Update: Suicide underwear discussed at Hot Air, here. See also “Great Balls of Fire,” here.
Thanks to Janet Levy for sending it, here is Debbie Schlussel’s post on the Nigerian Jihadist—who he is and how he got into the US. This is one point she makes, and one we have made here on numerous occasions.
This incident is also yet another weight on the overwhelming evidence refuting the still often uttered claim that Muslims are driven to terrorism because they are poor or do not have economic and educational opportunities. Not only was he studying in London, but his father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, is a wealthy, prominent Nigerian banker, who is the immediate past chairman of the First Bank of Nigeria and a former Nigerian government minister. But as indicated by the “Alhaji” prefix on his fathers name, the elder Mutallab was apparently a religious Muslim, who went on the hajj to Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
Read her whole post, she has inside information on the Detroit area legal system that will be involved in his case. Our friend Jerry Gordon, in a conversation with me yesterday, referred to the Jihadist as the “leg-bomber” (you know, like Richard Reid was the shoe-bomber), well it appears that if Debbie is accurate about the location of his bomb parphernalia, he could be called the crotch-bomber. I know it’s no laughing matter, but since these Islamists have no sense of humor, we must keep ours. Besides, didn’t Alinsky say that ridicule was the strongest weapon (short of killing or maiming people that is).
Afterawhile: I just heard on TV that Senator Lieberman had suggested that we don’t know yet if the Nigerian Jihadist was connected to Al Qaeda. He may have been self-radicalized, so the argument goes. I noticed that last March when I attended the Senate Homeland Security hearings on the Somali missing youths, that that same kind of reasoning was being employed—if no Al Qaeda link then Lieberman et al gave a visible sigh of relief. But, what difference does it make? What difference if the Islamic radical becomes a dangerous terrorist on his own, he is just as dangerous. What is so magic about a link to Al Qaeda? Or, is it just one more bit of wordplay to make us all go back to sleep?