Shahzad.

This is coolbert:

"Shahzad, Nidal Malik Hasan, the American-born renegade cleric Anwar Awlaki now holed up in Yemen and their likes—are a deadly breed of combatants in this new kind of war. Modernity both attracts and unsettles them. America is at once the object of their dreams and the scapegoat onto which they project their deepest malignancies." - - Fouad Ajami.

More today on the nightly television news concerning the purported Times Square bomber Shahzad.

1. It seems that Shahzad received "funding" for his mission through the Islamic under-the-radar money-transfer scheme hawala? This is being investigated. More than likely it did not cost Shahzad that much money to finance his abortive bomb adventure. A few thousands of dollars at most. And the man WAS able to obtain the ingredients for his bomb and NEARLY ESCAPED UNSCATHED.

3. Read too the article by Fouad Ajami. Describes exactly the type of Islamic "lone-wolf" jihadist as represented by Shahzad. Shahzad and Nidal for instance. Seemingly very successful members of American society, and YET, estranged in a manner not even perceived by co-workers, neighbors, etc. Fouad himself is the success story of the Shia immigrant that has made GOOD! When Fouad speaks, we should listen!!

4. Everyone and anyone having even the most tenuous association to Shahzad is now under investigation? Three men arrested today having had contact with Shahzad previous to the failed bombing. BEING HELD FOR IMMIGRATION VIOLATIONS. Interestingly enough, over fifty years ago now, the ace Soviet Spy, Rudolf Abel, a/k/a William Fisher, also was arrested and held for immigration violations, not espionage. If you must have a reason for holding a suspect, go with what you got I guess!!

5. Many pundits have suggested that this attempted terrorist act by Shahzad was very amateurish and poorly done. After all, THE BOMB DID NOT EXPLODE. But if it had, the consensus is that it WOULD HAVE DONE CONSIDERABLE DAMAGE, KILLED AND WOUNDED A GOODLY NUMBER OF FOLKS. Shahzad nonetheless had gotten through "under the radar" most successfully!

We cannot and should not diminish Shahzad and what "almost" WAS!!

"This is a long twilight war, the struggle against radical Islamism. We can't wish it away. No strategy of winning 'hearts and minds,' no great outreach, will bring this struggle to an end." - - Ajami.

Regrettably, hearts and minds and outreach is what the Obama administration has in mind!! An effort of good-will not going to work with the jihadist?

coolbert.