Terrorism
January 5, 2020 — Scott Johnson
President Trump’s decision to take out terrorist mastermind Qassem Soleimani has had the predictable effect on Democrats. Where once they derided him for weakness and sought to impose the vision of Benghazi on the assault on our embassy in Baghdad, they now criticize Trump for his bad manners. They say that politics makes strange bedfellows, but this is insane. Joe Biden joined the Democrats’ parade on behalf of Soleimani. He
»
January 3, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Nancy Pelosi fancies herself a foreign policy expert who not only must be consulted by the president’s foreign policy team, but who can set or manipulate American foreign policy. Recall her foray into Middle East policy a decade ago, when she defied the Bush State Department, met with Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and declared him the key to bringing peace to the Middle East. Here is what Shadow Secretary Pelosi
»
December 30, 2019 — Scott Johnson
My movie of 2017 was Thank You For Your Service. The film introduced me to the astounding book by Washington Post editor David Finkel, the second of two he has written based on the soldiers he met while embedded with 2-16 Infantry Battalion during the surge. What I found most haunting in the film came straight out of the book. I recommended the movie and the book here on Power
»
December 9, 2019 — John Hinderaker
It is still not clear whether Pensacola murderer Mohammed Alshamrani was part of an extremist Muslim cell or acted alone, although some of his fellow Saudis evidently shared his political views and bloodthirstiness. For now, I want to salute the contribution of Joshua Watson, 23 years old, who was one of Alshamrani’s three victims. Watson graduated from the Naval Academy in June and was stationed at Pensacola because he wanted
»
December 7, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, a Saudi gunman killed three Americans and wounded eight others at a Navy air base in Pensacola, Florida. The gunman was being trained at the base (where my father served for a time during World War II) to become a military pilot. According to this report in the New York Times, the Saudi trainee showed videos of mass shootings at a dinner party the night before he carried out
»
December 1, 2019 — John Hinderaker
It has been widely reported that Usman Khan, the London Bridge terrorist, was released from prison in December 2018 after serving half of the term to which he was sentenced in 2012. Khan was one of a group of nine jihadists who were arrested in 2010 for plotting to blow up the London Stock Exchange. They also contemplated “Mumbai-style” terrorist attacks, and one of the plotters had a hit list
»
November 29, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Earlier today, a terrorist described as being “of Middle Eastern origin, in his early 30s,” murdered two people and wounded others with knives at Fishmongers’ Hall, adjacent to London Bridge. Initial reports are confused as usual; there was also a lorry that jackknifed across the bridge and seems to have had some relation to the attack, but this is not clear. It is good to see that the terrorist was
»
November 8, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday President Trump awarded a posthumous Presidential Citizens Medal to Rick Rescorla. Rescorla’s beloved wife, Susan, and his two children were on hand. The White House tweeted out several notes on the event including a live stream of the 17-minute ceremony. I have embedded the C-SPAN video below. FOX News reports on the award and related White House ceremony here. Rescorla was preeminently a hero of 9/11. We recall him
»
October 27, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Taking a look around at the Democrats’ cable news channels, I infer that the successful operation to take out the killin’ caliph with the stupid pseudonym is to be downplayed and minimized so as to be sure it will not redound to the credit of President Trump. The Washington Post weighs in with the classic headline documented by Brit Hume in the tweet below. After due consideration had been given,
»
September 16, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Ilhan Omar appeared on Face the Nation yesterday. The host asked about her “Some people did something” description of the 9/11 attacks, which was denounced by the son of one of the victims at a commemorative service in New York last week. Specifically, the host asked Omar whether she understands why people find her “some people did something” comment offensive. Actually, I think many have failed to recognize why Omar’s
»
September 12, 2019 — John Hinderaker
As I noted on Tuesday, the American Conservative Union put on a 9/11 commemorative program last night in Minnesota. It was an excellent show, attended by around 300 people, including a number of Power Line readers. This is the program in its entirety, around four hours. My panel with Ed Morrissey starts at 1:40, Senate candidate Jason Lewis comes on at 3:48, and pillow magnate Mike Lindell closes the show
»
September 12, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Nicholas Haros, Jr. lost his mother Frances in the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11. He therefore takes Ilhan Omar’s dismissive remarks about the attack somewhat personally. Speaking at the Ground Zero memorial event yesterday, Mr. Haros addressed a portion of his remarks directly to Omar (video below). The media widely covered Mr. Haros’s remarks; Omar is a national disgrace. The New York Post covered his remarks here,
»
September 11, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Reader David Lunde composed the image below to memorialize Ilhan Omar’s unique contribution to 9/11. According to Omar, it is the the day on which “some people did something.” Omar’s quote came in her tribute to the Muslim Brotherhood front organization CAIR earlier this year: “CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our
»
September 11, 2019 — Scott Johnson
I first wrote about Rick Rescorla in 2003 after finishing James Stewart’s Heart of a Soldier, the book based on Stewart’s New Yorker article “The real heroes are dead.” (“The real heroes are dead” is what Rescorla would say in response to recognition of his heroism on the battlefield in Vietnam.) It’s a good book that touches on profound themes in a thought-provoking way: life and death, love and friendship,
»
September 11, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Following 9/11 the New York Times ran Portraits of Grief profiling many of those lost in the 9/11 attacks. The Times attributes authorship of these artful profiles collectively to Kirk Johnson, N.R. Kleinfeld, David Barstow, Barbara Stewart, Jane Gross, Neela Banerjee, Constance L. Hays, Lynette Holloway, Janny Scott and Somini Sengupta. We can’t capture the magnitude of the loss, or the meaning of who and what we lost, but the
»
September 9, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
In the post below, Scott presents Andrew McCarthy’s discussion of a federal judge’s decision invalidating the Terrorist Screening Database. McCarthy sees the decision as part of “the turn to a pre-9/11 mindset” in America. McCarthy also perceives the turn to that mindset in the Trump administration’s efforts to reach a “peace” agreement with the Taliban. He discusses these efforts in the same column from which Scott quotes. Here is what
»
September 9, 2019 — Scott Johnson
In his weekly NR column this past Saturday Andrew McCarthy decried “The turn to a pre9/11 mindset.” In part the column takes up last week’s decision (linked below) invalidating the Terrorist Screening Database. Secretly compiled by the government, the watch list subjects those listed to heightened security vetting before they are permitted to board commercial aircraft. My friend Andy writes: Judge Anthony Trenga’s watch-list decision (Elhady v. Kable) is a
»
