I’m so glad I went to the Senate Homeland Security hearing this past Wednesday, because as I read reports in publications of all sorts, I’m amused by the spin (wishful thinking or intentional deception?) from mainstream media outlets. Here is a prime example I came across this morning from the Chicago Tribune.
There is no evidence that radicalized Somali-American youths who have disappeared over the past two years are being trained as terrorists abroad to one day return and attack the U.S., intelligence and law enforcement officials told members of a Senate panel Wednesday.
Although worrisome, their apparent recruitment by al-Shabaab, a militant group linked to al-Qaida, is more likely to signify that many are motivated to help Somalia fight Ethiopians who invaded in 2006.
After a little discussion about the issues addressed, this reporter ends with this bit of information that suggests, well if anything happens it is our (bad America’s) fault anyway. We made the Somalis mad!
Some Somalis felt that the U.S. countenance of the Ethiopian invasion was retribution for the 1993 deaths of 18 U.S. soldiers, portrayed in the film “Black Hawk Down,” said Kenneth Menkhaus, a political science professor at Davidson College.
I didn’t even hear Menkhaus say this, maybe it’s in his prepared testimony, but it was certainly not a major focus of the hearing, not even a minor focus, except if you were somehow trying to grasp for reasons to blame America.
Now to VDARE!
You can expect at VDARE to get news and views that are the farthest thing from political correctness and it’s always a refreshing website to visit for that reason. Brenda Walker writes about the hearing and the press coverage of that hearing, here.
The Chicago Tribune article I cite above is titled: “Somali-Americans tie to U.S. plots doubted” and seeks to downplay the potentially serious nature of the issue. Right along those lines this is what Walker said:
Another aspect to the Senate hearing was the Rorschach nature of reporting about it. CNN (above) reasonably emphasized the threat. But the Los Angeles Times headlined with a pro-Islam viewpoint: American Somali youths aren’t seen posing major risk.
Walker opened with this ‘no-holds-barred’ criticism of Chairman Lieberman:
Politicians like Sen. Joe Lieberman are maddening (but common). He is bright enough to see the danger arising from hostile Somalis residing in America, yet his lifetime immigration voting grade is D- and his recent record rates an F-.
On Wednesday, Sen. Lieberman chaired a hearing titled “Violent Islamist Extremism: al-Shabaab Recruitment in America.” The Senator’s cognitive dissonance about unfriendly immigrants was further indicated by the characterization in his opening statement of the Somalis here as “victims” of “small group of extremists who are essentially terrorizing their own community.”
Read it all!
And, if you haven’t already, read Patrick Poole’s, “What Senators didn’t hear….” published at Pajamas Media.