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Toledo, terror, arrests

The boys next door

By John Burtis
Thursday, February 23, 2006

When I was a kid, the boys next door were always building something--a soap box racer, an intricate box kite, a telescope or a sail boat. Joe and DB were marvels and were always tinkering with some gizmo, trying to put it together out of a million parts, and usually succeeded. The smaller kids in the neighborhood would watch for hours, fascinated, as the boys worked in their backyard.

Today, the boys next door seem to be working on things other than model cars, remote controlled planes and automobile engines. They're hard at work, all right, but they're up late and working behind closed drapes, carrying boxes of bottles, cans of chemicals, drums of ammunition and books on bombs in to their houses. They're visited by other fellows of a like mind, and they discuss murder, mayhem and the destruction of our way of life, in front of loud TVs to drown out their sounds. Things have changed a lot in the old neighborhood.

The news, though surprising, was not wholly unexpected, except of course, inside the Beltway, in leading Democratic circles, at Harry Reid's Senate breakfast klatsch, at al Gore's latest Current TV's staff meeting, or in Bill Clinton's latest pro-arab pronouncements.

a group of three Muslim boyos from the Middle East and currently hailing from Toledo, Ohio--not Toledo, Spain, mind you--had been indicted and arrested over the weekend for planning terror attacks against US and coalition troops in Iraq and in other countries. In addition to this major league conspiracy, one of the lads, a dual citizen of Jordan and the US, was also accused of plotting to kill President Bush. The brothers in arms had also been busily recruiting other chaps to take part in their own private version of Jihad as well. and when not soliciting fellows for this particular enterprise, they were also soliciting Uncle Sam for grant funding to underwrite their operations, including their own explosives industry. They were busy mid-Western boys, indeed, and catching on to the favored terrorist mode of operations--letting Uncle Sam foot the bill for his destruction, whenever possible.

The latest names linked to home grown terror are, somewhat surprisingly, Mohammed Zaki amawi, said to have been threatening the President, Marwan Othiman al-Hindi, the US citizen born in Jordan, and Wassim I. Mazloum, who arrived in the US from Lebanon in 2000.

Concomitant with the arrests, came the usual local Muslim shock at the arrests, that the behavior of the local boyos had escaped notice and the hope that their behavior wouldn't cast further disfavor on Islam and its practitioners.

There was one bright spot in the arrests and the indictment, however, and that is the fact that the plotters' activities were taken to the Feds by another Muslim, who had, according to the US attorney's Office, served in the US military. and while we are all too often ready to inveigh against a monolithic and violent Islam, as evidenced by their own publicized and lurid activities, it is also critical to note that a key witness valued his loyalty to america higher than his allegiance to a particular religion and to individuals linked through those beliefs.

In the old, tried and true, follow the dirty money angle, and in a separate investigation, the Feds have also frozen the assets of a Toledo-based Muslim charitable group, having spotted the periscope of an outfit called KindHearts, which was allegedly linked to the Hamas front, Holy Land Foundation, and to the al-Qaeda associated, Global Relief Foundation. and so it appears that another fundraising apparatus for terror, found lurking just below the banks of snow and the blowing waves of grain in the mid-West, was successfully depth-charged and brought to the surface.

In years past, the idea that a group of folks plotting to kill the President would have kindled a bit of excitement in the mainstream media and the law enforcement efforts necessary to round them up would have been praised. In addition, the bravery of the tipster from a community not noted for many, who came forward voluntarily, would be included and lauded as well. But today there will be nary a mention of this in the newspapers of note, with Times on their mastheads, and on the cable news programs which operate as subsidiaries of the DNC, beyond a cursory mention.

Today these cheap mouthpieces and shrill drummers will give the barest details on this operation out of the fear that the mere mention of a plot to kill the President might serve, somehow, to garner positive feelings for the Chief Executive, to increase his approval ratings and to bolster Republican chances in the off-year elections in the House and Senate. Because of their bias, the latter cannot be allowed, despite their news worthiness, to happen.

There was an old saw that said that if the phone wasn't ringing it was Hollywood. Only today the phone is ringing, our enemies are calling, formerly from Lackawanna and now from Toledo, only nobody in Washington is answering. Our politicians are much too busy with the ports and the Emirates and the newspapers of note are still stalking Cheney, his errant birdshot and watching for Harry Whittington's obituary to appear to care. To them the Toledo problem concerns just another errant group of troubled lads gone bad and is simply a law enforcement problem for the FBI and the local badges to clean up.

But the arrests and indictments of three more alleged terrorists, charged with plotting the assassination of the President, among other interesting charges, should awaken even our most craven politicians to the ongoing need for increased vigilance in our country as only a Pam anderson advertisement for PETa can.

In another case in small town america, terror has reared its ugly head, threats to kill our President have been uncovered, plans to murder our troops have been laid bare, an explosives factory has been knocked over, money laundering has been exposed and the boys next door have been arrested

and in another neighborhood just like Toledo, maybe in Binghamton or Waukegan, there's another house where the boys are up working late, where they're carrying in boxes of bottles and cans at all hours, where the visitors arrive late and leave very early, where the drapes are always pulled and where the occupants speak in the whispers of a foreign tongue. and where - dare any of us have the courage to say it, in these days of political correctness, racial profiling and prejudice, which demand that we never admit it — even to ourselves — that just maybe, on the off handed chance - Middle Eastern males live and where, gasp, no, I daren't say it, I mustn't, something may be awry.

Somewhere the next group of boys lives next door.


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