NatPo Editorial Derives Wrong "Lesson"--One Which Ignores Jihad, a Religious Imperative--From B.C. Terror Plot

One of the "lessons" the editorial ("What the Victoria plot teaches us") proffers is that "cranks" who want to unleash mass catastrophe don't necessarily have to hew to any "coherent ideology":

3. Every crank with Internet access does not require any coherent ideology. The RCMP says the alleged plotters were "self-radicalized," a term also applied to alleged Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokhar. In Tamerlan's case, investigators could find no significant terror groups, known radicals or extremists mentors, instead "finding a frustrated young man who felt out of place in the United States."...

That's because investigators, including Canadian ones, will do anything they can to avoid implicating Islam proper, and the clear, coherent jihad imperative embedded in its core teachings. Instead, for reasons of fear, political correctness and willful blindness, they will impute such antics to a so-called perversion of what we are assured is an entirely peaceful faith. Hence, the B.C. pair being "inspired by al-Qaeda ideology" and not by Islam's doctrine of armed jihad (which, in fact, is what inspires al Qaeda). That dhimmi-ish assertion is called into question, though, by this Ceeb report. It reveals that the pair, who took a violent turn only when they "reverted" to Islam, seemed to have that coherent ideology thing down pat:

 A B.C. couple accused of trying to detonate pressure cooker bombs during Canada Day celebrations in Victoria have been described by a friend as "former street punks" who found Islam, but then exhibited increasingly odd religious behaviour before they were kicked out of a Surrey mosque. 

John Stewart Nuttall, in his late 30s, and Amanda Korody, late 20s, are alleged to have turned ordinary pressure cookers into improvised explosive devices filled with rusted nails, nuts, bolts and washers. 

The RCMP claim the couple were "inspired by al-Qaeda ideology," but have not released any details on exactly what that means. 

Ashley Volpatti said she met Nuttall and Korody at a corner store, and described the former street kids as "really, really nice people" who were attending a local mosque. 

"Before they turned Muslim they were street punks. That's what they were." 

But Volpatti said that as they became increasingly religious, their behaviour changed. 

"Johnny played guitar, and then about seven months ago he got rid of all his guitars.  

Why? Don't know. He loved them. That's what he was into." 

"She would always have her hair covered, long sleeves. If they weren't in traditional dress they were in camo-gear — camo pants, camo shirts." 

In one conversation, she said, Nuttall became quite angry, saying his brother had served with the Canadian military, but that he believed Canadian soldiers shouldn't be over "on Muslim soil." 

Then about six months ago, Volpatti said, the pair became distant and stopped socializing with her and her boyfriend. 

"He used to go to the mosque and he got kicked out of the mosque. Why I don't know, but that was when he really, really got into the religion.… I think a lot of it had to do they were too much into their religion, way too much into their religion."...

Should've joined the Hare Krishna instead. Its coherent ideology doesn't involved waging jihad on infidels via pressure cookers packed with shrapnel.

Update: According to Maclean's, Johnny Guitar was violent pre-reversion, but seems to have channeled that violence into jihad:

VANCOUVER – Four years ago, the man RCMP say planned a Canada Day terror attack at the British Columbia legislature was too drunk and violent to be kept on as the guitarist in a heavy metal band. 

But some time between March 2009 — after his failed tryout for The Lust Boys in Victoria — and this March, when an indictment says the bombing conspiracy began, John Nuttall allegedly became a home-grown terrorist inspired by al-Qaida to kill fellow Canadians. 

“It’s crazy stuff,” said Colin Stuart, a.k.a. Tommy Thrust, who met Nuttall through an online musician forum where the band was looking for a new guitarist. 

“It doesn’t really make any sense to me really, because back when he was in the band, when I knew him, he never made any reference to religion at all. He was more into politics, but what he understood of politics.” 

Crazy stuff, indeed, lots of which was on display in their squalid digs:

On Wednesday, there was little in the way of furnishings or belongings in the apartment, but what was there was strewn about in messy piles. It wasn’t clear whether the mess was the result of the police search. The suite smelled like cat urine and cat foot scattered on the floor. 

On one wall, there was a poster with what appeared to be Arabic writing and a piece of paper money, also with Arabic writing, tacked onto it. On the kitchen counter sat several prescription bottles of methadone with Korody’s name on the labels. 

Inside the bedroom, another poster read: “Celebrating the life and birth of the Prophet Muhammad,” with the date of a women’s conference printed below. Also in the bedroom, was a television set with small holes smashed into the screen.
Beyond the TV, there were no other electronics, such as a computer, inside the apartment...

Interesting. If they had no internet access, then how did they, as the RCMP put it, "self-radicalize"?

A man in traditional Muslim dress would sometimes pick the pair up or drop them off, she [their landlady] said.

Oh.

Update: The penny drops for a former Johnny Guitar pal:

When Daryl Nelson called his close friend John Nuttall last Sunday to play paintball, he was disturbed by the evasive responses he got. 

Nuttall, now facing terrorism charges after a foiled bomb plot targeting the B.C. legislature, first claimed he was out of town in the Okanagan. 

Then he said he was in Victoria. And then he changed his mind again, purporting to be in Kelowna. 

“He kept switching his story and it was like more and more secretive,” Nelson said in an interview. 

Twenty-four hours later, Nuttall and his common-law spouse Amanda Korody were in jail, accused of being inspired by al-Qaida and planting pressure cooker bombs to detonate during Victoria’s Canada Day celebrations. 

It was particularly troubling for Nelson given that Nuttall had expressed outrage at the exact same terrorist tactic in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings in April. 

“He was saying it gives Muslims a bad name and all this other crap,” Nelson said. “Then all of a sudden he goes and does something like this … Now what I am starting to think, he was just telling me that so I would never perceive him as that sort of threat.”...

Gee, ya think?

Update: Robert Spencer (on the Michael Coren show) explains that "al Qaeda ideology."