Category Archives: Government

Adam Yahiye Gadahn Pearlman?

The individual I mentioned in “Lunatic Government Occupies Airports” has surfaced again. Adam Yahiye Gadahn, now a propagandist for Al-Qaida in Pakistan, is originally a Pearlman from California.

Gadahn has called on Americans and other unbelievers to convert to Islam. You can read more about it here. I mentioned him in that column in the context of rational profiling at airports. I said that,

â€œIf young Jews were as well-represented among suicide bombers and airline hijackers as Muslims are, I’d want the TSA’s canine teams to sniff them out instead of being sicced on Joe Scarborough’s baby girl. Remember Adam Yahiye Gadahn of Al-Qaida, Pakistan? He turned out to be a Pearlman from California. Had Gadahn, aka Pearlman, represented the tip of a Jewish Jihadist iceberg, I’d recommend that young Jews be frisked. So far, this (partly) Jewish John Walker Lindh has proven to be an extreme exception to the rule, like the Tamils.â€?

A few readers wrote to correct me. For the purpose of the column, I had treated Gadahn as a Jew. But, they said, only his grandfather (and father too, until conversion, it would appear) were Jewish. That’s perfectly true: By rabbinical law, Gadahn was not Jewish. By Hitlerian law, he was and still is Jewish.

Although his Jewish lineage is indeed weak, had I not introduced him in the context of profiling, I’d have been accused of conveniently ignoring the possibility that young Jews, especially members of the left-liberal faith, could join a terrorist group and might need to be profiled. As I suggested to a law professor from the “Volokh Conspiracy,” I needed to rule out that eventuality.

Lunatic Government Occupies Airports

America, Government, Terrorism

“[O]fficials keep telling the believing ‘Boobus Americanus’ that safety lies in pretending everyone is equally weighted in his propensity to blow up an airplane. If we were on the lookout for an abortion clinic saboteur, would we be patting down Islamists or Southern Baptist survivalists? In every other whodunit, behavioral scientists attempt to construct a criminal profile of the suspect. In the case of Islamic terrorism, however, the state won’t even use the compelling evidence it has.”

And:

“Compiling a composite of the criminals most likely to hijack an airline or blow up a building isnâ€™t hard. Try as they may to confuse our congenitally compromised caretakers, the terrorists have seemingly been unable to recruit to their cause people with first names like Eric or Olaf and surnames like Edwards or Christensen.”

The excerpts are from this week’s column, “Lunatic Government Occupies Airports.”

Flying Free

America, Government, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Liberty, Private Property

As travel by air becomes more tormenting, charter planes are going to become a viable option. In fact, I’d be investing in these companies now. As charter planes are used with greater frequency, more suppliers will enter the market to take care of demand. Eventually, prices will become more feasible.

Charter companies, I am sure, are putting together good packages as we speak, for business people who have to fly frequently. Or for people like me who tolerated the odd pat down, but refuse to let the Transportation Security Administration thieves steal my Rene Guinot toner and my powder compact.

I can’t afford a charter flight, but longtime reader Robert Rupard might change that. Other than his splendid reading habits, Robert isÂ president of the charter “Wings Air“—it offers great rates. His motto: “On Wings Air, You’re Already There.” Fly with Robert, and you can avoid the mandatory molestations in the state-occupied airports. No lost Baggage either.

If you’re going to any of the destinations Robert frequents, be sure to make your reservations. Also check out my weekly column tonight, which deals with government goons gone wild in the airports. And while youâ€™re at it, why not read a golden oldie, “Whose Property is it Anyway?”.

Updated: Is the FBI Entrapping Idiots? (& No, Timothy McVeigh Was No Idiot)

Conspiracy, Fascism, Government, Law, Media, Terrorism

CNN reports that seven Miami-based men “concocted a plot to ‘kill all the devils we can,’ starting by blowing up Chicago’s Sears Tower, according to charges in a federal indictment revealed Friday.”

It transpires that this information was elicited by an “FBI operative posing as a member of the terrorist network.”

I watched the sister of one of the suspects enter “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer. The woman, bless her, was illiterate and probably borderline retarded. Let me tell you something: If American schools are producing the likes of this poor woman, homegrown retardation is more urgent a problem than homegrown terrorism.

Entrapment is equally worrisome. If the woman’s brother, also one of the accused, is as simple as she, then a wily and intelligent FBI agent could have a field day leading him on. The FBI is supposed to uncover existing plots, not help develop them by leading on a bunch of very simple, if unsavory, characters.

Rich Lowry has compared the hapless Miami bunch to Timothy McVeigh, who, according to Lowry, was also not very bright. This is a manifestly unperceptive observation. McVeigh was certainly intelligent. Read the interview he gave TIME and tell me it doesn’t reflect considerable intelligence. Read the interview the sister of the terror suspect gave Blitzer and tell me it doesn’t reflect extremely poor cognitive skills.

Compare this:

Asked by TIME magazine who were his favorite authors of political philosophy, McVeigh said:

“Patrick Henry, John Locke, of course many of the Founding Fathers: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Samuel Adams. I thought those men were, at the time they were extremely well-educated. They could talk us in circles these days, we wouldn’t know what they were talking about. I really respected their observations and analyses of history past.”

To this:

Asked by Blitzer about her terror-suspect brother, Marlene Phanor said:

“Actually, he’s, um, he was, he was working and he got into this group and they started going to church, trying to help the community. But the guy, the leader, I never know where he came from, who he was. Actually, my brother and them don’t even know where he come from. But he came positive for them. He came to them where he can help them and help the community and humble their minds and humble their souls and everything.”

Morality aside, a couple of IQ standard-deviation points separate these two. To compare McVeigh’s intelligence to the likes of Phanor is a little strained, to say the least.

Provided the sister doesn’t represent a genetic anomaly (and her accused brother and his associates are bright), I’ll repeat my contention: it would have been easy for the FBI to ensnare this group.