When Smart Women Make Stupid Choices

Phil G from Ottawa makes the point more succinctly and effectively than I could: good girls go ga-ga for bad boys:

She started out looking for a husband. Instead, the young Carleton University student became a key conduit for thousands of dollars that, police say, was financing terrorism.

Zenab Armend Pisheh, an Ottawa-area chemistry student in her early 20s, says she was used by young, aspiring jihadists in Britain and Canada and that she was handpicked because "sisters don't get caught -- brothers get caught if they send money."

For the first time yesterday, Ms. Armend Pisheh emerged as a key, co-operating witness for British and Canadian prosecutors, who are trying to prove that seven young British men and an Ottawa man, Momin Khawaja, conspired to blow up a British landmark in 2004.

....

through an Internet chat room, she got to know a man who identified himself as Abdul Rahman Adam. It was a whirlwind romance, and soon he was phoning her from Britain and discussing marriage. He also told her that he and some other brothers were interested in unspecified "training" in a place she presumed to be Pakistan, she said.

The man she met, prosecutors say, was actually one of the seven accused British men, Anthony Garcia, 24.

The wedding never happened; her suitor insisted that she move to Britain and live with him and his parents, and she wanted him to come to Canada, she said in her statement.

I'm only surprised that the terrorists aren't also targeting the dim white Western women on university campuses who flock to the progressive political organizations thriving there. The campus chapter of the International Socialists, Public Interest Research Group or Middle Eastern Friendship Society would be prime ground for finding the naive sort who would run guns or money for the chance to play the great heroine.

But they probably already are, along with embittered divorcees looking for someone exotic and dangerous, ready to be wooed with a few dollars and gifts, to make themselves feel better.

If your daughter starts talking about some guy from Iran or Pakistan she just met at the Justice for Palestine rally who's always travelling back and forth to the Middle East and flashing around lots of money without any visible legitimate means of earning it, be concerned. Be very concerned.