Willful Blindness

If you want to read a super book, try Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad, by Andrew C. McCarthy. McCarthy was the lead prosecutor in the 1990s trial of a group of jihadists led by Omar Abdul Rahman, the Blind Sheikh who inspired a number of attacks in the United States, including the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. This tale from the 1990s has all the elements present in today's world: bureaucratic missteps by various government agencies; radical Muslims training for deadly attacks on U.S. targets, known to the FBI but allowed to continue with their plots; links to global jihad, including Osama bin Laden, etc.

McCarthy describes the evolution in his understanding of Islam as he prepared to cross-examine the Blind Sheikh (who in the end did not take the stand):

"I sat down to plot a cross-examination that would expose him as a fraud - a charlatan who was twisting and perverting Islamic doctrine toward barbarous, evil ends. To be sure, Islamic theology was his turf, not mine. I was not fool enough to think I could debate him on it. But if what we in the United States government were saying was true - and I was simply certain it had to be - surely there must be three or four narrow points on which I could nail him. Islam, after all, is a religion of peace, no?...

There was nothing. I pored over hundreds of pages: speeches, writings, recorded conversations. Nowhere could I catch him. I supposed I could debate him - a debate I would lose - over whether his was the best interpretation of what Islam commanded. He could not, however, be credibly disputed on his representation of religious tenets. Were there benign Islamic scriptures he omitted? Sure. But that didn't change the inconvenient fact: when he cited threatening scripture, he wasn't distorting it. The passages said exactly what he claimed they said."

McCarthy also describes the response of the 'moderate' Muslims who testified, whom he considered to be peaceful, well-meaning people. "Every now and then, though, a question of religious doctrine would come up, and they would demur... What was jarring... was that they were nice people and yet they were ready to defer, on matters of importance in their faith, to the homicidal maniac sitting in the corner of our courtroom."

So why do we know so little about this trial, which obviously was a 'trial of the century'? Because, it turns out that it happened at almost exactly the same time as the O.J. Simpson trial, hence got very little coverage. Sometimes it really hurts to see how much damage is done by thoughtlessness and stupidity.