The muslims in this country say they are afraid there will be backlash for these incidents. If they reported radical teachings in their mosques and anything suspicious they could eliminate a lot of these probems. I think deep in their hearts they want the jihadists to succeed. They want sharia law in this country. It seems muslims cannot immigrate into a country withouth trying to change that country to their beliefs.

The fact that terrorists would try to lauch such an attack would send a variety of signals, not the least of which would be – hey the WoT is failing and we’re able to hit you anywhere and everywhere. It would be a recruitment bonus for terrorist grou….

Now that much more is known about the six Muslims arrested in New Jersey, the spin from Muslims begins….

you said “Personally I fail to see the importance of whether these people were taking day-to-day direction from Bin Laden or not. They planned to attack us.”

While I agree with your overall sentiment, I have to disagree as to whether it matters if these terrorists are part of the network, taking some degree of instruction from aQ, or whether they are part of the movement, directing their own actions, but taking inspiration and examples from the larger network. If this is a movement phenomenon, then it needs to be seen as a domestic aspect of the war, albeit with an overseas component. If it is an atttempted act by a decentralized yet global network, then it becomes an international phenomenon, albeit with an important domestic component.

I’ve written about this very confusing trend for an intelligence and counterterrorism class I took last semester in grad school, and I see the possibility of the involvement of the wider netowork (often called the “mothership”) as an important, although too often overlooked, possibility when it comes to these “lone wolf” or “aQ-inspired” terror plots. If an experienced terror operative (and considering the importance of the Balkans to the jihadist movement, any of these guys could have been one of the mujhadeen back in the ’90′s, although I’d be keeping an eye out for that Jordanian, Mohammed Shnewer, for any activity in jihadist circles in Afghanistan or Balkans or some other Muj theater of operations) is given marching orders by the big guys back whereever, given access to training materials and some funding, yet is given the disgression to plan and execute an attack on a target of his choosing, this individual becomes, essential a “franchise holder” in a global terrorist conglomerate. He can the use radical mosques or Islamic centers to recruit already-radicalized Muslims into militant jihadists, through mentoring and stories. At that point, and operation can be planned and executed without any trail back to the parent organization, creating the perception of a much broader-based movement, than of a small, extremely decentralized network with a very flat hierarchical structure.

In short, it becomes important to know if these guys are self-radicalized and planned and tried to execute this out of a bout of “sudden jihadist syndrome”, or whether through very subtle organizational and communications links, this operation was being run by the aQ “mothership”. It shapes how we fight the enemy, and how we understand the enemy.

Sorry to go on at such length, but this subject, in particular, is kind of my hobby horse.

Oh man Bu$Hitler is tanking in teh pols dude, so like he grabbed some of teh Albanian spec ops guys and put them up to it, to you know make it look like the world isn’t safe, I mean those army bases are full of army dudes who have guns and stuff so why where they ever in danger????

This is sooooo easy.