Today has to go down as a real landmark in what passes for journalism these days.
It started out when someone involved in the investigation blabbed to CNN
that the feds had a photo of someone with the kind of large backpack
used to carry and camouflage the 6 liter pressure cooker bombs and that
they were seeking what was described as 'a dark skinned man.'
So rather than act with the responsibility you might credit a 12
-year-old with and think about the possibility that they might be
alerting a fugitive he was on the fed's radar, of course they
broadcasted that information publicly, via CNN talking head John King
and claimed an arrest had been made.
Of course, no actual arrest had been made, and CNN was reprimanded by
the feds,but the damage of course was already done.Meanwhile, in a
desperate lunge back to political correctness
King walked back the 'dark skinned' remark:
I want to be very careful about this because people get very sensitive
when you say these things. I was told by one of these sources, who is a
law enforcement official, that this was a dark-skinned male. The
official used some other words, I’m not going to repeat them until we
get more information because of the sensitivities. There are some people
that will take offense even at saying that.
Nevertheless, now that the clowns are offstage, there
are some interesting new developments.
The Lord and Taylor security video cam apparently caught images of two
men toting back packs of exactly the kind used to transport and
camouflage the bombs, as well as an image of what appears to be a man
leaving a backpack near the finish line.It shows him
placing it outside the railing, and there's another shot of the man
running away from the scene while the rest of the crowd is caught up in
the blast and scrambles for cover scrambles for cover.
There's also another image of a man dialing a number on a cell phone
moments before the blast. Cell phones are very popular ways of remotely
detonating a bomb of this kind, but the feds are able to check cell
records to see who used a phone at that exact place and time. Of course,
if the caller was part of the team who set off the bombs and he was the
least bit professional, there are obvious ways to use a cell phone as a
detonator in this fashion and leave no record which I'd just as soon
not mention, because there's always the chance someone could be reading
this whom shouldn't. But there's always the chance that if this person
was part of team, he screwed up, so it's worth the feds checking out.
Now we get to go in a different direction and look at some other pictures.
These are three Arab males at the Marathon before the bombing,one of
whom appears to toting a back pack of the kind used for the bombs.
One of them has a striking resemblance to
Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi,
the Saudi national who was apprehended leaving the scene of the bombing
with his clothes smelling of gunpowder and made several curious
statements, declaring “I thought there would be a second bomb” and
“Did anyone die?”
We were told he was not a suspect but was still being held as a witness, 'a person of interest'. But more on that later.
As I mentioned in the above link, Alharbi hails from the Asir province
near Yemen, a part of the Kingdom where Al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula (AQAP)is not exactly unpopular.So do his two roommates that
lived with him in an apartment in Revere, a Boston suburb. One of those
roommates my sources tell me is still being sought by the FBI and
another is in custody over what are described as 'visa problems'.
You'll remember that after Alharbi was detained by the FBI, his
apartment was searched and a number of bags of evidence removed.
But wait, there's more.
Alharbi has quite an interesting family background. As former terrorist Walid Shoebat reveals,
our friend Alharbi has no less than six family members openly affiliated with al-Qaeda, plus another 5 who have served time at Guantamano. And in fact his entire clan has a significant jihadist orientation.
By this time, your jaw is probably dropping and you're wondering 'how
did someone with this background get a visa to come to America'? Walk
with me awhile.
While Alharbi was in custody and was declared a suspect, our Secretary
of State had a routine press conference and photo op scheduled with
the Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal. Usually these sort of
things are public. But in this case, Secretary Kerry and Prince Saud
al-Faisal abruptly canceled the presser and
held a secret, behind closed doors meeting.
Shortly afterwards,
it was announced that Alharbi was no longer a suspect and was simply a person of interest..in less than 24 hours since he was picked up.
And today, Alharbi, who supposedly had nothing to do with the bombing is
going to be speedily deported as - wait for it - 'a national security
risk'.
They're getting him out of the country and cleaning this up.
Today,
no less than President Obama had a meeting with Prince Saud-al-Feisal that was not on his schedule.
According to the White House, the meeting concerned Syria, but that's
the sort of thing that would have been handled by Kerry in the earlier
meeting.This was almost certainly something different.
Another clue was that a major press conference on the status of the
investigation of the bombings scheduled for 5 PM EST today was abruptly
postponed after the president's meeting with al-Feisal occurred. My gut
tells me they have a pretty good idea of who was responsible by now but
are waiting on instructions from Washington before going public.
If Saudis were involved in the Boston Marathon bombing, it's a rather nasty mutual problem.
Three months ago, the Obama administration ended post-9/11 restrictions on Saudis entering the US and
put them on the 'trusted traveler list', which is how Alharbi and a lot
of other Saudis with questionable backgrounds got in - not that there
was ever all that much of a restriction on visas from young men from the
Kingdom or other Arab countries anyway.
So if a Saudi national or nationals were to be linked with the Boston
Bombing, it would point yet another finger at President Obama and his
team's less than stellar performance when it comes to foreign policy and
national security.
One can only live off someone else's ordering the assassination of Osama bin-Laden so for so long, especially with the rest of the Middle East unraveling.
In addition, there's a multi-billion dollar arms deal with the House of
Saud in the works, not to mention this president's fondness for Islam
and Islamists, all that oil, and continued Saudi access to America, all
of which might be looked at by Americans rather badly if the carnage in
Boston was the result of people the Obama Administration changed U.S.
law to let into the country.
So if this was jihad, it's in the mutual interest of both the president
and the Saudis to handle this carefully. If Saudis were involved, my
guess is that the Obama Regime will employ one of these scenarios in
this order of preference:
Either they'll somehow find a Great White Tea Party Terrorist to pin the
Boston Bombing on, simply let the whole thing fade away while pledging
to 'bring the people responsible to justice' ( how I hate that phrase)
or if necessary, pin it on unnamed al-Qaeda elements and launch a few
drones while the Saudis responsible slip quietly out of the country.
It's happened before.
As a last resort, if Saudis were involved and there's no way to get
around it, they might be forced to imprison the bombers, while telling
Americans what a religion of peace Islam is and that the bombers were
only caught 'thanks to the help we got from our Saudi allies'.
To President Obama, this isn't really terrorism, in spite of what he finally admitted. It's a political problem to be handled .
