By Andrew Bast
In the last two decades, a crop of American citizens have sympathized with, or in some cases wholeheartedly embraced, the Taliban and Al Qaeda, joining up and plotting attacks against their own country. Several recent arrests, including a suspect in the failed car bomb attempt in Times Square, and the most recent, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, who planned to blow up a car bomb in Portland, Ore., have sparked alarm that the trend may be on the rise.
The country’s most infamous turncoat, Benedict Arnold, was a Revolutionary War general who plotted to surrender West Point to the British. Today, it’s more likely to be a member of a ragtag and powerless bunch of outsiders. (Note: some have been convicted; others only stand accused.) But terrorism works by different rules, and now the loner is more dangerous than ever.