The mainstream media is using Donald Trump’s involuntary appearance in a recruitment video released by the Somali-based jihad group Al-Shabaab to smear the Republican presidential primary front-runner. However, those same outlets failed to mention that President Barack Obama was used in prior recruitment videos by Al-Shabaab and ISIS.
Breitbart News has copies of previous videos released by both ISIS and Al-Shabaab. In those videos, which are excerpted above, Barack Obama is featured as a way to recruit anti-American jihadists for the Al-Qaeda affiliated group. The video also features British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Both Cameron and Obama are featured in the 2013 Al-Shabaab video as an example of how Muslims are in a war with the West. This is the same claim made in the just-released video that features Trump, showing that the argument made by Islamist terrorists that the West is at war with Islam is nothing new and is not based on recent statements by Donald Trump.
The use of President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Cameron in the Al-Shabaab proves that Donald Trump’s contention to CBS Correspondent John Dickerson that other people have been used in Al-Shabaab’s recruitment videos is correct.
However, in an article on CBS’s website, there is no mention at all that terror recruiting videos have used President Obama. The article says:
Dickerson then asked, “Does it concern you at all that you’re being used in essentially a recruitment video by a terrorist organization?”
“They use other people, too,” Trump said. “What am I going to do? I have to say what I have to say. And you [know] what I have to say? There’s a problem. We have to find out what is a problem. And we have to solve that problem
Such terror recruitment videos have been an ongoing concern for years, long before Donald Trump entered the presidential race. for example, the Al-Shabaab video was used to actively recruit people in the “Little Mogadishu” neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. As CBS Minnesota reported in 2013:
…there’s growing concern over a propaganda video just released that’s trying to attract more young men to do the same.
The FBI believes Al-Shabaab is responsible for producing and releasing a 40-minute video that follows three Twin Cities men on the path to martyrdom.
When the previous Al-Shabaab video was released in 2013, media outlets did not accuse President Obama of triggering terrorism or being used to recruit jihadists. In that case, criticism was reserved for the terrorists and not the people that the terrorists were attacking, but the current mindset of the media is so against Donald Trump and his candidacy, that they actually are sympathetic towards the terrorist point of view.
The mainstream media is merely following the lead of Democrat presidential front-runner and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. As Breitbart News reported, Clinton suggested at the most recent Democratic presidential debate that terror groups would be using Donald Trump as a recruiting tool. Mrs. Clinton said, “They are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.”
Clinton’s comments came after Trump issued a statement suggesting a temporary ban on U.S. immigration for Muslims following the jihadist attack that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California. At no point did Trump’s short statement insult Islam. Trump’s written statement did point out recent polling with alarming information about the beliefs of Muslims currently living in the United States:
“25% of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad” and 51% of those polled, “agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah.”
Hillary Clinton and her media allies may be trying to deflect attention from her own record as Secretary of State. As Breitbart News reported, worldwide Islamic terrorism has spiked sharply since President Obama took office, in no small part due to the policies of appeasement and support for the Arab Spring that were advocated by Secretary of State Clinton. The sharp rise in Islamist terror has previously been reported by outlets like the New York Times, but was not mentioned in any of the coverage of Mrs. Clinton’s attack on Trump by mainstream media.
The selective coverage of Trump’s appearance in the latest Al-Shabaab recruiting video is yet another example of the media’s antipathy towards Donald Trump and his Presidential ambitions. As Breitbart London editor-in-chief Raheem Kassam points out, Hillary Clinton has effectively become Al-Shabaab’s media advisor and both the terrorists and the media wasted no time in picking up on her cues.
For example, CNN reported:
The video purportedly by Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab uses historic civil rights era footage of firebrand Malcolm X and audio of 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump to label the United States a racist society.
In the Washington Post, an article titled “Donald Trump Featured in New Jihadist Recruitment Video” said:
The polarizing Republican presidential front-runner has become the recruitment fodder for another group of marginalized extremists.
A propaganda video released by the Somali-based al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabab includes a clip of Trump calling on the United States to bar Muslims from entering the country, according to news reports.
Neither CNN nor the Washington Post made any reference to the prior appearance of Barack Obama in terrorist recruiting videos, this leaving their unsuspecting readers without crucial information that would help them put the Trump appearance in context.
Nor does either outlet mention that Islamists have a long history of declaring the U.S. as racist and anti-Muslim. The jihads despise the West and everyone in it, from Trump to Obama and everyone in that vast space between those two men.
When President Obama’s took office in 2008, he spoke in Cairo, Egypt and called for a “new beginning” with Muslims in the Middle East. His new beginnning led to disaster and did nothing to make the jihadists like America or its leaders. As President of the United States, Barack Obama is still seen by Islamists as a symbol of what they have long referred to as “the great Satan.”
As the 2016 elections loom, it’s important to remember the words of Andrew Breitbart, who said “the media is the enemy.”
Rather than providing factual and balanced coverage, the in-the-tank media can be counted on to leave significant information out of their stories. It’s not journalism. It’s just one tactic in their attempt to help sweep the Democrats to victory once again in November.