Six Somali-Americans were arrested Sunday and have since been charged with planning to fight for ISIS overseas. Notably, these were not downtrodden struggling kids who were handed a raw deal and grew bitter. On the contrary, each had a promising future at their fingertips and chose to abandon it to declare war on freedom. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports:
It’s not clear how the six men, who range in age from 18 to 24, met or how well they knew each other, but it appears that their paths crossed again and again as they grew up in Minneapolis. After graduating from South High, Farah, Musse and Omar enrolled at Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC). Farah and Musse majored in liberal arts; Omar was a pre-nursing student. Abdurahman, also a graduate of the Minneapolis Public Schools, enrolled at MCTC and studied computer support…
One of the men, in a conversation recorded by an FBI source, describes his disgust with living in the United States. “The American identity is dead. Even if I get caught, whatever, I’m through with America. Burn my ID,” he said, according to a transcript filed with the case.
They were raised in a condition of relative affluence, certainly compared to the rest of the world, and particularly compared to the lives they would have led if raised in Somalia. After experiencing such freedom firsthand, they made the conscientious decision to reject and destroy it.
This flies in the face of the seductive narrative that terrorism is fostered by poverty or exploitation. Terrorism is fostered by an evil ideology.
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