Politicians and law enforcement officials understandably do not want the narrative to get ahead of the facts. They do not want to panic the populace, especially in New York, where the hurt of the World Trade Center attacks is so personal.
There is also well-intentioned reluctance to stigmatize all Muslims, because of the extremist views of some Muslims.
But the “lone wolf’’ theory does not make a terrorist attack any less terrifying than one connected to an official pack of wolves — especially if the lone wolf is inspired by the same pack mentality.
Whether or not Shahzad was connected to a militant jihadist Pakistani network, “he is not a lone wolf,’’ argues M. Zuhdi Jasser, president and founder of American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a group that promotes the separation of religion and state. “The ideas that drove him to act did not hatch in his own mind. We ignore to our own detriment the common ideology, the common malignant virus of the slippery slope of political Islam that takes over these Muslims. When are we going to wake up as a nation?’’
Join the conversation as a VIP Member