The Tampa Bombers: Jihadists or Beach Boys?

The Tampa Bombers. Walid Pharas raises an important point regarding the two young men, students at South Florida University, arrested with explosives and accused of teaching others how to use explosives.

Who and what are they? Are they isolated individuals, like banks robbers? There are lots of people who rob banks, but they are not part of a "bank robber movement" and we don’t suspect an ideological motive behind their actions. That is why bank robbers are not a threat to society.

But the MSM and many in our country treat these “students” like bank robbing criminals, to be dealt with as criminals. But if they are simply criminals, how can we – using the current criminal justice system – deal with people like the Jihadists who caused 9/11?

...is there any other way in our legal system to arrest terrorists than catching them with explosives? Other than presenting evidence that they “want” to cause harm, actually there isn't. That's why we weren't able to capture Mohammed Atta and Ziad Jarrah on 9/11 before their dive with the captured airliners. Mohammed and Ziad didn't have illegal explosives in their hands before they boarded, and not even after they boarded. Because they chose not to use explosives, and yet they were Jihadi terrorists who had intended to massacre thousands of Americans.

Think very carefully about that: there was no reason, in our legal system, for police to stop the terrorists who dove the planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon before they actually took over the aircraft. There was no legal reason to stop their training. There was no legal reason to stop them from boarding those planes. Only after they began using box cutters to kill the passengers and crew members of those planes did a legal reason exist to stop them. And by then it was too late.

The implication is important, because the Left is convinced that if we have a problems at all – and many believe that terrorism is simply a slogan used to frighten the rubes – it's a law enforcement problem. If that’s true, there will be another 9/11 because all the Jihadists need to do is find another innocuous tool – like a box cutter – that has not been banned yet and take over another set of airliners. And the legal system has to allow on board anything that has not been banned.

Are the “students” from South Florida University criminals or part of a movement? The difference is very important.