This all followed a familiar pattern also. No reporter, of course, asked Wanly if Mohamud could have been inspired by such texts as “kill the idolaters wherever you find them” (Qur’an 9:5). No reporter asked Wanly to explain what he meant when he said that Mohamud’s actions were “completely, clearly, textually denounced in the Islamic religion.” No reporter asked him to explain what was incorrect from an Islamic standpoint about the statements Mohamud had made about the Muslims’ obligation to fight defensive jihad against invading infidels. No reporter asked him what programs he had instituted or planned to institute at the Salman Al-Farisi Islamic Center to make sure that no other members of his community misunderstood the Religion of Peace as spectacularly as did Mohamed Mohamud. No reporter asked him what steps he was taking to cooperate with law enforcement officials to make sure Mohamud had no accomplices or allies within the mosque.

IV. The search for alternate explanations

If he wasn’t really an Islamic jihadist, despite the testimony of his own words, then why did Mohamud try to blow up the Christmas tree lighting ceremony? Wanly said that he had a difficult childhood after moving with his parents to the U.S. from Somalia when he was five years old. According to the New York Daily News, “neighbors say Mohamud was doted on by his family but embraced militant Islam not long after his parents split up. ‘He was a quiet kid, but with his folks splitting up, who knows?’ Adam Napier, who lived next door to Mohamed Osman Mohamud for years told the newspaper.”

Yes, who knows? The divorce of parents has driven many an unhappy child to try to set off a bomb in a crowded place and murder hundreds, if not thousands, of people, hasn’t it?

Of course, many more terrorist attacks have been committed by Islamic jihadists who read and took seriously the Qur’an’s commands to wage war against infidels than by children traumatized by their parents’ divorce, but never mind: when it comes to exonerating Islamic texts and teachings of any responsibility for motivating violent jihadists, government, law enforcement and media officials join Islamic spokesmen in grabbing hold of any alternative explanation, no matter how implausible.

V. The portrayal of Muslims as victims

Generally after a jihad attack in the United States, whether successful or not, mainstream media outlets run multiple stories about how Muslim communities fear a “backlash” against innocent Muslims from enraged “Islamophobic” rednecks. Of course, such “backlashes” never materialize, but the purpose of such stories is to shift the public’s attention away from the reality of Islamic jihad and onto the fiction of Muslims as victims, living in fear of vigilante attack in the United States. In reality, hate crimes against Muslims accounted for only eight percent of crimes thus classified in the U.S. in 2009, according to a recently released FBI report. Blacks and Jews were far more likely to be victimized – and far less likely to be the subject of fawning media reports featuring hand-wringing over a “backlash” against them.

But in this case, there appears to have been a genuine backlash: an arson attack at the Salman Al-Farisi Islamic Center in Corvallis. The FBI offered a $10,000 reward for information, and FBI spokesperson Beth Anne Steele thundered: “The FBI would not tolerate any retaliation on the Muslim community as a result of that arrest.”

If this was truly a retaliatory vigilante attack following Mohamud’s attempted jihad bombing, then it is hateful and must unequivocally be condemned. It is important to note, however, that while the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on the FBI and local police to protect the mosque, CAIR and other Muslims have not hesitated to stoop even to fabricating “hate crimes,” including attacks on mosques. CAIR and other groups like it want and need hate crimes against Muslims, because they can use them for political points and as weapons to intimidate people into remaining silent about the jihad threat.

Was the arson attack against the Islamic Center in Corvallis a staged event designed to deflect attention away from Mohamud’s jihad attack and onto Muslims as victims? There is no way to tell unless law enforcement officials consider this possibility, which they should do given the many faked incidents in the past. But whether they will actually do so is another matter.

And so with this latest attempted jihad attack against Americans, the same scenario plays out yet again: an Islamic jihadist invokes Islamic doctrine to explain his actions, while law enforcement, government and media all look the other way and grab hold of alternative explanations, no matter how preposterous. Meanwhile, the media focuses on how, in the wake of yet another attempt by a Muslim to kill infidels, Muslims are again victimized.

The script has long been written. The characters are cast. With every new jihad plot, all the media, government and law enforcement officials, and Islamic leaders need to do is fill in the blanks.

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