Bill Maher vs. Cal State Professor On Radical Islamic Terrorism

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Reading The Boston Bomber His Miranda Rights

The reading of the Miranda warnings to the Boston jihadist by a magistrate who waltzed into the hospital with a public defender during the interrogation led the bomber to immediately lawyer and clam up. FBI sources indicate they were still in the midst of questioning that was yielding valuable intelligence. They were surprised when their interrogation was called off. I would remind anyone engaging in histrionics over Miranda being delayed that the Miranda rights have no significant support in the history of the privilege or in the language of the Fifth Amendment. That which was devised in the Miranda v. Arizona ruling has a judicially created "public safety exception" allowing for questioning without the reading of rights. The precise contours of that exemption remain undefined. If this contrived exception to a now sacrosanct yet originally concocted rule is to exist, and the Boston atrocity demonstrates that it should, the circumstances to which it applies must be more clearly defined. There is no reason the DOJ should be invoking it and then suddenly removing it while the FBI is under the impression they are allowed more time to delay the made up privilege.

Formally watering down an invented right in cases such as mass and potentially international Islamist terrorism is not scandalous. It is common sense. Tweet

The Boston Bombings: Deadly Political Correctness

Three innocents were killed in the terrorist attack on Boston, including an eight-year-old child. Blood and body parts spattered the streets of one of America's greatest cities, with tens facing injuries such as severe amputations and worse, and countless more severely injured. This death toll is worth taking seriously. The attack happened in the same city where an incident occurred that helped inspire a revolution. In 1770 British troops had fired on Americans, killing five men and wounding six. The enemy were the British, and it was taken as a sign of their imposition of unjust rule over the colonies. The confrontation is still referred to as the "Boston Massacre" to this day, making its way into every high school American history lesson. The assault was not forgotten when the same State began fighting at Lexington and Concord in 1776. Are today's Americans taking the contemporary attack on Boston seriously? Will we even remember it six years from now, let alone six months from now? The answer is straightforward. Not if we do not know or recognize the enemy, and the character of the forces America is battling. Not if we leave it to the forces of political correctness. 

Let's be clear. Jihad came to Boston. Will those in the media (MSNBC, NPR, CNN, etc.), that speculated time and time again without any hard evidence that an anti-government right-winger had committed the Boston atrocity, now take the time to reflect upon their own biases? Don't hold your breath. The mainstream media must deal with ratings, a 24-hour news cycle, and their agendas. They at least have poor excuses, and no sworn duty to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. The bigger problem lies with the fact that the highest levels of the American government refuse to name the enemy or the ideology that attacked Boston. Was it "jihad"? Was it "Islamism"? Was it "Islamofascism"? Not according to President Barack Obama. 

The press conference President Obama held after the FBI killed or captured the Boston jihadists was seriously defective. Analyzing his key statements is important. President Obama stated, "Obviously, tonight there are still many unanswered questions. Among them, why did young men who grew up and studied here, as part of our communities and our country, resort to such violence?" I would point out that not long after the FBI released the photos of the bombers, and long before this press conference, everyone knew the bombers were radical Islamic terrorists. That already had gone quite a long way in answering that question. 

The President said, "One thing we do know is that whatever hateful agenda drove these men to such heinous acts will not — cannot — prevail.” Why must the President feign ignorance of their agenda? The President continued, "Whatever they thought they could ultimately achieve, they’ve already failed. They failed because the people of Boston refused to be intimidated. They failed because, as Americans, we refused to be terrorized." Did they really fail? Contrast the reaction of Israel to terrorism, with that of the United States. If a Palestinian blows up Bus #14, after the streets are literally cleaned of body parts, Israelis will board Bus #15. That's not being intimidated or terrorized. In Boston, a manhunt for one 19-year-old terrorist sent a major American city into a lockdown, with the New York Times reporting "this raucous, sports-loving, patriotic old city became a ghost town," and with military-style swat teams making their way through civilian neighborhoods. 

Finally, the President concluded with, "After all, one of the things that makes America the greatest nation on Earth, but also, one of the things that makes Boston such a great city, is that we welcome people from all around the world — people of every faith, every ethnicity, from every corner of the globe. So as we continue to learn more about why and how this tragedy happened, let’s make sure that we sustain that spirit." Please explain, Mr. President, why, if nothing was known about the motives or hateful agenda of the terrorists at this point, did you find it necessary in this statement to specifically state that "people of every faith" are welcome in America? 

 Let's be honest. This press conference was nothing more than the High Priest himself coming out to present an offering before the altar of political correctness. The only problem is that it is utterly unworthy of those who were sacrificed. Vice President Joe Biden called the bombers "knock-off jihadis," and proceeded to ask, "why do they do what they do?” What needs be realized is that once you understand that they are jihadis, the mystery begins to unravel. 

This is part of a disturbing trend. When President Obama delivered a speech to students in Jerusalem over a month ago he spoke of "the rise of nonsecular parties" in the Middle East. As Charles Krauthammer recently noted in the Washington Post: "Non-secular? Isn’t that a euphemism for 'religious,' i.e., Islamist? Yet Obama couldn’t say the word. This is no linguistic triviality. He wouldn’t be tripping over himself to avoid any reference to Islam if it was insignificant." He explained that the Obama "administration obsessively adopts language that extirpates any possible connection between Islam and terrorism. It insists on calling jihadists 'violent extremists' without ever telling us what they’re extreme about." 

Far more than just insulting the intelligence of the American people, the culture of political correctness appears to pervade law enforcement to the point of endangering American lives. Russia warned our country about Tamerlan Tsarneav, yet the federal law enforcement community allowed him to construct his pressure cooker bombs, to post his jihadist propaganda online, and to travel back and forth freely between the U.S. and Russia (all while receiving welfare from the Massachusetts taxpayer). Even the most obvious warnings and red flags were missed. That these went ignored even after the 2009 attack on Fort Hood by Major Nidal Malik Hasan is inexcusable. The Associated Press reported in November 2009 that federal "law enforcement officials say the suspected Fort Hood, Texas, shooter had come to their attention at least six months" prior to his attack "because of Internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades." In the aftermath of the Fort Hood Massacre, information poured in about the "red flags" and "warning signs" of Nadil Malik Hasan's Islamist extremism going ignored by the FBI, the Defense Department, and the U.S. Army. No action was taken. 13 soldiers now lie dead in the graveyard of political correctness. Unfortunately, nothing has changed. A deadly refusal to confront the enemy, for fear of being falsely labeled a bigot, or even worse an "Islamophobe," is crippling the ability of law enforcement to protect the homeland. 

When a pattern emerges, sheer incompetence becomes a less credible excuse. The refusal to condemn outright the evil ideology of the Boston bombers is a sign of fecklessness. Despite screaming “Allahu Akbar!" when killing fellow soldiers, despite having communicated with Al Qaeda terrorist Anwar Al-Awlaki, and more, the Obama administration still labels the attack on Fort Hood an incident of "workplace violence." When the first Ambassador to be killed since 1979 is murdered in Benghazi with other innocent Americans, emphasis is placed on blaming an irrelevant youtube video in the immediate aftermath. 

It's time for political correctness to end, and for counterterrrorism to operate without willful blindness. It goes without saying that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists. That caveats like this, stating the obvious, are even viewed to be necessary, is itself a product of political correctness. While it is true that not every Muslim is a terrorist, it is equally evident that the threat of international jihad needs to be exposed, especially after lethal terrorist acts, if only in order to prevent them in the future. Failure to learn this lesson will only lead, G-d forbid, to further otherwise avoidable devastation. Tweet