Arrested guardsman's Net history
Ryan G. Anderson, the US guardsman just arrested for trying to pass on military secrets to al-Qaeda on the Net, is a convert to Islam. InstaPundit writes that he used to post on misc.activism.militia on Usenet, and indeed someone by that name was actively posting there about gun related topics in 96-97. Anderson does not, however, appear to be particularly right wing, and certainly not compared to most others in that group. But he posted on a lot of other topics, too, including Islam.
He posted a message to alt.religion.islam with the subject "Help! Im looking to convert, but I dont know where to start":
I do not know if this is unusal, but I am a 19 year old Army Officer Cadet/collage student of German/Irish decent who was raised in a "zombie Lutheran" home (i.e. everyone always followed the religion their fathers followed with no thought otherwise). I began to look at the Middle East as a course of study as I am a steadfast student of history. Seince beginning my Arab History 272 class a number of months ago, Islam has almost literaly called to me. I find myself scrambeling to find any current information, but in a collage of 24,000, 18,000 of which are students, even an English translation of the Qu'ran is quite nearly impossiable to find. I would like to talk to people, but short of walking up to people of obvious Arab decent and asking them if they are of the Faith, I dont know where to start. I would be greatfull to talk to someone, inshallah.
- Ryan
Obviously he found out how to convert, even though nobody replied in public.
Anderson also wanted to study abroad:
Salaam Alaaykum all,
I am a Muslim convert studying at Washington State University for an Asian History Major, my focus is on Arabic nations (they include them under the Asia program here, I have no idea why).
Anyway, I wish to study abroad in a country like Egypt or Turkey this coming summer (1998) or next fall, for a semester. I have done some initial poking around here for leads, but as of yet found little. I have been told that there is an American college in Cairo, and I believe that there may be some programs in Turkey that I would be interested in, but I havnt seen any info for them for a while and I would like to know if they are still avaliable.
Did Anderson actually study abroad?
He also posted about topics like Ice hockey and flight simulators (!).
Scary how a large part of the life story of an individual can sometimes be found on Usenet.
PS: I looked through his messages just to find that I'd already been scooped, and the very two quotations above were listed. Perhaps I should have checked links first, googled later. Oh well.
11:40:28 PM 
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