Thus said Faisal Shahzad, in what seemed to be his profession of faith, characterizing himself, as Benjamin Weiser reports in yesterday’s New York Times, “part of the answer to the U.S. terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people.” Of course, he was confessing to a ten-count indictment in Federal District Court in Manhattan.
In making his plea, Shahzad said the following:
I want to plead guilty, and I’m going to plead guilty 100 times forward because until the hour the U.S. pulls its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, and stops the drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan, and stops the occupation of Muslim lands, and stops killing the Muslims, and stops reporting the Muslims to its government, we will be attacking U.S., and I plead guilty to that.
Why did he choose Times Square as his target, asked Judge Cedarbaum. Shahzad responded that it was because there were many people in the street. And it was Saturday evening, moreover. Obvious.
“Inshallah,” I suppose.
I recall watching on YouTube as Eric Holder answered questions from the House Judiciary Committee. This was already after Shahzad had confessed. A congressman asked him whether the Pakistani immigrant’s deed might be attributed to “radical Islam.” Maybe the AG’s mother forbade from using the phrase or alluding to the concept. But, actually, it was the president who had forbidden the very idea from entering any of his officials’ vocabulary. This makes Obama seem foolish, very foolish.
And, by the way, did you notice that in his litany of crimes by the U.S. Shahzad does not mention support for Israel or for Zionism. Whatever else we do not know, the one thing we do know is that the radical Islamist put his bomb in Times Square without thinking for a moment about the Jews.