Proto Jihadists, please leave the scene!

Much has been said about Nafis and his failed 'Jihadist' attempt. The update is they are trying to figure whether to try Nafis in regular criminal court or under the silly Terrorist legal system a la Guantanamo! The picture that emerged of the Bangladeshi Proto Terrorist, Nafis, is a picture of unadulterated evil and malice. No matter what court we end up trying him he deserves the harshest punishment possible.

First one sees the picture of a nice enough looking young man with his parents and sister in various NY tabloids and then more pictures show up in The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and Huffington Post. All of these pictures are accompanied by the stories of the bumbling would-be-terrorist, Nafis. The prospects are real that Nafis will spend rest of his life under the tight control of Bureau of Prisons in a maximum security facility. So, this is no joke! The American Justice system runs quite independently of the executive or the Judiciary and no amount of whining, cajoling and diplomatic pressure can do anything. Once the engine starts, it tends to grind everything down on its path. The system will run its course and eventually terminate in the logical place of a dark hole for Nafis for 100 years! As they say in my parts of Colorado, "once they get you, they get you"!

There are going to be consequences for this Nafis' action. First of all, the visas are going to become a tad more difficult to come by, young folks from Bangladesh will have little more shame hanging on their heads and finally the Bangladeshi community will be under more surveillance and scrutiny in the US. All because this proto terrorist Nafis. What Nafis never understood is that the NY Police department and the FBI maintain a much ballyhooed surveillance programme that targets Muslims in general and the New York Muslims in specific. They simply entrap gullible proto terrorists with clever use of snitches and technology. In the Nafis case, the FBI had apparently had a complete gut busting laughter session all the way to arrest and probably likely conviction. There seem to have been a great deal of fabrications, alleged trips for conversations with al-Qaeda leadership which were like a Kabuki theatre and all make belief and of course taken in hook, line and sinker by the hapless and gullible proto terrorist, Nafis.

However, what is quite disturbing is the reaction we have had across the board from Bangladeshis. There have been protestations of innocence; fanciful theories of conspiracies and of course some of the strangest tales of justification. I can understand the family claiming innocence and trying to save the kid. I can actually sympathize with the tearful father saying, "He could not and did not do it". What I cannot fathom as to why some of the more knowledgeable folks, government officials and intellectuals are trying to simply bury the facts and invent new ones from the whole cloth? There was this professor who claimed that Nafis was framed by the FBI and child pornographers because he would not participate in the pornographic acts. True enough there is a co-conspirator who goes by the code name Yaqueen who is under probable indictment for having many hundreds if not thousands of child pornography on his computer but that guy lives in California! Based on the actual complaint and the research I have done there seems to be the most casual of connection with this Yaqueen over the internet.

Regardless whether they try Nafis under the Criminal code or under the Terrorist system, the likely outcome will probably end up being very similar. A long and dark place for the rest of his life.

Here is what the complaint says about the morning of 17^th of October 30, 2012, "NAFIS repeatedly attempted to detonate the purported bomb by placing multiple telephone calls to the cellular telephone which he had installed as the initiating device for the detonator. By placing these calls, NAFIS was attempting to detonate the purported bomb inside the Vehicle which was parked next to the New York Federal Reserve Bank. These calls by NAFIS were observed by the UC and captured via court-authorized pen register/trap and trace devices on both the phone NAFIS used to make the calls, and the phone connected to the purported explosive device." So, what the FBI actually did was traced the calls using technology that is quite simple and have been used for eons for surveillance and detection.

Forget all the other facts and surveillance issues, the very fact that this 21-year-old Bangladeshi can actually pull the trigger that could likely kill thousands of people unknown to him is a real sobering fact. Let's give the conspiracy theorists the argument and say that Nafis was finagled into making the bomb and talking big. Let us also agree that he was framed by some child pornographer. Let us give into all the points made by the apologists and deniers. But, the act of actually triggering the device is a horribly sobering fact. Nafis did not know that the so-called "bomb" was inert and a FBI romp! He really believed that he is killing thousands of people. Let us also assume for a minute that the "bomb" was not made of inert material and the boy was actually manipulated to build it, haul it and place it. But, the pulling of the trigger shows a soul as black as a moonless night and there cannot be any redemption for the evil that occupies the place where one's conscience should be. I say evil without any irony or reservation. I have been to the Federal Reserve building for work and I know literally that thousands of people come in and out of that building every day. These people have done nothing to this kid, to al-Qaeda or anyone else. If you agree with the pollsters then you have to say that some 50% of the occupants of the area do not agree with the wars in Afghanistan today and a larger percent did not agree with the Iraq war. So, what goes and takes away lives from unknown innocents? Evil would be my answer.

I really wish for once we Bangladeshis would ask ourselves the moral question and not get blinded by ethnicity, victimhood and simple ignorance. We cannot deny the fact that Nafis pulled the trigger of a device that was designed to create havoc and kill thousands of people. We have to see the world as it is and not as what we wish it to be. There are people in this world that are simply manifestations of evil and we need to strike them down with force and vigour.

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Kayes Ahmed lives in Boulder, Colorado, USA with his three dogs. He runs a small yet global apparel and design business based in Boulder.