The Fallacy of Appeasement Part 3 - Obama's Law Enforcement Approach to Terrorism -- Two Articles

Diplomas won't make jihadis go away, Barack

Spain acquits Madrid bombing mastermind, terrorists.

By Michelle Malkin
July 16, 2008
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/07/16/educating-the-ignorant-kumbaya-candidate/

In all the brouhaha over the New Yorker's satirical cover cartoon of Barack and Michelle Obama, a truly "tasteless and offensive" passage in the magazine's feature article got lost. The magazine piece quotes Obama's recommendations for how to stop jihad in a local Chicago newspaper op-ed he had published eight days after the September 11 terrorist attacks. It's a self-parody of blind, deaf, and dumb Kumbaya liberalism:

"We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair."

Is this man for real? Osama bin Laden's murderous legions are plenty able to "imagine" the "suffering of others." Go watch an al Qaeda beheading snuff video. Just Google it or surf YouTube. Imagining the suffering of infidels is covered amply in Basic Jihadi Training 101.

You'll note, too, that Obama's fresh instinct in the week after the 9/11 attack was to diagnose it as a "tragedy" stemming from lack of "empathy" and "understanding"-instead of yet another deliberate, carefully planned evil act of the long-waged Islamic war on the West that it was.

As for Obama's continued delusion about the "climate of poverty and ignorance" that supposedly breeds Muslim terrorists, can American politicians ever rid themselves of this unreality-based trope? This belief is part and parcel of the same idiocy that lead the State Department to embrace "spa days" for Muslims to "build bridges" with the Arab world and President Bush to open up our aviation schools to more Saudi students to "improve understanding." John McCain also alluded to education-as-cure for Islamic terrorism at the L.A. World Affairs Council in March, when he declared that "In this struggle, scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs." Just what we need: more student visas for the jihadi-infested nation that sent us the bulk of the 9/11 hijackers.

Author and National Review Online blogger Mark Steyn's sharp rejoinder to McCain then applies to Obama now: "There's plenty of evidence out there that the most extreme 'extremists' are those who've been most exposed to the west - and western education: from Osama bin Laden (summer school at Oxford, punting on the Thames) and Mohammed Atta (Hamburg University urban planning student) to the London School of Economics graduate responsible for the beheading of Daniel Pearl. The idea that handing out college scholarships to young Saudi males and getting them hooked on Starbucks and car-chase movies will make this stuff go away is ridiculous - and unworthy of a serious presidential candidate."

Ayman al-Zawahiri didn't need more education or wealth to steer him away from Islamic imperialism and working toward a worldwide caliphate. He has a medical degree. So does former Hamas biggie Abdel Rantissi. Seven upper-middle-class jihadi doctors were implicated in the 2007 London/Glasgow bombings. Suspected al Qaeda scientist Affia Siddiqui, still wanted by the FBI for questioning, is a Pakistani who studied microbiology at MIT and did graduate work in neurology at Brandeis.

And as I've reported before and must reiterate again for the hard of hearing in Washington, lowering academic standards at American colleges helped al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed further the jihadi cause. In the early 1980s, he enrolled at tiny Chowan College in Murfreesburo, N.C., which had dropped its English requirements to attract-ahem-wealthy Middle Easterners. At Chowan, Mohammed bonded with other Arab Muslim foreign students known as "The Mullahs" for their religious zeal. Mohammed then transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where he earned his degree in mechanical engineering along with 30 other Muslims. Mohammed applied his Western learning to oversee the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot (six Americans dead), the U.S.S. Cole attack (17 American soldiers dead), and the September 11 attacks (3,000 dead). He has also been linked to the 1998 African-embassy bombings (212 dead, including 12 Americans), the plot to kill the pope, the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, and the Bali nightclub bomb blast that killed nearly 200 tourists, including two more Americans.

Perhaps bleeding-heart Obama thinks a master's degree in social work would have convinced poverty-stricken, helpless, ignorant, despairing Mohammed to change his mind?

By Michelle Malkin
July 17, 2008
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/07/17/spain-acquits-madrid-bombing-mastermind-terrorists/

Chalk up one for the law enforcement approach to terrorism:

Spain's highest court absolved four men and upheld the acquittal of a fifth on Thursday in the convoluted legal proceedings relating to the 2004 Madrid commuter train bombings that killed 191 people in the deadliest attack by Islamic militants on European soil.

Most dramatically, the high court upheld the acquittal of one of the bombing's accused masterminds, Rabei Osman, an Egyptian, who was found guilty in 2006 in Italy of belonging to a terrorist organization.

Mr. Osman was arrested in Italy in June 2004, but disputed prosecution evidence citing wiretaps in which he was purported to have said he had conceived the idea of the attacks.

What? Wiretapping caught a terrorist? That's unpossible!

But it absolved three of the top suspects, including Mr. Osman, on the grounds that he was already serving a sentence in Italy for the same crime.

So, yeah, he's guilty. And Spain didn't want a piece of him?

There's a bright spot: Antonio Toro, the worthless waste of breath who traded the explosives to the terrorists in exchange for hashish? His acquittal was reversed-and he's going to do four years. Which I think counts as hard time in Europe. Community service just wouldn't have served the demands of justice.

Oh, wait: he could have done thirty.

Well, it's something.

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