On Jan. 1, 2025, the hope and promise of the New Year was dashed by a horrific mass casualty vehicle attack on Bourbon Street. Within hours, a representative of the nation’s premier counterterrorism agency misinformed a national audience that it was definitely not an act of terrorism. This despite the presence of an ISIS flag on the attack vehicle. The entire nation watched as the second in command of the FBI, New Orleans Field Office, sporting casual dress and a nose ring, put on full display the issues that have plagued the FBI since 2016: investigations driven not by facts, but politics, and the absence of merit as the sole measure for hiring and promotions.FBI Special Agent Aletha Duncan tells the public in a press conference that the attack in New Orleans was not related to terrorism. (Reuters). She committed the egregious mistake of communicating a snap judgment before the basic facts were known, defaulting to the prevailing FBI dogma that international terrorism is no longer the dominant threat in this country. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Usual Suspect
Roger Franklin Quadrant Online January 2, 2025
Unless you’re a visitor keen to tick the been there/done that box, Bourbon Street in New Orleans is a locale best avoided. Yes, all very colourful it is along that narrow thoroughfare of bars, clubs and more bars, but drinks are expensive, food more so, music cover charges outrageous, and if the visitor strays from the main drag into the nearby side streets, kerbside entrepreneurs hawking drugs and godknowswhat will add a dash of menace to the money-milking machine that is the tourist trap French Quarter. Still, for all that, the district remains a magnet for merrymakers, like those who less than 24 hours ago were ringing in the new year. This morning, the lives of 15 of those revellers were snuffed out by a native-born black American identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who took aim at the 3am crowd, floored his Ford pickup truck and barreled into the heart of the crowd. When the mounded bodies of his victims and a collision with a parked scissor lift brought the rented vehicle to a halt, he leapt from the cab brandishing a handgun, wounded two police officers and was in short order shot dead himself.
Welcome to 2025, where everything old is new again, and familiarity with stock-standard, knee-jerk official pronouncements in the wake of such slaughters has bred only contempt.
“This not a terror attack,” was how the FBI’s Alethea Duncan initially and predictably described the massacre to reporters.
Really, Ms Duncan? In your capacity as second-in-charge of the FBI’s New Orleans office, did it not strike you as pertinent that Jabbar’s truck was flying an ISIS flag? Was there not even the ghost of a suspicion the incident might be one more fulminate-of-Islam detonation, of which the world has seen so very many? If it did, if those or similar suspicions crossed her mind, she knew the drill and stuck to it: unless explicitly announced by the perpetrators as an exercise in mayhem dedicated to the glory of Allah, it’s always best for officials to make no connection between creed and carnage.
Where Islam is involved, it’s a very bad move to state the blindingly obvious — much safer instead to grab a tame imam for a photo op, as did George W. Bush on the morning after 9/11, hail once again “the religion of peace” and fret about the purported waves of Islamophobic assaults poised to make innocent Muslims the real victims of their co-religionists’ attacks.
Joe Biden, or whoever writes the old fellow’s lines, was on song in the White House. Do notice the final sentence of his press release (emphasis added):
I have directed my team to ensure every resource is available as federal, state, and local law enforcement work assiduously to get to the bottom of what happened as quickly as possible and to ensure that there is no remaining threat of any kind…
…my heart goes out to the victims and their families who were simply trying to celebrate the holiday. There is no justification for violence of any kind, and we will not tolerate any attack on any of our nation’s communities.
Those infamous hijab-yankers, mythical or not, have been warned. There must be no wondering aloud if Islam, one of “our nation’s communities”, is no better than an intolerant and aggressive tyranny masquerading as a religion. Nor will we likely hear how Shamsud-Din Jabbar came to be, as they say, “radicalised”. The simple and blindingly obvious answer which no official has yet to state is that, two years ago, the one-time US soldier and IT worker became a Muslim convert and after that an ardent, Koran-abiding Muslim.
The final act of his progression from geek to butcher, like the lives of his Bourbon Street victims, is a testament to that religious commitment. Muhammad variously urged the faithful to be kind and tolerant of others, a tack he took when his companions were small in number, and later, when he had established himself as a warlord, to tax or kill all who declined to join his team.
Special agent Duncan, who sports multi-culti braids and a diamond nose stud that would have driven J Edgar Hoover to apoplexy, is the face the FBI wishes the world to see — diverse, often female, empowered and, when the cameras are rolling, adept at delivering the required non-response responses. Within two hours of her initial denial that Jabbar had anything to do with terror, she was announcing that, upon reflection, it seemed he did. Indeed, it emerged police bomb squad members had found two homemade explosive devices and were hunting for any others that might have been concealed in the vicinity.
Did those bombs mean Jabbar was part of a team? Once again Duncan refused to shed any light, as did other law enforcement officials at their early afternoon press conference. Apparently, inexplicably, confirming that two other men and a woman were being sought, as widely reported in the press and social media, would “compromise the investigation”. Go figure that one.
One of the chief reasons Donald Trump will be sworn in as president in 17 days is that public faith in America’s institutions has taken a hell of a beating over the last four years. Consider how, whenever Trump appeared in court, his popularity only went up. The Democrats just couldn’t figure it and, determined as they were to put him in an orange jumpsuit, kept right on manufacturing charges, court dates and perp walks. As demonstrated on November 5, voters weren’t impressed, with a majority of them seeing not justice but corruption. The impeachments, that famous mugshot, the stump reminders from Biden and Kamala Harris that Trump is a convicted criminal worked about as well as Brer Fox thinking it a good idea to fling Brer Rabbit into the briar patch.
Trump won in no small part because the belief that once-revered institutions have been debased, often for political purposes, is now so widespread that any and every move, be it probe, prosecution or blunder, is apt to prompt only cynicism.
In June, a 20-year-old very nearly put a bullet in Trump’s head, yet all these months later we know almost nothing about the shooter. Americans remain in the dark, for example, about how he could have been allowed to take up his sniper’s position on the roof — a prime shooting perch which the Secret Service has never been able to explain why it’s own agents weren’t occupying. As to the kid’s motive, who can tell?
Despite some of the world’s sharpest techno savvy, his phone’s security lock has defied the FBI, so his calls, text messages and clues to motive remain uncracked, unread and unknown. There is nothing to inspire public confidence in that litany of failure and mysteries. Or what about Hunter Biden, whom Old Joe said would never get the blessing of his presidential pardon? So much for that promise — and thus has the office of presidency been further diminished.
One could go on at some length about the other symptoms of probity’s decay. The mass prosecutions and lengthy jail sentences imposed on January 6 protesters when no action whatsoever was taken against the angry women who raged through Capitol Hill during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings for a seat on the Supreme Court. Then there is Biden himself and the considerable weight of evidence that he has used his office to line the pockets of his crackhead son, brother Jim, even his infant grandchildren.
There is a richer and more fetid stink over Washington than has been seen perhaps at any time since the notorious corruption of Ulysses S. Grant’s administration, which brought the term “lobbyist” into the language. Besieging the doors of congressmen, judges and the like, then as now they waited to glad-hand cash for favours. That was regarded back then as shameful; now it is business as usual.
There is no doubt where and how this latest case of Islamic treachery will end. Jabbar will be declared a victim of mental illness, as has been the diagnosis of so many other jihadis after their terror sprees. The various Muslim lobbying groups will pump out allegations of racist Americans monstering random women in hijabs, and then it will all fade into memory until the next ardent Muslim takes seriously the Koran’s admonitions to give infidels what’s good for them, especially if they happen to be Jews.
But, then again, maybe not.
An “act of pure evil”, is how Trump described the bloody night in New Orleans, vowing that he would support with all the authority and influence of the Oval Office an unrestrained and unsullied investigation. The standard aversion to linking a religion which endorses violence to the violence its adherents so often perpetrate one has to assume will not apply. Other presidents have made similar claims, but this one, well he might well be as good as his word. In a little over two weeks we’ll know.
Roger Franklin Quadrant Online January 2, 2025
Unless you’re a visitor keen to tick the been there/done that box, Bourbon Street in New Orleans is a locale best avoided. Yes, all very colourful it is along that narrow thoroughfare of bars, clubs and more bars, but drinks are expensive, food more so, music cover charges outrageous, and if the visitor strays from the main drag into the nearby side streets, kerbside entrepreneurs hawking drugs and godknowswhat will add a dash of menace to the money-milking machine that is the tourist trap French Quarter. Still, for all that, the district remains a magnet for merrymakers, like those who less than 24 hours ago were ringing in the new year. This morning, the lives of 15 of those revellers were snuffed out by a native-born black American identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who took aim at the 3am crowd, floored his Ford pickup truck and barreled into the heart of the crowd. When the mounded bodies of his victims and a collision with a parked scissor lift brought the rented vehicle to a halt, he leapt from the cab brandishing a handgun, wounded two police officers and was in short order shot dead himself.
Welcome to 2025, where everything old is new again, and familiarity with stock-standard, knee-jerk official pronouncements in the wake of such slaughters has bred only contempt.
“This not a terror attack,” was how the FBI’s Alethea Duncan initially and predictably described the massacre to reporters.
Really, Ms Duncan? In your capacity as second-in-charge of the FBI’s New Orleans office, did it not strike you as pertinent that Jabbar’s truck was flying an ISIS flag? Was there not even the ghost of a suspicion the incident might be one more fulminate-of-Islam detonation, of which the world has seen so very many? If it did, if those or similar suspicions crossed her mind, she knew the drill and stuck to it: unless explicitly announced by the perpetrators as an exercise in mayhem dedicated to the glory of Allah, it’s always best for officials to make no connection between creed and carnage.
Where Islam is involved, it’s a very bad move to state the blindingly obvious — much safer instead to grab a tame imam for a photo op, as did George W. Bush on the morning after 9/11, hail once again “the religion of peace” and fret about the purported waves of Islamophobic assaults poised to make innocent Muslims the real victims of their co-religionists’ attacks.
Joe Biden, or whoever writes the old fellow’s lines, was on song in the White House. Do notice the final sentence of his press release (emphasis added):
I have directed my team to ensure every resource is available as federal, state, and local law enforcement work assiduously to get to the bottom of what happened as quickly as possible and to ensure that there is no remaining threat of any kind…
…my heart goes out to the victims and their families who were simply trying to celebrate the holiday. There is no justification for violence of any kind, and we will not tolerate any attack on any of our nation’s communities.
Those infamous hijab-yankers, mythical or not, have been warned. There must be no wondering aloud if Islam, one of “our nation’s communities”, is no better than an intolerant and aggressive tyranny masquerading as a religion. Nor will we likely hear how Shamsud-Din Jabbar came to be, as they say, “radicalised”. The simple and blindingly obvious answer which no official has yet to state is that, two years ago, the one-time US soldier and IT worker became a Muslim convert and after that an ardent, Koran-abiding Muslim.
The final act of his progression from geek to butcher, like the lives of his Bourbon Street victims, is a testament to that religious commitment. Muhammad variously urged the faithful to be kind and tolerant of others, a tack he took when his companions were small in number, and later, when he had established himself as a warlord, to tax or kill all who declined to join his team.
Special agent Duncan, who sports multi-culti braids and a diamond nose stud that would have driven J Edgar Hoover to apoplexy, is the face the FBI wishes the world to see — diverse, often female, empowered and, when the cameras are rolling, adept at delivering the required non-response responses. Within two hours of her initial denial that Jabbar had anything to do with terror, she was announcing that, upon reflection, it seemed he did. Indeed, it emerged police bomb squad members had found two homemade explosive devices and were hunting for any others that might have been concealed in the vicinity.
Did those bombs mean Jabbar was part of a team? Once again Duncan refused to shed any light, as did other law enforcement officials at their early afternoon press conference. Apparently, inexplicably, confirming that two other men and a woman were being sought, as widely reported in the press and social media, would “compromise the investigation”. Go figure that one.
One of the chief reasons Donald Trump will be sworn in as president in 17 days is that public faith in America’s institutions has taken a hell of a beating over the last four years. Consider how, whenever Trump appeared in court, his popularity only went up. The Democrats just couldn’t figure it and, determined as they were to put him in an orange jumpsuit, kept right on manufacturing charges, court dates and perp walks. As demonstrated on November 5, voters weren’t impressed, with a majority of them seeing not justice but corruption. The impeachments, that famous mugshot, the stump reminders from Biden and Kamala Harris that Trump is a convicted criminal worked about as well as Brer Fox thinking it a good idea to fling Brer Rabbit into the briar patch.
Trump won in no small part because the belief that once-revered institutions have been debased, often for political purposes, is now so widespread that any and every move, be it probe, prosecution or blunder, is apt to prompt only cynicism.
In June, a 20-year-old very nearly put a bullet in Trump’s head, yet all these months later we know almost nothing about the shooter. Americans remain in the dark, for example, about how he could have been allowed to take up his sniper’s position on the roof — a prime shooting perch which the Secret Service has never been able to explain why it’s own agents weren’t occupying. As to the kid’s motive, who can tell?
Despite some of the world’s sharpest techno savvy, his phone’s security lock has defied the FBI, so his calls, text messages and clues to motive remain uncracked, unread and unknown. There is nothing to inspire public confidence in that litany of failure and mysteries. Or what about Hunter Biden, whom Old Joe said would never get the blessing of his presidential pardon? So much for that promise — and thus has the office of presidency been further diminished.
One could go on at some length about the other symptoms of probity’s decay. The mass prosecutions and lengthy jail sentences imposed on January 6 protesters when no action whatsoever was taken against the angry women who raged through Capitol Hill during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings for a seat on the Supreme Court. Then there is Biden himself and the considerable weight of evidence that he has used his office to line the pockets of his crackhead son, brother Jim, even his infant grandchildren.
There is a richer and more fetid stink over Washington than has been seen perhaps at any time since the notorious corruption of Ulysses S. Grant’s administration, which brought the term “lobbyist” into the language. Besieging the doors of congressmen, judges and the like, then as now they waited to glad-hand cash for favours. That was regarded back then as shameful; now it is business as usual.
There is no doubt where and how this latest case of Islamic treachery will end. Jabbar will be declared a victim of mental illness, as has been the diagnosis of so many other jihadis after their terror sprees. The various Muslim lobbying groups will pump out allegations of racist Americans monstering random women in hijabs, and then it will all fade into memory until the next ardent Muslim takes seriously the Koran’s admonitions to give infidels what’s good for them, especially if they happen to be Jews.
But, then again, maybe not.
An “act of pure evil”, is how Trump described the bloody night in New Orleans, vowing that he would support with all the authority and influence of the Oval Office an unrestrained and unsullied investigation. The standard aversion to linking a religion which endorses violence to the violence its adherents so often perpetrate one has to assume will not apply. Other presidents have made similar claims, but this one, well he might well be as good as his word. In a little over two weeks we’ll know.