From the Tuesday Morning Jolt:
We Have Invented Jihadist Flypaper.
Is it just me, or have we just invented a form of Islamist/jihadist/ISIS flypaper?
They wore body armor. They carried assault rifles. And one had declared loyalty to ISIS.
A day after police killed two gunmen who tried to ambush a Garland, Texas, event featuring controversial cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed, details began to emerge about the shooters.
One suspect, identified as Elton Simpson by a federal law enforcement source, linked himself to ISIS in a tweet posted just before the attack.
Think about it. These guys had to know the event would be guarded. These guys had to know that the event is going on in Texas, meaning that a lot of attendees and passers-by would be armed. Heck it’s Texas. Everybody’s armed. The former governor, Rick Perry, shot a coyote while jogging.
This is Rick Perry’s pre-jog stretching routine.
And yet, knowing that they were attempting the equivalent of robbing a police station or attempting a carjacking outside the NRA convention, these two idiots went ahead and did it anyway! Did I say Islamist flypaper? How about Islamist catnip? These guys just can’t resist attempting to kill people if there’s an announced effort to draw Muhammad!
More about the perps:
He also was no stranger to federal investigators. In 2011, he was convicted of making a false statement involving international and domestic terrorism.
Why do we have a “watch list”? Don’t we need a “do something about his guy” list?
The other suspect, identified as Nadir Soofi by two federal law enforcement officials, was Simpson’s roommate in a Phoenix apartment.
He wasn’t well-known to federal law enforcement and was not on the FBI’s radar, one of the officials said. Investigators were combing through evidence retrieved from the shooters’ Arizona home to help piece together a timeline of how their plot came together, the official said.
Authorities are still trying to determine the suspects’ motives, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson said Monday. At this point, he said, one thing appears clear: A quick-thinking police officer “likely saved a number of innocent lives.”
Writing in the Daily Beast, James Kirchick attempts to remind liberals that saying things they dislike doesn’t mean that potential terrorism victims had it coming:
Geller’s being an obnoxious blowhard cannot lessen her claim to the same free speech rights that more salubrious individuals enjoy. Indeed, it is vital that free speech supporters unequivocally condemn Sunday’s attack precisely because Geller is an obnoxious blowhard. To understand why, it helps to remember one of America’s most important First Amendment legal cases.
Anyway, if jihadists really are driven to an irrational — excuse me, even less rational than usual compulsion to attack those who think they’re mocking Mohammed, won’t it be pretty easy to set up traps and ambushes?
