Jihad Joe_ Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam - J. M. Berger [101]
As Barack Obama slaughters Muslims in Afghanistan, you remain silent. You are supposed, this is the change we’re supposed to believe in. This is the change that you all believed in. This is the change the imams, the so-called leaders of this community, stood up at the pulpit and told you to go and vote for. This is what you believed in and this is what you got.
This is what you got. The change that the Muslim must believe in must be Islam, it must be shariah. It must be jihad fe sabeelillah [military jihad, that is, violence]. This is the change for the Muslims. And only if Barack Obama adheres to these terms of peace will there be peace. Anything else will be his destruction by the hands of the Muslims.20
It’s difficult to pin down Muhammad’s views, because they shift with the wind. Under media or government scrutiny, Muhammad backs away from his more extreme statements and attempts to recast himself as the victim of distortion. Yet in event after event, as well as on the site, Muhammad clearly works the jihadist side of the aisle.
All over the Muslim world, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, everywhere, that are waging jihad fe sabeelillah against the American occupiers should be supported. Why will they not tell you to support the mujahideen? Why will they tell you that jihad does not mean to fight, that jihad means to go to university, so you can get jobs living in their system supporting the promotion of American empire?21
In 2010 Younus Abdullah Muhammad was the latest casualty of Revolution Muslim’s infighting, apparently pushed aside as a wave of British extremists took center stage. The new crew used Revolution Muslim’s American mailing address in an effort to avoid British laws against inciting violence. It didn’t work; its Internet service provider shut down the site after new blogger Bilal Ahmed posted a “hit list” of British parliament members who had voted to go to war in Iraq. Ahmed himself was arrested.
In the meantime Muhammad had started a new site, Islampolicy.com, which he said would work to develop a blueprint for new Islamic states rather than promote jihad. The commitment to nonviolence was short lived. Days after Revolu-tionMuslim.com went offline, Muhammed posted that Islam Policy was the old site’s “new home” and soon reverted to form, featuring communiqués from Osama bin Laden, Anwar Awlaki, and other al Qaeda leaders. Revolution Muslim’s website might have been dead, but its media operation continued with barely a hiccup.22
Despite the problems that plagued Revolution Muslim—infighting, inconsistency, and relative lack of religious sophistication—the group and its members have proved capable of radicalizing American Muslims.
Mahmood Alessa, a Palestinian American born in the United States, and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, a naturalized citizen of Dominican descent, were seen at several Revolution Muslim events in the company of Younus Abdullah Muhammad. At one event, Almonte (not the sharpest knife in the drawer) brandished a sign that read “Death to all Zionist Juice.”23
Alessa and Almonte were fans of Anwar Awlaki who devoured jihadist content online and trained in combat techniques with an eye toward joining Al Shabab in Somalia. Of course, if that didn’t work out, they were prepared to settle. Alessa was recorded by the FBI while holding forth on his philosophy:
I’m gonna get a gun. I’m the type of person to use it at any time. But, if I would’ve had a gun, I can’t—I can’t even I’ll, I’ll have more bodies on it than—than the than the hairs on my beard. You know what I’m saying? It’s already enough, you don’t worship Allah, so, that’s a reason for you to die. [W]e’re being pushed by every corner of the earth, [meaning], they only fear you when you have a gun and when you—when you start killing them, and when you—when you take their head, and you go like this, and you behead it on camera, and you—you have