“What we’re facing here is not an episodic series of terrorist events. What we’re facing is a group of people who see themselves as revolutionaries,” Phillip Mudd said.
Until he retired a few months ago, Mudd was the senior intelligence advisor to the FBI and its director. He is an authority on homegrown terrorism and believes the recent activity has been poorly organized and executed by lone wolfs or clusters of individuals who aren’t part of an organized network or a terrorist cell. Instead, they see themselves as part of global movement that is being facilitated by the Internet.
“The Internet often is not the initial spark, but it helps them go down a path,” he explained.
Asked what they are seeing on the web, Mudd said, “They’re seeing images, for example, of children and women in places like Palestine and Iraq, they’re seeing sermons of people who explain in simple, compelling, and some cases magnetic terms why it’s important that they join the jihad. They’re seeing images, and messages that confirm a path that they’re already thinking of taking.”
And according to Mudd, they are seeing all of this in English.
I didn’t get to this until yesterday morning while running via the TIVO. It is a very sobering piece, especially in terms of what it says about the culture going forward.
Underneath the surface faith communities have failed to form people in such a way that oaths and promises are deeply meaningful. If they were, then more prior thought and investigation would be needed before one entered into them.