John Walker got his start in the Islamo-fascist game at the Mill Valley Islamic Center; Richard Reid learned the ropes through people he met at the Brixton Mosque and Islamic Community Center in South London; James McLintock, the young Scotsman who is being held in Pakistan as an al-Qaeda member, was presumably inducted at the Hilltown Mosque and Islamic Center of Dundee. There are a large number of these institutions in London alone, and thousands throughout the Western world. Of course, not everyone associated with these institutions is a budding terrorist, and there's no reason to doubt that the vast majority are good and decent people. (The Brixton Mosque chairman, Abdul Haqq Baker, seems pretty credible as a purveyor of a benign message, unless he's some kind of master-dissembler.) Still, as more instances of Westerners-turned-murderous-fanatics keep popping up, it's increasingly difficult to avoid the conclusion that these "cultural centers" are a dangerous breeding ground.
Is this an exaggeration? There's an interesting look into the ethos propagated at such institutions in this recent Scotsman article (via Andrew Sullivan.) Here's the voice of the "moderate" Scottish president of the UK Islamic mission, on the shoe bomber:
No one can condone what Richard Reid tried to do. But anyone with a brain can see what created him and drove him to it. What Richard Reid did is not an act of terrorism - it is an act of frustration. Many young and old Muslims are frustrated by the way their faith is being targeted by George Bush and Tony Blair. Unless they address the root cause of what is creating people who are willing to kill innocent civilians then more acts like this will happen.
Now, the pupil, one Ifran Rasool, the 18-year-old son of a Dundee bus driver:
Britain is an evil regime and it is corrupt. The idea of democracy goes against everything that Muslims should believe. Democracy is a man-made construct. Instead, everyone should live their life by the teachings of Allah. You ask me to follow Tony Blair, a man, or to follow Allah, our divine teacher? There is no contest. We believe that it is the obligation of every Muslim to fight to create an Islamic state that is based on the Koran... Every single Muslim should have a love of Jihad. They should want to go out on a Jihad. Every single Muslim should have these feelings. It would not bother me to shoot a British soldier in the least. Why should it?