Even After New Orleans, the Left Won’t Name the Ideology Behind the Attack
Islam must never be to blame.
By Mark Tapson
More details are coming in about Shamsud Din Jabbar, the deceased perpetrator of the heinous New Year’s Day vehicular jihad in New Orleans that left 15 Americans dead and dozens more injured. In a Thursday morning press conference, FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia of the Counterterrorism Division revealed that Jabbar had pledged himself to the Islamic State terror group before the summer and posted Facebook videos about wanting his planned attack to send the right message: that it is about a “war between the believers and disbelievers.” This is in addition to previous revelations from friends and relatives confirming that the Muslim Jabbar had become concerningly “devout” in recent months. Oh yeah – and his murder weapon of choice flew the black flag of ISIS.
I don’t have a degree in criminology or a special Taylor Swift bracelet from the New Orleans FBI, but to me, all that sounds suspiciously like Jabbar’s motive could – hear me out, now – be classified as Islamic terrorism. But if you think the Left will acknowledge the threat of Islamic “radicalism” to this country, then you have been living under a rock since the Jimmy Carter era.
Check out the reports on Jabbar from the Left-dominated media. Most headlines refer to him as “New Orleans Attacker” or “Army vet” or maybe “Texas man.” You will not find one that states right there in the headline that he was an “ISIS Devotee” or even “Devout Muslim,” much less anything labeling him an “Islamic terrorist,” even an alleged one.
Again, I’m no criminal psychologist, but I feel safe saying that Shamsud Din Jabbar did not attach an ISIS flag to his truck and mow down as many New Years revelers as possible – men, women, and children – and then open fire on cops because he was a “devout” Army veteran or Texas man.
Even after this latest act of jihadist terrorism, the Left will not condemn their partners in what David Horowitz calls the “Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left.” Instead, the Left is still fixated on the same concern they fabricated and exaggerated throughout the administration of Biden and his fellow ideologues: “white supremacy” – i.e., “far-right extremism.” Attorney General Merrick Garland declared in May, 2021 before the Senate Appropriations Committee, “In the FBI’s view, the top domestic violent extremist threat comes from ‘racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocated for the superiority of the white race.” This is the same man who ordered FBI investigations into parents who were outraged at local school boards for enabling the gender theory indoctrination of their children.
As recently as his own commencement address to Howard University in 2023, Joe Biden asserted that white supremacy “is the single most dangerous terrorist threat in our homeland. And I’m not just saying this because I’m at a black HBCU. I say this wherever I go.” Leftists would sooner submit to torture than admit that the problem is not white supremacists, but Islamic supremacists.
NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Dilanian, for example, said Wednesday on NBC Nightly News that
The FBI director and others have been saying for some time that the threat from ISIS inspired terrorist attacks is greater than it has been for a long time particularly post October 7, in light of the controversy over the war in Gaza and people inflamed across the Middle East about that. You also have a situation where political violence in the United States is increasingly a risk and more and more people are turning to extremist ideologies, whether it’s ISIS or people who don’t like healthcare executives or far-right extremism. So you have a confluence of risk factors here but what counterterrorism officials are saying is they are very concerned.
Oh, NOW they’re concerned, and even so, they call the terror attacks “ISIS-inspired.” But what inspires ISIS? That’s right – Islam, but Dilanian and NBC News would never concede that. And “far-right extremism”? What far-right extremism? Where are the Americans who are dying because of devout, far-right extremists? Dilanian did not provide an example of “far-right extremism,” of course; he didn’t even define “far-right,” but we all know that talking heads who use that term are referring to Trump’s MAGA movement – you know, the Greatest Threat to Democracy Since the Civil War™.
Notice that he didn’t use the term far-Left but “people who don’t like healthcare executives” – referring obliquely to the Left’s latest folk hero Luigi Mangione, the hoodied assassin who slipped up behind a healthcare CEO as he walked down a city sidewalk and gunned him down with a silenced pistol. Dilanian did not call him far-Left, just one of those “people who don’t like healthcare executives.” When, in fact, was the last time you heard any mainstream media figure other than maybe Sean Hannity use the term “far-Left”? And yet everyone to the right of Chairman Mao is “far-right.”
Another example of the Left’s latest whitewashing of jihad: In the wake of this horrific act of Islamic terrorism in New Orleans, the far-Left Daily Beast pounced on Donald Trump’s tweet bashing the Biden administration’s open border policy, and published this headline: “Trump Uses ‘Terror’ Attack by U.S. Army Vet to Stir Up Anti-Immigrant Hate.” Not “Islamic terrorist,” mind you, but “U.S. Army Vet.” Instead of condemning his “anti-infidel hate” that resulted in 15 dead Americans, the Daily Beast instead smeared Trump’s message as “anti-immigrant hate.”
Jabbar’s brother Abdur told the New York Times that they were both raised Christian but that the 42-year-old was “Muslim for most of his life.” Abdur then went on to issue the kneejerk denial that his brother’s actions had nothing to do with his faith: “What he did does not represent Islam. This is more some type of radicalization, not religion.”
No, it was religion, all right – specifically Islam. Because when Christians become extremely devout, they enter the priesthood or join a pro-life protest (and then go to prison for it under the Biden administration). For some reason, when Muslims become more devout, non-Muslims too often end up getting slaughtered – because, as Shamsud Din Jabbar insisted, this is a “war between the believers and disbelievers.”
And yet the Left stands firm: no matter what, Islam must never be to blame. Never.
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior.