Yesterday, much to the delight of Salon.com and angry leftists everywhere, President Obama did what he does best — mock Republicans. Speaking about Republican concerns with admitting Syrian refugees, Obama actually said this:
But apparently, they’re scared of widows and orphans coming into the United States of America as part of our tradition of compassion. First, they were worried about the press being too tough on them during debates. Now they’re worried about three-year-old orphans. That doesn’t sound very tough to me.
The remark was delivered with all the exquisite timing of his recent declaration — hours before the Paris attacks – that ISIS was “contained,” Obama delivered these scintillating remarks about “widows” just before a woman blew herself up during a police raid near Paris. Indeed, if he had a shred of meaningful knowledge of jihadist tactics, he’d know that female suicide bombers have been among the deadliest weapons of Islamic radicals. In Russia alone, so-called “black widows” are responsible for a deadly reign of terror:
The Black Widows are what Russian journalists call female Islamist suicide bombers who have participated in more than 30 attacks that have killed about 900 people in Russia since July 2001, when Khava Barayeva and Luisa Magomadova rammed their explosives packed truck into a Russian military headquarters building in the Chechen village of Alkhan Yurt.
Why were they so effective? Because people presumed women are less dangerous:
Before his death, [Chechen leader] Basayev was keen to test his hunch that when the Russian authorities are on alert for potential terrorist attacks, a young woman in jeans or an older woman in a frock attracts less suspicion than a dark-skinned young Chechen man in a cheap jacket.
Basayev dubbed his battalion of suicide seekers Riyad us Saliheen, an Arabic reference from the Qur’an meaning Garden of the Righteous. It was composed of men and women, but it was the women who fascinated the Russian media.
From 2002 to 2004, his “shahidka” — a Russian derivative of the Arabic word shahid, meaning female martyr — staged high-profile attacks mostly against Russian civilians.
In fact, if Obama had spent much time talking to his own troops, he’d know the profound dangers of female jihadists. I’ve seen the reality with my own eyes, deployed to Diyala Province, Iraq — then known as the female suicide bombing capital of the world. Here’s a Guardian report written weeks after my unit left the province:
Young women have been trained in their dozens to become suicide bombers in one Iraqi province in an attempt to reverse an improving security climate and derail talks about an upcoming security pact, Iraqi officials believe.
The assessment follows the latest lethal blast on Sunday at a checkpoint outside a hospital in Baquba, which is believed to have been carried out by a girl as young as 13. Pathologists and police are still trying to determine her exact age and identity.
The girl’s death has taken to 27 the number of female bombers from the province of Diyala, 37 miles (60 km) north of Baghdad, in the past 18 months and has led to an urgent Iraq-wide security review, which is likely to involve more intrusive searches of women at checkpoints.
But what about the children? Aren’t they harmless? Well, note the age of one of the suicide bombers in the story above — 13 years old, a seventh-grader. Our forces in Iraq in fact faced a series of child-borne bombs.
Surely that’s an aberration, right? ISIS must love its children enough not to use them to kill.
The reality could not be more clear — ISIS will use anyone it can to kill Americans, including women and children. So, Mr. President — your mockery notwithstanding – ”widows and orphans” can be dangerous weapons indeed.