Ahmed Day and the End of 'If You See Something, Say Something'

Frontpagemagazine ^ | October 1, 2015 | Robert Spencer

[SJackson]

Ahmed Day and the End of 'If You See Something, Say Something'

A day with ominous implications for New York's residents.

October 1, 2015

Robert Spencer

  

Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year-old who was arrested for taking a clock that looked like a bomb to MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, has attained mega-celebrity status at breakneck speed: he has been showered with gifts by Microsoft, courted by Mark Zuckerberg and MIT, invited to the White House, and much more. He received a VIP reception at the United Nations, where he met an admiring Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. 

What could be next? Maybe Pope Francis, ever anxious to appease Muslims, will make him the first living person to be canonized a saint; in the meantime, Ahmed will have to be content with the proclamation of Ahmed Day in New York City – a day with implications far more ominous than Ahmed’s ever-smiling countenance betrays.

Why is Ahmed Mohamed the world’s hero of the moment? People are wrongfully arrested all the time, and numerous children have fallen victim to schools’ zero-tolerance policy for weaponry, with suspensions for guns drawn on paper, pop-tarts chewed into the shape of a gun, and the like. But Ahmed Mohamed, according to the mainstream media narrative (endlessly dinned into our ears by those who are apparently aware of how implausible it is, and who think frequent repetition will put their lie over), was not arrested because of overzealous application of the zero-tolerance policy, but because he was a Muslim. School officials, you see, were so indefatigably “Islamophobic” that they singled out Ahmed for this harsh treatment, when if he had been a blond Methodist, they would have looked at his replica briefcase bomb and patted him on the back for his ingenuity.

And so Ahmed Mohamed is a living monument of “Islamophobia,” a sign of how racist rednecks victimize innocent Muslims in the U.S. on a routine basis, and to the enlightened Left, that makes him a hero of heroes. On Ahmed Day in New York City last Monday, Public Advocate Letitia James lauded him as a role model. Comptroller Scott Stringer likewise gave him a framed commendation and tweeted, “Ahmed Mohamed is a role model for all NYers.” Hard-Left Mayor Bill de Blasio told him, “Keep doing what you’re doing,” and tweeted: “A young man builds a clock and starts a movement.” 

In what sense is Ahmed Mohamed a role model? What kind of movement has he started? To answer those questions, it is useful to recall two men who never got a Day proclaimed in their honor in New York City: Lance Orton and Duane Jackson. In May 2010, they were both working as vendors in Times Square when they spotted an unoccupied, illegally parked Nissan Pathfinder smoking, reeking of gunpowder and emitting sparks. 

It was a car bomb, parked there by an Islamic jihadist named Faisal Shahzad, who explained in a video that “jihad, holy fighting in Allah’s course, with full force of numbers and weaponry, is given the utmost importance in Islam….By jihad, Islam is established….By abandoning jihad, may Allah protect us from that, Islam is destroyed, and Muslims go into inferior position, their honor is lost, their lands are stolen, their rule and authority vanish. Jihad is an obligation and duty in Islam on every Muslim.”

Orton and Jackson prevented Shahzad from fulfilling his obligation and duty to wage jihad by quick action: they alerted police, and Shahzad’s car bomb was defused before it could explode. Orton explained his actions by noting that he was a veteran and repeating the familiar counter-terror adage: “See something, say something.”

But what would have happened if Faisal Shahzad’s Nissan Pathfinder had not been rigged to explode at all, but was just, say, an innocent fireworks display? What if Faisal Shahzad had been arrested for this fireworks display after Orton and Jackson alerted police, only to charge everyone involved with “Islamophobia”? If Faisal Shahzad’s car had turned out to be innocent, in today’s political climate Orton and Jackson would be the objects of intense mainstream media vilification as “Islamophobes,” and Shahzad would be shaking hands with Barack Obama.

Ahmed Mohamed is a role model and the originator of a movement, all right. He is the killer of the “see something, say something” ethos – at least when it comes to Muslims. While non-Muslim students may still run afoul of the zero-tolerance for weapons policy in schools for pop-tart guns and pointing their fingers and saying “Bang,” school administrators will now think twice about subjecting Muslims to such suspicion, no matter how suspiciously they’re behaving. 

The upshot of this ridiculous adulation of Ahmed Mohamed will be that Muslim students will now be exempted from scrutiny for bringing suspicious objects to school: to subject them to such scrutiny would be “Islamophobic.” Will some enterprising young jihadi take advantage of this favorable new situation, and make a clock that really is a bomb? If that ever happens, will Mayor de Blasio apologize for Ahmed Day? Will Barack Obama apologize for feting the lad at the White House? Of course not. For the Left, accountability is “McCarthyism.” And so St. Ahmed will continue to go from love fest to adulatory love fest, with the only people happier about it all than his Leftist adulators being Islamic jihadists.

[SJackson]

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[Lionheartusa1]

Now we reward very bad behavior in terrorist muslim juvenile delinquents . We are in big trouble !!!!!!!!!!

[jsanders2001]

I call it You Idiot Libtards were Fooled by a Muslim Ploy Day

[W.]

And if that disingenuous kid had been a little white Albert instead of a brown raghead ahmed, he’d not been so much as a blip on the media’s radar, and we all know it.

[jacob allen]

Now is the time to get rid of your old clock. Just wind it up, put it in a little box and leave it on the doorstep of your local Obama voter.

[mvpel]

Yeah, because we all know that when we see a kid showing a clock built into a different case complete with an AC power cord and beeping alarm, and see him telling everyone it's a clock he dismantled and put into a different case, we should always "say something."

Right?

If someone sees the souvenir antique circuit board decorating my desk and they're also too stupid to recognize it for what it is, I assume they should also "say something?"

"Could be a bomb, better call the cops."

[GingisK]

Right?

It did look like a bomb. Your circuit board isn't connected to a package that is wrapped in a Muslim scarf. If the boy had any sense at all and knew electronics, he would have designed a clock from the ground up and put it into a polycase, not a suitcase.

I designed and build a clock when I was young. It looked like a clock.

[mvpel]

The school and the police knew it wasn’t a bomb, and he never said it was a bomb.

[GingisK]

...and he never said it was a bomb.

So many bombers declare their handiwork in advance.

It looked like a bomb. It was meant to look like a bomb. That family is basking in the glory of the outcome. They have even softened future targets via excuse makers like yourself.

[mvpel]

So you’re in favor of knee-jerk overreaction, instead of deploying our limited resources where they’re actually needed, then?

Everyone knew it wasn’t a bomb, and they had no evidence that he was trying to make people believe it was a bomb, yet they wasted the police’s time with it. “Softened future targets?” Sounds like the target’s pretty soft already - soft in the head.

[GingisK]

Prudence, young man. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

If the police didn't think it was a bomb, why did they take the boy away in handcuffs?

While in college I fashioned a fake blasting cap from a spent nickel .45 ACP shell casing. I had twisted yellow #24 telephone wire coming out of the open end, and filled the casing with epoxy. I used dry transfer letters to label it just like the real thing. Its purpose was a training aid for my ROTC Ranger unit. This inert device caused quite a sensation, including evacuation of my dorm and a very thorough search of my room. This was in the 1970s back when everyone wasn't a potential terrorist in someone's eyes.

In retrospect, I don't think they over-reacted. Those who are responsible for the safety of large numbers of children cannot be too careful. After all, it is Muzzies who are singularly responsible for 98% of the entire world's mayhem and murder.

[Ezekiel]

Ahmed serves a useful purpose. He draws out and exposes the those who spiritually identify with the duplicitious, Gotcha! game-playing legions of destruction. They are one and the same.

White Hut, Facebook, Microsoft... operated by those who eagerly embraced and rewarded Lil Ahmed the "clockmaker" for mocking, denigrating, and jerking around the American People. I see a pattern here...

[Swordmaker]

The school and the police knew it wasn’t a bomb, and he never said it was a bomb.

I see. You are so certain of that, how? Mvpel, two wires from that clock's alarm circuit to a detonator imbedded in a block of C-4 or several sticks of dynamite, or a broken lightbulb inside a pound of black powder mixed with nail and ball bearings, and it makes an excellent bomb. Little Ahmed is in charge of supplying the timing mechanism and case, while little Jamal was supposed to bring the explosive and meet up with him at lunch but got sick. . ." I'm sorry, Achmed, jihad will have to wait until I can get a doctor's note, bring your stuff anyway, I'll try to get my little sister to bring my part of our Holy plan. Allahu Akbar! You can always say it's a clock you invented if someone sees it. . . ". . .

[mvpel]

I am certain that they knew it wasn't a bomb because they didn't treat it like it was a bomb.

They admit he freely showed it to one of his teachers.

They never claimed he tried to make anyone believe it was a bomb.

They didn't evacuate or lock down the school.

They didn't call the bomb squad.

They didn't look for an accomplice.

They didn't look for other components such as "C4" or a "detonator."

The left it in the same room as the student.

They took pictures of it.

They sat around while waiting for the cops to arrive.

They transported it in the back seat of the police car.

And finally, the charges were dropped after the bullying of the nerd was fully and completely accomplished.

They knew it wasn't a bomb. They knew it. They knew it was a dismantled alarm clock mounted in a case by a kid who likes to tinker with electronics, and yet they wasted everyone's time anyway.

A mechanical alarm clock with wires attached to the bells attached to a detonator in a block of C4 could make an excellent bomb too.

But a mechanical alarm clock is not a bomb either, even if you remove its case.

Is this the kind of abject stupidity -- nearly as stupid as gun-free zones -- of those who are charged with guarding our children against terrorists and murderers? God help us all.

[mvpel]

Here's the Texas "hoax bomb" statute:

(a) A person commits an offense if the person knowingly manufactures, sells, purchases, transports, or possesses a hoax bomb with intent to use the hoax bomb to:
(1) make another believe that the hoax bomb is an explosive or incendiary device; or
(2) cause alarm or reaction of any type by an official of a public safety agency or volunteer agency organized to deal with emergencies.
(b) An offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor. - See more at: http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/txstatutes/PE/10/46/46.08#sthash.7eK8HwxD.dpuf

They're too stupid to understand a dismantled digital clock when they see it, and they're also apparently too stupid to understand the law they're trying to enforce. They didn't understand that INTENT to deceive or cause alarm, not merely causing alarm among brain-dead bureaucratic cows, is the required element. The police handcuffed the kid simply because they were too f--king stupid to understand what the law meant.

Just remember, as people get stupider and stupider, the definition of "reasonable" will continue to spiral downward, to the detriment of everyone, not just the actual terrorists.