<... and instant membership in an international club of 1 billion plus, with all the benefits that brings. A Muslim anywhere in the world has Muslim allies everywhere in the world.

I am sure this is the case where you lived. I would like to comment however on the nature of some of these militant islamic groups.

Groups like Al Quaeda are inherently racist against non arab muslims. I will pin this statement on my brothers credentials as a graduate from Harvard in Middle Eastern Studies (there are other, better credentials I will not mention online).

I was talking to him one time about an article which was posted here, it regarded english muslims who defected to join the Taliban fighting in Afganistan. They reported that it was total madness, they were blindfolded, put on a truck, taken to a place, handed weapons and told "theres the enemy, go fight, go on, go fight". No training, no instructions, just guns fired at them by coalition forces and freinds of thiers getting shot. After a while they were told "great job you won. get back on the truck". They escaped as soon as they could from these people as soon as they could and tried to go home.

My brother pointed out that the Taliban and Al Quaeda were only partly like this. What was really going on was that these non arabs showed up wanting to help and the Taliban thought "oh good, cannon fodder". You can't just up and join these organizations, you must be an arab if you ever want to be anything other than meat for the grinder. The muslim brother line is touted by these organizations, but they only use it for propaganda.

Just look at all the captured people who are ratting out this Mousai character. They don't care at all about him, because he really was not "one of them".

Regards,
Justin