MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Laurel J. Sweet – “As an American-born Muslim of privilege tried to shield himself yesterday with the Constitution he’s accused of betraying, prosecutors began painting for jurors a sinister portrait of a young man the feds said both al-Qaeda and the FBI recognized was becoming a mouthpiece for jihad.

Tarek Mehanna even had all-American code for holy war, prosecutors said: Peanut butter and jelly.

By moderating online chats from the ‘cushy bedroom’ of his parents’ Sudbury home about the monster he thought of as his ‘real father,’ 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, and translating bin Laden’s recorded calls to arms into English subtitles, assistant U.S. Attorney Aloke Chakravarty said Mehanna, 29, ‘viewed himself as part of the media department of the terror group.’

‘It meant killing, it meant bullets, it meant martyrdom,’ said Chakravarty, noting that in the summer of 2005, al-Qaeda ‘personally solicited’ Mehanna to translate works by leader Ayman al-Zawahri.

And to a large extent, Mehanna’s attorney J.W. Carney Jr. — acknowledging his client was bitter about the war in Iraq — didn’t disagree.

‘Yes, he expressed admiration for Osama bin Laden. He didn’t hide his beliefs; he wore them on his sleeve,’ Carney said on day one of an anticipated two-month trial, amid extraordinary security in and around U.S. District Court in Boston.

Mehanna’s religious and political beliefs — while perhaps treason to some — are ‘what make America so great, so strong, so free,’ said Carney…” Read more.