Why are all the FBI's most wanted terrorists Muslims?

April 6, 2003 7:45 AM

Call me dumb, but can anyone think why all the FBI's most wanted terrorists are Muslims?
posted by tapeguy (50 comments total)

You're dumb.

Perhaps a more pressing question would be "Do they really expect people to identify these folks from the thumbnails posted on their website?" It's not like any recent terrorists have stuck to their names, either.

Top Ten Fugitives?

That's another story. Only Usama represents.

Now why did you go and make me have to defend the government? Time for a shower to wash off the stink.
posted by Busithoth at 8:12 AM on April 6, 2003

Quran 6:157 ... Who then does more wrong than one who rejects the Ayat of Allah and turns away therefrom? We shall requite those who turn away from Our Ayat with an evil torment, because of their turning away.
posted by aaronshaf at 8:13 AM on April 6, 2003

And who are you suggesting should be on the list? The FBI isn't paying too much attention to Belfast or Colombo these days, AFAIK.
posted by planetkyoto at 8:19 AM on April 6, 2003

aaronshaf - well said. Iraq's top 10 list of terrorists are almost certainly all Jews or Christians, for similar reasons.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 8:27 AM on April 6, 2003

The regular most wanted list pretty much looks like male America to me. Yay Bush!
posted by machaus at 8:29 AM on April 6, 2003

jeez, tapeguy -- why'd you go and blow your wad on a shit thread like this?
posted by donkeyschlong at 8:44 AM on April 6, 2003

aaronshaf: is that the passage from the Quran that "makes it ok to kill someone who refutes conversion to Islam" ?

I ask, because my step-father was telling me yesterday that even though my Muslim friends are nice people, he referenced a passage that says otherwise. the one you quoted could be that one...

i ask here, because i'd like for people to set me straight on this.. i'd like to have suspension of disbelief, and hope that any modern religion would promote peace, tolerance and understanding. Much like catholi- err. i've gone and negated my argument.

*implodes*

so, someone drop some worldly knowledge on me :) i value MeFi's input.
posted by shadow45 at 9:00 AM on April 6, 2003

Here's my worldly knowledge: there is no such thing as a modern religion based on an ancient book. Holy books are among the most dangerous things in the world, because their archaic and largely forgotten instructions give people imaginary excuses to harm.

God doesn't exist. Religion does more damage in providing excuses to harm than it does in enforcing good behavior. You don't have to invent imaginary punishments to be a good person - society provides genuine punishments for that.

Religion isn't the root of all problems, and people should be free to believe whatever they want: but it always does more harm than good.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 9:12 AM on April 6, 2003

Pretty_Generic, why do you hate God so much?
posted by filmgoerjuan at 9:14 AM on April 6, 2003

He created scrapie.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 9:15 AM on April 6, 2003

The FBI isn't paying too much attention to Belfast or Colombo these days, AFAIK.

That's not good. That little trenchcoated bastard is dangerous I tell ya!
posted by jonmc at 9:15 AM on April 6, 2003

I at first thought that said "He created scrapple."

Which would be just as damning in my book, actually. If there were a God, that is.
posted by adamgreenfield at 9:22 AM on April 6, 2003

Do they really expect people to identify these folks from the thumbnails posted on their website?

Cuz they all look alike. right?
posted by jpoulos at 9:22 AM on April 6, 2003

Man created scrapple. As I say, religion isn't the root of all problems.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 9:24 AM on April 6, 2003

Iraq's top 10 list of terrorists are almost certainly all Jews or Christians, for similar reasons.

Pretty_Generic: Are you aware that teriq aziz, deputy prime minister of iraq, is a christian?

Despite the extriodinarily common misconception, the ba'ath party is pretty close to secular, at least in comparison to the Osama, or even the shi'ia in southern iraq.

As for the various readings of the koran -- go back and read the old testament (or look at, say, catholic history) -- it's chock full of threats to unbelievers. Like the others, it's open to literal bloody minded intrepretations and more metaphorical ones.
posted by malphigian at 9:34 AM on April 6, 2003

malphigian, I'm on your side. I was making a vague joke about how all major religions encourage bad behavior when taken literally (i.e. as the Truth), and singling out Islam is a mistake.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 9:38 AM on April 6, 2003

Where's the guy that terrorized the entire country by sending anthrax letters two years ago? We catch that guy yet?

I love the FBI for kids page. "Mommy, what happens to Shirley the dog when she finds a bomb?"
posted by mathowie at 9:39 AM on April 6, 2003

The FBI Not-Wanted list will be alot shorter and easier to handle than any wanted list once Patriot 2 becomes law, so all this talk moot.

We are headed for brighter days my friends!
posted by LouReedsSon at 9:50 AM on April 6, 2003

I think it might've had something to do with the world trade center, tapeguy....
posted by ph00dz at 10:03 AM on April 6, 2003

Cuz they all look alike. right?

Uh, no. Because I'd bet you could slip one of my family member's pictures in there, with a disguise that took 5 minutes and 5 dollars to make, and I'd have a hard time recognizing them.

And have you never heard of the unreliability of eye-witnesses? Humans are suggestive creatures, they see order in chaos, whether it's there or not.

Glad I could trigger your brain's off-switch, though, jpoulos.
posted by Busithoth at 10:06 AM on April 6, 2003

Surprised no one said this yet: it's cuz they hate freedom. :-/
posted by psmealey at 10:13 AM on April 6, 2003

You can't just quote one verse from the Koran & say "this shows Mohametans all think such & such". Just like the Bible, verse can be quoted against verse - for instance, here's a surah (109) with a somewhat different message than the one singled out above:

Say: "O you unbelievers,
I do not worship what you worship,
Nor do you worship who I worship.
Nor will I worship what you worship,
Nor will you worship who I worship:
To you your way, to me my way."
posted by shabrem at 10:44 AM on April 6, 2003

shabrem - to which He could have added "SO DON'T KILL PEOPLE OVER IT!". It's always good to spell things out. After all, He knew all this was going to happen.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 10:49 AM on April 6, 2003

Kill all people wearing funny hats. Baseball an cowboy hats excluded.
posted by Postroad at 10:50 AM on April 6, 2003

And I should point out that the "We" in "We shall requite those who turn away from Our Ayat with an evil torment" from aaronshaf's citation does not refer to 'we Muslims', but to the revealer of 'the Book', that is, Allah.

Was it Moses who said "Thou shalt have no other gods before me"?
posted by shabrem at 10:51 AM on April 6, 2003

An atheist cannot be made to answer for the Koran, P_G. Sorry
posted by shabrem at 10:54 AM on April 6, 2003

I have more to fear from the white separatist movement in this country than from any of these folks.
posted by sudama at 11:23 AM on April 6, 2003

shabrem: Moses tried to set himself up as a God? Pretty risky, what with all that old testament stuff that was around at the time. If he'd actually tried it, he might have got a lightning bolt up his ass.
posted by kaemaril at 11:31 AM on April 6, 2003

Kill all people wearing funny hats. Baseball an cowboy hats excluded

Look out, ye shriners, for thy funny hats offend Me.
posted by moonbiter at 11:34 AM on April 6, 2003

Let's see: that's 7 Egyptians, 5 Saudis, 3 Kenyans, 3 Lebanese, 1 Libyan, 1 Tanzanian, 1 Kuwaiti, and 1 USAian. And no Iraqis.
posted by carter at 12:19 PM on April 6, 2003

Was it Moses who said "Thou shalt have no other gods before me"?

Moses tried to set himself up as a God?

Rhetorical question, kaemaril. Moses was just passing that commandment along from God in the same way Mohammed passed along aaronshaf's quotation from Allah.
posted by hippugeek at 12:22 PM on April 6, 2003

Do they really expect people to identify these folks from the thumbnails posted on their website?

Sure. You never know who amongst us might be on that list. The clean-shaven Anil, for example.
posted by samuelad at 12:48 PM on April 6, 2003

Kill all people wearing funny hats

Defiantly wearing his fez....
~~[[[8^)
posted by Fezboy! at 1:12 PM on April 6, 2003

Pretty_Generic, why do you hate God so much?

Hating God makes the baby Jesus cry.
posted by Vidiot at 3:51 PM on April 6, 2003

~~[[[8^)

That's cool, fezboy!--you make that up or bite it from someone else? Ooh, like the italics--this is fezboy! on drugs.
posted by y2karl at 4:01 PM on April 6, 2003

Just because a person has an arabic name does not make them a muslim,
*sigh*
posted by nasim at 4:11 PM on April 6, 2003

8-(]:^0)
Propeller beanie terrorist! Beware!
posted by wendell at 6:04 PM on April 6, 2003

Where's the guy that terrorized the entire country by sending anthrax letters two years ago? We catch that guy yet?

I think he recently got demoted. (yeah, I know, cheap shot against very powerful person, expect FBI to knock on door Monday morning)
posted by wendell at 6:16 PM on April 6, 2003

religion isnt the root of all problems.

people are.
posted by Satapher at 11:10 PM on April 6, 2003

y2karl: I don't want to claim authorship because undoubtedly someone's done this before, but it was an independent discovery if nothing else.

Oooh, and the italics are nice. Hadn't done that yet.
~~[[8^)
I'm feeling a bit whoozy . . .
posted by Fezboy! at 11:56 PM on April 6, 2003

Nowhere on the page is their religion mentioned. Nowhere.

Are you stereotyping a group of people based on their names?
posted by hama7 at 12:31 AM on April 7, 2003

Uhh, hama, at an eyeballed first pass of approximation, those almost all look like Islamic names.
posted by adamgreenfield at 1:52 AM on April 7, 2003

The FBI isn't paying too much attention to Belfast or Colombo these days, AFAIK.

Look out Peter Falk! Your days of vicious terrorism are soon to be over!
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 4:27 AM on April 7, 2003

When the IRA or FARC or the Kach faction fly planes into our buildings, I'm sure we'll be able to find some room for them on the list.
posted by basilwhite at 8:36 AM on April 7, 2003

Although I see your point, Hama and agree with it, it is pretty unusual for a Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, etc. to be have the given names (not counting the aliases here) of Mohammed or Ali as 9 of the 22 on the sight, a little digging into their backgrounds on the sight does also reveal that most are members of radical islamic groups, so that pretty much eliminates non-muslims as well. All this still doesn't prove anything directly but it does give enough ammunition to make a fairly safe assumption.

When the IRA or FARC or the Kach faction fly planes into our buildings, I'm sure we'll be able to find some room for them on the list.

We are so forgetful in this country, I guess it doesn't matter any more that a sick fuck like Eric Rudolph is still at large, after all he only blew up abortionists and fags, right? What about the people that supposedly helped Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh out, where are they? Who cares, we've got some brown skinned rag heads to chase now!

Anyone who wants to go intolerant verse for intolerant verse, toe to toe, Koran vs. Bible in a cage match smack down, bring it! Jehovah will out intolerant Allah with the whole apocrypha tied behind his back, shit all he needs are some little gems from Leviticus and that sissy, peace loving towel headed Allah is down for the count, bitch!

Leviticus 20; 2 Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones.

Yeah, Judeo/Christian teachings are so tolerant of others and Islam is SOOO intolerant, right.
posted by Pollomacho at 9:57 AM on April 7, 2003

That should read: "all He needs," sorry about that.
posted by Pollomacho at 9:58 AM on April 7, 2003

I guess it doesn't matter any more that a sick fuck like Eric Rudolph is still at large, after all he only blew up abortionists and fags, right? What about the people that supposedly helped Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh out, where are they? Who cares, we've got some brown skinned rag heads to chase now!

Oh, great, this is going to devolve into "american assholes are worse than foreign assholes", is it? Pointlessness in extremis.

And FYI, Eric Rudolph is on the 10 Most Wanted Fugitives List which is a separate list.* But never let that get in the way of some good rhetoric.

And while I belive that scumbuckets like Eric Rudolph, Timothy McVeigh, IRA pub-bombers etc. all deserve severe punishment, none of them holds a candle to 9/11.

*I'm assuming that the list rudolph is on is for domestic fugitives, although Bin Laden is on there as well, so I'm a little confused.
posted by jonmc at 10:48 AM on April 7, 2003

I think it might've had something to do with the world trade center, tapeguy....

Shit, you mean those guys are still out there wreaking havoc? In that case, it'll take more than the FBI to stop 'em!
posted by soyjoy at 10:54 AM on April 7, 2003

I think the point was, jonmc, is that there are plenty of assholes out there, world wide, American, foreign, Christian, Jew, Muslim, whatever, yet all the guys on the Terrorist list (note, not the domestic fugitive list, despite Rudolph and others being uncaught terrorists) are Middle Eastern, presumably Muslim. Nobody has forgotten 9/11, I happened to have had a front row seat, great, so that means we just forget the others? Aw, heck, why would we even keep looking for Rudolph, he just did the bidding of the Lord anyway*, but these "dirty camel jockeys" and their "insane" and "intolerant" religion, they've got to be immediately brought to "justice." I'm sure the families of Americans killed in Colombia and Britain by FARC and IRA terrorism are sure glad we've obviously solved the terrorist problems there and don't need to worry about those silly, trifling little groups any more now that we've got the big daddy 9/11 jackasses to go after. But don't let my "rhetoric" get in the way of an opportunity for some flag waving and jingoism and some "oh because it happened on American soil by foreign devils its a million times worse than any other act of terrorism ever" and while we're at it why not a little "9/11 was the worst thing that ever happened to any country ever in history!"

Side Note: if we let the al queda get away with what they did, they win or alternately we spend all our vast resources kicking in every door in the Middle East until every "evil-doer" is brought to "justice" and every semite in the desert is pissed off enough to suicide bomb every building, city bus and monument from Tel Aviv to Tokyo the long way around, yep, you guessed it, they still fucking win. Isn't there a happy medium? Isn't there any way that Al Queda gets brought to true justice for what they did AND we learn what we did that pissed off people enough that they would do such horrible things without remorse in the first place?

*Leviticus 20; 13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Another side note: Ossama (Ussama) has been on the fugitive list for a long, long time, you can even spot him in the move Hannibal (made pre 9/11) when one of the characters logs on to the site to look up Hannibal Lechter, there he is, turban and all, up in the corner where he still sits today, shaking in fear, no doubt because he'll soon be brought to "justice" just like the President keeps claiming he's already done to all the evil-doers.
posted by Pollomacho at 12:56 PM on April 7, 2003

Remember Tariq Aziz, a lone Christian among the Iraqi leadership?
posted by hama7 at 7:23 PM on April 11, 2003