Startling new danger revealed: "self-radicalization with the aid of the Internet"...

Terror's Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone

In January, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano even offered a fix for “self-radicalization.” It is called, you guessed it, “counter-radicalization.” Napolitano described the concept:

“How do we identify someone before they become radicalized to the point where they’re ready to blow themselves up with others on a plane? And how do we communicate better American values and so forth … around the globe?”

Has no one told Napolitano, Mullen, Gates and Clapper what can be gleaned from the ample reporting on what was driving Hasan, including his anger over U.S. military interventions in Muslim lands?

And what about the motives of the Christmas bomber, 23 year-old Nigerian Abdulmutallab? His friends in Yemen described him as “not overly extremist,” but very angry, nonetheless, over Israel’s actions in Gaza. Does that fit under the rubric of “self-radicalization?”

Have our senior officials learned nothing from reports on the motivation of Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, the 32-year-old Jordanian physician of Palestinian origin who used a suicide bomb to kill seven CIA operatives and one Jordanian intelligence officer in eastern Afghanistan on Dec. 30?

Al-Balawi’s widow said her husband “started to change” after the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. His brother added that al-Balawi “changed” during the three-week-long Israeli attack on Gaza, which left 1,400 Palestinians dead, an attack defended by Washington as justifiable self-defense.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan may be the most recent example of an increasingly common type of terrorist, said Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University professor who studies terrorism.

Hoffman studies people who have become self-radicalized with the aid of the Internet and who commit violence without having to cross borders to reach their targets, The New York Times reported Sunday.

Such cases appear to be growing, with most of them involving people who have no direct ties to overseas terror networks, Hoffman said.

Al-Qaida leaders have encouraged a trend of self-radicalization through voluminous messages on the Web, Hoffman said, citing a shooting at an Arkansas military recruitment center, synagogues targeted for attack in New York and thwarted bombing schemes in Illinois and Texas.

Gates also would give commanders “more comprehensive information on individuals — particularly if there have been behavioral issues that have been noted ... under previous assignments.”

Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said military leaders need an “active focus” on transferring information on potential problematic individuals.

“The issue of self-radicalization is one that we have really got to focus on because ... there is clearly more and more of that going on, and how much of it we have in the military is something that we ought to really understand,” Mullen said.