Roy Exum
We should have seen it coming. When the White House demanded the Department of Justice openly censor the public release of the 911 calls by the shooter in the Orlando massacre, it was yet another clear indication President Barack Obama is actively shielding either himself or the nation of Islam from ridicule.
Last Thursday James Kallstrom, a former FBI assistant director, said on the TV Show “The Kelly File” that our FBI agents are “petrified” they will be fired if they investigate anything to do with Muslims. He made the statements in an effort “to get this wet blanket of political correctness off the backs of law enforcement, off the backs of FBI agents” whose sole mission is to protect the United States from terrorist attacks such as the one we saw in Chattanooga last summer.
To me this isn’t about politics or the 65 million people the UN tells us were misplaced last year. It is not a slap at the president but – as our Commander and Chief – he has the responsibility to keep our nation safe. Kallstrom says the FBI has it hands tied by the administration and, when people are being killed by Islamic extremists, coddling Islam is the dumbest things our country can do.
“The bureau is being told what to do. We can’t go sniffing around anything to do with Muslims. (Our agents) can’t go to mosques, they can’t do the things they normally do in any investigation. I’m not talking about things off the charts. I am talking about things that would normally be done,” he said, insinuating the FBI has a “hands off” policy of any and everything Muslim.
“Believe me, it’s a wet blanket … I know the agents of the FBI and I know the support people, and I know analysts. No one wants this terrorism thing to happen but (FBI agents) have families, they have to be ultra-careful, so now we are overly cautious.”
This makes no sense whatsoever. On Monday Attorney General Loretta Lynch made good on her promise that the 911 tapes made as a shooter killed 49 people at a gay-friendly nightclub were heavily redacted. All references to the Islamic State terror group, ISIS were scrubbed from the tapes released to the media.
For instance, the alleged killer Omar Maeen could clearly be heard saying, “Praise to God, and prayers as well as peace to the prophet of God (in Arabic.) I let you know. I am in Orlando and I did the shootings.”
But then this clip followed, “I pledge allegiance to (omitted), may God protect him (in Arabic), on behalf of (omitted).”
To cover this up is nutty. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan called the selective editing “preposterous … We know the shooter was a radical Islamist extremist inspired by ISIS. We also know he intentionally targeted the LGBT community. The administration should release the full, unredacted transcript so the public is clear-eyed about who did this, and why.”
FBI special agent Ron Hopper tried to sugar-coat the censorship yesterday. “(Mateen) does not represent the Nation of Islam, but a perverted view. Part of the redacting is meant not to give credence to individuals who have done terrorist acts in the past. We are not going to propagate their violent rhetoric.”
What is troubling is that nobody ever believes anyone who redacts anything. But there is a clear pattern of our White House trying to shield Islam, Muslims and their ilk. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit gave three good reasons while Attorney General Lynch and the Department of Justice would use such a cover-up. According to the website “America Thinker,” here is Reynolds’ reasoning:
* -- The administration doesn’t want the public to know or understand what happened. Obama has been increasing friendly to Muslims.
* -- The terrorist attacks on American solid will cause critical notice of Obama’s failures against terrorists, both in the Middle East and inside the United States. Obama’s anti-gun campaign is already going up in smoke. A large gun dealer claims to have sold 30,000 of the popular AK-47 assault rifles in one week following the Orlando massacre. “Terrorist attacks don’t drive the sale of guns; the threat of impending guns laws does it.”
* -- The killer made a specific comment about being motivated by Obama’s drone attacks on his “brothers” in his “home country of Afghanistan. Obama is already on thin ice with his immigration snafus and “brothers in my home country” plays havoc with public acceptance.
Charles Krauthammer, a political columnist and commentator, says the only way to stop terrorist attacks on American soil is to obliterate the jihadists. “In a country (the size of America,) with so many people the targets of investigation, unless you want to create a police state there is no way to control random attacks.
“The only way to decrease recruitment is not with logic, not with argument, not with really clever programmers who know how to do twitter,” he said in a recent interview, “it is by defeating the jihadists or showing them in retreat.”
So why in the heck are we censoring 911 tapes? This is ridiculous.
royexum@aol.com