Recently in Useful idiots Category

It would have been much more surprising if he had named it honestly as what it was. "Obama Condemns London Attack: ‘There Can Be Absolutely No Justification,’" by Tom Kludt at TPM Livewire, May 23 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

President Barack Obama issued a statement Thursday condemning the brutal attack in London that left a British soldier dead, saying there "can be absolutely no justification for such acts."

I condemn in the strongest terms the appalling attack against a British service member in Woolwich on May 22. The United States stands resolute with the United Kingdom, our ally and friend, against violent extremism and terror. There can be absolutely no justification for such acts, and our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the victim, the police and security services responding to this horrific act and the communities they serve, and the British people. Our special relationship with the United Kingdom is especially important during times of trial, and I look forward to my trip to the United Kingdom to participate in the June G-8 Summit, hosted by Prime Minister Cameron, which will include discussions on the important global security challenges our countries face together.

But apparently they were considered to be such a low risk that they were able to roam around London with meat cleavers, looking for a soldier to hack to death. Jihad, after all, it's an interior spiritual struggle, you know!

"London attack: hacking victim named; attackers were previously investigated by terror probe: report," from the Toronto Star, May 23 (thanks to Lookmann):

LONDON — Two men accused of butchering a 25-year-old Afghanistan veteran soldier on a London street had been featured in investigations by security services, a British official said Thursday.

The Ministry of Defence identified the soldier as 25-year-old Lee Rigby, who joined the army in 2006 and served in Afghanistan as a member of the fire support group.

Rigby, the father of a 2-year-old boy, was “an extremely popular and witty soldier (with) a larger than life personality. He was a passionate and life-long Manchester United fan,” the Defence statement read.

His attackers boasted of their exploits and warned of more violence in images recorded on witnesses’ mobile phones. Holding bloody knives and a meat cleaver, they waited for the arrival of police, who shot them in the legs, according to a passerby who had tried to save the dying soldier.

A British government official told The Associated Press both suspects were part of previous investigations for possible terror links.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the investigation, said he could not provide other details because the suspects may face trial.

Investigations by Britain’s domestic security service, MI5, can include undercover surveillance, phone tapping and communications intercepts.

Sky TV reported both suspects “had featured in MI5 investigations, but were not deemed high priority and not thought involved in complex plot.”

Prime Minister David Cameron vowed that Britain would not be cowed by the horrific violence, and that it would reject “the poisonous narrative of extremism on which this violence feeds.”

“It’s hateful, it’s horrific and upsetting. But it doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference,” Christian White, 43, said at King’s Cross station, close to the site of a subway bomb in July 2005.

“Londoners are used to living in a city where life is complicated.”

It's going to get more complicated.

Even so, security was increased at military barracks and installations in the capital, with extra armed guards added in many cases. Police said extra patrols were added at sensitive areas, including places of worship, transport hubs and congested areas.

Wednesday’s attack took place near a military barracks in the Woolwich area of south London.

The following video, obtained by British media, shows the alleged attacker brandishing a knife and cleaver.

There was little hard information available about the wounded suspects. Police gave no details of their injuries or conditions.

After the killing, one of the attackers was recorded on numerous amateur videos warning of more violence and explaining the reason for the crime, while gesturing with bloodied hands and waving a meat cleaver.

“We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you,” the man declared, complaining about British troops fighting Muslims. “We must fight them as they fight us.”

The camera then panned away to show a body lying on the ground.

Police in the county of Lincolnshire in eastern England said a property was being searched in connection to the attack in Woolwich. The Guardian newspaper, with a reporter at the scene, described the home as having been rented for several years by the family, who had since moved to London.

Media, quoting friends and sources, named the suspect in the amateur videos as 28-year-old Michael Adebolajo, who lived in London.

A police raid on an apartment in Greenwich near Woolwich was thought to be related, media reported. Four people, including two children, were taken away early Thursday by police, neighbours told reporters.

A Guardian reporter in Nigeria quoted officials there as saying both suspects were of Nigerian descent but raised elsewhere.

Both men accused of the attack appeared to have converted to Islam from Christian immigrant backgrounds, British media said.

The Islamic Society of Britain has also condemned the attacks.

“Murdering a British soldier is an attack on our nation,” the society said in a statement. “No effort should be spared in purging this hate.

“Our thoughts and sympathies are with the family of the deceased. Justifying this killing in the name of faith or religion is false and rejected.”

The head of a banned British radical Islamist group identified the suspect on the amateur video as Adebolajo and said he “used to attend a few demonstrations and activities that we used to have.”

Anjem Choudary was quoted by Reuters as saying Adebolajo, whom he had not seen for two years, was “a very pleasant man, he was peaceful, unassuming.”

Choudary’s organization gained notoriety for staging events to commemorate the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States with leaflets that referred to the hijackers as “the Magnificent 19”.

Metropolitan Police in London said they will abide by the family’s wishes and not identify the victim for the time being.

“He was from Lincolnshire and I think he served in the Yorkshire Regiment,” soldier Zak Dempster was quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph as he lay flowers at the attack site.

“He was just starting off his career, in his 20s.”

The attack, just a month after the bomb attacks on the Boston Marathon, revived fears of “lone wolves.” These may have had no direct contact with Al Qaeda but are inspired by radical preachers and by Islamist militant websites, some of which urge people to attack Western targets with whatever means they have.

Chilling images of the blood-soaked suspect—who urged Britons to overthrow their government or risk having their children face a fate similar to a dead soldier lying just yards away—were splashed across the front pages of newspapers.

“I apologize that women had to witness that, but in our lands our women have to see the same thing. You people will never be safe. Remove your government. They don’t care about you,” the man said in the video before crossing the street and speaking casually to the other attacker.

The grisly attack took place on the edge of London’s sprawling Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, a south London working class district which has long-standing historic links to the military.

The victim was wearing a T-shirt saying “Help for Heroes”, the name of a charity formed to help wounded British veterans. Britain has had troops deployed in Afghanistan since 2001 and had troops in Iraq from 2003-2009.

Before he was stabbed to death, the victim was knocked over by a blue car which then rammed into a lamppost. The attackers pounced on him in broad daylight in a busy residential street.

Witnesses said they shouted “Allahu akbar”—Arabic for God is greatest—while stabbing the victim and trying to behead him. A handgun was found at the scene.

Some onlookers rushed to help the victim and one woman tried to engage one of the attackers in conversation to calm him.

“He had what looked like butcher’s tools—a little axe, to cut the bones, and two large knives. He said: ‘Move off the body,’” Ingrid Loyau-Kennett was quoted by local media as saying.

“He said: ‘I killed him because he killed Muslims and I am fed up with people killing Muslims in Afghanistan.’”...

Cameron’s office had welcomed the condemnation from most mainstream British Muslim groups but that the national security committee had discussed community cohesion....

When will authorities begin to demand more than just pro forma condemnations after the fact?

The killer explicitly ascribed his killing to Islam. The proper response here would not be to blame or target Muslims who had nothing to do with this attack, but to have an honest public discussion of the elements of Islam that jihadists use to justify violence and supremacism, and what can be done about them. The problem is that such a discussion is always forestalled by people who claim that to have it would be to target or threaten innocent Muslims. There is no reason why this must be so. In fact, Muslims who sincerely reject the violent and supremacist aspects of Islam should welcome such a discussion, if their rejection is sincere. "Boris Johnson: Neither Islam nor UK foreign policy to blame for Woolwich attack," from Metro, May 23 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

Boris Johnson has said the blame for the brutal murder of a soldier in Woolwich lies with the ‘warped mind-set’ of his killers.

The London mayor, arriving for a meeting of the government’s emergency Cobra committee chaired by prime minister David Cameron, said it was wrong to blame either Muslims or the presence of UK troops in Afghanistan for the attack.

One of the two suspects in yesterday’s killing made a series of political statements in the wake of the attack, while counterterrorism officers are waiting to question both men in hospital after they were shot by armed police.

‘One obvious point, it is completely wrong to blame this killing on Islam but also wrong to draw a link between this murder and British foreign policy,’ Mr Johnson said on Thursday morning.

‘The fault lies with the warped mind-set of those who did it and for the sake of the victim and his family the killers need to be brought to justice.’...

Here we go again. Despite the fact that the Muslim killer invoked the Qur'an and made specific reference to the Islamic doctrine that one must fight against those who fight against Islam, the media and government elites in Britain are working in overdrive to exonerate Islam and prevent any serious discussion of the elements of Islamic teaching that incite to violence and encourage Islamic supremacism.

Nothing in Islam that justifies this, eh? Well, let's see. The jihadist killed a British soldier on a London street. What exactly about that is un-Islamic?

The Qur'an says, "Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not like transgressors" (2:190). That "do not transgress" has often been interpreted by Islamic scholars as meaning, do not begin hostilities. I.e., this verse is a foundation for defensive jihad. But in this case, as the killer himself made clear, he believed that the soldier was fighting Muslims in Islamic lands -- Iraq and Afghanistan. So the soldier was already fighting Muslims, and the killer would have thought that he was not "transgressing" by therefore fighting "in the way of Allah those who fight you" -- i.e., the Muslims.

And how is one to fight them? "And kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you, and fitnah is worse than killing. And do not fight them at al-Masjid al- Haram until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers" (2:191). "Kill them wherever you overtake them" -- even on, say, a street in Woolwich.

Until British (and American) authorities come to grips with the fact that there is ample Islamic justification for such murders, and stop playing games with their Let's Play Pretend version of Islam, there will be many more such killings.

"Murder of soldier in Woolwich was a 'betrayal of Islam' says Cameron as he insists Britain will stand resolute against terror," by Nigel Morris in The Independent, May 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

David Cameron today condemned the Woolwich murder as a “betrayal of Islam” as he insisted Britain would stand resolute against terror attacks.

He was speaking after chairing a meeting of Whitehall’s Cobra emergency committee of ministers, police chiefs and senior figures in the security services.

Standing outside Downing Street, the Prime Minister said: “This was not just an attack on Britain – and on our British way of life. It was also a betrayal of Islam and of the Muslim communities who give so much to our country.

“There is nothing in Islam that justifies this truly dreadful act. We will defeat violent extremism by standing together by backing our police and security services and above all by challenging the poisonous narrative of extremism on which this violence feeds.”

Warning that the aim of terrorists was to divide, he praised Britons’ natural resilience and pointed to the example of the cub scout pack leader Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, who confronted one of the men at the murder site.

Mr Cameron said: “When told by the attacker that he wanted to start a war in London, she replied: ‘You’re going to lose. It’s only you versus many.’ She spoke for us all.”...

Today’s hour-long Cobra meeting focused on the importance of community cohesion in the wake of the killing. A source said: “The strength and unity of response from Muslim community leaders was recognised and commended by Ministers and others around the table.”...

Every day brings new confirmation of how compromised the U.S. government, military, and intelligence apparatus really is. After the Obama Administration purged counterterror training materials of all truth about Islam and jihad, this is what they replaced it with.

"FEATURED STORY: US Naval Academy Instructor Teaching On Behalf Of US Muslim Brotherhood," from the Global Muslim Brotherhood Watch, May 14 (thanks to Jeff):

According to promotional material, a United States Naval Academy professor is teaching on behalf of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a part of the US Muslim Brotherhood and where global Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi reportedly serves as a trustee. IIIT recently announced its Summer Students Program for 2013 to be held from May 26 – July 3. According to the IIIT announcement, one of the instructors for the program will be Professor Ermin Sinanovic, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland who will be teaching the following course titled “Muslim World Affairs”:

Ermin Sinanovic

This course is meant to provide students who had little or no background on the Muslim world with a basic understanding of its contemporary history, its geopolitics, its diverse cultures, languages and ethnic groups. Also, the course introduces the key issues and developments that framed the relationship between the world of Islam and the West, such as the colonial encounter, the capitalist expansion of the West, the emergence of the nation-state and its institutions, the discovery of oil in the Middle East and its implications, the communication revolution and contemporary globalization and their impact on cultures, values and life styles; and finally the US foreign policy towards the Muslim world and its implications. This course will be covered in twelve hours.  Instructor: Professor Ermin Sinanovic, US Naval Academy, Maryland.

According to his bio, Ermin Sinanovic is:

…an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, USA. He studied for an MA and a PhD in Political Science at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. Prof. Sinanovic obtained two BAs (one in Qur’an and Sunnah Studies, the other in Political Science) and an MA (Islamic Civilization) from the International Islamic University Malaysia. His research interests include transnational Islamic revival, Southeast Asian politics, Islamic movements, Middle East politics, Islamic political thought, and Islam and politics in general. At the Naval Academy, Prof. Sinanovic teaches courses on Southeast Asian politics, Middle East politics, and Islam and politics. He speaks Bosnian, English, Arabic, and Malay. “

One of the other instructors at the IIIT summer program will be US Muslim Brotherhood leader Louay Safi, identified in the announcement as affiliated with the College of Islamic Studies of the Qatar Foundation. In 2009 Louay Safi, also an official at the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), was at the center of a controversy when it was learned that the US Defense Department brought him to Fort Hood as an instructor and that he had been lecturing on Islam to troops in Fort Hood who were about to deploy to Afghanistan. In February 2010, the activities and lectures of Dr. Safi on all military bases were suspended pending a criminal inquiry by the U.S. military. A shooting took place at Fort Hood near Killeen, Texas on November 5, 2009 in which a single gunman killed 13 people and over 30 people were injured in the worst shooting ever to take place on an American military base. The only suspect in the shooting is Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old U.S. Army major serving as a psychiatrist. Dr. Safi has also been recently identified as a leading member of the Syrian National Council, a Syrian opposition group dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Another instructor at the program will be Jasser Aouda (aka Jasser Auda), also identified as affiliated with the College of Islamic Studies of the Qatar Foundation. Dr Auda is best known as a a key advisor to Imamn Feisal Rauf, in turn known for his attempts to build an Islamic center two blocks away from the site of the 911 attacks. Dr. Auda is also a member of the IIIT Academic Council and a founding member of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), headed by Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi and whose board of directors is comprised of many leaders of the Global Brotherhood. Dr. Auda is currently the Deputy Director of the Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics, headed by Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and a Global Muslim Brotherhood leader in his own right....

Sometimes public pressure works. An update on this story. "Newseum reverses plan to honor accused terrorists," by Lisa Daftari for FoxNews.com, May 13:

Washington’s Newseum reversed its plans to honor two accused members of a terrorist organization when it pays tribute to journalists who died in the line of duty last year, FoxNews.com has learned.

The museum dedicated to journalists had planned to include Mahmoud Al-Kumi and Hussam Salama, former members of the terrorist group Hamas and employees of a TV station known for anti-Israel propaganda at Monday’s annual Journalist Memorial dedication. But after FoxNews.com and other media outlets wrote about the controversy surrounding their inclusion, Newseum officials changed their minds.

“Serious questions have been raised as to whether two of the individuals included on our initial list of journalists who died covering the news this past year were truly journalists or whether they were engaged in terrorist activities,” said Newseum spokesman Jonathan Thompson. “We take the concerns raised about these two men seriously and have decided to re-evaluate their inclusion as journalists on our memorial wall pending further investigation.”

The dedication has recognized more than 2,000 reporters, photographers and broadcasters who have died in the line of duty from around the world, including Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped by Pakistani militants and murdered by Al Qaeda terrorists in 2002. Thompson's statement left open the door that their names could be inscribed on the memorial at a later date, though they are not being honored at today's ceremony....

The world has lost its moral compass. "International Red Cross plants trees to honor Palestinian terrorists," by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik for Palestinian Media Watch, May 12:

In a ceremony celebrating its 150th anniversary, the International Red Cross together with the Palestinian Red Crescent planted 150 trees bearing the names of "veteran prisoners." The Palestinian Authority uses the term "veteran prisoners" to refer to those who have been in jail the longest, and in most cases are serving life sentences for murder or multiple murders. Giorgio Ferrario, representative of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, participated in this ceremony honoring terrorists, which was named "My Honor is My Freedom."

Palestinian Media Watch recently reported that Issa Abd Rabbo, who shot and murdered two university students hiking near Jerusalem, was referred to as a "veteran prisoner." Abd Rabbo was recently honored by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas....

The Palestinian Red Crescent's website writes that its "programs, projects and events" are funded by the International Red Cross:

"The International Movement of the Red Cross Red Crescent has provided continuous support to programs, projects and events organized by the PRCS (Palestinian Red Crescent). Without the financial and technical support by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the International Federation of the Red Cross Red Crescent Societies and many sister national Societies, it would be difficult for PRCS to provide its services..."

It is significant that the International Red Cross funds not only the general budget of the Palestinian Red Crescent but also "events." The article did not state if the International Red Cross directly funded or merely participated in this terror glorification event....

Canonizing the Pallywood propaganda mill. "Terrorists or journalists? Washington's Newseum to honor fallen Hamas operatives," by Lisa Daftari for FoxNews.com, May 10 (thanks to Kenneth):

A Washington news museum plans to honor two accused terrorists among the journalists it recognizes at this year’s annual tribute to reporters, photographers and broadcasters who have died reporting the news.

Mahmoud Al-Kumi and Hussam Salama were killed by an Israeli air strike Nov. 20, 2012 while working for Al-Aqsa Television, a Hamas-funded media outlet designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. Treasury Department. While their supporters consider them to have been journalists, a 2010 report from Treasury said the TV station is “financed and controlled by Hamas,” and “airs programs and music videos designed to recruit children to become Hamas armed fighters and suicide bombers upon reaching adulthood.”

"Treasury will not distinguish between a business financed and controlled by a terrorist group, such as Al-Aqsa Television, and the terrorist group itself," Stuart Levey, then secretary for the Office Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, an agency overseen by Treasury.

Since its inception in 1997, The Newseum has recognized more than 2,000 journalists from around the world, including Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped by Pakistani militants and then murdered by Al Qaeda in 2002. The names of the journalists are engraved on glass panels as part of the facility’s Journalists Memorial.

The museum’s website describes Al-Kumi and Salama as “Al-Aqsa cameramen who were killed in an Israeli air strike. They were covering fighting between Israel and fighting between Israel and the militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, when a missile hit their vehicle. Al-Aqsa said the journalists’ car was clearly marked ‘TV.’”

An Israel Defense Force report about the incident in which the two were killed states: "Mahmoud Al-Kumi and Hussam Salama were Hamas operatives and cameramen for Hamas’ Al-Aqsa television network, which regularly features programming that encourages and praises attacks on Israeli civilians.”

Al Aqsa doesn’t only encourage attacks on Israelis, according to Steve Stalinsky at the Middle East Media and Research Institute, who called Al Aqsa TV “the microphone for Hamas” and a “vehicle for spreading their propaganda.”

“They are continually calling for the destruction of America. They are very active on social media and there’s a lot of Anti- American and Anti-West content,” Stalinsky said.

Stalinsky points to a YouTube video of Al Aqsa TV reporting the deaths of the two journalists at the time the attack took place, stating that the two were driving in a “regular, civilian car.” The reporter makes no claim that they were in a car with media signs.

Palestinian media also reported that the two men were Hamas operatives, according to the Weekly Standard.

Newseum maintains that the Journalists Memorial selection committee conducts “case-by-case reviews,” according to spokesman Jonathan Thompson, who defended Newseum’s decision to include the men in this year’s dedication....

They just happened to coincide with the Obama Administration's general policy of downplaying the jihad threat and pretending that it largely does not exist. And whenever they are forced to discuss it, they do so in the context of a hijacking of the true, peaceful Islam and an avidity to distance Islam from violence even when the perpetrators of that violence invoke Islam to explain it. This is the same Administration that in 2011 mandated the scrubbing of counter-terror training materials of the truth about Islam and jihad. It is the terror threat that dare not speak its name.

"White House claims edits to Benghazi talking points were ‘stylistic,’" by Brian Hughes for The Washington Examiner, May 8 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

Any White House edits made to talking points about the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, were merely “stylistic,” Obama spokesman Jay Carney insisted on Wednesday amid congressional hearings about the Sept. 11 strike that killed four Americans.

“The fact that there are inputs is always the case in a process like this,” Carney said. “Edits made by anyone at the White House were stylistic and not substantive. They corrected the description of the building … from consulate to diplomatic facility. Ultimately, this all has been discussed and reviewed and provided in enormous levels of detail by the administration to congressional investigators. The attempt to politicize the talking points again is part of an effort to chase after what isn’t the substance here.”

The White House has been hammered for initially blaming the violence on a spontaneous protest to an anti-Islam YouTube video and a Sunday show appearance in which former United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice trumpeted that false narrative.

A recent article by The Weekly Standard suggests the edits were more substantial. According to the magazine, senior officials at the White House and State Department were heavily involved in rewriting the talking points. After a meeting with the senior officials, the CIA deleted all references to al Qaeda, the article said. Republicans have long accused administration officials of wanting to downplay a terrorist attack so close to a presidential election....

Yep, it's a real head-scratcher.

Video from Blazing Cat Fur (thanks to Pamela Geller).

"Giving these men the chance to work here could diminish their poverty, their anger, and their misunderstanding of the U.S. before they are radicalized," says Toure. Boston jihad bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev won a Cambridge City Scholarship in 2011.

And Pamela Geller notes: "Yes, that's why Obama Bin Laden came from an oil rich family. And Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas underwear bomber, was the son of prominent Nigerian banker Alhaji Umaru Mutallab. Many of the 911 jihadists were all well educated and/or well off. Mohammad Atta was the son of Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta, a lawyer, and Atta studied architecture in Egypt and Germany. Faisal Shazad, the Times Square bomber, comes from a wealthy, well-educated family in northwest Pakistan. Nidal Hasan was a psychiatrist in the US army. And the Boston jihad bombers were living the good life here in the States."

In reality, study after study has shown that jihadists today tend to be wealthier and better educated than other Muslims.

"Toure's 'Open Borders' Rant: 'Muslim Poverty Is What Threatens Our Security,'" from RealClearPolitics, May 6 (thanks to Mackie):

MSNBC'S TOURE: ...And then there is the terrorist card. Open borders and all those bad guys would flood in! I remind you that the 9/11 hijackers and the two brothers in Boston entered our shores legally.

But open borders attacks the root cause of Muslim extremism–young, impoverished men in Muslim countries. Men with no future are more easily radicalized. Muslim poverty is what threatens our security, not our immigration system.

Giving these men the chance to work here could diminish their poverty, their anger, and their misunderstanding of the U.S. before they are radicalized.

Just like corporations without borders have given the fat cats a better bottom line, people deserve the chance to be a full part of the global marketplace.

Open borders will improve the world.

I like what the gang of eight is doing but only by empowering the workers of the world just as the one percenters are empowered to go anywhere in search of a buck, only by thinking globally can we solve global problems. (The Cycle, May 6, 2013)

Governor Rick Perry partnered with the Aga Khan Foundation to develop a severely whitewashed, Islam-friendly curriculum. When Pamela Geller and I broke the story of that curriculum in 2011, the reaction was furious: Weasel Zippers demanded I stop linking him, and former friends and associates denounced us with a cult-like fervor that I still find hard to believe that a clueless and compromised Norquistian nonentity like Rick Perry could have inspired.

They were all working from blogs by a certain David Stein, who falsely claimed that the curriculum material we had uncovered (Geller had found some of it, and then I found more) was not really the curriculum at all, and tried to pass off one teacher's private notes as the real curriculum. Ace, Weasel, Commentary and others picked up Stein's false claims with enthusiasm: Ace called Stein's answer to our case "the greatest rejoinder in the history of blogdom."

There was something odd about the rapidity with which Stein's claims spread, since his explanations were flimsy and full of holes, and in June 2011, just before the Perry firestorm, his blog, CounterContempt.com, had all of 179 visitors all month. Yet somehow blogs with tens of thousands more visitors daily found Stein's false claims about the curriculum and spread them far and wide in defense of Perry.

It was remarkable testimony to the power, as well as the anxiety, of the Perry faithful that David Stein's obscure blog, with no readership, no history, and no reputation for credibility, could publish a false claim about the curriculum that so many big blogs would be ready immediately to publicize, while publishing the most outlandish charges against those of us who published the real curriculum. How the big conservative blogs and even Commentary all found David Stein's tiny blog has never been explained.

And then we saw Texas public schoolchildren made to dress in burqas and declare that "Allah is the Almighty God." Yet no retractions, no apologies came from any of the Perry cult members who denounced us in 2011. And they won't come after this, either:

"Hollywood conservative unmasked as notorious Holocaust revisionist," by Rory Carroll in The Guardian, May 3 (thanks to all who sent this in):

To those who knew him, or thought they knew him, he was a cerebral, fun-loving gadfly who hosted boozy gatherings for Hollywood's political conservatives. David Stein brought right-wing congressmen, celebrities, writers and entertainment industry figures together for shindigs, closed to outsiders, where they could scorn liberals and proclaim their true beliefs.

Over the past five years Stein's organisation, Republican Party Animals, drew hundreds to regular events in and around Los Angeles, making him a darling of conservative blogs and talkshows. That he made respected documentaries on the Holocaust added intellectual cachet and Jewish support to Stein's cocktail of politics, irreverence and rock and roll.

There was just one problem. Stein was not who he claimed. His real name can be revealed for the first time publicly – a close circle of confidants only found out the truth recently – as David Cole. And under that name he was once a reviled Holocaust revisionist who questioned the existence of Nazi gas chambers. He changed identities in January 1998.

Pamela Geller weighs in here; Big Fur Hat has a terrific takedown of Ace and Weasel here, and Zilla has another here. Big Fur Hat gets right to the heart of the matter: "Ace and Zip pointed and laughed at Pamela’s vetting of Perry while heavily relying on the work of a guy they never vetted. The work of some closeted neo-nazi jerkwad was 'good enough' in order to smear Geller."

Oddly enough, Western feminists are completely silent about this.

Actually, it isn't odd at all. I have taken feminists to task more than once not only for their failure to stand up for Muslim women, but for their active excuse-making for the oppression of those women. See, for example, my article in FrontPage, "Feminists Betray Muslim Women," on how the feminist writer Laura Briggs justifies the oppression of Muslim women.

See also "Two Women Stoned: Feminists Mum," by David Horowitz, Janet Levy and me; "A Response to Feminists on the Violent Oppression of Women in Islam," by David Horowitz and me; and my article "The Conservative Vanguard of the Feminist Movement" in National Review.

Other articles I've written in FrontPage on issues revolving around women's rights in Islam include "Covering Up the Plight of Muslim Women"; "There Must Be Violence Against Women"; "Muhammad Mended His Own Clothes!"; Open Season on Muslim Women"; "Women Are Treated Better in Islam?."

Also there are my articles in Human Events, "Unveiled Women and 'Uncovered Meat'"; "Media Ignore Abuses of Women in Islam."

I also coauthored the monograph "The Violent Oppression of Women in Islam," which was published by the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

"Pakistan's women face battle for the right to vote," by Tracy McVeigh for The Observer, May 4 (thanks to Richard Dawkins):

Fears over the safety of women voting in next week's elections in Pakistan are rising after letters have been circulated in regions of the country warning men not to allow their wives, sisters and daughters out to the polling stations.

In an increasingly fraught and violent runup to the 11 May vote, leaflets are appearing stating that it is "un-Islamic" for women to participate in democracy.

Now a group of young female activists are planning to challenge what they call the government's inability to protect women's right to vote by organising their own protection teams at individual polling stations in tense and volatile Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of the four provinces of Pakistan, formerly known as the North West Frontier Province.

In what is being called Pakistan's youth election – almost a third of the electorate is between 18 and 29 – a growing tide of young women are determined to overcome cultural and political obstacles to make their voices heard.

Saba Ismail, 23-year-old founder and director of Aware Girls, a peace group for and led by young women to train girls in leadership skills, said they already planned to monitor 30 polling stations with volunteers who would support women who came out to vote and hoped to reach many more.

Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old activist for girl's educational rights who became an international figure after being shot and badly injured in a Taliban assassination attempt last October, was one of those trained by Ismail's group.

"Malala is not the only one who has been so brave, but she is a hero to all of us now," Ismail said. "Such a strong young woman and a true role model, I was very impressed by her. Many women and girls will feel empowered by Malala to come out and vote. It has been made very clear that women in Pakistan should not vote and those in rural areas are the most vulnerable, so we will be putting volunteers out to try and help women feel they can come out on this important day.

"For the 2008 elections, many polling stations were torched and women were told it was vulgar for them to cast a vote. This time we want Pakistan to have a free and fair election and for women to be able to vote in secret, not be told who to vote for by her family.

"Even those few women who are inside the political system are ordered about by their family. They are wives or daughters of men who want them to do their bidding, they are there just to make up quota numbers and have to do what they are told. It would be better to have quality not quantity.

"Recently on Pakistan TV we had three female politicians in the studio for a debate. They were asked questions like 'Should women really be allowed to work because they take more time to come to the office because they put make-up on?'"

And the FBI did nothing to stop the Boston Marathon jihad bombing. They received the warning but did nothing, because it had to do with Islamic jihad, and Obama’s FBI is forbidden to study Islamic jihad. This is because the Obama Administration in 2011 mandated the scrubbing of counter-terror training materials of the truth about Islam and jihad. It is the terror threat that dare not speak its name.

Those who called for counterterror training materials to be scrubbed of truthful information about jihad are responsible for this, and have blood on their hands; they include the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which mounted a huge campaign in 2010 to have me dropped as a trainer of FBI agents. Nor was that campaign personal: they mounted similar campaigns against any trainers and training materials that told the truth about Islam and jihad.

Others responsible for the politically correct scrubbing of counterterror training materials of any mention of Islam or jihad include hard-Left pseudo-journalist Spencer Ackerman, who published a series of “exposes” of “Islamophobic” counterterror training; Farhana Khera of Muslim Advocates, who wrote a letter to Obama’s then-chief counterterrorism adviser and current CIA director, John Brennan, demanding that this material be removed. Brennan, who readily acquiesced to this demand, also bears responsibility, as does Salam al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who piled on in the mainstream media. They got what they wanted: now FBI agents are woefully ill-equipped to deal with the Islamic jihad threat, which they largely must pretend does not even exist.

"Jihadi told Russians about Tamerlan," by Matt Stout and John Zaremba in the Boston Herald, May 4 (thanks to Kenneth):

A slain Canadian jihadi gave Russian counter-terrorism agents the tip that put alleged Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev on their radar two years ago, Bay State U.S. Rep. William R. Keating confirmed yesterday — raising questions about whether Tsarnaev’s direct link to the known militant was ever passed on to the FBI or local authorities.

Keating told the Herald yesterday his staff in Russia has learned William Plotnikov, while under interrogation in the militant hotbed of Dagestan, named Tsarnaev as a fellow extremist.

“That’s when the Russian government started looking at Tamerlan and he showed up on a jihadist website,” Keating (D-Bourne) said. “That’s when they contacted the U.S.”

The interrogation prompted Russian authorities to ask the FBI to investigate Tsarnaev in 2011. It is unclear whether the Russians told the FBI that Tsarnaev was associated with Plotnikov or another suspected extremist, Mansur Mukhamed Nidal.

An FBI spokesman yesterday did not respond to the Herald’s request to view the Russian authorities’ plea for help.

Both Nidal and Plotnikov were killed in police raids last summer, and Tsarnaev fled back to the United States shortly thereafter.

The detail of the information from the Russians to the FBI — and whether the feds passed it on sufficiently to local authorities — is sure to come up next week on Capitol Hill, where the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on the bombings.

“I have no idea what the Russians did or did not share, but the fact they brought up his name should have been a flashing red light,” U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a member of the committee, told the Herald last night. “You combine that with international travel, and somebody’s going to have to answer some questions.

“The information is only good if it gets to those who can actually act on it,” he said. “I want to know specifically if they shared that information with the authorities in Boston.”...

Of course there should be no "backlash." No innocent people should be victimized for the deeds of someone else, and any such act is reprehensible. There are two questions here:

1) Is Holder aware of, or even interested in, the fact that Islamic supremacist pressure groups with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), exaggerate "backlash" fears beyond all proportion in order to deflect attention away from both the jihad attack at hand and the failure of Islamic groups in America to do anything to prevent such attacks?

2) Will Holder issue a similar warning to the Muslim community in the U.S., calling on them to clean up their act and fight against jihad terror activity sincerely, in both word and deed?

I expect that the answer to both is no.

"Breathing fire at the hypocrites," by Michael Goodwin in the New York Post, May 1:

It is a sad sight to watch a man grapple with a world that fails to meet his expectations. Unless that man is Eric Holder. Then it is simply infuriating.

The attorney general, warped by his own prejudice, is confused because his fellow citizens are better people than he imagines.

Holder sees white bigots around every corner, and can’t handle the truth that very few Americans actually hate Muslims. So, like Elmer Fudd hunting “wascally wabbits,” Holder’s shots usually backfire.

His Monday speech to the Anti-Defamation League was a classic case of twisted thinking. With his FBI fumbling a chance to stop the Boston bombers, he bizarrely stressed his determination to punish anyone who discriminates against Muslims.

Of course, he didn’t admit that the bombers were Islamists. That would violate the Obama administration’s omerta on linking Islam to terrorism.

But the “see no evil” approach creates a dilemma. How do you warn against vigilante attacks on Muslims without admitting that Muslims did the bombing?

By being disingenuous, as Holder was, saying: “I also want to make clear that — just as we will pursue relentlessly anyone who would target our people or attempt to terrorize our cities — the Justice Department is firmly committed to protecting innocent people against misguided acts of retaliation.”

There haven’t been any attacks reported, nor have there been many since 9/11. Indeed, Holder, trying to make it sound like an avalanche, said Justice investigated “more than 800 incidents involving threats, assaults and acts of vandalism and violence targeting Muslims, Arabs, Sikhs, South Asians and others.”

Think about that — 800 investigations in nearly 12 years, or about 70 a year, in a country of 320 million people. Notice he didn’t say how many led to findings of guilt.

Inadvertently, Holder further undermined his argument with another number. He said there were “more than 1,000 documented incidents” of anti-Semitism in 2011 alone.

Clearly, Jews, not Muslims, bear a greater burden of religious bigotry. But Jews don’t bomb marathons, so who is worried about protecting them? Not Eric Holder.

In FrontPage this morning:

Wednesday brought new confirmation of the increasingly obvious fact that the U.S. intelligence apparatus in the age of Barack Obama is woefully unprepared to deal with the foremost threat to the safety of Americans today: Islamic jihad terrorism.

Nor is this lack of preparedness due to a lack of funding (Lord knows there is plenty of that for anything Obama wants to do) or other resources. There are many people who are deeply knowledgeable in the ideology and belief system that inspires Islamic jihad terror, and they are ready and willing to share their knowledge with intelligence officials – indeed, many of them did so during the Bush Administration and the early years of the Obama Administration, before his 2011 purge the counter-terror training materials of the truth about Islam and jihad.

That purge came after hard-Left journalistic propagandist Spencer Ackerman wrote a series of “exposes” that supposedly exposed “Islamophobia” in government counterterror training — that is, truthful information about Islam and jihad. See here and here for details. Then Farhana Khera, Executive Director of an Islamic organization called Muslim Advocates, wrote a letter on October 19, 2011 to Barack Obama’s then-Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism and current CIA director John Brennan. The letter was signed by 57 organizations, including many with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR); the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA); Islamic Relief USA; the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA); the Muslim American Society (MAS); and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)....

That made two intelligence failures in one day: the thorough discrediting of the widely circulated claim that the bombers acted alone, and news of a second country warning the U.S. about a jihadist at a time when U.S. officials are not allowed to know what a jihadist is.

On Tuesday, Spencer Ackerman complained that the examination of counterterror procedures that Obama promised during his press conference that day was unlikely to bear fruit. He noted that James “Clueless” Clapper, the director of national intelligence, was overseeing that review, and “yet before the inquiry has concluded, Clapper is satisfied — as he first said last week, before any review even got started — that the intelligence agencies didn’t drop the ball on Boston.”

He should be grateful for that. If the Obama Administration’s review of the massive intelligence failures related to the Boston jihad bombing were thorough, it would lead directly to him.

In any case, Wednesday’s revelations show the human cost of the denial of the reality and magnitude of the jihad threat. Three people are dead and well over 200 wounded because bumbling, ill-instructed (and in many cases reeducated) FBI agents didn’t know how to understand or act upon intelligence they received from Russia and (probably) Saudi Arabia. How many more have to die before the bloody legacy of Farhana Khera, John Brennan, Spencer Ackerman and Barack Obama is decisively rejected?

There is more.

Spencer Ackerman wrote a series of "exposes" that supposedly exposed "Islamophobia" in government counterterror training -- that is, truthful information about Islam and jihad. See here and here for details. The Obama Administration readily complied when Islamic supremacists took up Ackerman's "findings" and demanded that counterterror material be scrubbed of all mention of Islam and jihad in connection with terrorism. That left intelligence agents woefully unprepared to deal properly with or even to understand the information they were getting from Russia (and possibly also Saudi Arabia) about Tamerlan Tsarnaev's jihad activities -- and that in turn led to his not being watched as he gathered material for bombs and plotted the Boston Marathon jihad attacks.

So with the murders in those jihad attacks, Spencer Ackerman has blood on his hands. And now he is complaining that the Obama Administration's self-evaluation is unlikely to be thorough. He should be grateful for that. If it were thorough, it would lead directly to him.

"Spy Chief Apparently Knows How Boston Intel Probe Will End," by Spencer Ackerman for Wired, April 30 (thanks to Mike):

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, shown here at a 2008 ribbon-cutting, says there’s no intelligence failure in Boston — before his inspector general completes a report into how spy agencies shared data on the suspects. Photo: U.S. Air Force

An inquiry into whether U.S. intelligence agencies could have done more to help prevent the Boston Marathon bombing is just getting started. But America’s top spy is already convinced that the deadly April 15 attacks do not represent an intelligence failure.

As Bryan Bender of the Boston Globe first reported, the inspector general overseeing the 16 U.S. spy agencies will conduct a “broad review” of how the intelligence community handled whatever information it had about the bombings.

That review did not come at the behest of James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, the nominal boss of those spy agencies. Shawn Turner, a spokesman for Clapper, says it’s an independent initiative of the Intelligence Community Inspector General along with the internal watchdogs for the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

Yet before the inquiry has concluded, Clapper is satisfied — as he first said last week, before any review even got started — that the intelligence agencies didn’t drop the ball on Boston.

“Director Clapper believes that every agency involved in collecting and sharing information prior to the attack took all the appropriate steps,” Turner emailed Danger Room. “He also believes that it is prudent an appropriate for there to be an independent review of those steps to ensure that nothing was missed.”

Clapper’s remarks carry the impression that there’s little the factual inquiry can tell him that will change his mind. Inspectors general are supposed to be independent; rarely do the heads of their agency publicly announce conclusions about the subjects of ongoing inquiries.

The review does not have a broad mandate. “It is limited to a review of the handling of information related to the suspects prior to the attack,” Turner said, adding that it is “not an investigation.”

The FBI has acknowledged that it interviewed deceased bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011 after receiving a tip Russian intelligence that he was an Islamist extremist. When it didn’t find information about anything illicit he had done, it dropped the issue. But on a tip from that foreign intelligence agency, the CIA lobbied to put Tsarnaev’s name in a government database — albeit one containing the names of half a million people, and which does not authorize law enforcement to take action. The Department of Homeland Security learned that the elder Tsarnaev was traveling to Russia in 2012 — which investigators suspect might be a critical moment for his radicalization — but not upon his return to the United States.

UPDATE: The Saudis now deny that they tipped off U.S. officials -- the Daily Mail link below now leads to an updated story denying the one excerpted in this post. So add this to yet another of the murky, contradictory elements of the story of the Boston Marathon jihad bombing. Will we ever know the whole truth? Only if it isn't too politically disadvantageous to Obama and the Democrats.

---------

They received the warning but did nothing, because it had to do with Islamic jihad, and Obama’s FBI is forbidden to study Islamic jihad. This is because the Obama Administration in 2011 mandated the scrubbing of counter-terror training materials of the truth about Islam and jihad. It is the terror threat that dare not speak its name. Those who called for counterterror training materials to be scrubbed of truthful information about jihad are responsible for this, and have blood on their hands; they include the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which mounted a huge campaign in 2010 to have me dropped as a trainer of FBI agents. Nor was that campaign personal: they mounted similar campaigns against any trainers and training materials that told the truth about Islam and jihad. Others responsible for the politically correct scrubbing of counterterror training materials of any mention of Islam or jihad include hard-Left pseudo-journalist Spencer Ackerman, who published a series of “exposes” of “Islamophobic” counterterror training; Farhana Khera of Muslim Advocates, who wrote a letter to Obama’s then-chief counterterrorism adviser and current CIA director, John Brennan, demanding that this material be removed. Brennan, who readily acquiesced to this demand, also bears responsibility, as does Salam al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who piled on in the mainstream media. They got what they wanted: now FBI agents are woefully ill-equipped to deal with the Islamic jihad threat, which they largely must pretend does not even exist.

"EXCLUSIVE: Saudi Arabia 'warned the United States IN WRITING about Boston Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2012,'" from the Daily Mail, April 30 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sent a written warning about accused Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2012, long before pressure-cooker blasts killed three and injured hundreds, according to a senior Saudi government official with direct knowledge of the document.

The Saudi warning, the official told MailOnline, was separate from the multiple red flags raised by Russian intelligence in 2011, and was based on human intelligence developed independently in Yemen.

Citing security concerns, the Saudi government also denied an entry visa to the elder Tsarnaev brother in December 2011, when he hoped to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, the source said. Tsarnaev's plans to visit Saudi Arabia have not been previously disclosed.

The Saudis' warning to the U.S. government was also shared with the British government. 'It was very specific’ and warned that 'something was going to happen in a major U.S. city,' the Saudi official said during an extensive interview.

It 'did name Tamerlan specifically,' he added. The 'government-to-government' letter, which he said was sent to the Department of Homeland Security at the highest level, did not name Boston or suggest a date for his planned attack.

If true, the account will produce added pressure on the Homeland Security department and the White House to explain their collective inaction after similar warnings were offered about Tsarnaev by the Russian government.

A DHS official denied, however, that the agency received any such warning from Saudi intelligence about Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

'DHS has no knowledge of any communication from the Saudi government regarding information on the suspects in the Boston Marathon Bombing prior to the attack,' MailOnline learned from one Homeland Security official who declined to be named in this report.

The White House took a similar view. 'We and other relevant U.S. government agencies have no record of such a letter being received,' said Caitlin Hayden, a spokesperson for the president’s National Security Council.

The letter likely came to DHS via the Saudi Ministry of Interior, the agency tasked with protecting the Saudi kingdom’s homeland.

A Homeland Security official confirmed Tuesday evening on the condition of anonymity that the 2012 letter exists, saying he had heard of the Saudi communication before MailOnline inquired about it.

An aide to a Republican member of the House Homeland Security Committee speculated Tuesday about why the Obama administration contradicted the knowledgeable Saudi official.

‘It is possible the Department of Homeland Security received the information from the Saudi government but never passed it on to the White House,’ the GOP staffer said. 'Communication between DHS and the White House's national security apparatus isn't always what it should be.’

'I can easily see it happening where one hand didn't know what the other was doing because of a turf war.'

'Just like the different agencies in the Boston JTTF [Joint Terrorism Task Force] want credit for breaking the Tsarnaev case,' the aide added, 'they sometimes jealously guard the very intel they should be sharing the most freely. Sometimes it makes no sense at all.'

House Homeland Security Committee chairman Mike McCaul plans to announce on Wednesday an investigative hearing to probe what U.S. intelligence knew prior to the Boston attacks, two senior Republican sources told MailOnline.

Separately, President Obama announced Tuesday that the U.S. government will launch a wide-ranging inquiry into the sharing of information among the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security and other intelligence and law-enforcement agencies of the federal government.

'We want to leave no stone unturned,' the president said in a rare White House press conference....

Yeah, sure.

On this week's episode of the world's premier talking head program, Jamie had the honor of being joined by actor Dwight Schultz, (DwightSchultzFansite.nl), Ann-Marie Murrell, the National Director of PolitiChicks.tv, and Nonie Darwish, the author of The Devil We Don’t Know. The Gang's topic was The Words Banned By Obama, and discussion focused on how we can defend ourselves from jihad if we are not even allowed to say its name, a discussion rendered all the more urgent by the Boston Marathon Massacre and how the Left has made us vulnerable to Islamic jihad terrorist attacks due to its denial of the reality of jihad. One of the key incidents the participants discussed was why Eric Holder shut the mouth of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. In this dialogue, the guests unveiled what the Obama administration doesn’t want you to know about the jihad in Boston.

Once again a Western leader displays the unconscious paternalism and ethnocentrism that mars so much of the West's response to Islamic jihad: their assumption is that Muslims are passive, helpless people who can do nothing but react to what the West does or does not do. The idea that Muslims may have ideas of their own, and that some of them may hate us for reasons of their own that are derived from Islamic texts and teachings, and that that hatred cannot be dislodged by any amount of "respect" from non-Muslims, never enters their minds.

"Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone: Boston Bombers' Anger Triggered by US Conduct," from MEMRI, April 26:

Following are excerpts from statements made by former mayor of London Ken Livingstone, which aired on Press TV and were posted on the Internet on April 26, 2013:

Voice of Muhammad, a caller from the UK: How [come the Boston bombers] enjoyed all these pleasures there, and yet, they ended up blowing themselves up [sic] like that?

Ken Livingstone: Well, I think there is a problem… Very often people get incredibly angry about injustices that they see. They would have been reading about the torture at Guantanamo Bay, at Baghram airbase. They would have read stuff about how, I think it is 54 different countries secretly collaborated with America for this rendition – people being snatched off streets taken to be tortured, because the Bush regime believed that they were all potential terrorists. There was such ignorance in the Bush White House about Islam and about the history of so many disputes that exist in the Middle East. People get angry – they lash out.

[...]

It's the whole squalid intervention that has disfigured the record of the Western democracies. I think this fuels the anger of the young men, who – as we saw in Boston – went out, and, out of anger and demand for revenge, claimed lives in the West.