Is that a militant tie?What details does Reuters think salient in this case? We learn that the people arrested are “men,” and that they’re “unmarried American citizens” and “residents of New Jersey.” They were planning to join a “militant group” in Somalia — one described here as a “youth movement.” The arrests had something to do with the men’s “social circle.”
Two “militant groups” are named — Al-Qaeda and Al-Shabaab. Most Americans have never heard of the latter, and Muslim spokesmen are working hard to make them think that the former has nothing to do with Islam, as a slick Islamic apologist insisted on CNN this morning in a discussion of the Ground Zero Mosque and our protest today. (Unfortunately for the credibility of his smooth deceptions, however, my colleague Pamela Geller was on the show as well, and she was telling the truth even amid a barrage of hostile questions. I’ll post video if it becomes available.)
Yet Reuters itself suggests, at least to the informed reader, that these two “men” do have something to do with Islam, since they mention the Times Square attempted car bombing (in the passive voice, as if the car bomb just suddenly and inexplicably materialized) and the attempted Christmas underwear bombing on a plane in Detroit (carried out by a “Nigerian”). What do the Times Square and Christmas plots have in common with these two arrests? Why, nothing that is named in this article: Islam. The Islamic jihad doctrine. Islamic supremacism.
But even though Islam is the real motivator of these two unmarried male American citizens from New Jersey, and Reuters knows that full well or it wouldn’t have tagged on mention of the Times Square and Christmas plots at the end of this article, Reuters doesn’t see fit to mention Islam or jihad.
The absurdity of this is obvious, but we take it for granted, since it crops up again in every news story from every news agency about every Islamic jihad plot anywhere in the world. It’s as if we were trying to fight World War II without ever mentioning Germans or Japanese. “Men with Militant Ties Bomb Pearl Harbor.” “Residents of Auschwitz with Ties to Militant Group Murder Millions of Jews.”
Do you think we would have won that war with coverage like that?
Pamela Geller satirized this kind of thinking, or absence of thought, here:
Imagine, if you will, during, say, World War II, if the Axis press accounts of Allied military operations refused to use the word America or United States.
For example, a D-Day report would go like this: On June 6, 1944, nearly 160,000 Iowans, New Yorkers, Jerseyans, Alaskans, Texans, and some black and white folks landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified sandy coastline to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. More than 5,000 ships and 13,000 aircraft filled with all kinds of people supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end, Floridians had gained a foothold in Normandy.
“Two Men With Militant Ties Arrested In NY – Report,” from Reuters, June 6 (thanks to all who sent this in):
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Two men were arrested late Saturday at John F. Kennedy International Airport where they were believed headed for meetings with militant groups in Somalia, The New Jersey Star Ledger reported.
The men were arrested as they tried to board flights to Egypt. They were charged with conspiring to commit an act of international terrorism through a group tied to al Qaeda, the newspaper said, citing officials familiar with the arrests.
Both in their twenties and both residents of New Jersey, the two men had been under investigation since October 2006, the Star Ledger said.
An unidentified official told the newspaper both men were unmarried American citizens….
Federal and local law enforcement officials searched the homes of both men where they conducted interviews and removed boxes of papers, a computer and other materials.
Authorities had infiltrated the men’s social circle and said the suspects were not planning an imminent attack in the New York-New Jersey area but were believed to be intending to join with the Al Shabaab youth movement to fight against Americans in Somalia, the report said.
One official briefed on the case was hopeful it would lead to a “web of arrests,” the newspaper said.
The arrests followed a failed attempt to explode a car bomb in New York’s Times Square last month and an incident on Christmas Day in which a 23-year-old Nigerian tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner by setting off explosives hidden in his underwear.