The first terrorist attack on US soil in the Obama administration

The return to the age of terrorism as a police matter is complete.

The FBI had a suspect who raised all the red flags; recent conversion to Islam complete with name change, travel overseas to study under a Yemen imam, arrest in Yemen for using a Somali passport, and he had an assault rifle (probably inaccurate reporting). The FBI response? Keep an eye on the guy.

Does this remind anyone of the FBI being warned by two different sources of Muslim men wanting to learn to fly a jumbo jet?

What is really frustrating about this story is the lack of coverage it garners in the media in relation to the murder of an abortion doctor in Kansas. From John at This Ain't Hell-

But, ya know, a guy trained in Yemen who guns down American soldiers in the streets of our cities should be reported by the actual media, ya know? Fox News usually shuts down broadcasting any real news for hours of video of police tape fluttering in the wind - not this time. The Washington Post puts the story in a column on page 16, and then just the AP blurb. But even that is better than the Washington Times which avoids the story. The New York Times ran one article yesterday and nothing today. As far as I can tell the article they wrote yesterday didn’t make it to print this morning.

Searching Google for news results on 'recruiting center shooting' gets 1517 hits.

Contrast that with the 6239 Google hits for 'abortion doctor murder' in the news area of Google alone.

Within hours of Dr Tiller's murder, the President himself spoke out-

STATEMENT FROM THE PRESIDENT ON THE MURDER OF DR. GEORGE TILLER

I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning. However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.

In response to two young soldiers being gunned down by a religious fanatic, the White House has no response at all.

In response to Dr Tiller's murder, pro-life groups strongly condemned the killer, pointing out that pro-life actually means stopping murder, not creating more killing.

In response to the recruiting center attack, US Muslim groups had this response-

The American Muslim-nothing

CAIR-nothing

The American Muslim Perspective-nothing

The American Muslim Taskforce-nothing

The American Society for Muslim Advancement-nothing

The Muslim American Society-nothing

Muslims Against Terrorism-nothing

Muslims in America-nothing

Two points to clarify from this story. First, the media is obviously unfamiliar with reporting on military recruiters except from a negative light. The two soldiers that were shot were recently graduated from basic training. It is quite common for a recruiter to hire on temporary help, especially young kids that can relate to the target demographic. It's called ADSW, or active duty for special work, which in the military means you get put on orders similar to annual training. These young kids get to show off their brand spanking new uniforms to the guys they went to school with and hung around with. While they aren't technically recruiters in that they don't sign any of the paperwork or do any of the formal processing, they are helping to recruit young people by example.

The second point is the report from Fox News that police reported finding "an assault rifle and other weapons in Muhammed's car when he was arrested". The reason I think this is inaccurate is this-an assault weapon is by definition an automatic rifle, which is by and large illegal in the US. What they likely meant was a semi-automatic rifle, similar to a military M-16 or AK-47. These are legal in the US, but can only be purchased with a background check. Depending on when it was purchased (before or after his Yemen trip), it may have been another warning flag for the FBI.