Foreign Policy Blogs

Farooque Ahmed's Arrest

There we go again.

Earlier today, law enforcement authorities arrested yet another terrorist in the making – a naturalized American of Pakistani origin, Farooque Ahmed for trying to help coordinate bombing at Washington’s Metro System, also known as the subway system. Once again, fortunately, this nut’s plot was never a serious threat, but for his part, Farooque Ahmed did everything in his power to hurt, harm and devastate whatever he could.

Shame on him and shame on everyone who knowingly supported his sickening plot to target innocent civilians, really, shame on them.

Given what Muslims in general, but in this case, Pakistanis in particular have tried to do to attack America; it truly is amazing that so far, the Americans have been superbly generous, amazingly tolerant and insanely forgiving towards Muslims within the United States. But, can this relax attitude towards Muslims going to remain decent given all these repeated attempts to harm America? Only time will tell, but common sense points towards justified anger emerging within this country in the very near future, if Muslims, and Pakistanis (not all Pakistanis) don’t give up their violent and wicked dreams of attacking America.

I personally have had the misfortune to come across people, who didn’t believe that Al-Qaeeda existed, or worse, that Osama and his cronies are behind any effort, including the horrific tragedy of 9/11, to harm America, but naively, I dismissed them as loonies. However, it seems that it is a mistake, in fact, a horrible blunder to not take anyone seriously who speaks of Osama admiringly and who believes that every foiled terrorist attack is actually a ‘conspiracy concocted by the CIA’.  

I suspect that this misguided man Farooque Ahmed, too is going to justify his behavior by complaining that Muslims are being attacked for their religion, and that there is a conspiracy against Islam. And, even though he was living in America, he still got plenty of material not only on the Internet, but also in the mosques that he and his family visited. And, it makes me really sad, because Farooque had every opportunity to study in detail that Muslims are hurting because of their own failures and their misfortunes have nothing to do with America, honestly. Worse yet, he could have helped his Muslim brother and sisters by dispelling this notion of ‘Muslims are being attacked for being Muslims’ but instead, he opted to go down the wrong path, and now, thankfully, he is in custody, and fortunately, his vicious dreams will never materialize.

However, for me, his arrest is not the end of the struggle to beat hate mongers, because for me, it represents just one chapter that came to light and I believe that there are many more people within the United State who think and agree with the ideology that inspired Farooque Ahmed to engage in terrorist activities.

I believe that it is time for Muslims, and of course, Pakistanis in America to seriously entertain the notion that political Islam is not the way to move forward. Muslims and Pakistanis must decide whether they are loyal to America or not and if not, believe me, nobody wants to keep them in the United States forcefully. These people, whether it is Faisal Shazad and Farooque Ahmed and numerous others like them to move to another country that welcomes their ideology of hate.

In America, we reject this appalling idea of carrying out revolting attacks in the name of religious fight.

Thankfully, in America, there is no room for religious hate and we all, regardless of our background support the efforts to defeat nihilists.

 

Author

Bilal Qureshi

Bilal Qureshi is a resident of Washington, DC, so it is only natural that he is tremendously interested in politics. He is also fascinated by the relationship between Pakistan, the country of his birth, and the United States of America, his adopted homeland. Therefore, he makes every effort to read major newspapers in Pakistan and what is being said about Washington, while staying fully alert to the analysis and the news being reported in the American press about Pakistan. After finishing graduate school, he started using his free time to write to various papers in Pakistan in an effort to clarify whatever misconceptions he noticed in the press, especially about the United States. This pastime became a passion after his letters were published in Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and his writing became more frequent and longer. Now, he is here, writing a blog about Pakistan managed by Foreign Policy Association.

Areas of Focus:
Taliban; US-Pakistan Relations; Culture and Society

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