Bloodthirsty Liberal

If the 9/11 terrorists (and murderers of Daniel Pearl, don’t forget) want to spend their last days on earth acting out a farce more absurd than Noises Off, don’t they have that right? Say, in lieu of a last meal (which they’ll never finish digesting anyway).

You don’t have to be a mind reader to figure out the propaganda strategy of September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the four other terrorists who were arraigned Saturday in a 13-hour spectacle in Guantanamo Bay. The idea is to use the open military trial to promote jihad and discredit American institutions, including the military system of justice.

The point to keep in mind is that this would have happened no matter the trial venue, civilian or military. The critics who have never liked military tribunals and accused them of being a form of railroad justice are now blaming them for being so unruly that they give terrorists a chance to act out. Well, which is it?

The real fault lies with the terrorists, who hope to put American justice on trial instead of themselves. The defendants refused even to look at Judge James Pohl, much less to answer questions or wear headsets to hear the simultaneous translation into Arabic. There were unscheduled prayers and a paper airplane. Ramzi bin Al Shibh commented in English that “Maybe they will kill us and say we have committed suicide.”

Sad to say, they were helped by some of the military defense lawyers, who know they can make a name for themselves by putting the Bush Administration’s detention policies on trial. KSM attorney David Nevin said in a press conference that “The government wants to kill Mr. Mohammed. They want to extinguish the last eyewitness to his torture so he can never speak again.” Sure, 9/11 was one giant cover-up.

The terrorists deserve a zealous defense under our adversarial trial system, but the lawyers’ efforts to defend their clients not by any evidence of their innocence but through political attacks on the procedural detail of military tribunals does a disservice to the victims and to their military peers.

The decision by Cheryl Bormann, the lawyer for Osama bin Laden bodyguard Walid bin Attash, to come to court in a black hijab and abaya and urge other female prosecutors to do the same was beyond any reasonable definition of what’s necessary and proper for women working in a U.S. military courtroom.

The professional female lawyers and members of the U.S. military should cover themselves, she said, so that the suspects wouldn’t be in “fear of committing a sin under their faith.”

To hell with that. I say the lawyers should be required to wear stilettos, sequined hot pants, and nothing on top but a push-up bra. And that’s just the guys!

This is America, baby, love it or leave it. To some of us, the Statue of Liberty is just a big dominatrix: “You’re tired! You’re poor! You’re nothing but a huddled mass yearning to breath free, you pathetic excuse for an American.” Crack! (You can’t truly appreciate liberty unless you’ve been in bondage, I always say.)

It’s not like the Gitmo Five haven’t seen their share of infidel flesh. Didn’t Mohammed (that name again!) Atta and his crew hit every titty bar and strip club in the Northeast before carrying out their mass-murderous mission?

We know that President Obama’s preferred method of dealing with America’s enemies is to terminate them with extreme prejudice—preferably by Predator drone, Navy SEALs a close second—and we salute him for that. (If a couple of wedding parties are mistaken for jihadist book groups and “accidentally” vaporized, just put your hat over heart and say you’re powerful sorry.)

If deprived the pleasure of a Hellfire missile or two in the head, however, Obama would settle for a show trial from out of the Cultural Revolution in lower Manhattan. But this? KSM middle-fingering us without consequence? That’s gotta be eating up Obama inside. We all know that in any other country, he’d get 70% of the vote—but in America and within Al Qaeda, he has to endure these indignities.

Me, on the other hand, I love it. The Gitmo Five can drop trou (or robe) and defecate in the middle of the courtroom for all I care. KSM can grope the female lawyers in their hijabs and say “How ’bout abaya drink?” He may make a farce out of the proceedings, but after his scrupulously fair military tribunal, we’ll get the last laugh at the firing squad.

Just swallow the popcorn before laughing. No choking on the concessions.

Khalid Sheikh Jacobi (or O’Donnell, you decide) gets his day in court: hilarity ensues:

Silence from accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others resulted in delays during their arraignment Saturday in Guantanamo Bay.

A hearing before a military judge that could have lasted minutes instead stretched into hours.

It is Mohammed and four others’ first appearance in a military courtroom since being charged a month ago.

Along with Mohammed, the others are Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi.

…

The silence from the defendants — some ignored the judge and others appeared to be reading — slowed the proceedings to a crawl.

One of the defendants was brought in, in restraints, after refusing to come to court. The restraints were later removed.

The judge, Col. James Pohl, needed the five to confirm their desires to be represented by the attorneys who accompanied them. Because no one answered, Pohl had to go one-by-one and appoint military lawyers for them.

Earlier, the silence caused an issue with the court translations.

Mohammed’s lawyer said that his client “will decline to communicate with the court.”

Because they wouldn’t speak, the judge could not confirm that the defendants could hear the translation of the proceedings. Time elapsed while they set up loudspeakers in the court to carry the translations. Some lawyers objected to this solution, too, and translation remained a problem at the outset of the hearing.
Pohl said he would enter a not guilty plea on Mohammed’s behalf if he refused to enter a plea.

Two of the defendants, Bin ‘Attash and Binalshibh, started praying in the court.

The defendants’ silence was finally broken hours into the hearing by Binalshibh, who shouted in heavily accented English: “You may not see us anymore,” he said. “They are going to kill us.”

The outburst was short and the judge proceeded with the arraignment.

During recesses, the defendants talked amongst each other and seemed relaxed. They passed around a copy of The Economist magazine.

Mohammed wore a white turban; his long beard was colored red by henna.

From another account:

Yemeni defendant Ramzi Binalshibh knelt on the gray-carpeted courtroom floor and prayed as a row of burly guards in camouflage uniforms kept a close watch but did not interfere. Later he stood and shouted, and seemed to be saying that the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was being held at Guantanamo.

He said tricks were being played on the defendants inside the prison camp and that “maybe they are going to kill us at the camp … and say that we are committing suicide.”

Yemeni defendant Walid bin Attash refused to come into the court and was strapped into a restraining chair and wheeled in by the guards. His prosthetic leg was brought in later.

Ha! That could come from a stage direction from Ionesco or maybe Joe Orton.

But I can’t decide which image makes me laugh harder: the peg leg being brought in later; the praying and then braying about Muammar Qaddafi; the badass terrorists reading the house organ of the establishment, The Economist; or KSM’s hennaed beard. Carol’s right: that’s definitely more Rosie O’Donnell than Lou Jacobi. So’s his attitude and behavior.

It just goes to show you how wrong Holder and Obama were to want to hold a civilian show trial. Besides the obscenity against the American justice system such a kangaroo court would have been, we would have missed this epic farce. It’s going to run for years.

Now I know why Eric Holder has been slow and reluctant to respond to repeated Congressional inquiries into Fast and Furious: he’s had a lot on his mind!

[BTW, am I the only one struck by the similarity between Lou Sheikh Mohammed and Khalid Jacobi?]

The self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four accused co-conspirators will appear in public for the first time in more than three years Saturday, when U.S. officials start a second attempt at what is likely to be a drawn out legal battle that could lead to the men’s executions.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants are to be arraigned at a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay on charges that include that include 2,976 counts of murder, one for each person killed in the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

In the past, during the failed first effort to prosecute them at the U.S. base in Cuba, Mohammed has mocked the tribunal and said he and his co-defendants would plead guilty and welcome execution. But there were signs that at least some of the defense teams were preparing for lengthy fight, planning challenges of the military tribunals and the secrecy that shrouds the case.

The arraignment is “only the beginning of a trial that will take years to complete, followed by years of appellate review,” attorney James Connell, who represents defendant Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, told reporters gathered at the base to observe the hearing.

“I can’t imagine any scenario where this thing gets wrapped up in six months,” Connell said.

Doesn’t it seem like only yesterday that our youthful, dewy-eyed crusader against crime (I mean international terrorism), Barack Obama, and his youthful ward (and chief law enforcement officer) Eric (The Red) Holder were promising a swift and decisive conviction of KSM in a civilian show trial? In New York City, no less? I feel old just remembering. I guess we’ve all grown up a lot since then.

PS: My apologies to any members of the Jacobi family offended by the above comparison.

You read that correctly

White House officials held talks with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood in Washington this week, as the Islamist group threw itself into the fray in Egypt’s presidential election.

The meeting on Tuesday with low-level National Security Council staff was part of a series of US efforts to broaden engagement with new and emerging political parties following Egypt’s revolution last year, a US official said.

The White House pointed out that Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain, and other US lawmakers and officials had also met with Brotherhood representatives in Egypt and elsewhere in recent months.

“We believe that it is in the interest of the United States to engage with all parties that are committed to democratic principles, especially nonviolence,” said National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor.

“In all our conversations with these groups, we emphasize the importance of respect for minority rights, the full inclusion of women, and our regional security concerns.”

Put on your waders. This is deep.

By the way, this is the fault of the US government – our President and our State Department.

- Aggie

After mercilessly killing the poor terrorist who just needed some extra guidance, France is now rounding up Muslims. Sounds like an Apartheid State to me.

Nineteen people have been arrested in a series of police raids on suspected Islamists, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told French radio Friday morning.

The raids come a week after gunman Mohammed Merah, who killed seven people, was shot dead after a long siege in the southwestern city of Toulouse.

The arrests took place in Toulouse, Marseille, Nantes, Lyon and the Ile de France region, around Paris, the Interior Ministry said.

Authorities have not said that any of those arrested were directly linked to Merah.

Sarkozy told Europe 1 that the decision to act had been taken by the interior minister and foreign minister “to deny the entry of certain people to France” who did not share the country’s values.

“It’s not just linked to Toulouse. It’s all over the country. It’s in connection with a form of radical Islam, and it’s in agreement with the law,” he said.
French gunman buried in Toulouse
French politics and Toulouse suspect

“What you have to understand is that the traumatic events in Montauban and Toulouse were profound in our country. I don’t want to compare horrors but it’s a bit like the form of trauma visible in the United States and New York after 9/11. We have to be able to draw some conclusions.”

Interior Minister Claude Gueant said that several firearms, including five rifles, four automatic weapons and three Kalashnikovs, had been found in the searches, as well as a bulletproof vest.

Speaking to French media, he said the raids targeted people who have made the claim online that they are “mujahedeen,” or Islamist fighters, and support “an extremely radical ideology.”

The authorities’ decision to swoop was in part based on the suspects’ claims that they had received paramilitary training, Gueant said.

Sarkozy suggested that more raids will follow, saying, “There will be other operations that will continue and that will allow us to expel from our national territory a certain number of people who have no reason to be here.”

Can you say: ETHNIC CLEANSING?

Sarkozy said he was obliged to act to ensure the nation’s safety. “It’s our duty to guarantee the security of the French people. We have no choice. It’s absolutely indispensable.”

Why don’t they just sit down with some nice strong coffee and some croissants and have a heart-to-heart? Each side compromise a little bit and all will be well. Maybe they could give some of their country to the Islamists, just unilaterally withdraw? What is there to be afraid of? I’m sure that the French Muslims won’t use their new-found nation as a launching pad for rockets.

- Aggie

It doesn’t seem all that long ago that my family made the familiar slog from Teletubbies to Dragon Tales to Barney to Sesame Street to Zoboomafoo to Jimmy Neutron to Zoom.

Somehow, we missed these channels:

The Jerusalem District Prosecution indicted 18-year-old Mohammed Shuman, from Beit Hanina, for the attempted murder of an Israeli soldier in Jerusalem in early March.

Shuman stabbed 19-year-old Yehudit Aharon in her chest and hand on Jerusalem’s Light Rail. According to the prosecution, Shuman – an avid viewer of Al-Jazeera, Al-Quds and Al-Manar TV stations – was frustrated by what he perceived as the unfair treatment of Palestinians in IDF checkpoints, and decided to kill the soldier.

Hey, the Toulouse guy was named Mohammed too! What are the odds?

Anyhow, that’s why we consistently publish stories from Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI—to demonstrate Arab/Muslim incitement to hatred and violence.

Comme ça:

The Egyptian Al-Tahrir TV station has recently begun to air the antisemitic TV series “Horseman without a Horse”, which raised a controversy when it first went on the air in 2002.

…

Following are excerpts from the series, which aired on March 18-23, 2012.

Jewish leader A : Great Britain is helping us. Herzl was right to direct all his efforts towards Britain, which has become the protector of the Zionist movement.

You did not succeed in persuading Britain to give us Sinai as a national home, which would have made us part of the British Empire.

Jewish leader B : That’s such a shame. We should have been in the Sinai four years by now. It is only a stone’s throw away.

Jewish leader C : When the Sixth Congress rejected Herzl’s proposal to settle us in Uganda – why didn’t Britain support this proposal?

Jewish leader D : That’s because Britain is after its own interests. When Herzl died last year, we found ourselves in disagreement. Some of us believe that we should accept any proposal to establish a Zionist state I whether in Palestine or elsewhere – while others maintain that it is “Palestine or nothing.”

Jewish leader E : I agree with you, but don’t forget that in the Seventh Congress, we decided to establish a national home in Palestine itself.

Jewish leader D : This will surely happen, because it is in England’s interest to have us in Palestine. This will serve to foil any aspiration for Arab and Islamic unity, so long as it guarantees the separation of Egypt from the Levant.

So, whom do we cast? George Clooney as Jewish leader D and Brad Pitt as Jewish leader E, naturally, but whom else? I see a caper movie along the lines of the Ocean’s 11 series. Call it Galilee’s Half-Dozen.

Anyhow, if this dramatization isn’t enough to make Mohammed’s all over the world go postal, this history lesson is:

Hafez Naguib : The racist Zionist movement devised a plan a long time ago, even before Christ: A peaceful Zionist invasion of all the countries of the world, with a malicious serpent as its symbol. They drew up a map for this serpent. According to this map, the serpent moves, coils, and blinds the countries of the world, enslaving them by hellish means. These means include an economic invasion which weakens these countries, and uses all methods of violence and depletion. The Zionist plan is, of course, very carefully devised, so they can spread among the world’s youth wantonness, alcohol, abomination and corruption.

[…]

The serpent is the Zionist symbol, and its progress is drawn on the map, step by step. The first step was in Europe in 429 BCE, in Greece, in the days of Pericles. The Zionist serpent devoured this country’s strength, of course. The second step was in 69 BCE in Rome, in the days of Emperor Augustus. The third step was in 1552, in Madrid in the days of Charles V. The fourth step was in Paris, 1790, in the days of Louis XVI. The fifth step was in London in 1814, after the fall of Napoleon. The sixth step was in Berlin after the Franco-Russian war, and the seventh in St. Petersburg, in 1881.

The Zionist serpent passed through all these countries, shaking their constitutional foundation. Even England and Germany, despite their strength – the Zionist serpent exceeded their economic limits, until it completed the invasion of Russia in 1905. If we follow the serpent’s steps on the map, we will find not find trace of its path, except for some arrows pointing to Moscow, Kiev, and Odessa, and another arrow pointing to the United States of America.

Zionism in 429 BC? Whatever.

BTW, I want to add the traits of zionism to our blog’s profile: wantonness, alcohol, abomination and corruption. And those are our good qualities!

We had a commenter take issue with our assertion that Muhammad, the Toulouse Terminator, did not act alone. Actually, it was not our assertion, but that of many, many people, including Jytte Klausen and Caroline Glick (whom we cited in separate posts). But no, Zooey insisted, French officials say Muhammad was a loup seul.

Sure about that?

Dozens of French Muslims are training with the Taliban in northwestern Pakistan, raising fears of future attacks following the shooting deaths of seven people in southern France by a man who spent time in the region, Pakistani intelligence officials said Saturday.

Authorities are investigating whether Muhammad Merah, the Frenchman of Algerian descent who shot to death three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three French paratroopers in Toulouse this month, was among the training group, the officials said.

…

Approximately 85 Frenchmen have been training with the Pakistani Taliban in the North Waziristan tribal area for the past three years, according to the intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Most of the men have dual nationality with France and North African countries.

The Frenchmen operate under the name Jihad-e-Islami and are being trained to use explosives and other weapons at camps near the town of Miran Shah and in the Datta Khel area, the officials said. They are led by a French commander who goes by the name Abu Tarek. Five of the men returned to France in January 2011 to find new recruits, according to the officials. It’s unclear whether Merah was among that group.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy promised a crackdown on French citizens found to have trained in terror camps abroad.

“Anyone who goes abroad to follow ideological courses that lead to terrorism will be criminally punished. The response will be prison,” he said in a campaign speech Saturday.

Abu Tarek: why, the very name conjures berets and baguettes, Gauloises and grenache.

But Zooey et al have their story down:

A senior French official close to the investigation into the shootings told The Associated Press on Friday that despite Merah’s claims of al Qaeda links, there was no sign he had “trained or been in contact with organized groups or jihadists.”

And how’s this for a coincidence? Two lone wolves being lone together!

Meanwhile on Saturday, Experts have used cellular tracking technology to determine that a laptop belonging to Abdelkader Merah, the brother of Muhammad Merah, was located near the Jewish school where the latter shot dead four people on Monday. The computer appeared to have been near the scene of the shooting on the day of the attack.

Mon Allah!

More about frère Abdelkader:

Police have found explosives in a car Abdelkader owned, according to the public prosecutor leading the case. He was already known to security services for having helped smuggle jihadist militants into Iraq in 2007.

A police source said on Saturday that at a closed hearing in Toulouse he had declared himself “proud” of his brother’s killings and had admitted helping Mohamed steal the scooter used in all seven murders. He had denied any knowledge of his brother’s murderous plans, however, the source added.

Quite the family, huh? Time for the disbelieving, distraught mother, I should think: a staple among terrorists.

[A] lawyer for Merah’s mother, 55-year-old Zoulhika Aziri, said she had been released without charge.

Jean-Yves Gougnaud told reporters in the southern French city of Toulouse that Aziri’s world had been “turned upside down.”

“She is devastated,” he told reporters after her release. “At no time could she have imagined that her son was the one who did it.”

Sons, plural. I believe it was Wilde who wrote: to have one son slaughter beautiful young children in cold blood may be regarded as misfortune; to have two looks like carelessness.

But back to that pesky lone wolf argument:

French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche reported on Sunday that during negotiations for his surrender with police, Merah admitted that he felt “endless pleasure” during the massacre at the Ozar Hatorah Jewish School last week.

…

As for his time in Afghanistan, Merah said that he underwent personal training rather than “collective training,” and added that his trainer wanted him to carry out attacks in Paris but he chose to start with Toulouse.

Why do you think he filmed it all? Just for personal enjoyment? At the very least, he wanted evidence for admission to paradise. They don’t hand out 72 virgins to just anybody claiming jihad. One’s damn hard to come by in this day and age, let alone 72.

Did you hear the joke about the supreme leader of all Islam who called for the destruction of all churches in the Middle East?

It wasn’t a riot. In fact, it wasn’t even a joke:

In answer to a question from a Kuwaiti delegation regarding an announcement last month by a Member of Kuwaiti legislature, Osama Al-Munawer, that he plans to submit a draft law calling for the removal of all churches in Kuwait, the Saudi Grand Mufti “stressed that Kuwait was a part of the Arabian Peninsula, and therefore it is necessary to destroy all churches in it.”

…

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “It is amazing and a commentary on our times that the senior Muslim cleric, in the land that gave birth to Islam and in the country that has custody of the two main Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina, can call for the demolition of churches without this vicious statement attracting any significant international condemnation or protest.

“Imagine what would occur if the Pope called for the demolition of all mosques in Italy, or if the Chief Rabbi in Israel made a similar call in respect of mosques in Israel. The protests would be huge, furious and immediate. Nor would the matter die away in a week or two. Yet, when the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia calls for churches to be demolished – deafening silence. And this, despite the routine frequency of attacks already upon churches and Christians across the Middle East (with the exception of Israel), something which the Grand Mufti’s call can only serve to increase.

“We call upon the Obama Administration to publicly condemn the words of the Saudi Grand Mufti.”

Good job ending with a joke, Morton. Always leave ‘em laughing.

He’s right, of course, but what can you do? The American-born Christian in the White House acts like anything but.

And snuff films are definitely a hot medium.

As a companion piece to the post below, Caroline Glick:

The exhibitionism common to all the men’s behavior makes it obvious that that their attacks were not the random actions of isolated crazy people or lone extremists. All of these killers were certain that they were part of a global movement that seeks the annihilation of the Jews, the subjugation of the Western world and the supremacy of jihadist Islam. And they were convinced that their actions served the interests of this movement and that they would be viewed as heroes by millions of their fellow Muslims for their killing of innocents.

THIS SITUATION is bad enough on its own. But what make it truly dangerous are the West’s responses to it. Those responses together with the crimes themselves expose the depraved and perilous nature of our times. And they show that Merah’s death can bring no closure to this story.

There are five interrelated aspects to the West’s response to these crimes and the jihadist reality they expose. The first aspect of the West’s response is denial.

Time after time, Merah and his ilk throughout the Western world show us who they are and what they want. And time after time, the Western elites, and even much of the Jewish leadership, turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to their cries of murder and calls for the destruction of Western civilization.

In the case of Halimi’s murder, for instance, Paris police refused to view his abduction as a hate crime. Despite the fact that Fofana and his followers called Halimi’s family and recited Koranic verses while Ilan screamed out in agony in the background, the Paris police treated his disappearance as a garden variety kidnap-for-ransom case.

Even after Ilan was found naked at a rail heading with burns on more than 80 percent of his body and died en route to the hospital, it took French authorities over a week to admit that he had been the victim of an anti-Semitic crime.

…

As David Horowitz wrote in a recent article at FrontPage magazine, Jewish student leaders at places such as the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill prefer to attack messengers like himself, than accept the inconvenient truth that Muslim student leaders on campus with them support the annihilation of Israel.

Ignoring and denying the openly expressed aims of jihadists like Merah is of course only part of the problem. The second aspect of the West’s effective collusion with these killers is Western elites’ justification of their crimes.

After initially pinning the blame for the Toulouse massacre on Nazis, when French authorities finally acknowledged Merah’s jihadist identity, they also provided his justification for murder. Speaking to reporters, French Interior Minister Claude Gueant gave us Merah’s name and his excuse at the same time.

Gueant told us that Merah was associated with al-Qaida and he was upset about what he referred to as Israel’s “murder” of Palestinian children.

It should be unnecessary to note the simple truth that Israel doesn’t murder Palestinian children. Palestinians murder Israeli children.

But then, if Merah got his news from the Western media there is a reasonable chance that he wouldn’t know that.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton was rightly condemned by Israeli political leaders this week for her equation of the actual massacre of Jewish children in Toulouse with the imaginary massacre of Palestinian children in Gaza. But she is not alone in this behavior. US President Barack Obama engaged in similarly outrageous libels when during his speech to the Muslim world in June 2009 he compared the Holocaust with Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.

And the line separating these libels from actual incitement is often hard to find.

French television, which Merah no doubt often watched, is notorious for crossing it. It was France 2 that gave us this century’s first anti-Semitic blood libel with its October 2000 tale of Muhammad al-Dura’s alleged death at the hands of IDF soldiers.

The France 2 story was exposed as a fraud by an appellate court in Paris in 2008. The appellate court overturned a lower court’s libel ruling against Internet activist Philippe Karsenty who wrote on his personal website that the al-Dura story was a hoax.

The appellate court viewed France 2′s unedited footage from the scene. That footage showed al-Dura moving after the France 2 cameraman had declared him dead. The footage led the court to overturn the decision of the lower court that had found Karsenty guilty of libel.

Apparently the same French establishment that now declares solidarity with France’s Jews is unwilling to part with the al-Dura hoax that incited the spilling of so much Jewish blood in the past decade. Last month, France’s Supreme Court overturned the appellate court’s ruling and ordered it to retry the case.

As far as the Supreme Court of France is concerned, the appellate court had no right to ask France 2 to provide evidence that its story was true. According to the court, the unedited footage which proved the story was a blood libel should never have been admitted as evidence. The truth should never have been permitted to come to light.

IN ADDITION to denying, justifying and inciting jihadist violence, Western elites and authorities also engage in facilitating it and, after the fact, excusing it. In the case of Merah, although details are still unclear, it has been reported that he underwent jihadist training by al-Qaida in Afghanistan and was apprehended by Afghan authorities.

Despite his ties to al-Qaida, either US or French military authorities decided he should be sent back to France even though he clearly constituted a danger to French society.

Moreover, according to media reports, French authorities knew that he was dangerous and still failed to apprehend him. They had been informed that at least on one occasion, Merah sought to radicalize a 15-year-old Muslim boy. And yet, he was allowed to remain at large.

As the mother of the teenager said, “All these people had to die before they finally arrest Mohamed Merah. What an enormous waste. The police knew this individual was dangerous and radicalized. I complained to the police twice about Mohamed Merah and tried to follow up several times.”

In the US, Hasan’s colleagues and commanders knew of his sympathy for jihad and his connections to jihadist leader Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. And yet they promoted him to major and sent him to Fort Hood.

The West’s complicity with these jihadist crimes doesn’t end with their perpetration.

After failing to acknowledge that Halimi was abducted by jihadists who murdered him because he was a Jew, French authorities conducted his murderers’ trials behind closed doors. Hidden from public scrutiny, in their first trial, Halimi’s killers were given pitifully lights sentences. Fofana was rendered eligible for parole within 22 years. It was only the outcry of activists within the French Jewish community that caused French authorities to hold a retrial.

In Seattle, Haq’s first trial for his attack on Seattle’s Jewish Federation was declared a mistrial. Seattle’s mayor and media went out of their way to present Haq as mentally ill. The prosecution failed to seek the death penalty and didn’t bother to present the records of Haq’s phone conversations bragging about his crimes until his second trial.

Together, the behavior of proud jihadist warriors of the West like Merah, Hasan, Haq and Fofana, and the depraved silence, indifference and complicity of Western elites with their jihadist aims, form the physical and moral landscape of our time. And it is because of this evil mix of perpetrators and enablers that Merah’s death is not a victory of justice.

If I still have your attention, let me re-refer you to a piece I linked to the other day. The Obama State Department is conducting “stealth” outreach programs to European Moslems, often to the dismay and resentment of the host countries themselves. Those countries, France included, are trying to wind up the tangled tentacles of multiculturalism, while Obama and his rich donors (masquerading as diplomats) reach out and stroke the aggrieved parties. But as Glick amply demonstrates, it is we who are being played, not they.

John Hinkley was a “lone wolf”; David Berkowitz, too.

Mohamed Merah was no lone wolf: the metaphor itself is nonsense.

Mohamed Merah, the Frenchman who assassinated three French paratroopers of North African background and then launched a terrible attack on a Jewish school—murdering a teacher, his two young sons and an 8-year-old girl—claimed to act for al Qaeda. Skeptics have dismissed the claim, saying al Qaeda barely functions anymore. But Merah was no “lone wolf” and did indeed bear the imprint of al Qaeda.

…

In fact, Merah was practically a prince in French jihadist circles. His mother is married to the father of Sabri Essid, a leading member of the Toulouse radical milieu who was captured in Syria in 2006. Essid and another Frenchman were running an al Qaeda safe house in Syria for fighters going to Iraq. In a 2009 trial that came to be known in the press as “Brothers for Iraq,” they and six others were convicted in France of conspiracy for terrorist purposes. Essid was sentenced in 2009 to five years imprisonment.

Family contacts could have been instrumental in setting up Merah’s jihadist contacts and facilitating his travels to South Asia. Le Monde reports that the Pakistani Taliban and the Uzbek Islamic Movement trained Merah to become a killer. In 2010, he was captured in Afghanistan (reportedly by Afghan forces) and handed over to the French government, yet French media report that he was able to return to Northwest Pakistan in 2011.

The French police have confirmed that Merah was under periodic surveillance in recent months. That he slipped through and was able to carry out his attacks will become a source of criticism and self-recrimination on the part of the generally efficient French police. It certainly suggests that he had help from a network.

In executing his attacks, Merah did everything by the jihadist textbook. He made sure he would die a martyr’s death that would be witnessed on television screens around the world. He murdered with a video camera strapped to his body, making him star and director of his own epic. He told journalists his videos would soon be uploaded. In the attack at the Jewish school Monday morning, Merah held a little girl by her hair while he paused to reload his gun. He then shot her. In a recording found in his apartment he tells another victim, a soldier: “You kill my brothers, I kill you.” This is theater.

The Internet was his friend. “I have changed my life . . . on video,” said one of his last tweets (in French) during the siege. His account ID featured a black knight on a horse holding high the flag of jihad.

He signed that last tweet “Mohamed Merah-Forsane Alizza.” Forsane Alizza, or “Knights of Glory,” is a France-based jihadist media organization that was banned in January by French authorities after they discovered members preparing to train in armed combat. The ban made little difference, as content was uploaded to new sites. A website using the Forsane Alizza alias is still active—and registered with a domain name registrar and Web hosting company based in the state of Washington.

Two hours before the police arrived at his apartment, Merah was calling a French TV station. He appears to have had the media on speed-dial and was an active user not only of Twitter but of Facebook and YouTube. (Authorities took down his online outlets one-by-one on Wednesday.)

Merah’s shootings in Toulouse again shatter the illusion that counterterrorism can be 100% successful. Jihadist terrorism exploits our freedoms and opportunities in a global campaign linking foreign insurgencies and extremist activism in the West. Highly scripted and planned with the assistance of accomplices in and outside of France, Merah did not act in isolation.

Neither do wolves kill for show. They don’t upload videos to YouTube and post tweets every few minutes. Mohamed did. He would have known his show wouldn’t last, that the critics would close it eventually. So he documented every scene to inspire future Mohameds to stage their own jihadi street theater. You have to admit, falling out a window in a hail of bullets is a better way to go than growing old and fat, raising a family, and torching the odd car or two in the été.