It was a fine autumn day to sentence a man for attempting to detonate a weapon of mass destruction.
A day as agreeable as that day in 2001 when terrorists brought down the Twin Towers.
Mohamed O. Mohamud’s ambitions were smaller. He wanted to blow up the Christmas-tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, Ore. Two Al-Qaeda operatives, who were going to help him, turned out to be FBI agents.
As fate would have it, Mohamud’s sentencing date arrived a few days after a man in Oklahoma, claiming to be a Muslim, beheaded a woman he once worked with.
“A Jihadist beheading in Oklahoma?” the BBC asked.
In Portland, Mohamud was convicted by a jury, who did not believe his defense of FBI entrapment. He was sentenced to 30 years. Now 23, he won’t be free again until he’s roughly in his mid-40’s (with credit for time served and credit for good behavior).
Mohamud may find that the ascetic life of a prisoner suits him.
Since his teens, the Somali-American has had trouble reconciling his Islamic faith with the hedonism of American culture. He veered back and forth. He went through phases of being extremely pious and trying to convert his friends to Islam. He also drank, enjoyed hookahs and marijuana and was accused of date rape at Oregon State University.
As Mohamud was being led away to begin his sentence, people throughout downtown Portland were breaking for lunch and walking in the sun. Some of the women exposed bare arms and legs. A-boards out on the sidewalk invited passersby to happy hour. Couples nuzzled one another.
Hot off the press, and free for the taking from news boxes, was the latest Portland Mercury featuring a photo of a man naked from the waist down, his genitals covered with a sign “This is Design Week.”
Inside the Portland Mercury you’ll find a column by Ian Karmel, “Everything as Fuck,” a marijuana advice column called “Cannabuzz,” the column “One Day at a Time” that pokes fun at Americans’ obsession with celebrities and “Savage Love” – Dan Savage’s sex advice column, where any kink can be freely discussed. In this particular issue, a guy is interested in “sounding,” inserting foreign bodies into his urethra. (Quoting from one expert, even the head of a decapitated snake has been reported used by a “sounder.”)
These are not the kinds of fun and games that Mohamud would have dealt with in Somalia. America is not for everyone.
In America, we even make fun of religion.
Outside Portland State University’s Quiet Prayer and Meditation Lounge in the Smith Memorial Union, a flyer posted on the wall advertised a book by Oregon writer Courtney D. Jensen: “Here Cometh the Son,” described as “the gospel according to Jesus H. W. Christ … In it, the messiah turns no more cheeks, unloading on people, religion, sex, NASCAR, and the burden of being everyone’s favorite divinity.”
Mohamud had supporters throughout the trial, and his sympathizers were disappointed at the lengthy sentence he received. He didn’t actually hurt anybody, they said.
His mother pointed out that she and her husband were the ones to first contact the FBI because they were concerned that their son had grown increasingly radicalized. She was angry at his sentence, and one of her son’s attorneys asked why any parent would now want to reach out to the FBI.
These justifications for leniency are similar to a theory being used to promote understanding of pedophiles: the virtuous pedophile – a pedophile who lusts but doesn’t touch.
If you think that sounds ludicrous, this concept has been given serious consideration. Last month, a “virtuous pedophile” named Gary appeared on OPB’s “Think Out Loud” and talked about his sexual attraction to little girls but declared he had successfully fought the urge to sexually abuse them.
This is what passes for virtue now? Are we that desperate?
It makes me sympathetic to Mohamud’s parents, Osman and Mariam Barre. They undoubtedly tried their best to raise a good son and were relieved to escape the violence of Somalia. In America, though, what can be a dream for one person can turn into a nightmare for another. There are so many temptations to lure a child. It doesn’t get any easier in adulthood.
Outside court after her son was sentenced, Mariam Barre lashed out at America.
It’s Somalia and its leaders who deserves her wrath. She and her husband were educated, middle-class citizens in their home country until they were driven off by civil war.
Today, Somalia has the fourth highest fertility rate in the world. In Somalia, 6.08 children are born per woman. Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch called on the Somali government to adopt reforms to deal with widespread sexual violence against women.
Go back to Portland Mercury and read further in Dan Savage’s sex column. Here’s a letter about a woman whose boyfriend has a virginity fetish “particularly the part where the girl bleeds a bit.” How to satisfy him?
Turns out there’s such a thing as a prosthetic hymen. You can check it out at www.HymenShop.net:
“Insert the artificial hymen into your vagina carefully. … When your lover penetrates, it will ooze out a liquid that appears like blood, not too much but just the right amount.”
As Savage notes, as creepy as the boyfriend’s fetish is, “the fact that some women have to use these artificial hymens under duress – women who need to pass themselves off as virgins on wedding nights – is far, far creepier.”
Would young Mohamed O. Mohamud, in his radical phase, have insisted on a virgin bride?
No, America is not for everyone. We cannot accommodate virtuous terrorists any more than we should de-stigmatize virtuous pedophiles.
– Pamela Fitzsimmons
Related:
And then there was the jihadist (Ali Muhammad Brown)apprehended in Seattle a couple weeks back. He’d murdered four men, including two he may have associated with the gay bar near where he shot them.
Media ignored/downplayed this as it has a dozen or more other Islamist slaughters in the U.S.
I can remember a time almost 50 years ago now when my Dad,my older brother and I went fishing on the Deschutes. We had to get up very early in the morning to make the drive from Milwaukie but Dad said it would be worth it because the Deschutes was a true wild river with native stock not little tasteless hatchery raised fish like we caught on the Clackamas. I remember the only fish my Dad caught was this 2 foot skinny brown sucker. Mohamed O. reminds me of that sucker my Dad snagged but at least my father had the sense to toss it back and keep trying to hook the real thing. The F.B.I, not so much, they caught a sucker and put a great deal of time, effort and tax payer money to dress him up as a real trophy in the war on terror. Meanwhile in Arizona this spring we all got to witness a very real and dangerous threat to our Republic when members of the American Patriot Movement pointed their actual guns at actual Federal Agents trying to serve a warrant at the Bundy Ranch. Have we forgotten Oklahoma City? I can’t decide what is more embarrassing the trial of Mohamed O. Mohamud or the Bundy Ranch standoff. I guess one is lack of sense and the other is a lack of guts either way it’s pathetic. Love your blog by the way I always look forward to reading your work. http://www.thenation.com/blog/180619/12-scariest-parts-new-report-bundy-ranch-standoff.
Thanks for The Nation link and the compliment.
It is disturbing that more people probably remember Donald Sterling’s connection to Cliven Bundy than this standoff (and only because of Sterling’s alleged racism).
Just like the story of Ali Muhammad Brown that faded quickly, which Larry mentions above.
I attended a fair amount of Mohamed Mohamud’s trial. According to the testimony of the two FBI agents, they offered him five other options to demonstrate and serve his faith besides setting off a bomb. They tried to steer him away from violence by pointing out all the children who would be at the holiday ceremony. He insisted he wanted to see blood and body parts.
Had he connected with two real mentors from Al-Qaeda, how would things have turned out? If he had accomplished some kind of violent demonstration, would the FBI have been blamed for failing to find and stop him?
The 30-year sentence indicates the judge believed Mohamud was a genuine threat.
For now, domestic Jihadis seem more dangerous than the American Patriot Movement. That would change tomorrow, if we had another McVeigh.
Couldn’t they have just put him in Guantanamo without any kind of trial or even the public being aware of his “plot”? You don’t find this whole enterprise more show than substance?
Tom:
I think it’s both show and substance. Mohamud’s own dad thought his son was becoming too radicalized. The FBI didn’t plant the idea in Mohamud’s head to blow up Pioneer Square during a holiday celebration; that was his idea, and he was very eager to carry it out. He obtained the materials. He went through a dry-run.
But the trial was also show. There are certainly other Mohamuds out there. If they try to connect with real terrorists to help them, they might hesitate and wonder if their colleagues are actually FBI agents. (Of course, the Mohamud trial could also intensify their hatred for America and spur them on.)
The Mohamud case was unusual, and so was his target. I think a lot of Portlanders still struggle with that. Why would anyone want to blow up a holiday celebration in Portland? We go out of our way to appear agreeable. About six blocks away from Pioneer Square in the window of the First Christian Church, there is this sign, placed under the business card of Rev. Amy Piatt:
“As a Christian I AM SORRY for the narrow-minded, judgmental, deceptive, manipulative ACTIONS OF THOSE WHO DENIED RIGHTS & EQUALITY to so many In the Name of God.”
That is so Portland. (It was also Christian organizations that helped Mohamud’s family settle here.)
Your reference to Guantanamo, though, is a good reminder of how unprepared America was to fight terrorism. We still don’t know what we’re doing. Guantanamo is an embarrassment. We can’t keep the men locked up there without due process.
Like Jason points out in his comment, Mohamud wouldn’t have qualified for admission to Guantanamo. He’s an American.
No they can’t.
Guantanamo is for FOREIGN combatants.
And the media, including Al Jazeera is covering the
whole mess at Gitmo, it’s hardly “secret,” just a cluster.
This sick twisted young man got a fair trial and a generous sentence.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/15/americans-face-guantanamo-detention-obama and this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2012
Apparently they could have but then they wouldn’t have had this incredibly expensive and wasteful dog and pony show of a trial. I agree that Mohammed was an ungrateful little bastard who was truly blessed to have parents who cared enough about him to get him out of Somalia and able to America and we allowed him to become a U.S. Citizen. His ingratitude to his parents and this country is truly appalling and for that he deserves punishment but in the War on Terror (if there is such a thing) he is a pretty pathetic prize. I don’t feel any safer and I haven’t for 13 years now.
Legally, it appears they could’ve sent him to Guantanamo without a trial. But imagine the outcry. Mohamud would have become a cause celebre and a martyr. (In the minds of some Oregonian readers he already is.)
The situation at Guantanamo is an American disgrace. As The Guardian story you linked to points out: We criticize other countries for locking up people indefinitely with no charges.
We may disagree on the FBI’s handling of his case, but I think Mohamud received a fair trial and had good representation.
I agree with you, though, about not feeling any safer.
The President promised NOT to send ANY more defendants to Gitmo and has kept that promise. Congress has stopped him from bringing any of those on trial (all non-US citizens apprehended overseas) back to the US for trial.
Sorry, but Glenn Greenwald is not the authority on Gitmo, even if he is on Edward Snowden.
Thanks, Jason. Of course, the next president doesn’t have to keep Obama’s promises. If the Feinstein-Lee Amendment had been included in the National Defense Authorization Act, the military wouldn’t be able to hold Americans indefinitely without a trial.