RUTHFULLY YOURS

Jihad Matchmaking? FBI Director Says San Bernardino Killers Radicalized Before Meeting By Bridget Johnson

FBI Director James Comey acknowledged at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today that it will be “very, very important” to know if terrorist organizations are setting up jihadi marriages.

A week after the massacre at a holiday party of San Bernardino County health department employees, authorities have determined that health inspector Syed Farook had been planning jihad for many years — even plotting an attack with an unidentified co-conspirator three years ago that wasn’t carried out. That information came from his longtime friend and former neighbor Enrique Marquez, whose Russian bride is the sister of Farook’s brother’s Russian bride.

Marquez, a convert to Islam and Walmart employee, purchased two AR-15 rifles that were used in the attack. He checked himself into a mental institution afterward, and is now cooperating with investigators. Marquez reportedly says he knew nothing about the attack.

Farook reportedly met Tashfeen Malik in 2013. He brought her back from Saudi Arabia in 2014 on a fiancee visa, and the pair were married in Southern California.

The Obama administration hits just keep on coming…

A House Armed Services Committee report set to be released Thursday accuses the Obama administration of misleading Congress and violating federal law during a controversial prisoner exchange.

The report compiled by the GOP majority charges that the administration did so when it bypassed Congress in negotiating the exchange of five Taliban prisoners for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was being held in Afghanistan. They suggested that the White House had put politics and expediency ahead of proper procedure in making the deal.

This is the same administration that put politics and expediency ahead of common sense when “ending” the war in Iraq, so this is really no surprise. This president puts politics ahead of everything. If the Republicans are against it, national security be damned. The quickest way to get rid of Obamacare may be to have every Republican in Congress embrace it.

As this entire weird story played out, it always did seem that the administration’s interest in Bergdahl was motivated solely by a need to stick it to Republicans. The timing and the rush to get it done never made sense. It was almost as if the president got bored.

It’s always good to keep in mind that half of the job of “lawmaking” is proposing dead-end bills or amendments designed to score political points against your opposition. Today, Sen. Patrick Leahy steps up to the plate with a “sense of the Senate” exercise in moral preening:

Congress is set to vote on Thursday on what some have called an “unprecedented” right that would allow immigrants easier access to relocate to the United States, according to new legislation offered by a Democratic senator. The legislation, which is being offered by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) as an amendment to a larger bill governing nuclear safety, would prohibit the U.S. government from barring any individual from entering the country based on their religion.

The bill comes amid a fierce national debate about immigration to America, particularly for individuals coming from Muslim-majority nations. Critics of the Obama administration’s refugee plan, which would permit up to 10,000 Syrians into the country, maintain that there are not enough oversight measures in place to ensure that immigrants are not linked to terrorists or various terror organizations, such as the Islamic State.

Many who closely follow the dueling Islamic terror narratives emanating from the White House are mystified by Mr. Obama’s inability (or deliberate unwillingness) to utter the phrase “Islamic terrorists.” Many are curious, too, about why he refuses to call ISIS “ISIS,” steadfastly insisting instead that everybody in his administration call the terror group “ISIL.” What’s the difference, and why is it important? The agendas behind each diverge widely. In fact, the variance between the two is elephantine in scale.

ISIS stands for the “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,” a terror group controlling a large swath of both Iraq and Syria in which the terrorists claim to have established a “caliphate,” a state in which Islamic sharia law is imposed upon all living in the area, anyone who fails to adhere to strict Muslim guidelines has his head removed. Obama’s contrary assertions aside, ISIS is by no means contained. In fact, the savage group (which prefers to be called the “Islamic State” or “IS”) has metastasized on maps like immense pools of blood covering the ancient borders that once divided parts of Syria and Iraq.

After San Bernardino, American Muslims have to come to terms with an ever more apparent truth: that we, and our mainstream Muslim brethren, are the only ones who can lead a winning fight against the radicalism crippling our faith.

What’s most troubling about the San Bernardino massacre is that Syed Farook seemed to have been, by almost all accounts, an ordinary American. He was an educated and employed 28-year-old first-generation citizen, born to Pakistani immigrants.

Like many Americans, I have a similar background, which makes the attack all the more concerning. It seems unthinkable that someone in such a position could be susceptible to radicalization. Yet we have seen this happen time and again, particularly among younger Muslims in the Middle East, Europe and now America.

Attacks like last week’s underscore the importance of countering extremist propaganda. While sophisticated attacks by terrorist groups can be effectively prevented by law enforcement and national-security measures, the truth is there isn’t much that can be done—not even stricter gun-control laws—to completely eliminate the possibility of a radicalized lone wolf wreaking havoc. Only defeating the ideology that inspires these attacks can do that. A propaganda war must be waged on radical Islam, and American Muslims have to be on the front lines for it to be credible.