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Keller @ Large: No Sympathy For Local Terror Suspects

BOSTON (CBS) - Rezwan Ferdaus, the 26-year-old Ashland man accused by the feds yesterday of planning to bomb the Capitol and the Pentagon, and Tarek Mehanna, the 28-year-old Sudbury man awaiting trial on charges of conspiring to help other terrorists, have more in common than just the charges against them.

Listen to Jon's commentary:

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Both appear from news accounts to be the product of stable, law-abiding families.

Both lived with their parents in nice homes located in affluent suburbs.

Both allegedly had developed deep, vicious hatred for America and were eager for Americans to be slaughtered in the course of violent jihad, even though it's a tough slog for either one to claim their anger flows from deprivation of any kind.

And while both Ferdaus and Mehanna are to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, I suspect they have something else in common too.

I bet it never occurred to them that there would be so little sympathy for their allegedly murderous fantasies once they were exposed.

After all, Ferdaus is said by police to have had a habit of turning his back on the flag during the pledge of allegiance at Ashland High, a bit of juvenile business much-admired by at least some of our local left-wingers, like what's-his-name over in Brookline.

Another of his alleged kids-will-be-kids-pranks: burning an American flag on the roof of the high school.

If there was little or no pushback then, wouldn't any arrested-development case figure he's free and clear to kick his fantasies up to the next level?

As for Mehanna, he has a slick web site dedicated to freeing him, even though it doesn't seem to be generating much of a groundswell.

No, I bet these two alleged terror-enablers never envisioned getting caught, and suffering the consequences from an outraged society that ran out of patience with violent American-haters ten years ago this month.

And one other thing these two have in common - both are lucky they are alleged violent dissidents here in the US rather than in any of the wretched enemies of this country they seem to prefer, where they would likely not have survived even this far in the process.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

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