A "Naturalized American"

Despite the early efforts of the mainstream media (and the leftists who control it) to portray that would-be Times Square Bomber as a "homegrown terrorist," (i.e., Americans are just as bad as radical foreign jihadis) it is now clear that Faisal Shahzad was anything but homegrown, and certainly not an American in any meaningful sense of the word.

Mr. Shahzad was born and in Pakistan in 1979, with a privileged upbringing in a moderate family that lived in at least three places — Karachi, Rawalpindi and Mohib Banda. Officials in Pakistan said his birthplace was in Nowshera, an area in northern Pakistan known for its Afghan refugee camps.

His father is Bahar ul-Haq, a retired high-ranking air force pilot in Pakistan. Mr. Haq, now in his 70s, is believed to be hiding in the city of Dera Ghazi Khan in western Pakistan, where the family has wheat fields. The whereabouts of Mr. Shahzad's wife, also believed to be in Pakistan, is unknown. Dawn, a Pakistani daily, reported that her father had been arrested in Karachi, but Pakistani authorities would not confirm that.

Yet another blow to the perennial leftist theory that poverty breeds terrorism. Most Islamic terrorists are the globe-trotting spawn of wealthy, or at least upper middle class, Muslims. And none of them are fighting for the sort of "social justice" the left would approve of. Indeed, most jihadis prefer a medieval sort of feudal society - just so long as the imams are running it.

According to the Times, Shahzad attended several Pakistani schools that had connections to U.S. universities, and used those connections to come to the states, ostensibly for education. However, the Times, which unearthed his transcripts, apparently left in the trash as he prepared to lead the country discovered that Shahzad's academic career was mediocre at best, but yet strong enough to enroll at the University of Bridgeport and graduate with a B.S. in computer science and engineering in 2005; later he received a M.B.A. from the same school.

In 2004, Shahzad married a Pakistani-American woman in an arranged marriage. The Times notes that the bride's family, which had resided just outside Dnver, Colorado, has apparently left the U.S. (One doesn't know whether to be thankful or worried about that.)

The Shahzads tried to cash in on the real estate boom, listing it for sale for $329,000 in 2006. It did not sell, said Frank DelVecchio, an agent who picked up the listing in 2008. The price then was $299,000. Later it was marked down to $285,000, and finally, $284,500.

People who knew them, both in Connecticut and in Pakistan, said Mr. Shahzad had changed since 2009 and perhaps before, becoming more reserved and more religious as he faced what someone who knows the family well called "their financial troubles."

One Pakistani friend said, Mr. Shahzad even asked his father in 2009 for permission to fight in Afghanistan. Mr. Haq adamantly refused, saying that he disapproved of the mission and reminding his son that Islam does not permit a man to abandon his wife or children.

In September 2009, Mr. Shahzad was sent a letter notifying him that he was being sued over a $218,400 loan from a mortgage arm of Chase bank. The mortgage covered the single-family home in Shelton with an assessed value of $242,690.

This will be the mainstream media's new theme: Faisal Shahzad as a victim of the recession! Driven to jihad by American capitalism! With so many mortgages gone bad recently, it's a wonder the country isn't drowning in DIY bombers.

A small problem with the narrative is that Shahzad has a documented travel history that suggests his interest in Islamic radicalism preceded his financial angst.

Yet Mr. Shahzad apparently went back and forth to Pakistan 13 times in seven years, returning most recently in February after what he said was five months visiting his family, prosecutors said. A Pakistani intelligence official said the suspect had traveled with three passports, two from Pakistan and one from the United States; he last secured a Pakistani passport in 2000, describing his nationality as "Kashmiri."

Indeed, it now appears that Shahzad's behavior had attracted the suspicion of the US government well before he parked the minivan in Times Square.

Sources tell CBS News that would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad appeared on a Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list - Traveler Enforcement Compliance System (TECS) - between 1999 and 2008 because he brought approximately $80,000 cash or cash instruments into the United States.

Pakistanis have played prominent roles in virtually every Islamic terror attack in Britain. The nation of Pakistan is a roiling, seething ocean of Islamic radicalism, rage and violence. Al Qaeda draws significan support from Pakistanis (and possibly from sizable sections of the nation's government and military). And yet, no Western nation has taken the simple step of banning travel to or from Pakistan. This is the result of multiculturalist insanity.

If a deadly virus was spreading out of control in Belgium, it would be common sense to suspend transportation between the US and Belgium and for other nations to isolate Belgium as a means of containing the contagion and preventing non-Belgians from beocming infected. Radical Islam is not unlike a virus - think of it as a mental disease. Fortunately, it can only infect those with a predisposition to the disease: Muslims. Jews, Christians, Buddhists, athiests, Zorastrians, Druids, and Hindus don't wake up one day and decide to blow themselves up in crowded public places screaming "Allah Akbar!" It simply doesn't happen.

Only Muslims are vulnerable to Islamism. Thus, the easiest way to protect non-Muslim societies from Islamist violence is to prevent Muslims from emigrating to those societies in the first place, or, at least, to prevent additional Muslims from emigrating or traveling to non-Muslim nations. Given Pakistan's status as a host and springboard of Islamist terrror, shutting down travel and immigration between Pakistan and the US (or any non-Muslim nation) should have been a top priority after September 11th (or after the London bombings).

But since the US is no longer governed for the benefit of Americans, but rather for the benefit of multiculturalist ideologues and the ethnic groups multiculturalism covertly benefits, this wasn't done. Hence Shahzad and others have been moving back and forth between Pakistan (and other Muslim nations) and the US with shocking impunity. The almost-disaster in Times Square is the result.

Shahzad's Islamist inspirations are also no secret to the US.

The Pakistani-American man accused of trying to detonate a car bomb in Times Square has told investigators that he drew inspiration from Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American cleric whose militant online lectures have been a catalyst for several recent attacks and plots, an American official said Thursday.

The would-be bomber, Faisal Shahzad, said he was “inspired by” the violent rhetoric of Mr. Awlaki, said the official, who would speak of the investigation only on condition of anonymity.

“He listened to him, and he did it,” the official said, referring to Saturday’s attempted bombing on a busy street in Times Square.

Friends of Mr. Shahzad have said he became more religious and somber in the last year or so, and asked his father’s permission in 2009 to join the fight in Afghanistan against American and NATO forces. Investigators believe he was trained by the Pakistani Taliban, a militant group that previously focused mainly on Pakistani government targets.

A senior military official said Thursday that Mr. Shahzad had told interrogators that he met with Pakistani Taliban operatives in North Waziristan in December and January. Later he received explosives training from the same operatives, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Is the name Awlaki sounds familiar, that's because its been in the news before:

It is no surprise to counterterrorism officials to find that a terrorist suspect had been influenced by Mr. Awlaki, 39, now hiding in Yemen, who has emerged as perhaps the most prominent English-speaking advocate of violent jihad against the United States.

Earlier this year, the Obama administration took the extraordinary step of authorizing the killing of Mr. Awlaki, making him the first American citizen on the Central Intelligence Agency’s hit list.

Mr. Awlaki’s English-language online lectures and writings have turned up in more than a dozen terrorism investigations in the United States, Britain and Canada, counterterrorism experts have said. And in two recent United States cases, Mr. Awlaki communicated directly with the person accused in the attack.

Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., in November, exchanged about 18 e-mail messages with Mr. Awlaki in the year before the shootings, asking among other things whether it would be permissible under Islam to kill American soldiers preparing to fight in Afghanistan. After the shootings, Mr. Awlaki praised Major Hasan as “a hero” on his Web site, which was taken offline by the Internet host company shortly after the posting.

In addition, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic airliner on Christmas Day, is believed to have met Mr. Awlaki during his training by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

...

Mr. Awlaki was questioned by the F.B.I. late in 2001 about contacts with three of the Sept. 11 hijackers who had attended his mosques in San Diego and Virginia. He denied any radical ties and denounced the 9/11 attacks in public statements.

Imagine that! A Muslim who denounced the 9/11 attacks now foments murderous Islamist attacks on American civilians! I guess he wasn't so "moderate" after all, nor predisposed to tell the truth to non-Muslims.

The story of Faisal Shahzad is a tale of shocking incompetence and ineptitude, ideological blindness, and suicidal behavior. But that's not a description of Shahzad's actions, rather it is the proper characterization of the actions of the US government since 9/11. Permitting Muslims from terrorist-crowded nations to immigrate to the US (or even visit) after 9/11 is sheer lunacy. Unfortunately, the reigning ideology of multiculturalism demands sacrifice in order to acheive its goal: the destruction of the West. If bombs in Times Square kill innocent Americans, Washington doesn't care - just so long as no one can be called a racist! American doesn't belong to Americans, it belongs to the Shahzads of the world. And, sadly, they know it.