Myths About Afghanistan
Victor Davis Hanson on whether Afghanistan is really the "graveyard of empires ..."
In my post “Michael Chertoff: Tender your Resignation,” I discussed the eleven Egyptian students who went missing upon entry into the U.S., and Chertoff’s pathetic reaction to it: ” … just a bunch of kids who cut class.”
Chertoff proved himself to be a simpleton and a trivial lightweight, and incapable of handling the job of chief of Homeland Security. I said this prior to finding out what these “kids” were up to, since the issue was not what actually happened to them, but rather, the posture that the U.S. government should take on such things.
Debbie Schlussel has been following these “kids cutting class.” As it turns out, some of them turned up as “employees” of a pizza shop in Baltimore. This pizza shop has ties to terrorist activities:
Last October, when officials closed down the Baltimore Fort McHenry and Harbor Tunnels because of an alleged terror plot to blow it up, they arrested several men in connection with the alleged plot on immigration violations. Some of them had maps of the tunnels, etc. Guess where they arrested two of them? Safa Pizza.
From Montana State University to a pizza shop in Baltimore with terrorist ties. Does this sound strange to anyone? If Chertoff had his way, these people would have been regarded as “just a bunch of kids who cut class.”
Again: Michael Chertoff — Tender your Resignation! Please allow a more serious person to take over at DHS.
On August 23, 2006 at 3:28 pm, Ernest said:
I’m glad the missing students were caught, and there may well be some strange terror connections in Baltimore, but there’s some blatant misinformation here that’s been promulgated by Ms. Schlussel, information that is at odds not only with every available publically available account of the student arrests, but also with Baltimore geography.
Two alleged tunnel plotters from ‘05 were arrested at a Safa Pizza in Dundalk. The two Egyptian students, although arrested in a Dundalk apartment, were working at ANOTHER, apparently unrelated Safa Pizza in Glen Burnie, which is on the other side of Baltimore’s harbor from Dundalk. All news sources are unanimous on this. Yes, it’s weird that there are two pizza shops with the same name…but there are actually four of them in the Baltimore area, and Safa is a common name for Muslim businesses–one of the largest halal meat distributors in North America is called Safa. I looked into the business documents of the pizza places and couldn’t find any links between the two pizza places referred to as a single entity in Debbie Schlussel’s piece. When I presented this evidence to Debbie, she first ignored it, then banned me from her site for daring to suggest she was wrong. But unless Ms. Schlussel knows some things about geography that escape me, Dundalk and Glen Burnie are two separate places.
Schlussel continues to insist, not that there is a connection between the various Safa Pizzas, but that they are the same place, a patently absurd position.
It’s unfortunate that people who basically agree in the fight on Islamic terror are unable to give and take criticism to sharpen our arguments. If our side has no respect for accuracy, then how are we better than the mainstream media? And what does it say about us when we attempt to silence, not debate, those who disagree with us?
On August 23, 2006 at 6:28 pm, Herschel Smith said:
I know absolutely nothing concerning the veracity or lack thereof of the statements in the prior comment to this post. In fairness, I will both (a) leave this comment as is, and (b) give Ms. Schlussel a chance to respond in the comments section of this post. I have written her a note giving her that opportunity.
Since I:
1) Like my faithful readers (even the ones who disagree with me some or all of the time);
2) Know nothing about the information contained in the comment;
3) Want to keep Debbie blogrolled;
I intend to do nothing more to this post.
There. How’s that for avoiding controversy?
On August 24, 2006 at 12:37 pm, Ernest said:
That’s very fair, and I look forward to Ms. Schlussel’s response. If I am wrong, I want nothing more than to be corrected. Ms. Schlussel has many more sources than I, and the more light is shed on this, the better!