to these pontificating terrorists, we must not give them and their messages the light of day anymore. That is, we must not let them use these forums and communication tools with which they are able to pull off their publicity stunts. There are many unsuspecting, impressionable young minds out there that we need to protect from these false messages.