On Friday, my colleague Neil Stevens posted a story on how the “clock” brought to school by 14-year old Ahmed Mohamed was not only not his “invention” as he claimed but is was nothing more than mass manufactured digital clock that had had the manufacturer’s housing removed. In fact, the maker’s logo was still visible. All in all, what Ahmed did was carry on the Muslim tradition of having not invented anything since probably the 8th century. (The definitive take down of the clock is here. It is a must read.)

As facts unfold, we are going to see that this case is far from an example of ‘zero tolerance’ run amok and anti-Muslim police going crazy and it is a calculated stunt aimed at damaging some specific politicians.

Casus Belli

This story does not begin last Monday. It starts back in February when it came to the attention of Irving mayor, Beth Van Duyne that shari’a based arbitration courts were operating in Irving. She objected and proposed a law, passed by the city council, that forbade this to take place.

A national furor over Islam has touched down in the heart of North Texas, where Irving’s mayor has accused mosque leaders of creating separate laws for Muslims, and requested a City Council vote this evening to endorse a state bill that Muslims say targets their faith.

The dispute has made Mayor Beth Van Duyne a hero among a fringe movement that believes Muslims — a tiny fraction of the U.S. population — are plotting to take over American culture and courts.

 

…

But it’s led Van Duyne to back Rep. Jeff Leach’s bill, “American Laws for American Courts,” which would forbid judges from the already illegal practice of using foreign law in their rulings.

CAIR-Texas gets panties in a twist

Naturally, the local CAIR people got their panties in a twist. Mind you this is the same group that has been listed as a terrorist group by the UAE and its head, Mustafa Carroll has said: “If we’re practicing Muslims, we are above the law of the land.”

The Incident

Ahmed Mohamed came to school, not with an science project but with a run-of-the-mill digital clock that has been altered to remove the outer casing and repackaged in what has been described as a “black pencil box”. Ahmed was new to the school and the teachers did not know him. Unless the defense is that Mohamed was trying to deceive people into believing he had built something he had not, the only remaining explanation for the device and the fact that it started beeping in class is that he wanted to be noticed with the device.

When the black box brought by the new kid started beeping, school officials called police. The police took the situation seriously.

The police quickly determined it wasn’t a threat but arrested Ahmed under the theory that he was making a hoax threat. Not an unreasonable assumption.

[MSNBC nitwit Chris] Hayes pointed out that, despite the allegations against the teen, no bomb squad was called to the MacArthur campus, nor was the campus evacuated.

“Once it’s determined that this is just a clock or just a piece of electronics, why then the arrest and all of that?” he asked Boyd. “That’s very hard for folks to understand.”

“I get that. I understand the concern,” the chief responded. “The officers pretty quickly determined that they weren’t investigating an explosive device. What their investigation centered around is the law violation of bringing a device into a facility like that that is intended to create a level of alarm. In other words, a hoax bomb — something that is not really a bomb, but is designed and presented in a way that it creates people to be afraid.”

The Father and the family

Ahmed Mohamed’s father is not some average guy.

The father of the Muslim teenager, who was arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school, is a Sudanese immigrant who went from selling New York City hot dogs to twice running for president in his native country.

He is also a Muslim activist with a taste for media attention who has been vocal about the raw deal Muslims are getting in America.

Ahmed Mohamed’s sister, Eyman, has also run afoul of school discipline.

After the MSNBC segment, Eyman and I sit down in the hallway where she says the same thing happened to her as Ahmed.

“I got suspended from school for three days from this stupid same district, from this girl saying I wanted to blow up the school, something I had nothing to do with.”

Eyman talks with the slightest lisp, almost imperceptible, but it becomes stronger as she gets emotional.

“I got suspended and I didn’t do anything about it and so when I heard about Ahmed, I was so mad because it happened to me and I didn’t get to stand up, so I’m making sure he’s standing up because it’s not right. So I’m not jealous, I’m kinda like—it’s like he’s standing for me.”

The family’s spokesperson is from CAIR.

A pattern is beginning to emerge.

The Aftermath

This incident with from Irving, Texas to Obama commenting on it in a mere two days. So a lot of people were more skeptical than usual of something Obama talks about. On Wednesday, Erick posted:

So the story breaks on Monday and the President is already talking about it on Wednesday drawing attention to something in Texas right before the Republican Presidential Debate.

Can we all just admit a public relations firm, on behalf of CAIR, made sure this story got out as quickly as possible and that the White House would note it and comment on it.

And I’ll just ignore the part of the story only trickling out now that apparently the kid put the clock in suitcase under his desk where it started beeping, disrupting the class.

When The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway tweeted her concerns:

the left went bats*** crazy. For a flavor, check the Twitter stream for Vox “foreign affairs” weenie and rabid anti-Semite Max Fisher.

The Real Target

Ordinarily, when these things happen the guys targeted are law enforcement. While the liberal media ran the “cops overreacted because he was Muslim” line, the odd thing was the metaphorical dog that didn’t bark.

One of the largest Muslim groups in Texas said Thursday that it does not fault police and school officials who handcuffed and suspended a 14-year-old Muslim boy after he brought a homemade clock to class that they mistook for a possible bomb.

Instead, Khalid Hamideh of the Islamic Association of North Texas blamed political leaders for espousing inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric and creating a “climate of fear.”

“We’re not pointing a finger at the school district or the police department,” Hamideh said. “Under the current climate that exists in this country, you can’t really blame them because when they see something like that, they have to react.”

Of course, Hamideh is full of crap. What he and his fellow travelers want is a situation where Muslims are free to create no-go zones, like those that have come into existence in Europe (and more will follow given the “migrant” crisis). The only “political leaders” who have created a “climate of fear” is the mayor of Irving and the city council which has rightfully acted to prevent the use of shari’a, a system of law that runs completely counter to Western legal traditions, by Muslims. As has shown in Britain, even voluntary arbitration under shari’a inevitably leads to the victimization of women.

Naturally, Texas Democrats jumped into the fray.

Texas Democrats said Ahmed’s detention was an outgrowth of the anti-Muslim sentiments of Irving officials. The city’s mayor, Beth Van Duyne, has been outspoken in criticizing a Muslim group that mediates disputes between the area’s Muslim residents, accusing it of establishing an anti-American Shariah court of law.

“Ahmed’s arrest is a logical conclusion to Islamophobia in Irving and it’s deplorable,” the chairwoman of the Dallas County Democratic Party, Carol Donovan, said in a statement.

For a party that is struggling to retain relevancy, any tool to attack Republicans is good enough.

A Dangerous Public Relations Stunt or Serendipity?

When one reads the chain of events that led to the arrest of Ahmed Mohamed it seems as though he was intent upon being arrested. And that he may have had coaching. If that sounds like a case of potentially deadly child abuse, you would be wrong because Muslims are righteous and peaceful folks who would never put their children in harm’s way.

With only a very little bad luck this could have ended in tragedy.

So the question is did Ahmed Mohamed think that it would be fun to cause a distraction in his new school? Did he dismantle an clock and repackage it and set its timer to ensure it started beeping? And then did he make up the cockamamie story that he “invented” the digital clock? Possible. 14-year old boys entering a strange school system come up with all manner of coping strategies.

Did the president have a down day and saw this very local story over his morning cup of warm milk?

Or has his father been trying to contrive such an incident for a while. Note that the older sister was suspended for something similar, she, however, avoided the telegenic handcuffed-and-carried-away-by-the-cops scene. Note the rapidity with which this got national attention. Note that the “invention” was actually purchased and modified. Note that CAIR is up to their eyebrows in this.

The school can’t tell its side of the story because the Ahmed’s family won’t allow it:

Irving Independent School District Communications Director Lesley Weaver said there is more information, but it cannot be released without a privacy waiver from the family.

“All they have to do is sign a release form and we’ll be able to give a different perspective of what happened that day in the classroom and the hours following,” she said.

This conveniently cuts to the advantage of the Mohamed clan and against the interest of truth.

While much is unclear, this much is certain. What happened in Irving, Texas did not involve an exceptionally intelligent boy and an Islamophobic (or realist, depending on how your view the issue) school administration and a racist police department.