Officials said that Aldawsari appeared to be acting alone and was not in touch with any terrorist organization overseas. But his journal entries stated that he was inspired by Osama bin Laden and wanted to create "an Islamic group under the banner" of al-Qaeda...
... Aldawsari wrote that "one operation in the land of the infidels is equal to ten operations against occupying forces in the land of the Muslims."
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
"Tyrant's House" — the subject line of email containing George W. Bush's Texas address.
Email sent to himself by Khalid Aldawsari — who's been arrested in Lubbock after he attempted to buy a product used in bombmaking.
"In 1970, when I was 22 years old — the same age as Jared Loughner — I was a founder of the Weather Underground, an offshoot of the antiwar group Students for a Democratic Society."
Writes Mark Rudd in the Washington Post:
My willingness to endorse and engage in violence had something to do with an exaggerated sense of my own importance. I wanted to prove myself as a man - a motive exploited by all armies and terrorist groups. I wanted to be a true revolutionary like my guerrilla hero, Ernesto "Che" Guevara. I wanted the chant we used at demonstrations defending the Black Panthers to be more than just words: "The revolution has come/Time to pick up the gun!"
As the Weather Underground believed in the absolute necessity of bombs to address actual moral grievances such as the Vietnam War and racism, Loughner might have believed in the absolute necessity of a Glock to answer his imagined moral grievances....
"The threat was very real. Our investigation shows that Mohamud was absolutely committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand scale."
The NYT reports on an Oregon teenager's attempt to blow up fake explosives — given him by the FBI — that he thought were real. According to the FBI, he wanted to kill everyone who showed up for a Christmas tree lighting in Portland.
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested at 5:40 p.m. Friday just after he dialed a cell phone that he thought would set off the blast but instead brought federal agents and police swooping down on him.ADDED: I already had the tag "Christmas bomber," so I used that again. There's a new spin on the "War on Christmas."
Yelling "Allahu Akbar!" — Arabic for "God is great!" — Mohamud tried to kick agents and police after he was taken into custody, according to prosecutors....
[T]he sting operation began in June after an undercover agent learned that Mohamud had been in regular e-mail contact with an "unindicted associate" in Pakistan's northwest, a frontier region where al-Qaida and Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents are strong....
"Don't touch my junk." It's the new "Don't Tread on Me."
Says Charles Krauthammer.
It seems to me that these 2 things happened together: new machines that see you naked and newly intense body searches. Am I wrong to believe that the new groping procedure was intended to get more people into the scanners they would otherwise resist? Someone, at some level of the Obama administration, decided that the only way to channel people into the see-you-naked machines was to make the alternative more offensive to nearly everyone. Personally, I'd take the grope over being seen naked, but I did a poll yesterday, and I see that the scanner is significantly more popular than the grope. I suspect that was the calibration. And I suspect that if too many people choose the grope over nakedness, the plan is to intensify the grope until they get the scanner acceptance rate they need.
But why were the scanners introduced when they had to know people didn't want them? With healthcare reform, the Obama administration became associated with ramming things down our throats. The government knows what we should want and doesn't bother to find out what we do want or even to persuade us to want what they think we should. The scanners are the ultimate graphic example of forcing something on us without asking. We're only asked: Well, would you prefer to have us feeling all around your genitals? That's the kind of consent of the governed we're facing these days.
But why push the scanners on us? Do you remember hearing Obama or Janet Napolitano or anyone say anything persuasive about why these machines were bought? (Suddenly, I want to follow the money. For that, I will move to a new post.)
(In my unscientific poll, 73% of those who would keep flying, picked the scanner over the grope. I suspect the government needs a better acceptance rate than that to keep the lines flowing and justify the investment in the machines. But most of those of us who picked the grope haven't been groped yet, and if being seen naked becomes the norm, more of us may fall into that brain-dulled line that shuffles into the machine.)
Don't touch my junk is the anthem of the modern man, the Tea Party patriot, the late-life libertarian, the midterm election voter. Don't touch my junk, Obamacare - get out of my doctor's examining room, I'm wearing a paper-thin gown slit down the back. Don't touch my junk, Google - Street View is cool, but get off my street. Don't touch my junk, you airport security goon - my package belongs to no one but me....Do you remember how the government presented this newly intensified bodily search? Why did the Obama administration — which I associate with opposition to enhanced interrogation techniques used on terrorists — adopt enhanced pat-downs on ordinary citizens to protect us from terrorists? Was it done because of the introduction of the enhanced imagining scanners? I really don't know. Did the government explain this to us when I wasn't paying attention? Because I monitor the news for hours every day, and I don't know the explanation.
It seems to me that these 2 things happened together: new machines that see you naked and newly intense body searches. Am I wrong to believe that the new groping procedure was intended to get more people into the scanners they would otherwise resist? Someone, at some level of the Obama administration, decided that the only way to channel people into the see-you-naked machines was to make the alternative more offensive to nearly everyone. Personally, I'd take the grope over being seen naked, but I did a poll yesterday, and I see that the scanner is significantly more popular than the grope. I suspect that was the calibration. And I suspect that if too many people choose the grope over nakedness, the plan is to intensify the grope until they get the scanner acceptance rate they need.
But why were the scanners introduced when they had to know people didn't want them? With healthcare reform, the Obama administration became associated with ramming things down our throats. The government knows what we should want and doesn't bother to find out what we do want or even to persuade us to want what they think we should. The scanners are the ultimate graphic example of forcing something on us without asking. We're only asked: Well, would you prefer to have us feeling all around your genitals? That's the kind of consent of the governed we're facing these days.
But why push the scanners on us? Do you remember hearing Obama or Janet Napolitano or anyone say anything persuasive about why these machines were bought? (Suddenly, I want to follow the money. For that, I will move to a new post.)
(In my unscientific poll, 73% of those who would keep flying, picked the scanner over the grope. I suspect the government needs a better acceptance rate than that to keep the lines flowing and justify the investment in the machines. But most of those of us who picked the grope haven't been groped yet, and if being seen naked becomes the norm, more of us may fall into that brain-dulled line that shuffles into the machine.)
"American justice can be rendered calmly, deliberately and fairly by ordinary people..."
"... people who are not beholden to any government, not even ours. It can be rendered with fidelity to the Constitution. You have a right to be proud of your service in this case."
Judge Lewis Kaplan speaks words of inspiration to the jury that acquitted Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani of 284 of 285 criminal charges relating to the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa.
Judge Lewis Kaplan speaks words of inspiration to the jury that acquitted Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani of 284 of 285 criminal charges relating to the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa.
"I don't think that the government has any business seeing me naked as a condition of traveling about the country."
Don't get snippy. It's either see you naked or feel you up. Just kidding. You also have the option not to travel by plane.
ADDED: "The 'don’t touch my junk' guy speaks."
ADDED: "The 'don’t touch my junk' guy speaks."
"Russ Feingold received a suspicious package on his doorstep in Middleton Saturday, which police deemed a prank..."
It turned out to be a board game and a letter signed "Thomas Jefferson."
How is it even a prank? Someone sent him a joke gift. If Feingold shouldn't be getting packages delivered to his house, why does the Post Office deliver them? What does this have to do with "the recent interception of explosives"? It wasn't an inception. It was a delivered package. And there were no explosives.
Is this a nonstory, the sort of non-"incident" that happens all the time, which we're hearing about because of the election?
By the way, what board game was it? It was supposed to be funny in combination with Thomas Jefferson.
The Dane County Bomb Squad searched the package...So it came in the mail? It was on his doorstep because that's where the postal worker left it? Who is supposed to call the bomb squad when an unsolicited package comes in the mail? (I get packages in the mail from addresses I don't recognize. Should I call the police?)
Although the sender of the package has yet to be found, police traced the return address to a postal office in Illinois. The incident came on the heels of the recent interception of explosives headed for Jewish organizations in Chicago....
How is it even a prank? Someone sent him a joke gift. If Feingold shouldn't be getting packages delivered to his house, why does the Post Office deliver them? What does this have to do with "the recent interception of explosives"? It wasn't an inception. It was a delivered package. And there were no explosives.
Is this a nonstory, the sort of non-"incident" that happens all the time, which we're hearing about because of the election?
By the way, what board game was it? It was supposed to be funny in combination with Thomas Jefferson.
Obama's post-election escape to Mumbai: "Obama’s contingent is huge. There are two jumbo jets coming along with Air Force One, which will be flanked by security jets."
"There will be 30 to 40 secret service agents, who will arrive before him. The President’s convoy has 45 cars, including the Lincoln Continental in which the President travels."
Can someone do a quick calculation of the carbon footprint? And please — everyone join in — explain why behavior like this shouldn't make global warming skeptics out of us all. If the emergency were really what it's claimed to be when we little people are urged to drive tin-can cars, no moral leader would travel this way. As it is, I can't understand why Obama and his group are willing to look like such hypocrites.
Can someone do a quick calculation of the carbon footprint? And please — everyone join in — explain why behavior like this shouldn't make global warming skeptics out of us all. If the emergency were really what it's claimed to be when we little people are urged to drive tin-can cars, no moral leader would travel this way. As it is, I can't understand why Obama and his group are willing to look like such hypocrites.
To ensure fool-proof security, the President’s team has booked the entire the Taj Mahal Hotel, including 570 rooms, all banquets and restaurants. Since his security contingent and staff will comprise a huge number, 125 rooms at Taj President have also been booked, apart from 80 to 90 rooms each in Grand Hyatt and The Oberoi hotels. The NCPA, where the President is expected to meet representatives from the business community, has also been entirely booked."Fool-proof" — "fool" is a fabulous euphemism, considering that the Taj Mahal Hotel was the scene of a horrific terrorist attack 2 years ago.
"So where'm I goin' wrong there, Juan?" — a question from that nice man/monster, Bill O'Reilly.
The Juan Williams moment, prompted by Bill O'Reilly, who just a few days earlier, had this immensely more dramatic-looking moment on "The View":
I got to the Juan Williams video via Donald Sensing (via Instapundit). Sensing has old quotes from Jesse Jackson and Susan Estrich, who both conceded that black men make them anxious in some situations. Jackson's painful admission was that he feels "relieved" when he's walking down the street, hears someone behind him, and looks back and sees that they're white. Estrich said:
Every woman I know, black, white, green or yellow, gets a little bit nervous, if she’s being honest, when she sees an 18-25 year-old black guy dressed in gang attire, walking behind her on the street. I’m not afraid of old black men. I’m not afraid of old white men.She purports to speak for all women, but limits the nervousness to encounters with "an 18-25 year-old black guy dressed in gang attire, walking behind her on the street." It's funny to see those 2 quotes together. Jackson describes the realistic situation of hearing someone behind you and looking back to see who it is. Estrich too has the person walking behind her, but somehow the nervousness is restricted to the young black man in gang clothes. Her political correctness made her layer in extra details, but if the guy is behind you, you don't see him yet. Were you not nervous just to have someone following you? The supposed revelation of feelings doesn't really add up, which makes the phrase "if she’s being honest" particularly telling.
Now, if Jackson and Estrich could say that, how was Williams different? Actually, there are a lot of differences. I won't try to list them all. But I don't assume that Jackson and Estrich got a free pass for saying what they said. And Williams has gotten a ton of support. It's not all about treating Muslims with more delicacy than black people receive. One thing about Williams is that he made himself available to Bill O'Reilly and gave him support and comfort. I think many people wanted to use that "View" fracas to demonize O'Reilly for good. And then Williams sat down on camera to shine a glow of humanity on the man the good people would have us see as monstrous. And so it became necessary to demonize Williams too.
Sarah Palin: "Juan Williams: Going Rogue."
A Facebook entry:
... I don’t expect Juan Williams to support me (he’s said some tough things about me in the past) – but I will always support his right and the right of all Americans to speak honestly about the threats this country faces. And for Juan, speaking honestly about these issues isn’t just his right, it’s his job. Up until yesterday, he was doing that job at NPR. Firing him is their loss.
If NPR is unable to tolerate an honest debate about an issue as important as Islamic terrorism, then it’s time for “National Public Radio” to become “National Private Radio.” It’s time for Congress to defund this organization.
NPR Fires Juan Williams because of what he said about Muslims.
Williams was on "The O’Reilly Factor":
The response from lefties and righties is predictable. William Kristol says:
Williams is now free of the need to preserve his relationship with NPR. I'm pretty interested to hear what he'll say now that he's shaken off the chains of PC-radio. Talk to us, Juan!
Mr. O’Reilly said, “The cold truth is that in the world today jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet.”Williams managed to be a commentator on both NPR and Fox for quite a while, but I guess it was just too much to see him feeding red meat to O'Reilly just a few days after O'Reilly enraged Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg over the very same subject. These news media — Fox and NPR — want the image they want, and Williams did a great job, fitting into both templates for as long as he did.
Mr. Williams said he concurred with Mr. O’Reilly.
He continued: “I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
Mr. Williams also made reference to the Pakistani immigrant who pleaded guilty this month to trying to plant a car bomb in Times Square. “He said the war with Muslims, America’s war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don’t think there’s any way to get away from these facts,” Mr. Williams said.
NPR said in its statement that the remarks “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.”
The response from lefties and righties is predictable. William Kristol says:
I suspect the powers-that-be at NPR pretty much think what Juan thinks. But the standards of political correctness must be maintained. Pressure groups speaking for allegedly offended Muslims must be propitiated. And so Juan had to go.Glenn Greenwald says:
Williams' trite attempt to glorify his bigotry as anti-P.C. Speaking of the Truth is inane, as his remarks were suffused with falsehoods...And so on.
Whether these latest comments were merely the opportunity they [NPR] were looking for to terminate their relationship with him, or whether it was caused solely by these disgusting comments, is unclear. But what is clear is that the anti-Muslim bigotry he spewed is both the proximate and cited cause....
Williams is now free of the need to preserve his relationship with NPR. I'm pretty interested to hear what he'll say now that he's shaken off the chains of PC-radio. Talk to us, Juan!
"What Is Moderate Islam?" — a symposium.
In the Wall Street Journal. Excerpts from the 6 participants:
Anwar Ibrahim ("The Ball Is in Our Court"):
Anwar Ibrahim ("The Ball Is in Our Court"):
... Muslims must do more than just talk about their great intellectual and cultural heritage. We must be at the forefront of those who reject violence and terrorism. And our activism must not end there. The tyrants and oppressive regimes that have been the real impediment to peace and progress in the Muslim world must hear our unanimous condemnation.Bernard Lewis ("A History of Tolerance"):
For the moment, there does not seem to be much prospect of a moderate Islam in the Muslim world. This is partly because in the prevailing atmosphere the expression of moderate ideas can be dangerous—even life-threatening....Ed Husain ("Don't Call Me Moderate, Call Me Normal"):
But for Muslims who seek it, the roots are there, both in the theory and practice of their faith and in their early sacred history.
Normative Islam, from its early history to the present, is defined by its commitment to protecting religion, life, progeny, wealth and the human mind. In the religious language of Muslim scholars, this is known as maqasid, or aims. This is the heart of Islam.Reuel Marc Gerecht ("Putting Up With Infidels Like Me"):
I am fully Muslim and fully Western. Don't call me moderate—call me a normal Muslim.
Tolerance among traditional Muslims is defined as Christian Europe first defined the idea: A superior creed agrees not to harass an inferior creed, so long as the practitioners of the latter don't become too uppity. Tolerance emphatically does not mean equality of belief, as it now does in the West.Tawfik Hamid ("Don't Gloss Over The Violent Texts"):
Radical Islam is not limited to the act of terrorism; it also includes the embrace of teachings within the religion that promote hatred and ultimately breed terrorism. Those who limit the definition of radical Islam to terrorism are ignoring—and indirectly approving of—the Shariah teachings that permit killing apostates, violence against women and gays, and anti-Semitism.
Moderate Islam should be defined as a form of Islam that rejects these violent and discriminatory edicts....
Moderate Islam must not be passive. It needs to actively reinterpret the violent parts of the religious text rather than simply cherry-picking the peaceful ones....Akbar Ahmed ("Mystics, Modernists and Literalists"):
Having studied the practices of Muslims around the world today, I've come up with three broad categories: mystic, modernist and literalist....
Muslims in the mystic category reflect universal humanism, believing in "peace with all."...
The second category is the modernist Muslim who believes in trying to balance tradition and modernity....
The literalists believe that Muslim behavior must approximate that of the Prophet in seventh-century Arabia. Their belief that Islam is under attack forces many of them to adopt a defensive posture. And while not all literalists advocate violence, many do. Movements like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and the Taliban belong to this category.Ahmed says he wants accurate categories and indicates that "moderate" isn't such a category. I'd need to hear more about that to understand, because it seems to me that there are ways of being moderate or extreme in all 3 categories. Do you really want to say that it's taking texts literally that is the problem? Would that extend to other religions (and to other texts, such as, for example, Constitutions)? And aren't there also ways of being "modernist" that can lead to trouble? Didn't history's worst fascists meld tradition and some concept of modernity? I don't mean to say that there's no insight to be gained in Ahmed's 3 categories, only that their existence doesn't convince me to stop caring about moderation.
" I was ten years old back in 1970 and clearly remember the loud boom that traveled across Lake Monona and awakened me in the middle of the night."
Another memory of the Sterling Hall bombing, which took place 40 years ago yesterday, from an emailer who would like to keep her name private:
I remember hearing all of my relatives talk about never shopping downtown again because people were being dragged out of their cars, windows were being broken, and tear gas deployed. I believe that East Town Mall also opened that year or soon after so between those two events, Madison's downtown shopping district was obliterated. I don't remember any fiery speeches about how wrong the students or administration was, just a general sense of fear.
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