This Is Your Brain On Academia

For Terrorism In The Modern World this semester, each student chose a terrorist group to follow throughout the semester. Over the course of the class, we have turned in five short briefs on various aspects of the group (history, funding, organization, etc.), and for a final paper will mash all of these together, provide a threat assessment, and then have what will doubtless be a totally horrifying exit interview with the professor. I totally fucking love this. I picked a group called al-Jihad, also known as Egyptian Islamic Jihad (or a million other things), which has been subsumed into Al Qaeda, though unlike many other groups that Al Qaeda has basically eaten, al-Jihad has retained a good amount of autonomy and its members take up six of the nine seats on Al Qaeda's leadership council. Because of this, I've kind of been writing about both al-Jihad qua al-Jihad and also about it in its current role as a part of Al Qaeda.

I have a ton of large final papers to hand in, so I decided on Wednesday to get out in front of them, and started writing my threat assessment. I began with the idea that al-Jihad members might return to their roots with some good ole fashioned political assassination, then moved on to one of two major ideas that I think might fit Al Qaeda's modus operandi and historical tradition. I described a scenario in which the group carried out a coordinated bombing attack in mutiple cities. I wrote for a while and did some statistics tinkering to back it all up, and then put the project aside to focus on downshifting for the holiday.

Well, don't I turn on my TV on Thanksgiving morning post-workout and see that the goddamn Deccan Mujahideen stole my fucking idea and carried out a coordinated bombing attack in Mumbai and the surrounding areas. I would like to note however that MY idea focused on specific cities because of a particular distinguishing characteristic, and that these choices make my plan SUPERIOR to that which the Deccan Mujahideen RIFF RAFF came up with. And in other news, Deccan Mujahideen, you fucks, I KNOW you're an Al Qaeda offshoot, okay? I KNOW! I am on to your tricks. All up in India's shit, right near Pakistan, using Al Qaeda techniques, coming like a bolt out of the clear blue sky...YOU ARE AL QAEDA.

Now, I realize that I've kind of reached a new height of weirdness, having actually reached the point where I am squabbling over credit for ideas with a terrorism group, but I just would like the record to be crystal goddamn clear, regardless of how much I like being right.