1) Not Al Qaeda, but perhaps inspired by Al Qaeda. Whats is perhaps scary is that these were not all disadvantaged kids - some were quite well off, and not immigrants but second generation.
2) Muslims did dennouce the Imam, and on an occasion where this Imam that Canadian troops in Afghanistan were there to "rape Muslim women" he was stopped from preaching further by Member of Parliament Whalid Khan (who was visiting) and several others. Apprarently the Imam was assualted afterwards by some Muslims. James
I want to stress, this is not even close to majority Canadian Muslim opinion, many muslims have been speaking out against the Imam who inspired these "kids".
But my understanding of these kids, from all the interviews and pundits, is that they fell in with a bad Imam, felt isolated in their school, were angry at Canada for being a US ally, angry that Canada was in Afghanistan.
Are they too multi-cultural? No, exactly opposite, while they lived in a multi-cultural society, they isolated themselves from the others.
My understanding was that some were all the way up to their 40's.
I did not mean to imply this was a majority mindset, so I hope you didn't get that from my post. I hold these people, not all muslims, responsible for their own actions.
so they would kill Canadians because of being a US ally? I am surprised, is there really a backlash from Afghanistan among muslims?
The rest ranged from 16 to 24 I think. Corrected typo - meant to say 16 to 24, not 6 to 24. Subsuquently today I heard on the radio that 3 were 16 or under....
I heard some good interviews from people at the mosque where that Imam preached. Its not like most Christian churches where you have one minister/priest. There you have a committee and they let Imams lead prayers but its not so centralized. Anyway, they admit they should have taken harsher measures and banned the guy when he started talking nonsense, instead of making him apologise.
The specific thing that Imam said at the mosque was that Canadian troops were going to Afghanistan to rape Muslim women. That angered many of the muslims at the mosque, they were angry at the Imam for what they saw were lies and anti-Canadian propaganda. As I mentioned, some of them even shoved him around. A member of Parliament, Wahlid Khan, was visiting the mosque and stood up as soon as the Imam made that statement and shouted him down.
Some muslims think we should be there(including Khan), some don't. Many that don't think we should be there would never think it right to do any violence, and have said that these "kids" are not true muslims.
I think Muslims in Western societies have the burden of not allowing radical Imams to preach in their Mosques. Its time for them to take a stand against them, a very public stand, so the rest of us know that it isn't going to be tolerated anymore.
Muslims in the US, Canada, Europe, have got to stand up to the Imams preaching hatred, death and beheadings. Its a mixed message to me from Muslims because they allow Imams like this to exist.
There are always going to be misfits, loners and isolationists in society, but they wouldn't be as organized and filled with hate if they didn't have the Imams to inspire them and terrorist groups to carry out the mission.
Devout Muslims need to differentiate themselves from the radical Muslims that commit atrocities. They need to speak out strongly for normalcy, a middle ground, maybe even peace. Right now, they don't speak out enough to change anything, at least in the US.
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Canada - Well Done
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060605/D8I1PIE80.html