Adam Gadahn

The name of Adam Gadahn has come up in the news last night, as one of the people the FBI is looking for, in relationship to a terrorist threat the FBI is chasing.

In searching out info on this guy, I came across somehting I think worthwhile posting, if only to expose the non-thought process that goes on inside such people.

This was written as he was 17, back in 1995.

Becoming Muslim
Yahiye Adam Gadahn
——————————————————————————–

My first seventeen years have been a bit different than the youth experienced by most Americans. I grew up on an extremely rural goat ranch in Western Riverside County, California, where my family raises on average 150 to 200 animals for milk, cheese, and meat. My father is a halal butcher [a butcher who slaughters in an Islamic manner -ed.] and supplies to an Islamic Food Mart a few blocks from the Islamic Center in downtown Los Angeles.

My father was raised agnostic or atheist, but he became a believer in One God when he picked up a Bible left on the beach. He once had a number of Muslim friends, but they’ve all moved out of California now. My mother was raised Catholic, so she leans towards Christianity (although she, like my father, disregards the Trinity). I and my siblings were/are home-schooled, and as you may know, most home-school families are Christian. In the last 8 or so years, we have been involved with some home-schooling support groups, thus acquainting me with fundamentalist Christianity. It was an eye-opening experience. Setting aside the blind dogmatism and charismatic wackiness, it was quite a shock to me when I realized that these people, in their prayers, were actually praying TO JESUS. You see, I had always believed that Jesus (pbuh) was, at the very most, the Son of God (since that is what the Bible mistranslates “Servant of God” as). As I learned that belief in the Trinity, something I find absolutely ridiculous, is considered by most Christians to be a prerequisite for salvation, I gradually realized I could not be a Christian.

In the meantime, I had become obsessed with demonic Heavy Metal music, something the rest of my family (as I now realize, rightfully so) was not happy with. My entire life was focused on expanding my music collection. I eschewed personal cleanliness and let my room reach an unbelievable state of disarray. My relationship with my parents became strained, although only intermittently so. I am sorry even as I write this.

Earlier this year, I began to listen to the apocalyptic ramblings of Christian radio’s “prophecy experts.” Their paranoid espousal of various conspiracy theories, rabid support of Israel and religious Zionism, and fiery preaching about the “Islamic Threat” held for me a strange fascination. Why? Well, I suppose it was simply the need I was feeling to fill that void I had created for myself. In any case, I soon found that the beliefs these evangelists held, such as Original Sin and the Infallibility of “God’s Word”, were not in agreement with my theological ideas (not to mention the Bible) and I began to look for something else to hold onto.

The turning point, perhaps, was when I moved in with my grandparents here in Santa Ana, the county seat of Orange, California. My grandmother, a computer whiz, is hooked up to America Online and I have been scooting the information superhighway since January. But when I moved in, with the intent of finding a job (easier said than done), I begin to visit the religion folders on AOL and the Usenet newsgroups, where I found discussions on Islam to be the most intriguing. You see, I discovered that the beliefs and practices of this religion fit my personal theology and intellect as well as basic human logic. Islam presents God not as an anthropomorphic being but as an entity beyond human comprehension, transcendent of man, independant and undivided. Islam has a holy book that is comprehensible to a layman, and there is no papacy or priesthood that is considered infallible in matters of interpretation: all Muslims are free to reflect and interpret the book given a sufficient education. Islam does not believe that all men are doomed to Hell unless they simply accept that God (apparently unable to forgive otherwise) magnanimously allowed Himself to be tortured on a cross to enable Him to forgive all human beings who just believe that He allowed Himself to be tortured on a cross… Islam does not believe in a Chosen Race. And on and on…

As I began reading English translations of the Qur’an, I became more and more convinced of the truth and authenticity of Allah’s teachings contained in those 114 chapters. Having been around Muslims in my formative years, I knew well that they were not the bloodthirsty, barbaric terrorists that the news media and the televangelists paint them to be. Perhaps this knowledge led me to continue my personal research further than another person would have. I can’t say when I actually decided that Islam was for me. It was really a natural progression. In any case, last week [November 1995 -ed.]I went to the Islamic Society of Orange County in Garden Grove and told the brother in charge of the library I wanted to be a Muslim. He gave me some excellent reading material, and last Friday I took Shahada [accepted the creed of Islam -ed.]in front of a packed masjid. I have spent this week learning to perform Salat and reflecting on the greatness of Allah. It feels great to be a Muslim! Subhaana rabbiyal ‘azeem!

The Wall Street Journal has an extensive write-up on the links between Iraq and al Qaeda. This time the focus is on Ahmed Hikmat Shakir.

Read the whole thing.

AP wire reports:

“NEW YORK – Al Gore delivered a blistering denunciation Wednesday of the Bush administration’s ‘twisted values and atrocious policies’ in Iraq and demanded the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and CIA director George Tenet.”

Well, let’s think about this for a split second. How would Al Quieda react to such an action? Even as it is, with there being no way any of what he’s demanding will ever actually take place, he’s putting our people at greater risk.

In any event, we have a choice. Either Gore doesn’t care about America losing, WANTS America to lose, or has lost his mind… The last one being the kindest of the available choices. Of course that choice kinda gets eliminated when you consider that Al Quieda committed acts of war against us five times during the Clinton-Gore fiasco… and Gore did nothing, leading us toward one of the first two choices…. Take your pick which one, I guess.

Let’s focus this further; Gore in his speech says Nadia about how he’d deal with terrorism. That’s because while he’s using the terrorist threat as a political wedge, he actually hasn’t a bloody clue how to deal with it.

The question then becomes, however, if Kerry will denouce Gore.
If he doesn’t we have some serious questions for the whole of the Democrat party:
At what point do you give up anti-Americanism in your candidates?

UPDATE:
Big Trunk, over at PowerLine suggests, regarding Gore’s comments:

“Their bizarre distance from reality, their twisted imputations of malignity, their excess, their luxuriance in defamation and falsehood, are obviously symptomatic. I think it is a mistake, however, to attribute them narrowly to Gore’s mental imbalance or the bitterness of his close defeat by Bush.

They resonate with Gore’s intended audience, and they therefore signify a widely shared frame of reference.”

Which, of course, is why I raise the question of what Kerry will do. I suspect he will do nothing because he knows the majority of his base, consider Gore’s raving to be spot on, and consider as a given we should cut and run in Iraq even at the cost of a civil war there. (53%, says the LA TIMES, this norning) Comments about being fearful for the future of our country that so many people would believe such poison aside for the moment, the question of where Kerry stands in relation to Gore’s comments needs to be addressed publicly. Once this stuff gets exposed, poeple will start backing off of Gore, the way one would back off of someone in the middle of Times Sqaure yelling “Allah is great!”.

Kerry may not disavow Gore, at least for a while. But Kerry’s losses among undecided voters, will be in direct relationship to how quickly he tells Gore to shut up and stop speaking for him. The other side of that coin is if he’s too vocal in backing off of Gore’s comments, he loses his leftist wacko base. In short, Kerry is being attacked from both sides here, and can’t make a move without losing support of one side or the other.

Captain Ed, who has his own comments up on Gore’s nonsense, also notes the rather shakey position Kerry’s in, and his read seems to be in step with my own:

Now he faces two options, neither of which look particularly attractive. On one hand, he could change his position and start calling for unilateral withdrawal from Iraq and hope to push Nader out of the race. Besides being catastrophic policy for the US, though, it opens Kerry to charges of flip-flopping yet again on this issue and demonstrates a lack of will that may unnerve the centrists and independents in November. On the other hand, he could stand pat and watch as Nader continues to drain his base from the Bush-hating left, if not of tremendous amounts of votes, certainly of funding and enthusiasm, a quality he hardly inspires anyway. Perhaps he could fire up enthusiasm on economic policy, a la Clinton, but that’s unlikely in the midst of an economic expansion.

Going to be an interesting summer.

AP is saying now:

“WASHINGTON (AP) – Bowing to pressure, John Kerry decided Wednesday to accept the nomination at the Democratic presidential convention in July, scuttling a plan to delay the formality so he could narrow President Bush’s public money advantage.”

In short, he got caught trying to skirt the law he wanted everyone else to follow.

Dan Drezner has an interesting discusion going on at his place. within the context of large Box stores…(This time, the great satan, Wal-Mart) and local flavor that many claim large box stores destroy by elimination of the smaller, locally owned stores. The issue has come up, as you will see in Dan’s thread, as the wild concept of actually declaring the entire state, a historical landmark!

One of the people in the discussion came up with what I consider a telling argument in more than just the question of a walmart in a locale.

“One thing I think the pro-Walmart people ignore is the binary result of opening a Walmart. It is truly an either or type of proposition. If a Wal-mart opens and only 20% of the people in a given region shop there in the first year, this will decimate the small shops that are in competition – the small shops will go out of business. In effect, a minority will dictate what the lifestyle of the region will be. ”

Seems to me this point of minority control might be applied to *any* degree of social change.

For example, could this point be used in an argument against homosexual ‘weddings’?

That case seems to me a similar one; societal impact of a large but not fully quantifyable state, imposed on the majority by a relative few, and like the WalMart question is a question of rights on one side, vs the continuance of society’s values on the other. And, like the Walmart issue, is an all-or-nothing thing; there’s no half measures that will be accepted.

The more libertarian among us (and certainly, the more liberal) constantly ask how homosexuals being given the right to marry will affect the rest of us. Boortz for example, raises such issues with some regularity. Perhaps this kind of thing should be part of the answer given them?

Another matter, and perhaps a larger question than Vermont;

It strikes me as passing strange that there should be such interest in maintaining the trappings of small-town life in Vermont, using the power of government, while those in power there are so bent on imposing societal changes in that state by means of the same power; Government. A quickie search on Google on the string: “vermont social change” reveals several hits regarding ‘social changes’ being wrought in vermont by both government and various groups… including financial institutions, I notice.

Vermont is not unique here, but is merely the leading edge along with California and other leftist dominated states, such as Mass, for example. And so the question becomes one that involves western society as a whole;

How can it be productive to save the pleasant trappings of the culture,(by ironcly, eliminating economic growth within that culture) while eliminating the culture that produced both of them, by mandating social change within the culture?

Can we forsee anything but the utter destruction of any society so caught between two such forces?

Captain Ed over at CQ this morning, notes an ABC NEWS report that isn’t getting the attention it deserves for reasons that should be obvious to you;

During the 1990s, Zarqawi trained under bin Laden in Afghanistan. After the fall of the Taliban, he fled to northwestern Iraq and worked with poisons for use in potential attacks, officials say.
During the summer of 2002, he underwent nasal surgery at a Baghdad hospital, officials say. They mistakenly originally thought, however, that Zarqawi had his leg amputated due to an injury.

In late 2002, officials say, Zarqawi began establishing sleeper cells in Baghdad and acquiring weapons from Iraqi intelligence officials.

Says Ed to all of this:

Late 2002? That preceded the American effort to get UNSC Resolution 1441 passed, as well as our presentations to the Council demonstrating Iraqi links to al-Qaeda. Certainly, Saddam’s willingness to allow Zarqawi to live in Baghdad demonstrates his affinity for promoting terrorism (just as his hosting of Abu Nidal and payment to families of suicide bombers). Surely Saddam would not have countenanced Zarqawi’s establishment of sleeper cells and the transfer of weapons by the IIS to his groups without ensuring that he and Zarqawi were working together. In light of the discovery of the binary sarin shell, one has to wonder what other weapons Saddam may have transferred to al-Zarqawi. How about all those chemical weapons Zarqawi tried to use in Jordan, for example?

The only conclusion? Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda were active allies and Hussein provided material support for AQ’s terrorism. That certainly supports the argument for war in Iraq and underscores the Bush contention this week that Iraq is the central front in the war on Islamofascist terror.

That it does, Ed. That it does indeed.
RTWT

-Churchville, NY — I’m catching up on some railfanning… I gather from some online friends a rare bit of power is moving through in the next hour or two. Too bad it’s raining this afternoon. The light is terrible for photo work.

Ah, well. At least I’m able to spend some time with my kids. My older boy in particular, is starting to get really sharp in his questions about life, and we’ve been talking today. One of the things we’ve been chatting about is the war in Iraq, and my thoughts on it. For one thing, he wanted to know what I had been thinking about the widely reported death of Pat Tillman. To explain that to him, I had to get into some detail on why we honor service to our country. It’s amazing how little of that is taught in schools anymore.

For those who don’t know, Tillman was an NFL player, and a pretty fair one at that. I don’t need to tell you NFL players haul in money by the plane load. Tillman turned it down, instead going into the Army. He was killed in action near the Pakistan/Afghan border on Thursday.

I do have a question: What rock have you been under?  No, don’t worry. I’m just commenting on the massive news coverage we’ve seen on this topic; the news media can’t get enough of it.

I told him I’d already written about all of it in my Blog.  We chatted for quite a while about it all. I expressed to him, as I had in my Blog the other day about my discomfort with the coverage Tillman’s death had gathered.

Don’t misunderstand; I have a small mountain of respect for Tillman. I have sympathy for his family, his loved ones, his buddies in the field. I refuse, however, to be caught in the trap of regarding the death of this one soldier as being of greater impact than the death of any other. I will not hold the service of this one to be unequal to any other that serves us true.

I can understand why the press thinks this a special case, I guess. For example, I cannot dispute that Tillman gave up greater financial wealth to put on the uniform of his country, than most soldiers do. Tillman, if glory was what he was about could easily have covered himself with a sort of personal glory by remaining in the NFL.  So, certainly, he wasn’t after the glory, as one I’ve written of elsewhere on this site for months now, would seem to have been. I don’t call THAT true service.

Perhaps some historical perspective will help me to make my paint clearer.

I had occasion, recently to see “The Glenn Miller Story” again, just recently, and am now struck by the parallels, as I have been in the past. Miller put on his uniform because he thought he could do some good in his country’s efforts against the Nazi threat. He ended up giving his life for his choice. Who knows where Miller’s music would have taken him, had he lived out his natural life, instead of ending up at the bottom of the English Channel.

Like Miller, Pat Tillman’s choice was about personal sacrifice, and of service… Service of an ideal he thought bigger than himself.

That kind of dedication is be cherished, certainly. But we must not allow ourselves to be swayed by the life position the soldier had, before he/she was a soldier, in our estimation of the value of that soldier.

Understand me clearly, please; The honoring of our vets has always held special meaning for me; it’s a lesson my parents instilled very well, indeed. It was brought home to me, as I was recently looking at pictures from a trip we made through the Gettysburg PA area some years ago.

It’s a particularly meaningful thing, when you’re standing on that field…. something that goes well beyond the cold facts and figures about who died from what company, how old they were, or even where they were from. It’s more a feeling you get…. you can sense it… not unlike being at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, or visiting Arlington National Cemetery. I’m told Omaha Beach, and Pearl Harbor and many other sites are the same way. I’ve been at the funerals of firemen and policemen who died in their line of duty, and that was also remarkably similar.

In each case, we’re dealing with places and concepts of death. But death alone doesn’t do it; doesn’t create that solemn atmosphere that is so unique to the above places. After all; there are lots of mass casualty accidents have happened over the centuries and their sites are well marked, and revered, or at least held apart, and yet, their impact doesn’t approach that of an Iwo Jima or a Pearl.

Even under the shelter of the relative safety of the time that has passed since the events, as you stand in each place, you can still feel it; Lives were lost there that were willingly (And in the case of the civilian deaths at the towers, unwillingly) sacrificed toward a higher ideal.

Our feelings and conclusions can be far different from what those lost experienced. Yet, their lives and their sacrifices still count for something. And the thing is, it doesn’t take much for us to out ourselves in their mindset.

Think of it this way; Every single man who died at Gettysburg, at Normandy, at Pearl and all he rest, and now in the Middle East, has meaning for us because each of them, had their own lives, just as we have our own lives.

These people loved, they laughed, they cried. They had a favorite food, a favorite color, a particular bit of music, or of poetry stirred their souls, like none other, just like we, ourselves. Every bit as much as you and I love our lives, they loved theirs. Their lives were as precious to them, as yours is to you. Their loss was as keenly felt by their loved ones as yours would yours. And yet, they gave their lives up, for something bigger.

I have a neighbor, whose father just recently needed a liver transplant. This neighbor willingly gave up part of his liver to be transplanted into his father. A noble action, certainly, commendable, and impressive. But with all respect to my neighbor, the choice to do that is comparatively easy to make. He knows and loves his father, and the sacrifice is fairly light by comparison.

How much more noble is a sacrifice of one’s life for people that one will never meet?

Well, the Pat Tillmans of the world, gave of themselves for the benefit of people they would never know…. you and I, and countless others from many nations. If not for their sacrifices, you’d not be reading this BIT, because I’d not have written it…. we’d be living in a very different world, possibly, one not nearly as good to us as it has been.

Look upon those actions, those sacrifices, and know what you’re seeing is strength, courage, and nobility in measures that should not… can not, be ignored. It must be honored by us all; it was made, after all for our benefit.

So how can we allow ourselves to be swayed by what position such people held prior to putting on the uniform of their country? Those things are simply not important. We must not allow that metric to guide us in the amount of respect shown them, be they living or dead after their service.

They’re all worthy of the very same respect, living or dead. Not because of their having lived or died, not because of the amounts of money or positions they gave up, or what impact they had on us when they weren’t wearing the uniform, but because of their respect and understanding of the ideals that uniform represents. Ideals they hold highest.

these are values I’ve been at some pains over the years to teach my boys as they grow up in this wonderful place called America. I fear that when and if we let these values pass away, America will, as well.

It is those ideals we should be holding high, as they did. We respect them not because they lived or died as a result of their service to our country, but because of the higher ideals they served.  We should hold them, ALL who serve us true, in our hearts.

And Tillman would be, I suppose, among the first to agree with my thought.

It should be pointed out that this respect is for those who serve us true, who hold to the ideas and ideals I’ve mentioned here.

I can think of one person in the public eye of late who has been making much political hay of his being in Vietnam… a time which by his own description, if not his admission, that his time did not amount to true service.  That’s a choice made when he threw his medals back. I’m sure you know who I’m talking about.

I want you to think between now and November on the points I’ve written of here.

If we as a people believe that such values as I’ve expressed here need to be held high, and thus reinforced, then we have no alternative but to react in the negative when such values are not held high by those trying to claim glory and or power, under false pretense. The American people should react accordingly to that lack of service to those ideals, with a solid and irrevocable rejection. The service and sacrifice by those who did hold those ideals high, demands no less.

Such a person, holding and exhibiting no honor of those ideas and ideas, has no place being Commander in Chief.

AP News reports about a family in Arkansas that is celebrating the arrival of the 15th child.

Arguments about ZPG aside, 15 kids?
(Shudder!)
Even from a purely time-based view, the numbers are staggering.  One needs to wonder how often the lady came home from the hospital, pregnant. 

“Well, hell, honey, since you’re all strapped in, and in the right position…… and they gave us this nice room and all…

I’m willing to bet she never got her figure back after the 12th kid…

Or so says Pete DuPont, who dispatches the myth that gas is more expensive now:

“….its current inflation-adjusted price of $2 a gallon is about its median price over its 85-year existence, and with the exception of the 1980s spike, it has been steadily declining over the decades.

Better still, improving technology has increased the number of miles one can drive on a gallon of gasoline, to 22 in 2000 from about 13.5 in the early 1970s . So the cost of gasoline per mile driven has fallen nearly in half, from more than 13 cents to a bit more than seven cents. Meanwhile median income for a family of four (in inflation-adjusted dollars) has increased to more than $63,000 today from less than $46,000 in the 1970s.

Family income is up, and the cost per mile driven is down, so as a percentage of income, gasoline costs are substantially less and are an economical bargain for all of our families. ”

He also agrees with me that oil supply, per se’ is not the issue.

The good news is that the world is not running out of oil. In spite of such predictions that it would–in the 1880s, after both world wars, by the wildly inaccurate but politically correct Club of Rome in 1972 and by today’s pessimists–oil reserve estimates are increasing. Offshore drilling is producing oil that wasn’t there a few decades ago. Alaska has untapped oil reserves; more oil is being found in Russia, the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Technology is making products available from oil sands and liquids derived from natural gas.
In short, we have access to oil; what we need is the ability to refine it, and that is a major political problem.

So what are the real problems? Read the whole thing; you’ll find he pretty much agrees with my call of the other day….

I’ve had a few emergencies here at work and so have not had the chance to comment on the speech last night, as I would have hoped. Boortz seems to have a handle on an idea I had a few days ago when this speech was announced; The left will be not be satisfied, no matter what. Says Boortz

“Well, as I predicted yesterday, President Bush’s speech last night at the Army War College is now being called ‘not enough’ and being criticized as ‘too little, too late.’  The media really is getting predictable, aren’t they?  I guess you have to give them credit for consistency.

…

Well…here come the naysayers and the doom and gloom bunch.  First off, they say, there was no exact date for the troops to pull out.  When are we going to be leaving, they howl.  Never mind the fact that it would be totally stupid to announce to the terrorists when we would be cutting and running.  Then, you have people like former Secretary of State Madeline Albright saying there’s no guarantee the Iraqi people will accept the interim government. So what is our solution?  Hand the whole thing over to the U.N.?  What a complete and total disaster that would be, but that’s what they want.”

And that’s the point; they won’t be satisfied and will complain about every little nit, because what they really want is for America to fail.

Drezner has an open thread going that’s gotten some interesting comments, too. The usual leftist crowd there does nothing to change my mind about their desiring failure. See if you don’t notice the trend, as I’ve mentioned.

MCQ over at Q & O has a comment or two.

Very little in the way of comments, elsewhere. Mostly, I suppose, this is from the idea that Mr. Bush’s plans have been laid out repeatedly for months, now… The denial of the Democrats, who have been lying for months now, saying Mr. Bush doesn’t even HAVE a plan, not withstanding.

Mr. Bush, it should be said, needs to continually hammer this point home, keep hammering away that we’re on a plan, and the plan is working… Both to settle minds in Iraq and here at home. This is particularly true in light of the demonstrated reluctance by the supposed mainstream press to report n such matters wihtout the usual leftist spin. Last night was a large step in that direction. However, it needs to be continued, to counter both the Democrats and Islamofacists in Iraq and around the world.

Both share the desire of, and are active in working toward, our failure. Mr. Bush needs to keep spreading this message to keep up the pressure on them both, if he wants to succeed, both in Iraq and here at home come November.

Update: A Small Victory has some good comments as well.

Responses to the President’s speech last night are being compiled… I’ll have some comments sometime today.

Remarks by the President on Iraq and the War on Terror
United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania

Paris’ Charles De Gaulle airport has been evacuated after cracking noises were heard in the roof – a day after part of the futuristic-looking terminal collapsed, killing four people.

The noises were heard on either side of the 30-metre section of Terminal 2E which gave way on Sunday morning.

Of note is the idea that this facility was about to be turned over to a private interest. Consider what would have happened had the collapse occurred within a week after the hand-over, as opposed to before the handover.

Well, no I’m not ignoring it.
It’ll be on my TV (and recorder) tonight at 8pm. Ill post links to the text as it beocmes available… likely moments before the delivery on the WH site, is the way this goes.

Not much point in much speculation before then, I guess.

However, I’ll give you something to watch for, in the reaction dept…
Watch particularly the way the press plays this speech. CNN will likely try to play this off some current event, like for example some attack in Iraq staged for the purpose… (and, no, I don’t put it past either the so-called mainstream press or the Islamo-facists, who are harder than ever to tell apart, these days) or will the speech and the plan he’s planing on describing tonight, be left on it’s own, and reported as such?

CNN and Fox (as well as C-span, of course) have announced plans to carry this live, so there’s the measurement you want to watch; How do CNN’s commenters handle it all, vs Fox?

If the leftists are convinced that the upswing in the numbers of right-of-center voters can be attributed to such as Fox news, and conservative shows such as Limbaugh’s, and Hannity’s etc… Aren’t they really saying, implicitly, that prior to such shows, the only voices heard were liberal voices, including what laughingly passes for news services, such as CBS/NBC/ABC/NYT/WaPo and so on?