Monday, December 06, 2010
A conflicted young man
Teen arrested in Oregon car bomb plot led 2 lives
I wonder about this guy Mohamed Osman Mohamud. He was a conflicted young man. Psychologically, his conflicts are recognizably adolescent. Many young people his age find themselves pulled in contrary directions, attracted to radical ideas or outrageous behavior, but also tied to the safety of convention & conformity. Most eventually choose the latter. But Mohamud's "rebellion" was Islamic radicalism. The F.B.I., before they could arrest him for anything, had to further radicalize him & present him with a criminal opportunity, going so far as to build & blow up a bomb for him. What if all the effort had gone into defusing him? Had gone into humanizing his friends? Perhaps that longer process couldn't be risked. Nonetheless, both persons were inside him. The college student who partied & played video games & drank gin wasn't a total hoax. It had reality. He wasn't a trained al-Queda operative, or like those Americanized Russian spies who'd been living middle class lives here for years. He's a "kid," too. He was five years-old when he came to America. A big part of him is American, perhaps the largest part. If convicted, he will have betrayed his nation & his parents.
He was more dangerous than the buffoons in South Jersey who fantasized attacking Fort Dix as they played paintball war & drank beer, but who I imagined fleeing through the brambles & swamps of the Pine Barrens, chased by National Guard, F.B.I., State Troopers, dogs, local vigilantes riding ATVs, & TV news helicopters. Their plot wasn't credible. But they're in prison now all the same.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
I wonder about this guy Mohamed Osman Mohamud. He was a conflicted young man. Psychologically, his conflicts are recognizably adolescent. Many young people his age find themselves pulled in contrary directions, attracted to radical ideas or outrageous behavior, but also tied to the safety of convention & conformity. Most eventually choose the latter. But Mohamud's "rebellion" was Islamic radicalism. The F.B.I., before they could arrest him for anything, had to further radicalize him & present him with a criminal opportunity, going so far as to build & blow up a bomb for him. What if all the effort had gone into defusing him? Had gone into humanizing his friends? Perhaps that longer process couldn't be risked. Nonetheless, both persons were inside him. The college student who partied & played video games & drank gin wasn't a total hoax. It had reality. He wasn't a trained al-Queda operative, or like those Americanized Russian spies who'd been living middle class lives here for years. He's a "kid," too. He was five years-old when he came to America. A big part of him is American, perhaps the largest part. If convicted, he will have betrayed his nation & his parents.
He was more dangerous than the buffoons in South Jersey who fantasized attacking Fort Dix as they played paintball war & drank beer, but who I imagined fleeing through the brambles & swamps of the Pine Barrens, chased by National Guard, F.B.I., State Troopers, dogs, local vigilantes riding ATVs, & TV news helicopters. Their plot wasn't credible. But they're in prison now all the same.
Labels: in the news
