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MONDAY,  MAY 10,  2010

"ISLAM'S NOWHERE MEN" – AT 8:11 P.M. ET:  That's the title of a brilliant piece by Fouad Ajami in today's Wall Street Journal, reflecting on the man, Faisal Shahzad, who wanted to blow up Times Square last week:

"A Muslim has no nationality except his belief," the intellectual godfather of the Islamists, Egyptian Sayyid Qutb, wrote decades ago. Qutb's "children" are everywhere now; they carry the nationalities of foreign lands and plot against them. The Pakistani born Faisal Shahzad is a devotee of Sayyid Qutb's doctrine, and Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, was another...

...The Islamists are now within the gates. They fled the fires and the failures of the Islamic world but brought the ruin with them. They mock national borders and identities.

And...

Nowadays the Islamic faith is portable. It is carried by itinerant preachers and imams who transmit its teachings to all corners of the world, and from the safety and plenty of the West they often agitate against the very economic and moral order that sustains them. Satellite television plays its part in this new agitation, and the Islam of the tele-preachers is invariably one of damnation and fire. From tranquil, banal places (Dubai and Qatar), satellite television offers an incendiary version of the faith to younger immigrants unsettled by a modern civilization they can neither master nor reject.

And home, the Old Country, is never far. Pakistani authorities say Faisal Shahzad made 13 visits to Pakistan in the last seven years. This would have been unthinkable three or four decades earlier. Shahzad lived on the seam between the Old Country and the New. The path of citizenship he took gave him the precious gift of an American passport but made no demands on him.

It's the "no demands" that should worry us.  It's true.  We make no demands on those who become new citizens. 

From Pakistan comes a profile of Shahzad's father, a man of high military rank, and of property and standing: He was "a man of modern thinking and of the modern age," it was said of him in his ancestral village of Mohib Banda in recent days. That arc from a secular father to a radicalized son is, in many ways, the arc of Pakistan since its birth as a nation-state six decades ago. The secular parents and the radicalized children is also a tale of Islam, that broken pact with modernity, the mothers who fought to shed the veil and the daughters who now wish to wear the burqa in Paris and Milan.

We have our own equivalent – the immigrant family whose children reject the "old ways," and their children, who want to explore them again. 

This is a long twilight war, the struggle against radical Islamism. We can't wish it away. No strategy of winning "hearts and minds," no great outreach, will bring this struggle to an end. America can't conciliate these furies. These men of nowhere—Faisal Shahzad, Nidal Malik Hasan, the American-born renegade cleric Anwar Awlaki now holed up in Yemen and their likes—are a deadly breed of combatants in this new kind of war. Modernity both attracts and unsettles them. America is at once the object of their dreams and the scapegoat onto which they project their deepest malignancies.

COMMENT:  Another superb piece by Ajami, one of the few scholars of Islam who refuses to drink the Kool-Aid and do the multicultural dance.  He warns us, just as Churchill warned Britain in the 1930s.  Churchill's warnings were ignored, and the Second World War resulted.  Will Ajami be ignored?  Will we face Islamist nations armed with nuclear weapons, and the will to use them?  Those are the great foreign-policy questions of the next two decades.  I'm not sure of the answers.

May 10, 2010     Permalink

KAGAN REACTION – AT 7:35 P.M. ET:  Republicans are reacting cautiously to the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.  The Politico reports:

Key Senate Republicans who already voted to confirm Elena Kagan as solicitor general were quick to point out that their previous support does not guarantee they will back her for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

Republicans such as Orrin Hatch and Jon Kyl – both yes votes in 2009 on Kagan — blasted statements within minutes of Monday morning's Supreme Court announcement, emphasizing that their previous support was not indicative of what their votes will be when the former Dean of the Harvard law school comes before the Senate for the nation's highest court, likely in July.

“As I made clear when I supported her confirmation as Solicitor General, a temporary political appointment is far different than a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court,” Kyl said. “Every senator has a constitutional duty to scrutinize judicial nominees, and I will take great care in examining her record to ensure that she possess the qualities the American people expect in our Supreme Court Justices.”

The Minority Whip from Arizona joined Republicans Hatch, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, and Richard Lugar of Indiana in confirming Kagan as Solicitor General in a 61-31 in March 2009.

COMMENT:  I suspect this is more posturing than anything else.  Unless there's a smoking gun somewhere, which would mean Democrats turning against her, Kagan will be confirmed. 

The biggest rap on her nomination is her record of opposing military recruiters at Harvard over the "don't ask, don't tell" policy of the armed services.  However, Kagan can easily explain this as a reflection of Harvard policy, rather than any antagonism toward the military. 

Ironically, Kagan may face some opposition from the fringe left, which feels she didn't hire enough minorities when dean of Harvard Law.  If that opposition becomes more heated, it could conceivably peel away enough Democratic senators to deny Kagan her confirmation.  However, I don't think it will.  Although nothing was made of it today, she is apparently gay, and I really don't think the left will actively oppose the first gay nominee to the Supreme Court.

May 10, 2010     Permalink

METHINKS THE MESS IS EXPANDING – AT 7:14 A.M. ET:  I was with a very knowledgeable participant in and observer of British politics today, and she was absolutely despondent over the mess over there.

There is no new government.  The Conservatives were negotiating with the Liberal Dems, but now Prime Minister Gordon Brown has offered to resign as head of the Labour Party, and there's some negotiating between Labour and the Lib Dems.  So we could see 1) a coalition government between Tories and Lib Dems; 2) a coalition government between Labour and Lib Dems; or 3) a minority Conservative government on shaky foundations.

The worst of the three would be a coalition between Labour and the Lib Dems – essentially a coalition between a failed government and a group of psychiatrically certifiable eccentrics, the Lib Dems, who don't much like their own country.

This comes against a background of major economic crisis in Europe. 

Weren't all these folks the ones who were lecturing George W. Bush on the proper way to run things?  I think they were.  Maybe they should now hire him as a consultant.

The British political crisis is significant.  Whether President Obama wishes it or not, Britain is our closest and most important ally.  The longer the negotiations for a new government go on, the weaker Britain looks.

May 10, 2010     Permalink

FAIR WARNING – AT 10:23 A.M. ET:  This is happening more and more at schools below the college level.  It reflects the kind of education that teachers themselves are receiving.  From Fox:

The battle over the American flag has reached a middle school art class in California’s Santa Rita School District where a student was told not to draw Old Glory because it was “offensive,” while another student was praised for drawing a picture of President Obama.

Tracy Hathaway, of Salinas, CA, told FOX News Radio her 13-year-old daughter was ordered to stop drawing the American flag and start another project at Gavilan View Middle School.

“She had drawn the flag and was sketching the letters, ‘God bless America,’ when the teacher confronted her,” Hathaway told FOX. “She said, ‘You can’t draw that – that’s offensive.’”

Even more striking, another student in the same art class drew a picture of President Obama and was praised by the teacher.

“The picture of Barack Obama was in red, white and blue hues,” Hathaway said. “ The teacher said it was great. But when it comes to the flag – all of a sudden it was offensive?”

Hathaway said she took her concerns to the principal – and he was “floored” and apologized for what happened. He arranged a meeting with the Hathaways and the teacher.

“My husband point-blank asked her what she found offensive about the picture – the American flag or the words, ‘God Bless America,’” she said. “The teacher didn’t say a word.”

COMMENT:  How many parents are alert to what's being taught in our schools?  And to the behavior of some teachers?

Yes, we've always had a certain number of off-kilter teachers.  I had a few, on both sides of the political aisle.  But stories like this are going to increase unless parents take a more active role in their children's educations.  That is their right and responsibility.  The days when you can send your child to a "good" school and be confident are over. 

Since the sixties, the left has made a concerted effort to influence elementary and secondary education.  After all, consider the fact that Bill Ayers, former radical Weatherman and friend of Barack Obama, is considered a "distinguished" educator.

May 10, 2010     Permalink

PENNSYLVANIA POKER – AT 8:49 A.M. ET:  There is major political news coming out of the very important state of Pennsylvania.  And it could affect the makeup of the next U.S. Senate.

Arlen Specter, who switched from the Republican to the Democratic Party, seemed on track to win the Democratic nomination this year for another term in the Senate.  But in recent days Congressman Joe Sestak, his challenger for the nomination, has made dramatic strides and now leads Specter.  From RealClearPolitics:

The trend remains ominous for Sen. Arlen Specter (D) in the Muhlenberg College tracking poll (5/6-9, 398 LVs, MoE +/- 5%) of the Pennsylvania Senate race. Rep. Joe Sestak (D) leads for the third straight day, having turned a 9-point deficit last week into a 5-point lead.

Senate Primary Election Matchup
Sestak 47 (+1)
Specter 42 (unch)
Und 11 (-1)

Toppling Specter, a Pennsylvania institution, would be a political earthquake.  It might also mean trouble for our side.  Polls show former Republican Congressman Pat Toomey, the almost-certain GOP nominee for the Senate, could defeat Specter.

Sestak is another story.  He's a fresh face, and a former Navy vice admiral.  When you listen to him, you wonder how he ever got that high.  He is, however, a consummate politician, the smoothest of smooth talkers, which may explain it.  His separation from the Navy was, apparently, not entirely a happy one, something any opponent would want to explore. 

But Sestak, in part because of his military background, may give Toomey a harder time than Specter would.  We have counted on Pennsylvania as a possible GOP pickup this November.  Not so sure right now.  And Florida is looking tight, with Gov. Charlie Crist running as an independent.

As we've said here before, November is going to be a tough fight for the Republicans, despite what some early polls might say.  The GOP must run every race as if it's 20 points behind.

May 10, 2010     Permalink

LIKE A THIRD-WORLD COUNTRY – AT 8:22 A.M. ET:  Britain still has no definitive outcome to the election held last Thursday. 

Conservative David Cameron is odds-on favorite to be living at 10 Downing Street, but the movers are being held up by the eccentric, anti-American, almost anti-British leader of the Liberal Dems.  This is pathetic.  From The Times of London:

Nick Clegg is making David Cameron sweat as the pair edge towards a deal that would put the Conservative leader in Downing Street.

Both sides will resume talks today. Their negotiating teams spent nearly six hours at the Cabinet Office yesterday, trying to thrash out an agreement, but Liberal Democrat sources suggested that it might be Thursday before Mr Cameron could think about walking into No 10.

William Hague, who led the talks for the Tories, and Danny Alexander, his Lib Dem counterpart, tried to reassure the markets by announcing that cutting the deficit would be at the heart of any agreed programme for government. There were no details about how such a programme would look.

Tory sources suggested that a deal — short of full coalition but with agreement on a range of legislation — was within reach today. Liberal Democrats, however, described this as “optimistic”. A senior source said: “It’s more important to get this right than to be hasty. But we need to reach a deal before the public turns against the process.”

COMMENT:  The key, from an American viewpoint, would be to prevent the very leftist libs from having any influence in British foreign and defense policy.  Among other things, kooky Clegg wants to scrap Britain's Trident submarines, which would reduce the Royal Navy to a coastal defense force and ferry service.  And he just loves cozying up to the European Union, some of whose members are approaching bankruptcy. 

Not exactly their finest hour.

May 10, 2010     Permalink

BRING IN THE FOOD TASTERS – AT 8:05 A.M. ET:  I've seen plenty of questionable political statements in my time, but this one has to take some kind of prize.  Of course, it's by Hillary Clinton, who was never named Miss Integrity in any contest, beauty or otherwise.  From the New York Daily News:

They've come a long way, baby.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she and President Obama - once fierce rivals for the White House - have buried the hatchets and are now the best of buds.

"I ran hard against him, he ran hard against me," she told CBS' "60 Minutes."

"He won. I lost. And then he asked me to work him on behalf of our country."

Now? "We have a great relationship," she insisted.

Yuch.  Come on.  It's authoritatively reported that Clinton maintains her political operation in Washington.  And if Obama should falter?  You watch what happens to that "best buddy" stuff.

As far as burying the hatchets is concerned, I think you'll find them in top desk drawers, and kept very sharp.

But the former First Lady also revealed that when Obama asked her to be his secretary of state, she initially balked.

"Just ridiculous," she said in describing her first reaction. "I absolutely did not believe it."

"When he raised it, I said, 'Well, there are so many other people you should consider. I really don't think I wanna do that. I'm not interested in doing it.'"

"I wanted to get back to what I was already doing," said Clinton, referring to her job as New York's junior senator.

Yeah, right.  She wanted to still be senator.  Then why isn't she?  She already had the job, and the drapes.

COMMENT:  Look, I guess she really can't say anything else about Obama.  But the wounds from the 2008 have got to remain.  The Obama side, after all, essentially accused the Clinton camp of stoking racism. 

Hillary Clinton wants to be president.  I am far from convinced that she's doing all this because she suddenly loves traveling to Pakistan.

May 10, 2010     Permalink

KAGAN – AT 7:35 A.M. ET:  Barring a last-minute surprise, or a revelation that she was a pen pal of George W. Bush, President Obama will announce his selection of Elena Kagan for the U.S. Supreme Court today.

So what can we say?  No one denies Kagan's intellect, or her demonstrated ability, as dean of Harvard Law, to "bring people together."  As an individual and an administrator, she has an excellent reputation.

But she has little in the way of a paper trail.  She will, if confirmed, be the only member of the Court without judicial experience, which means she's never written an opinion from the bench.  She is most famous for trying, at Harvard, to bar military recruiters from campus on the basis of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the military regarding gay personnel.  Kagan is assumed to be gay, but has apparently never formally confirmed it.

Her role in the military recruitment issue will clearly be a bone of contention in confirmation hearings, but is not expected to block confirmation.

We assume she's a liberal, but most sources say she's not doctrinaire.  (Look, we're not going to get a conservative from Obama.  But we can hope for reasonably sane liberals.)  If she joins the Court, which is highly probable, it will leave the Supreme Court without any Protestant justices.  There will be six Catholics and three Jews.  That is a delicate matter for any politician to bring up these days, but it almost certainly means that Obama's next choice will have to be a Protestant male. 

The problem with Kagan is that, once again, we will have a justice with an Ivy League and Eastern pedigree.  The Court is heavily tipped in that direction, and clearly needs some educational and geographic balance.  The president has said he wants justices with "empathy," but Americans out West or in the South can occasionally use some empathy as well.  Once again we find that the political class that constantly screams for "diversity" never extends that diversity beyond itself. 

We'll learn more about Kagan during confirmation hearings.  She went through easily when confirmed for solicitor general, the post she holds now.  Nothing has changed since then.  She'll be the ninth justice.

May 10, 2010    Permalink

SUNDAY,  MAY 9,  2010

KAGAN WATCH – AT 10:48 P.M. ET:  NBC News is reporting that President Obama will nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan, former dean of the Harvard Law School, to replace retiring Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens.  The report is unconfirmed, but, if true, will surprise no one.  Kagan has been at the top of the speculation list for days.

UPDATE:  CNN has just confirmed the report.

May 9, 2010     Permalink

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER ROUND OF TALKS – AT 6:43 P.M. ET:  After months of Obaman blundering in the Middle East, indirect talks between Israelis and Palestinians finally got started, as The Politico notes:

At long last, indirect peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians have gotten underway.

U.S. Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell wrapped up the first round of proximity talks with Israelis and Palestinian leaders, and is expected to return to the region next week for the next round. The State Department described the talks as "serious and wide ranging."

The fact is, it's a step back.  The two sides used to negotiate directly.  These "negotiations" could have started much sooner, but Obama wrecked the store by making demands of the Israelis that not even the Palestinians were making, reflecting his leftist background.

"Both parties are taking some steps to help create an atmosphere that is conducive to successful talks, including President Abbas’ statement that he will work against incitement of any sort and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statement that there will be no construction at the Ramat Shlomo project for two years," State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said in a statement. "They are both trying to move forward in difficult circumstances and we commend them for that."

Crowley said the U.S. had "received commitments from both sides, and we have made assurances to both sides, that are enabling us to move forward," adding that "the full scope of these discussions will remain private."

What does "move forward" mean?  And on whose behalf are the Palestinians "negotiating"?  Half their proposed country, Gaza, doesn't even recognize the authority of the people talking with the Israelis.

"As both parties know, if either takes significant actions during the proximity talks that we judge would seriously undermine trust, we will respond to hold them accountable and ensure that negotiations continue," Crowley said.

In English:  You Israelis better not commit housing. 

The U.S. seeks to move to direct negotiations "that will result in a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," Crowley said. "Our overall goal remains a comprehensive peace in the Middle East."

COMMENT:  That's nice.  But what do you do about Hamas-controlled Gaza, which is under the thumb of Iran?  Guess that page fell out of the briefing book.

We all want peace, etc., etc.  But the anti-peace forces on the Arab side are looking at a weakened United States, with its appeasement-minded president, and are undoubtedly asking, "Why now?"  Some Israelis, of course, are asking the same thing. 

Michael Ledeen made the point in a briefing a few days ago that, historically, peace is achieved when one side wins.  It must be made clear to the Arabs that they must, now and forever, give up their dream of destroying Israel.  When they're convinced of that, we may have a shot.

May 9, 2010    Permalink

RUDY SPEAKS OUT ON TERROR – AT 6:20 P.M. ET:  Say what you wish about Rudy Giuliani, he displayed a superb ability dramatically to improve public safety during his two terms as mayor of New York.

Now he speaks out about terror, and the way we've missed signals.  He was asked by Jake Tapper whether he favors Eric Holder's decision to review the use of Miranda warnings.  From ABC News:

I do. I do. I support it, but I really at this point am
frustrated by the lack of urgency that is shown about these terrorism
matters. I mean, we've had three now where we've seen, you know, big
breakdowns: Fort Hood, Christmas Day, and now -- and now this one.

It's about time that we stopped thinking about it and we stopped
studying it. I don't know how often the attorney general said he was
studying things. How about we stop studying and we start doing things,
like we change Miranda, like we fix what appears to be a policy of
political correctness in which we missed every signal that related to
Major Hasan and promoted him in the military?

And here we missed some very big signals that Shahzad was giving us,
going back to Pakistan, remaining there for five or six months, bringing
in -- I've forgotten exactly how much cash he brought in from Pakistan,
but I think it was something like $60,000...

Rudy is correct.  It's refreshing to hear the unvarnished truth.  Our lack of urgency is pathetic.  And if anyone does show any urgency, he's immediately denounced by the ACLU as a threat to civil liberties.

Of course, if you go to the story you find the usual suspects erupting in hatred against Giuliani.  When he was mayor, and was significantly reducing crime, he was called a fascist. 

Democracies, as a rule, lose their sense of urgency between crises.  Former director of Central Intelligence Jim Woolsey said a few days ago that democracies have never successfully confronted evil before a major war.  We have to defy those historical odds, or pay a price many times greater than 9/11.

May 9, 2010     Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 12:25 P.M. ET:  Mark Steyn, disgusted, as most of us are, by the claim that America is "Islamophobic," smashes the argument:

As for the idea that America has become fanatically "Islamophobic" since Sept. 11, au contraire: Were the United States even mildly "Islamophobic," it would have curtailed Muslim immigration, or at least subjected immigrants from Pakistan, Yemen and a handful of other hotbeds to an additional level of screening. Instead, Muslim immigration to the West has accelerated in the past nine years, and, as the case of Faisal Shahzad demonstrates, being investigated by terrorism task forces is no obstacle to breezing through your U.S. citizenship application. An "Islamophobic" United States might have pondered whether the more extreme elements of self-segregation were compatible with participation in a pluralist society. Instead, President Obama makes fawning speeches boasting that he supports the rights of women to be "covered" - rather than the rights of the ever-lengthening numbers of European and North American Muslim women beaten, brutalized and murdered for not wanting to be covered. The U.S. is so un-Islamophobic that a 13-story mosque is being built at ground zero - on the site of an old Burlington Coat Factory damaged by airplane debris that Tuesday morning in 2001.

So, in the ruins of a building reduced to rubble in the name of Islam, a temple to Islam will arise.

COMMENT:  I wish this were said more often.  The first thing President Bush did after the 9/11 attacks was to visit a mosque.  To his enemies, it didn't matter.

Most of the claims of Islamophobia are coming, not from Muslims, but from the hardline left.  It's the standard claim of racism.  They can't live without it.

May 9, 2010     Permalink

DISASTER IN THE SOUTHLAND – AT 10:28 A.M. ET:  And, no, I'm not talking about the oil spill, the dream story of the journalistic left.  I'm talking about the great Tennessee flood.

As one Facebook group asked, "Pardon us, but did you notice that Nashville is drowning?"  Apparently, many in the media have not.  Or, maybe they have, but don't see any political gain in emphasizing the story.  Can't blame BUSH (!!).  Can't blame the tea party.  Can't blame Sarah.  Can't praise Obama.  No obvious racial angle.  Where's the story?

The fact is, Nashville doesn't seem to care much that Katie Couric hasn't set up shop at the Grand Ole Opry:

The Christian Science Monitor reports:

Chalk up the ambivalence about the relative lack of national coverage and attention to good old country grit – and a city's determination to take care of its own. "A large part of the reason that we are being ignored is because of who we are," writes Patten Fuqua on the hockey blog Section 303. "Did you hear about crime sprees? No … you didn't. You saw a group of people trying to move two horses to higher ground. [We] weren't doing anything to draw attention to ourselves. We were handling it on our own."

What?  Handling it on your own?  What are you, some kind of right-wing nuts?  Actually doing something without calling for federal help?  Do you realize all the bureaucrats you can put out of work?

There it is, exposed, the face of the enemy.  Those self-help fanatics!

Actually, there has been some federal, by the book, help.  But mostly, Nashville is handling the crisis without the standard screaming and ranting, and the demands for an investigation into global warming.

And yet, the lack of journalistic coverage is troubling on its own level:

Dearth of media exposure?Yet many saw a troubling paradox in what was perceived as a dearth of media exposure. "It was mind-boggling to flip by CNN, MSNBC, and FOX on Sunday afternoon and see not one station even occasionally bringing their viewers footage of the flood, news of our people dying," writes Betsy Phillips of the Nashville Scene.

The gradual move by mainstream media toward opinion over hard news as budgets and circulation shrink could certainly have played a role in how the Nashville flood was perceived and covered. "Everyone is talking about BP and Faisal Shahzad 24/7, the 'thinking' goes," writes Andrew Romano in Newsweek. "So there must not be anything else that's as important to talk about. It's a horrible feedback loop."

COMMENT:  You can be sure that if the Nashville flood occurred a month after Katrina, and Brownie was sent to handle it, Nashville would be sinking even further under the weight of TV cameras and brilliant pundits.

May 9, 2010     Permalink

BRITAIN IN A MUDDLE – AT 10:02 A.M. ET:  Britain has only a caretaker government as a result of Thursday's election.  With no party getting 50 percent, a "hung Parliament" has resulted, and the parties must negotiate for a coalition.

The talks do not appear to be going well.  The largest party, in terms of Thursday's vote, the Conservatives, are negotiating with the third-largest party, the Liberal Democrats, to form some kind of arrangement.

It's really quite an absurdity, as the parties have nothing in common, and both voters and commentators are starting to notice.  The Lib Dems are a leftist group of eccentrics who favor some rather extreme policies.  Janet Daley in The Telegraph comments:

And the electorate, which was accustomed to thinking of the Lib Dems as a harmless, all-purpose vehicle for protest – a blank screen on to which they could project all their various political discontents – suddenly realised what this party really stood for: Europhilia of the most rampant variety, Britain’s retreat from the world stage as a military power, and an amnesty for illegal immigrants. And now, the realisation dawned, there was an actual risk that they could gain power and influence of a substantial kind! Good grief, what were we thinking?

And the Lib Dems want something else – "reform" of the British electoral system.  (When someone shouts "reform" your first instinct should be to put on a helmet and run in the opposition direction.)  They want a system that will strengthen "proportional representation," so third and fourth parties have more of a voice.

Talk about a formula for disaster.  The strength of our two-party system is evident in what Britain is now experiencing.

There is concern that if no coalition deal is in place by tomorrow, the financial markets can be affected.  There is also growing support within the Conservative Party to avoid coalition altogether, and try to rule as a minority government.  Could happen.  Stand by.

May 9, 2010     Permalink

HOLDER USES THE WORDS – AT 9:42 A.M.. ET:  Attorney General Eric Holder blames the Pakistani Taliban for the failed Times Square bombing.  From Fox:

The Pakistani Taliban were behind the failed Times Square bomb attempt last weekend, top administration officials said Sunday.

Attorney General Eric Holder and White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said the investigation has led authorities to believe that suspect Faisal Shahzad trained with the Taliban in Pakistan and was funded by them.

Brennan told "Fox News Sunday" that Shahzad had "extensive interaction" with the group, which he described as virtually "indistinguishable" from Al Qaeda.

"It looks as though he was operating on behalf of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan," he said. "This is a group that is closely aligned with Al Qaeda. It has a murderous agenda similar to Al Qaeda, they train together, they plan together, they plot together. They're almost indistinguishable."

New York law enforcement officials initially said they did not have evidence to support claims made by the Pakistani Taliban that they were responsible for the attempted attack.

COMMENT:  The administration should get its act together.  Several days ago Gen. David Petraeus said that the Times Square guy acted alone.  Maybe new information has come in.

If true we can probably expect more attempts by the Pakistani group to attack us here.  We can also expect more cries from the left to abandon our efforts in south Asia because they "create more terrorists."  They probably do, in the sense that all military action will create some additional resistance...until that resistance is broken.  It's in the nature of warfare.

May 9, 2010    Permalink