Diplomat Lights Shoes on Fire

Reports are still coming in as I write this, but the latest news reports are saying that a man who is a diplomat at the Qatar embassy in Washington, Mohammed al Modadi, attempted to light his shoes on fire on a flight from Washington, D.C. to Denver.

Apparently, and air marshall on the flight subdued the man, and he was detained and question once the plane landed. Early reports are also suggesting that he did not have any kind of bomb or weapon, but think he may have tried to light his shoes on fire to cover up a smell. (Smoking?)

Two questions come to mind.

First, with all the security at airports in the U.S., how does an Arab get through security with something to light his shoes with? And second, what are the odds this was some kind of test of airport security and airplane security? Maybe next time, we won't be so lucky.

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TSA Working As It Should: Targeting Rich White Women

By now, you’ve all heard that Janet Napolitano, the head of Obama’s Department of Homeland Security, is going around saying that the system worked perfectly when a guy on the US no-fly list, who had been turned in by his own father, boarded a plane and detonated a bomb, only to be foiled by a bad detonator and alert passengers. I leave it to Jonah Goldberg to write the perfect obituary for the administration’s attempt to aggrandize itself on this one:

Understandably, the White House is trying very hard to get out in front of the would-be Christmas bomber story. The head of the Department of Homeland Security isn’t helping. I watched her on three shows and each time she was more annoying, maddening and absurd than the pevious appearance. It is her basic position that the “system worked” because the bureaucrats responded properly after the attack. That the attack was “foiled” by a bad detonator and some civilian passengers is proof, she claims, that her agency is doing everything right.

That is just about the dumbest thing she could say, on the merits and politically. I would wager that not one percent of Americans think the system is “working” when terrorists successfully get bombs onto planes (and succeed in activating them). Probably even fewer think it’s fair that they have to take off their shoes, endure delays and madness while a known Islamic radical — turned in by his own father — can waltz onto a plane (and into the country). DHS had no role whatsoever in assuring that this bomb didn’t go off. By her logic if the bomb had gone off, the system would have “worked” since it has done everything right.

UPDATE: Wait! Wait! This just in: The system does in fact work. Known black Muslim security threats may be getting a pass, but our security forces are still targeting the real threat: they’re going after rich blond women, just the way they should.

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December 7 Remembered

Ed Morrissey has this great post up at Hot Air.

Before there was 9/11, there was Pearl Harbor. Both attacks had their similarities. In both cases, we had a deadly enemy arrayed against us, but most Americans remained — or better put, willfully ignored — the threats both enemies posed. Only after thousands of Americans died did the US awaken to the true nature of those enemies.

Sixty-eight years ago today, the Japanese Empire attacked our naval base at Pearl Harbor without warning or a declaration of war. Within hours, their navy attacked American positions throughout the Pacific, including the Philippines, destroying our outposts and claiming the entire Pacific Ocean as their possession. With the fortunate exception of several aircraft carriers that had been on an exercise that morning, the US had almost no Pacific Fleet, and many feared an invasion of the West Coast.

It took hundreds of thousands of American lives to defeat both Japan and Nazi Germany in the war that followed — a war that had already enslaved China years before on one side of the US, and half of Europe on the other side. We thought we had learned a lesson on December 7, 1941 ,which was that we had to be prepared to fight a war in order to keep from getting surprised like that again. Of course, we shouldn’t have been surprised at all by Japan’s attack in the first place. They didn’t suddenly become warlike and aggressive on December 6th, 1941, as the Chinese, Manchurians, and Koreans could attest. They had been attempting conquest (and succeeding) for several years in the Pacific Rim. We just preferred to keep our eyes closed in order to keep from doing anything about it. When we attempted to cut off oil to Japan, we discovered that negotiations and sanctions don’t keep war-drunk, expansionist powers from increasing their expansionism.

The lesson from that war is that appeasement and complacency doesn’t keep one from having to fight a war. It usually forces one to fight from an extreme disadvantage. That’s a lesson we have not remembered in dealing with expansionist powers in our own time, even after a second shock like 9/11 after years of complacency in dealing with al-Qaeda. We’re falling back to treating radical Islamist terrorism like a Law and Order episode, and allowing one of the main drivers of radical Islamist terror, Iran, to arm itself with nuclear weapons with no consequences whatsoever.

On what date will the next “sneak” attack occur?

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If Only Some Could Have Seen This Coming

So, Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for one of the accused terrorists behind 9/11, has announced that the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but "would explain what happened and why they did it."

So basically, it's not going to be a trial, but an "Inside the Actor's Studio" for terrorists. Just yards from where thousands of innocent Americans perished, we'll all get to understand the motivations that drove these men to do what they did. I mean, since we know they're not going to deny their guilt– it's no longer about justice. It's just about "why, why, why." We'll learn exciting things about their childhood, their dreams of martyrdom, and how evil America is. It will be a show trial, without the "trial" part.

God, if only someone could have seen this coming.

Oh, wait...we all saw this coming. The only people who didn't? Those who let it happen.

There are three reasons for that:

-One, those people are stupid.

-Two. There's a belief shared by the "why do they hate us" faction of America that we are equally responsible for the terror attack. If we were just better people - nicer, less successful and less "American" - no one would try to kill us! Replacing Bush with Obama was supposed to help with all that. It didn't.

-Three, we've elected people consumed by the idea of root causes – a pseudo-intellectual exercise that prevents a real understanding of evil actions. Every culprit can tell a story, but by listening to that story, you insult each and every one of his victims. But to abort any argument based on root causes, simply say, "there are plenty of unhappy people who don't fly planes into buildings." Of course that's just too sensible for the best and the brightest.

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Islam Is as Islam Does

I just ran across another article by a bleeding-heart liberal who described the Fort Hood terrorist as a "lone nut" who had difficulty adjusting to military life. His actions, of course, had nothing to do with the co-incidental fact that his religion was Islam. Islam is, according this this article and an increasingly loud majority of liberals, an inherently peaceful religion and we have nothing to fear from it.

As far as I'm concerned, Islam is as Islam does. Apart from the Islamic Terrorist Traitor Major, over 14,000 other acts of terrorism have been committed in the name of this "peaceful religion" since 9/11 with countless thousands of deaths and injuries as a result.

There is no radical Islam. There is no Fundamentalist Islam. There is no Terrorist Islam. There is just Islam, and those who misunderstand the religion are the so-called "peaceful" Muslims who may not overtly support terrorism, but who covertly support it by nurturing, protecting and covering up the more active brothers and sisters amongst them.

Our leaders continually hammer away at the idea that America is not at war with Islam. While that is true, perhaps we should be, and we should make it official. It may be the only way we will all be safe.

Islam is a belief based on hate and grievance and likes to portray itself as a victim while itself victimizing others and victimizing even its own. Kind of like liberalism.

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What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

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Political Cartoon of the Day

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Terrorism or Simply Murder?

Anyone remember when abortion doctor George Tiller was murdered? It hasn't been that long ago. Everyone, particular the left, was quick to call the murder a "terrorist act." It wasn't, really.

The difference between Tiller's murder and terrorism? Terrorism seeks to terrorize other people by randomly killing as many innocent victims as possible. Murder, generally speaking, targets a specific individual for a specific reason.

Granted, some murders are seemingly "random." By their nature, someone who robs a store and shoots the witnesses is committing what most of us would describe as a random act of violence. Someone dies because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. But even in this case, the killer is killing specific people (witnesses) for a specific purpose (to not identify him).

In the Tiller case, the murder targeted Tiller, not random victims for a specific reason... he killed babies and was going to continue to get away with it because of the sham show-trial put on by the State of Kansas and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Fast forward to last week.

A muslim extremist in the military goes on a shooting rampage killing as many soldiers as he can in a small space. A few of these people are people he knows, but many are not. He shoots as many as 100 rounds killing and wounding some forty people.

The left and the Teleprompter-in-Chief are quick to say this may not be terrorism.

? ? ?

How is this NOT terrorism? Can anyone explain that to me?

Yes, Hasan may have had mental issues. Do we think that all of the suicide bombers from the middle east are well adjusted citizens? Yes, he was under some stress? Aren't we all?

The fact is, Hasan disagreed with the United States and its policies (even under the Peaceful Kenyan Muslim in the White House) and planned to take out and "terrorize" as many soldiers as he could.

Now, of course, one could argue that he did, in fact, target specific people. Soldiers. So that they wouldn't go over and kill his "Muslim Brothers." While that may or may not be the case, this is different than my previous example. The robber in the store kills witnesses so that they won't identify him. Hasan isn't going to change U.S. policy or prevent the deaths of a single "Muslim Brother" by killing U.S. soldiers. He's merely trying to terrorize the U.S. military.

Why is this important? For a couple of reasons. First, last week, we witnessed the worst terrorist act on U.S. soil since 9-11. We can't even get the administration and the media to admit it was a terrorist act. They are trying to justify it. "He was crazy; He was under stress; He was blah, blah, blah." The left wants to deny that there are Muslim Extremists Terrorist on U.S. soil this very minute. Doing so places us all in extreme danger.

Second, we need to get rid of this political correctness movement surrounding Islam. Our government (even under Bush) and the media continue to try to portray Islam as some peaceful love-fest singing Kum-By-Yah around a campfire while handing out flowers and embracing the world, but containing a small rag-tag group of fringe members that are violent. At the same time, they demonize Christianity as harmful to the American way of life. This perception is growing on the vast throng of uninformed independents and left leaning citizens in our country. This very perception threatens our freedoms.

It may seem like I'm over-blowing this issue. Perhaps I am. But it seems to me that as long as we head in the direction we are heading, the muslim extremists will win and the rest of us will lose our freedoms, if not our very lives.

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Fort Hood Shooter: The Shocking Truth

Hold on to your seats.

Nidal Malik Hasan. Sounds Irish or German to me. How ’bout you?

12 dead, 31 wounded. Yup, another loyal, moderate American Muslim. Another loyal, moderate American Muslim serving in the U.S. military. Nope, it’s not jihad at all. Why on earth would you say that?

The Teleprompter-in-Chief addressed the situation more than three minutes into a jovial, light-hearted speech, yesterday, cautioning us racist, redneck red-staters to not "jump to conclusions until we have the facts." Obama also said that authorities are trying to figure out how this tragedy could have happened.

White House officials are trying to hunt down shovels to dig Obama's head out of the sand.

What’s that they keep telling us about how Muslims who commit terrorism aren’t the American ones? What’s that they keep telling us about how Muslims who kill Americans are only doing so because they don’t have opportunities for education or a good economic situation like they do in America? The truth is that Islamic terrorism isn't about economic deprivation or American Imperialism. It's not about Israeli occupation of Palestine or American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Islamic terrorism and Jihad is about Muslims who have believed from the beginning of the religion that everyone must become a muslim or die. And they increasingly believe that the time has come to kill anyone and everyone who doesn't agree with them. That extremist view is spreading rapidly, and as far as I'm concerned it's time to rethink our policy regarding Muslims and freedom of Religion.

I'm probably alone, here. Even among fellow conservatives and loyal readers of this blog, I may have few who are going to agree with what I'm about to say. But for the good of the country, I think it's time to ban Muslims from serving in the military. I think it's time to ban all non-citizen Muslims from the borders of our country. And it may well be time to consider expelling U.S. citizens who are Muslims from our nation. It's likely that as long as one single Muslim lives in our borders, none of us are safe from this sort of tragedy.

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School Terrorists Captured Before Killing Americans

A 17-year-old Eagle Scout in upstate New York says he follows the Boy Scout motto, "be prepared." He stocked his care with a sleeping bag, water, a ready-to-eat meal and .... a 2 inch pocketknife. The knife was given to him by his grandfather, a police chief in a nearby town. The knife was always locked in his car in case of emergency.

A Delaware first grader named Zachary Christie brought a piece of camping equipment to school to eat his lunch with. It was a combination spoon, fork and knife.

Fortunately, our nation has decided to stop messing around with these needless foreign wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And we are now enlightened, so we no longer need to commit the sin of racial profiling, particularly against Muslim men carrying bombs, knives and other weapons. If we had been distracted by all these things that Bush was distracted with, we might never have caught these two terrorists-in-the-making.

You can all sleep well, tonight, though. Christie (who should be jailed just for having the name "Christ" as a part of his last name) was ordered to spend 45 days in his districts' alternative school for troublemakers. A sentence that was way too light, if you ask me. I'm not sure why they didn't go for the throat and make him watch Obama's hour-long health care speech and then sing "Mmm mmm mmm; Barack Hussein Obama."

The 17 year-old Eagle Scout, Matthew Whalen, a senior at Lansingburgh Senior High School was immediately suspended. The police were called, but the cop told school officials "he's not breaking any laws, so I can't arrest him." Wimpy cops. Whalen's initial suspension of 5 days was increased by an additional 15 days when he appeared in a school hearing and admitted that he did indeed have a knife locked in his car which he never intended to use and which he did not have access to during school.

Again, this young terrorist got off way too lightly. Without the strictest of punishments, there's no telling what he might have done next. He might have created a stink bomb in chemistry class or something. Maybe even hijacked a paper airplane and crashed it into the teacher's desk. There's no telling what kind of destruction and havoc may have been wreaked by these two delinquents.

Thank God, Obama is on the job.

.... oops. I mean, thank Allah.

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I'll Care When...

This one is "Stolen" from Opus at MAInfo. Check out the blog, if you haven't already...

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." - Abraham Lincoln

Letter from one 'Angry Woman'.....

"Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001?

Were people from all over the world, mostly Americans, not brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan , across the Potomac from our nation's capitol and in a field in Pennsylvania ?

Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they?

And I'm supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was 'desecrated' when an overworked American soldier kicked it or got it wet?
Well, I don't. I don't care at all.

I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11.

I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere possession of which is a crime in Saudi Arabia.

I'll care when these thugs tell the world they are sorry for chopping off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling slashed throat.

I'll care when the cowardly so-called 'insurgents' in Iraq come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques.

I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide.

I'll care when the American media stops pretending that their First Amendment liberties are somehow derived from international law instead of the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights.

In the meantime, when I hear a story about a brave marine roughing up an Iraqi terrorist to obtain information, know this: I don't care.

When I see a fuzzy photo of a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners who have been humiliated in what amounts to a college-hazing incident, rest assured: I don't care.

When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank: I don't care.

When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and fed 'special' food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being 'mishandled,' you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts: I don't care.

And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes it's spelled 'Koran' and other times 'Quran.'
Well, Jimmy Crack Corn and-you guessed it - I don't care!!

Should you choose the latter, then please don't complain when more atrocities committed by radical Muslims happen here in our great Country!

And may I add:

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem'.
-- Ronald Reagan

'If we ever forget that we're One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under'
Also by.. Ronald Reagan

One last thought for the day:

In case we find ourselves starting to believe all the Anti-American sentiment and negativity, we should remember England 's Prime Minister Tony Blair's words during a recent interview. When asked by one of his Parliament members why he believes so much in America , he said: 'A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in.. And how many want out.'

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What Did Obama Know and When Did He Know it?

From Pajama's Media:

The Left used to have a chant: “No war for oil.” But now that Britain has let a terrorist who killed 243 passengers go free, because to do so meant access to a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal for British Petroleum (BP), we have not heard a word. This is especially the case for the British Left, who, for some time now, has been anti-Israel to the hilt and excessively silent about the crimes committed by Arab nations.

The facts are clear, as the London Times reported. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government, after discussions between Libya and BP, made the decision to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber who brought down Pam Am 103 in 1988. Among the passengers who died were 180 Americans.

Until now, it was thought that Scotland made the deal alone to free al-Megrahi. But investigative reporting found firm evidence that, as Edward Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, put it, “the British government has been involved for a long time in talks over al-Megrahi in which commercial considerations have been central to their thinking.”

It was a decision, Justice Secretary Jack Straw said, that was in the British national interest. Britain agreed that the terrorist could go free. Six weeks later, Libya ratified the BP deal that the government wanted concluded. So much for “compassionate grounds,” the so-called official reason that led to Al-Megrhai’s freedom.

One other issue has to be raised. After al-Megrahi was freed and given a hero’s welcome when his plane landed in Libya, the Obama administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton protested. But this was after he gained his freedom. So the question must be stated: Would Britain have allowed this deal to be undertaken without informing President Obama in advance?

After all, scores of Americans were murdered by his action. The families have suffered for close to twenty years. A moving account of one family’s trauma appeared in an op-ed yesterday written by Robert P. George. As George writes: “What did American officials know about the decision to free Megrahi and when did they know it? What, if anything, did our government do to try to prevent it? Remember, 180 of Megrahi’s victims were our fellow citizens. President Obama had a right to be informed in advance of what Scotland was planning to do and a duty to do everything in his power diplomatically to prevent this outrage.”

Did Barack Obama phone Gordon Brown and object strenuously before the release? Did he really not know of Britain’s plans until after it was too late? Frankly, this is rather hard to believe. If almost 200 British subjects were killed on American soil in a terrorist attack, and the perpetrator was freed in a commercial deal by the U.S. government, it is hard to imagine that any administration would not first have informed the British government of what was going to take place.

So the question remains: What did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it?

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FBI Was Ordered to "Back-Off" Anti-Terror Investigations

Here's a little something you won't find in the MainStreamMedia. In fact, I've seen very little comment on it from the blogosphere.

Apparently the FBI had been looking at the murderer of the U.S. soldiers in Little Rock Arkansas several months ago. William Long was killed and a second soldier injured by Carlos Leon "Corey" Bledsoe Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad. But U.S. counterterror teams may have been intentionally prevented from investigating this guy by the White House.

Several weeks ago, sources were told that the FBI and other law enforcement organizations had been ordered to "back off" of counterterrorism investigations into the activities of Black Muslim converts. The investigations were cancelled for purely political reasons. 

Many FBI supervisors are reluctant to authorize investigations they believe may have negative blow back on their career advancement.  According to one source, "It would not be at all surprising to us if a supervisor refused to authorize a full-field investigation of Muhammad that would have included surveillance of his activities... Had the FBI opened a full-field investigation on Muhammad, and had it conducted the surveillance on him, it would have been able to watch him participate in preoperational activities such as conducting surveillance of potential targets and obtaining weapons."

This makes the silence from the White House on this incident even louder.

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Obama Goes To Cairo

I'm sure the Obama Mid East trip will generate may articles over the next few days. I won't try to cover all of what Obama said earlier today. I will make a couple of comments...

The first thing to catch my attention was when Obama said "...I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against the negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear."

Really? Since when, exactly? What other religions does Obama feel responsible to defend?

Let's take a look at one of the larger groups within our own country. A little religion you may have heard of somewhere along the way ... Christianity.

Has Obama been defending mainstream Christian groups who have been lumped in with the guy who shot George Tiller? Maybe I missed that.

I will give Obama credit, though. While many muslims, particularly in Egypt (from what I understand, anyway) have denied that al Qaeda was responsible for 9/11, Obama said this:

"I'm aware that there's still some who would question or even justify the offense of 9/11. But let us be clear. Al Qaeda killed nearly 3000 people on that day. The victims were innocent men, women, and children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody. And yet al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people... and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale.... These are not opinions to be debated. These are facts to be dealt with."

At least on this point, he gets it right. I wonder if his audience heard him.

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FAA Investigates Missile Fired at ExpressJet Flight Near Houston

The FBI, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Liberty County Sheriff’s Department met Tuesday to compare notes on an unidentified flying object reported late last week by an ExpressJet Airlines pilot.

The pilot reported a “missile or rocket” flying near his airplane Friday at 8:09 p.m., shortly after takeoff from Bush Intercontinental Airport, according to sheriff’s officials.

“The FAA then contacted the Liberty County department dispatcher and reported their pilot reported an object flying straight at his aircraft and passed 100 feet under it,” said Ken DeFoor, chief deputy for the Liberty County Sheriff’s Department.

FBI spokeswoman Shauna Dunlap said the agency was aware of the sighting.

“While we have no information to indicate there was a criminal act we certainly do not rule anything out and certainly would not want to speculate on what it may or may not have been,” she said.

The flight was over the southern edge of Liberty County flying at 13,000 feet when the incident occurred, officials said. ExpressJet flies regional routes for Continental Airlines as Continental Express.

“We haven’t found anything yet — either something on the ground where it launched or on the ground where it came down,” said Liberty County Sheriff’s Cpl. Hugh Bishop.

While some have suggested that a hobbyists rocket may have been involved, that seems highly unlikely. This incident happened at 13,000 feet. The surrounding countryside is barely above sea level. Hobbyists rockets generally don't come close to those kinds of altitudes.

Homeland Security seems uninterested in the incident at this point. While there is no evidence that points toward terrorism, a terrorist act seems like a fairly likely possibility.

Of course, as our favorite Bloviating Zeppelin pointed out on his blog...

Do you really expect Homeland Security to divert resources from the "Great Tea Party Investigation" to check on a possible missile being fired at an airplane? Are you kidding? Didn't you hear how those radical right wingers want the government to be more responsible with our money? I'm sorry, but if Homeland Security needs to make a choice between tracking down possible missile launches or trailing minivans with a Jesus fish and a FairTax.org bumper sticker, I'm going to have to say the minivans are the priority.

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