I turned to my mate, when I read this and said: “Bloomberg may have no clue. But I’ll bet London to a brick that it was (i) a Muslim and (ii) that he did it to kill unbelievers”.
And of course, that’s exactly what it was -- Faisal Shahzad, above. But in the immediate aftermath of the failed bombing...
politicians were falling over themselves with two opposite thought processes: (i) Don’t jump to conlusions (ie that it might by a Muslim motivated to kill kuffars and yet (ii) to jump to the conclusion that it was not a Muslim, that it was a “lone wolf”, a “crazy guy”, or a right wing Republican. I can understand why they would not want to jump to conclusions about a Muslim involvement; they’re politicians after all. But why jump to the opposite conclusion, when you can so easily be proven wrong. As Bloomberg was. He continued his inane comments in the following days. Some Bloomberg bloopers:
politicians were falling over themselves with two opposite thought processes: (i) Don’t jump to conlusions (ie that it might by a Muslim motivated to kill kuffars and yet (ii) to jump to the conclusion that it was not a Muslim, that it was a “lone wolf”, a “crazy guy”, or a right wing Republican. I can understand why they would not want to jump to conclusions about a Muslim involvement; they’re politicians after all. But why jump to the opposite conclusion, when you can so easily be proven wrong. As Bloomberg was. He continued his inane comments in the following days. Some Bloomberg bloopers:
Day 2:
Bloomberg later told CBS Evening News Anchor Katie Couric that the suspect behind the bombing attempt could be a domestic terrorist angry at the government who acted alone.
“If I had to guess 25 cents, [sic] this would be exactly that. Homegrown, or maybe a mentally deranged person, or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything,” he said.
“There is no evidence here of a conspiracy, there is no evidence that it’s tied into anything else. It looks like an amateurish job done by at least one person,” he told Couric. [Wrong]
WBCSTV, May 4th.
Day 3:
“There is no evidence that this is tied in with Al-Qaeda or any other big terrorist organisation” . AFP, May 4th.
[Wrong again: the same day Bloomberg said this, Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud was vowing to attack US cities]
Bloomberg could easily have kept silent or non-committal about it, if he didn’t want to jump to the obvious conclusion (Muslim, killinig kuffars). Why then the statements about “mentally deranged” people and so on? It must be that he really, really believes that that may have been it. In other words, that he didn’t consider it even likely that it could have been a Muslim out to kill kuffars. Which makes him stupid. But then he’s made lots of money, so he can’t be stupid. So, naïve, let’s say that. Or ignorant, cause he hasn’t read about Islam (which may well be true), or that his staff has so imbued him with the PC picture about Islam as religion of peace that he – again naively – truly believes it. Strange case, in all.
[PS: one blogger says I get a little sick of federal officials quickly declaring that there is no terrorism angle to an act that makes most sane people think instantly of terrorism. It’s not reassuring; on the contrary, it just seems clueless. Which is pretty damned far from reassuring.]
[PS: one blogger says I get a little sick of federal officials quickly declaring that there is no terrorism angle to an act that makes most sane people think instantly of terrorism. It’s not reassuring; on the contrary, it just seems clueless. Which is pretty damned far from reassuring.]
Meantime, this egregious piece in the Guardian, by Robert Dreyfuss., showing that willful blindeness is not restriced to the politicians:
Sensible analysts of the event point out, convincingly, that no branch of the Taliban, whether in Afghanistan or Pakistan, has demonstrated either the intention or the capability of striking in such as fashion.
So “sensible” that they didn’t see, or ignored the news quoting the Taliban leader vowing to attack US cities?
Instead, jump to the conclusion that it could be anyone, just anyone, other than the obvious:
… a lone wolf or a member of some squirrely branch of the Tea Party, anti-government far right. Which actually exists in Connecticut, where, it seems, the car's licence plates were stolen.
Wrong. A Pakistani Jihadist confessed to the crime.
As Jonah Goldberg says: They were just “Hoping for the Right Kind of Terrorist”.
They – these politicians, the media – would just have loved it, loved it, if it had been a right-wing white lone wolf nutter. Then they wouldn’t have to face that fact there is yet one more Muslim terror act to defile the Religion of Peace. That’s what MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer, like the Guardian’s Drefuss, thought, anyway. Note that she makes the typical left-wing, multicultural argument of moral equivalence, in this case between the Hatari militia and Jihadis. As if half a dozen nutters in Michigan is somehow equivalent to the 15,000+ acts of Islamic terror since 9/11.
This willful blindness in the west, amongst politicians and the media is analysed in the video below. A couple of quotes from it are germane:
Serge Trifkovic, Foreign Affairs Editor, Chronicles Magazine
The tendency of western political leaders to deny the connection between orthodox Islamic mainstream and terrorist violence is replicated in the universities, in the media, wherever you look, both in western Europe and in North America.
The members of the elite class have the tendency to proclaim Islam – some mysterious “authentic” Islam – to be peaceful, and to be tolerant, and those Muslims prone to violence are claimed to be a non-representative fringe.
Well, I would really appreciate if people who make such claims would then explain the continuity of violence from the earliest days of Islam, from the earliest days of the “Prophet” and his successors, throughout the 13 centuries of recorded history.
Robert Spencer, author and director of Jihad Watch
The real burning question in the world today is:
“Does Islam and Islamic civilization actually sanction the violence that we’re seeing being perpetrated in its name around the world?”
And to that we have to answer, if we’re going to be honest about it, an unqualified “Yes”.
The Islamic sources, the Islamic texts, starting with the Koran – but not limited to the Koran – the Islamic texts, including the Hadith, the Islamic traditions, Islamic theology, Islamic law, the traditions of the interpretation of the Koran, throughout history and Islamic history itself, all bear witness to the fact that Islam has a developed doctrine, theology and law that mandates violence against the unbelievers.
The “Prophet” Muhammad:
Muhammad is revered in the Muslim world as the primary role model of human behaviour. The reverence holds true unto today, for there is no historicity, no concept that “that was then and this is now”, for he, like the Koran, was perfect and for all time. He cannot be improved upon. And what he did then is relevant now.
Mohammad wiped out the three Jewish tribes of Saudi Arabia. For example, from the “Life of Muhammad”, the standard Islamic text, read by Muslims wanting to know about the official life of the “Prophet”:
Mohammad wiped out the three Jewish tribes of Saudi Arabia. For example, from the “Life of Muhammad”, the standard Islamic text, read by Muslims wanting to know about the official life of the “Prophet”:
“Then the Quarizha tribe surrendered and the Apostle confined them in Medina… Then the Apostle went out to the market of Medina and dug trenches in it. Then he sent for them and struck off their heads in those trenches as they were brought out to him in batches…. There were 600 or 700 in all, though some put the figure as high as 800 or 900.”
The Life of Muhammad / Sirat Rasul Allah
By Muhammad bin Ishaq (d 773 AD)
Edited by Abdul Malik bin Hisham (d 840AD)
Translated by Prof Alfred Guillaume (1955)
(p. 464)
So killing Jews (and other "idolators" and unbelievers), is what a good Muslim must do. Walid Shoebat, an ex Palistinian terrorist, says they were taught this at school in Gaza, and that it inspired them in their efforts to kill Jews.
