Is Holder Ignorant, Stupid, or Something Else?

Holder balks at blaming 'radical Islam' for terror attempts

Despite crediting the Pakistani Taliban with fostering the recent failed car bombing in Times Square, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. was reluctant Thursday to say radical Islam was part of the cause of that and other recent attacks.

Mr. Holder, testifying to the House Judiciary Committee, repeatedly balked at a half-dozen questions from Rep. Lamar Smith, the ranking Republican on the committee, about whether "radical Islam" was behind the attempted car bombing, last year's so-called "underpants bomber" or the killings at Fort Hood in Texas.

"There are a variety of reasons why people do these things. Some of them are potentially religious," Mr. Holder told the committee Thursday, though he would not go further than saying people who hold radical views may have "had an ability to have an impact" on Faisal Shahzad, the man the Justice Department says tried to detonate a car bomb in Times Square.

Holder hasn't read Arizona law he criticized

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who has been critical of Arizona's new immigration law, said Thursday he hasn't yet read the law and is going by what he's read in newspapers or seen on television.

Mr. Holder is conducting a review of the law, at President Obama's request, to see if the federal government should challenge it in court. He said he expects he will read the law by the time his staff briefs him on their conclusions.

"I've just expressed concerns on the basis of what I've heard about the law. But I'm not in a position to say at this point, not having read the law, not having had the chance to interact with people are doing the review, exactly what my position is," Mr. Holder told the House Judiciary Committee.

This weekend Mr. Holder told NBC's "Meet the Press" program that the Arizona law "has the possibility of leading to racial profiling." He had earlier called the law's passage "unfortunate," and questioned whether the law was unconstitutional because it tried to assume powers that may be reserved for the federal government.

Rep. Ted Poe, who had questioned Mr. Holder about the law, wondered how he could have those opinions if he hadn't yet read the legislation.

Thats what a lot of us would like to know.

Blackfive on the Times Square Bomb

Car bomb in Times Square by Pakistani Taliban?

Posted: 02 May 2010 10:34 AM PDT

Mr. Roggio at Long War Journal has some potentially very disturbing news if verified. He has sources in the Intel community that believe this was an attempt by elements of the Mehsud group to hit us at home.

A top Pakistani Taliban commander took credit for yesterday's failed car bomb attack in New York City.

Qari Hussain Mehsud, the top bomb maker for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, said he takes "fully responsibility for the recent attack in the USA." Qari Hussain made the claim on an audiotape accompanied by images that was released on a YouTube website that calls itself the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel.

The tape has yet to be verified, but US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal believe it is legitimate. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel on YouTube was created on April 30. Officials believe it was created to announce the Times Square attack, and Qari Hussain’s statement was pre-recorded.

The fact that the website and tape were prepared before the attempted bombing lends credence to the idea that the bastards claiming it are responsible. That is a particularly unwelcome development. The only upside is that the idiot making the claim is their top bomb maker and they can't even get a damn bomb to explode. I have made many types of improvised explosives including fertilizer bombs, briefcase bombs, shaped charges out of metal funnels and just about anything else we could think of. The tricky part is setting them off. It seems that the losers in the Taliban haven't managed to use their advanced civilization to generate much in the way of technology.

It is also telling that this attack may have come from the Taliban and not al Qaeda. If they have decided to move their fight out of the Hindu Kush it completely changes the calculus of our war against them. Those who argue we should simply ignore them, now have to contend with the fact that they have decided the battlefield extends to our front yard.

Since our PC government and officials here will do just about anything to avoid saying that our enemies are Muslim, it is left to the Telegraph in the UK to point out that the vehicle was parked in front of the offices of Viacom. Hmmm aren't those the same gutless weasels who failed to even show the likeness of Mohammed on South Park. Wouldn't that be ironic if even failure to do this resulted in a fatwa and a bomb?

May 20th is Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, don't forget.

Mis-Direction?

The bomb found in Times Square could not have come at a better time. It will certainly take most of the media attention now focused on the oil rig "accident" and re-direct it.

The key words that make me wonder are "consumer grade fireworks" and "ametuerish wiring".

I have no doubts about the abilities of muslim terrorists to assemble a VBIED. They know how to do it, and the VBIEDs usually perform as designed. The only instance I can think of is the London car-bomb that was found in the nightclub district before it was activated. That was luck and observant citizens.

Maybe it was a terrorist device. We'll see. Meanwhile, we still need to know about the oil rig explosion and what caused that.