Spying for the Man

My father is an international security consultant who specializes in information brokering. When I tell my friends what my Dad does, they whistle, impressed: "Wow, your father's a spy!"

Whee hee hee.

Not quite, but his job is pretty cool. Sometimes I sit and listen in on his business calls, interested in just how he gets his information. He has a pretty unique network, which includes several international sources in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. And now... me!

Well, sort of. See, I offered my post-university-pre-camp time to him, presenting my research skills, my persistence, and my laptop. I would allow him to boss me around for a mere pittance. Eagerly, he accepted and immediately put me to work looking up English-language jihadist websites located within the United States.

Jihadist websites? I thought, plopping myself down in front of the Google homescreen. Easy and interesting! Type in "jihad," add a little "Islam," and websites will pop up easy-peasy. After all, Neo-Nazi and KKK sites are easy to find, so why not violent anti-Americans?

Go on, type in those keywords into Google. I'll wait.

Find something? I'm sure you did. In fact, you found 10,300,000 somethings. See anything to suggest a website run by jihadists within America? If you did, you must be seeing something that I'm not.

I found websites defining jihad (the real jihad, not the convoluted definition that extremists use), JihadWatch (normally very useful, but not today), and sites/blogs raving on about the entire world's population of Muslims wanting to crush the West (bullshit). No jihadists.

So I tried to get a little more specific. I tried adding "American" to the mix, then "destroy," then "Detroit." No luck. After two hours of scouring the web and only picking up bits and pieces, I stumbled upstairs to confront my father.

"Dad," I frowned, "these sites don't exist. Not in English, anyway."

"Yeah, they do."

"Nuh-uh."

"I know they do. Go look again. That's what I'm paying for."

"Ugh!" I stomped back to the computer and stared at the screen. Finally, I began typing again. Here's what I searched for:

Destroy American dogs

I had always heard translations of terrorist speeches referring to Americans as "dogs" in order to dehumanize them. Unfortunately, Google cheerfully provided me with sites on how to euthanize my pitbull.

Murder Americans

Err, not what I'm looking for.

Al-Qud

You know they are making a pair of jeans specifically for Muslims to store gear in during prayer? Called Al-Qud jeans? I didn't know that either.

Ask.com: How do I kill Americans?

And they say that Ask.com has all of the answers!

So, I haven't found any sites about radical Muslims hating Americans. That was a bust. But I did find a load of sites about Americans hating Muslims. All Muslims.

Pathetic. Pretty soon we'll be running all Muslims-- good, bad, or indifferent-- out of our American cities with pitchforks and buckets of tar. Brilliant.

Before we complain about the hate others feel towards us, perhaps we ought to address our own deep-seated hatred towards those who have never harmed us.

K.

PS. Sorry for the crappy, cranky, unorganized post. Things will improve, I promise.