What Hath Love Wrought?

Poor guy! All he wanted to do was to accompany his girl to the airport, give her a last minute hug and kiss, and then see her off. The last thing in the world that Haisong Jiang, a Rutgers student from China intended was to create the international stir that occurred after he walked inside Terminal C at Newark’s Liberty International Airport.

The world’s gone a little crazy lately. Governments mimic the craziness also: Like, for instance letting a Nigerian board a plane bound from Amsterdam to Detroit, even after his father, a prominent Nigerian, alerted the U.S. Embassy that his son might try to pull off some jihadist trick.

Not to be outdone by Amsterdam security, the U.S. Government booked the alleged jihadist in a civil court in Michigan after his failed attempt; gave him no-charge premium medical care; and let him have an expensive civilian lawyer.

The alleged Islamic terrorist will be tried in a U.S. civil court with full U.S. Constitutional protection. We may never find out who the jihadist’s possible Yemeni associates were.  All of this thanks to Eric Holder, the legal front man for President Barack Obama.

Meanwhile naïve Jiang – legally here – incurs the wrath of our two U.S. Senators, especially that of Frank Lautenberg who, I initially thought, might favor placing him under the guillotine. But cooler heads prevailed, and Mr. Jiang is now subject to “only” 30 days in jail and a $500 fine.

Too bad there are not more loving Jiangs in this country and fewer potentially malevolent jihadists.

Mellifluous Name, Bitter Heart

His name, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, rolls off the tongue almost melodiously. But there is no music in the man’s heart, just evil and hatred for the U.S. It’s the name of the jihadist Islamic extremist who, on Christmas day, allegedly attempted to blow up a plane en route from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan. 

In his failed attempt, Abdulmutallab burned himself instead and was admitted to one of this nation’s best burn facilities, the University of Michigan Burn Center as his reward. He has since been charged under civil criminal law and already has civilian legal representation.

The Obama administration should have detained this man as an enemy combatant, and immediately handed him over to the U.S. military for interrogation and trial under military law.

In an interview on Monday, that is precisely what Congresswoman Candace Miller (R-MI) advocates. Miller, who sits on the House Committee on Homeland Security, says that we are at war, a rather obvious thought.

But with Eric Holder heading the Justice Department and Janet Napolitano in charge of Homeland Security, there is no chance.

President Obama is reported to be upset over the flaws in a system which failed to prevent this near-disaster, one which was thwarted only by the failure of a concealed explosive device to detonate properly. Al-Qaida won’t make that mistake a second time.

Despite President Obama’s reported outrage and stern statements to the media, it remains to be seen whether he has truly internalized the mortal threat posed to the United States and its citizens by the worldwide militant jihadist movement.

His transfer of enemy combatants to U.S. soil from Gitmo, and his insistence on bringing a high-profile terrorist to New York City for trial under civilian law are signs that he needs a transformative change of mind.

The Bludgeoning of the American Character

Not long ago, as you may remember, former Republican U.S. Senator Phil Gramm, who was then the chief financial guru for the McCain Presidential Campaign, called us “a nation of whiners.” For that ill-timed and inaccurate remark, he was called upon to resign his post. Months later, but not to be outdone, Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General in the Obama Administration recently followed up by calling us “essentially a nation of cowards.”

How does it feel to have two hi-level Washington elites staring down their noses at the American populace?

When Senator Gramm was Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, he dismantled Depression-era regulations which had kept commercial banks and Wall Street investment houses strictly separate. Gramm’s reversal of those legal requirements proved to be a principal causal factor of the current economic meltdown. Since retiring from the Senate, Gramm was rewarded with a top executive position at UBS, the European financial conglomerate.

In the most recent assault on the American character, Attorney General Eric Holder claims that we are “a nation of cowards” because, according to him, we are afraid to honestly and openly engage in a discussion on the issue of race relations in the public square.

Previous to his current appointment, Mr. Holder was Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton Administration under Janet Reno. Among other duties, he was responsible for vetting President Clinton's last-minute pardons.

Mr. Holder justified and blessed one of the most egregious of those pardons, that of Marc Rich, an international commodities trader. Rich had been indicted by then U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani on charges of tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran. Rich never stepped into a U.S. court room. He remained ensconced in Switzerland, away from U.S. justice, and the FBI placed him on its list of Most Wanted people.

Marc Rich’s family donated generous sums to the Democratic Party and to the Clinton Library while Clinton was still in office, leading to allegations that Rich had purchased his pardon. Despite these data, Clinton’s Deputy U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder justified the pardon for Rich. Was Holder simply acting as Clinton’s toady? I wonder just who the cowards are.

Within the Washington Beltway, there exists a coterie of elected and appointed officials who act as princes and princesses of the realm, and who do the bidding of the king. Many of them are strongly biased towards the rest of us whom they consider vassals. Hence the insouciance of these courtiers, as they label ordinary American citizens “whiners” and “cowards.”