I came across this article today and found it fascinating. For those of you too lazy to click through to the article, I will summarize:

—–
There are three individuals who claim to be ex-terrorists that have been making a name for themselves on the lecture circuit giving talks at universities and even the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The truthfulness of what they have been telling people about who they are has been questioned as has their real agenda
—–

Both of the issues which have been under question are somewhat amusing to me and also moderately related. First of all, it seems that while they may tout themselves as being ex-terrorists giving an inside scoop into the world of terrorism, their real agenda is to preach Christianity to everyone they speak to. In fact, one of the speakers has started a foundation with the mission to “expose the true agenda of [Muslims] who would deceive our nation and the free nations of the world… America must wake-up and set a continued Christian agenda of Liberty and Truth as a standard to follow throughout the free world.â€

Aside from being deceptive of what they speak about, there are also a lot of questions about the truthfulness of their claimed backgrounds. In many cases, the time-lines of when they claim to have operated does not match up with historical records.

With these two things working against them, they seem similar to almost any scam that or dishonest speaker that has traveled a lecture circuit…except for one interesting point.

Whether the story is true or not, these guys should be in trouble. To quote Mikey Weinstein, the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, “If their claims are true, these alleged ex-terrorists should be deported or prosecuted, unless our government now considers conversion to fundamentalist Christianity a reason to disregard prior terrorist activities. If their claims are fabricated, they have criminally defrauded every institution that has paid them to speak.â€

If they are telling the truth and really are ex-terrorists who have killed hundreds of people, it would be logical that there should be warrants out for their arrests and they should be sent to some sort of prison facility. If they are lying, they are committing fraud.

This is a bit different from most scam artists who if they are lying are committing fraud but wouldn’t be rightly put in jail for telling the truth.