Sunday Morning Coming Down

The front page story this morning across the country is of the foiled plot of destruction at New York's JFK airport. Actually, not every paper has it on the front page. The New York Times, the Paper of Record, which in case you couldn't determine from its name, is a New York newpaper, relegated the news to page 37. Anyway, as I finished the article in this morning's Detroit Free Press, I was left wondering one thing that the Free Press didn't address-to which religion, if any, do these aspiring terrorists belong? Hmm, I wonder.

Mrs. Zwicker and I finally watched the season finale of 24 last night. It was a microcosm of the season as a whole. It started strong but then devolved to a mixture of some good scenes and some unnecessary personal stories that were more appropriate for a soap opera. The last twenty minutes were rather fluffy with all the tying up of loose ends although the last few minutes were great. While the show has previously addressed Jack's tortured soul, the last image of the season being a close-up of his face as he contemplated what his life had become was powerful. The silent clock was very appropos.

24 Reflecting Reality

I once heard someone joke that not all Jews are dentists but all dentists are Jews. That joke always comes to my mind when I hear Muslim groups complain about their religion's depiction as violent and terroristic. It is therefore refreshing to see this morning's Wall Street Journal carry an opinion piece by Emilio Karim Dabul on the great television show "24."

For those not sadly not familiar, each season of "24" takes place, in 24 one hour episodes, in real time over the course of a single day. The focus of the show is Jack Bauer and the government agency for which he works, the Counter Terrorism Unit. As his agency's name indicates, Bauer fights terrorism. Rather than skirt around the hard reality of who is committing nearly all of the world's terrorist actions, the show's villains have often been Muslim.

Dabul's article takes a stand against Muslims who complain about these depictions:

I am an Arab-American as well as a fan of "24." The two things are not mutually exclusive, despite what the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other such groups have to say about this season's opening episodes possibly increasing anti-Muslim and anti-Arab prejudice in American society.
Most of the terrorists represented in "24" through the years have been Arab Muslims. Why? Well, probably because most terrorists today are, in fact, Arab Muslims. As a descendant of Syrian Muslims, I am very well aware that the majority of Muslims world-wide are peaceful, hard working, and law abiding. That still does not change the fact that the greatest terrorist threat to the U.S. today comes not from the ETA, the IRA, etc., but from one group: Islamic terrorists.

And this is what makes "24" a compelling drama every week. Instead of pretending Islamic terrorists don't exist, the show presents frighteningly real worst-case scenarios perpetrated by Osama bin Laden's followers. So CAIR thinks it's over the top for the terrorists in "24" to blow up Los Angeles with a nuke? Please, if bin Laden and his crew had nukes, most of us would be way too dead to argue over such points.

Read the whole thing here.

Shameful

Scott W. Johnson (who writes for the excellent Power Line blog) has an article at the Weekly Standard's website on how Yasser Arafat literally got away with murder, of an American ambassador, with the State Department's knowledge. Through seven different presidential administrations, Republican and Democratic alike, the State Department had abundant evidence of the following:

Twenty years before he joined Bill Clinton and Yitzhak Rabin in Washington for that famous handshake--and proceeded to become Clinton's most frequent foreign guest at the White House--Yasser Arafat planned and directed the murder of an American ambassador and his deputy chief of mission. From the first moment of the deadly operation, which took place in Khartoum on March 1, 1973, the State Department possessed direct evidence of Arafat's responsibility, yet neither the State Department nor any other government agency made public its knowledge. Indeed, as recently as the summer of 2002, the State Department denied that such evidence existed. Across seven administrations, the State Department hewed to silence and denial.

After some exhaustive reporting, Johnson finishes, very aptly, with this:

Speaking in a 2003 interview from the perspective of an average citizen who was also a firsthand witness to a most significant piece of this tortured history, former NSA analyst Welsh may appropriately be given the last word, at least for the moment: "There are limits to which foreign policy issues should require a man to lower himself. Shaking the hand of a murderer of a U.S. ambassador is such a case. Any peace based upon that hand is a delusion."

Click here for the whole story.

Mohammed The Knife

Tomorrow, Mohammed Ghanem will be sentenced in the Wayne County Circuit Court, or Recorder's Court as we old-timers call it. Ghanem's crime, of which a jury of twelve infidels found him guilty, was carrying a concealed weapon. To be more specific, Metro Airport security arrested Ghanem for carrying a knife past security, in the carved-out section of an address book in his luggage. Also in the address book were handwritten notes about jihad actions that would be newsworthy. Oh, yeah, one more thing. Ghanem was about to board a flight for Yemen with a one-way ticket.

As any fair minded American, you must be assuming that Ghanem had an adequate explanation. Well, you assumed correctly. You see, Ghanem has absolutely no idea that the knife was there or who planted it. It makes perfect sense to me.

UPDATE (1/16/07): Ghanem received a sentence of one year in the Wayne County Jail with credit for 131 days in jail. A Michigan law allows an inmate with a sentence of one year or less to petition for a 25% reduction of his sentence. If the judge grants the request, Ghanem has another four months or so to serve. It's not certain whether Ghanem will face deportation.

Miracle Of Life

Every birth is a miracle but some more than others. The birth of Charley Paz Klein to Erez and Dayna Klein in Seattle on Tuesday is one of those more special cases. Dayna, whose picture is to the left, was working at the Seattle Jewish Federation on July 28th when a Muslim gunman entered the building and started shooting. He aimed directly at Dayna's obviously pregnant belly but her quick and instictive covering of the area with her arm saved the baby. She sustained an injury to her arm and thigh but managed to crawl to her desk and call 911. The gunman pointed his weapon at her head but she handed him the phone and persuaded him to talk to the dispatcher. He eventually surrendered and is now facing charges for the murder of Dayna's co-worker, Pamela Waechter, from whom little Charley got his middle name. The terrorist is also facing attempted murder charges for shooting at Dayna and four others.

The whole story, courtesy of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, is here. Actually, the whole story isn't there. While the article tells us where the victims worked, it makes no mention of the terrorist's religious affiliation. Sure, it mentions his name, Naveed Haq, but it wouldn't hurt to know that he belonged to the "religion of peace".

That Penn Party Was Da Bomb

Courtesy of The Appletonian, a blog by a University of Pennsylvania student, comes this picture from a recent Halloween party in Philadelphia. The woman on the right is Amy Gutmann, the president of the University of Pennsylvania. The young man on the left, dressed as a suicide bomber, is a Penn student. The Appletonian asks the obvious yet excellent question-would Gutmann have posed with the bomber and smiled so brightly if he instead came to the party as a Nazi or a member of the KKK? Sadly, in the Ivy League, you could now ask the same question about a student dressed as an IDF soldier. Imagine the outrage.