The Mosque "Bomber" is a Muslim

In a previous post, I wondered aloud if there was any real danger from the man who was arrested for threatening to blow up a Dearborn mosque. Since then, there has been new information on Mr. Roger Stockham, the alleged plotter. It seems that,

Roger Stockham is/was a convert to Islam who goes by the name of Hem Ahadin.

and

Stockham fired his court-appointed attorney Mark Haidar, saying Haidar was a "Shi'ite" and a "patron of the [targeted] mosque".

The link above was sent to me by a friend, and it has a link to this fascinating 1979 article from the Merced Sun-Star on one of Stockham's previous violent criminal episodes. He has a long history of violence. Today's Detroit Free Press gives an overview of his violent past and his current situation. The article also doesn't try to hide his conversion to Islam or the fact that he's fired his court-appointed attorny, Mark Haidar, for being a Shi'ite, the same branch of Islam practiced by the mosque Stockham was allegedly going to destroy with his large cache of toy caps and smoke bombs.

The Detroit News does a poorer job than the Free Press. First, they lead off with the misleading headline, Mosque bomb suspect rejects Muslim lawyer, trying to divert us from the fact that Stockham is a Muslim while causing the reader to suspect him of being a dreaded, monstrous, scorned in polite company: "Islamphobe". They further try to mislead us, saying,

A hearing for a California man accused of plotting to set off explosives outside Metro Detroit's largest mosque was postponed Friday after he rejected his court-appointed attorney for being a Muslim.

Later in the article however,

But during the hearing, Stockham objected to the man appointed to represent him, Mark Haidar of Northville, claiming Haidar is a member of the Shiite sect of Muslims.

"I reject Mr. Haidar's appointment as counsel. He is a Shiite," Stockham said. "He is a patron of the mosque."

There is a difference between rejecting the lawyer because he's a Muslim, and rejecting him because he's a Shiite, which is what really happened. There is some unacknowledged interIslamic hatred going on here, along with either sloppy or deliberately misleading reporting.

Questions I have about this case:

How will CAIR and other Islamic grievance mongers twist this into an anti-Islamic "hate crime?" They already have help from the Detroit News.

Will Stockham's conversion to Islam be downplayed in order to garner sympathy against an "anti-Islamic backlash?

Will they find a way to label Stockman as an "Islamophobe", or will they have to settle for him merely being a "Shiaphobe?"

Will Stockham's conversion be used as a symptom of his mental illness? Will the mental illness defense be accepted? After all, we're always and continuously lectured that Islam is a religion of peace and that every attempted terrorist is mentally ill.

I will be staying tuned. But I'm still not sure I can take Stockham's attempt at terrorism seriously.

by Cowznofski