On November 18, Scott Eric Kaufman, an assistant editor at Salon, clearly thought that he had identified easy objects for ridicule in Megyn Kelly and former radical Muslim fundamentalist Morten Storm.
Kaufman ridiculed Fox as "nightmare fuel for elderly white people who just want to celebrate Christmas" after Storm, a former al Qaeda terrorist, predicted that "within the next two weeks, we will have an attack" on U.S. soil on a "softer target." Kaufman really ought to be more careful about whom he mocks — but then again, he's at Salon, where there's apparently no accountability, or sense of shame.
Here is the subject November 17 Fox News interview (HT to an emailer):
Transcript (cleaned up from rough draft here; bolds are mine):
... our next guest, a former member of al-Qaeda and Yemen who was once so entrenched in terror, he was trusted with finding Anwar al-Awlaki a wife, says that not only does he think the U.S. is likely next on the list, but that an attack on American soil is likely to unfold over the next two weeks.
Morten Storm is a onetime terrorist turned CIA double agent. He is co-author "Agent Storm: My Life Inside al Qaeda and The CIA." Morten, thank you for being here. Why do you put such a specific time frame on it, two weeks?
MORTEN STORM, FORMER CIA DOUBLE AGENT INSIDE AL QAEDA: I do it because the people who are on the run at the moment, from ISIS in Europe are very desperate. And they know that time's up. And they will need to do as much damage as possible. And for that I believe that, within the two weeks, next two weeks that we will have an attack in Europe again we have just seen in German now in Hanover that there's very strong evidence that German authorities have stopped a terrorist attack. So, it's quite severe in Europe now. And I also believe that copycats in America will do their best to do what their brothers have done in Europe.
KELLY: Because I know you believe that -- and you've worked with them, you know these people, in their minds, America is the real trophy.
STORM: Yeah, you know, when I infiltrated these people. You need to understand their mind, you need to understand you know, the mentality of them, how do they think, in order to predict what they want to do. And that was my success in my work. You know, I was one of the best. So that's why I am saying quite confidently that I believe that something within the next two weeks will happen.
KELLY: Could they do something in your view as coordinated here in the states as we saw in Paris?
STORM: You see, it's a bit different from over there because your borders are quite more tight. But you have also a lot of weapons like handguns, machine guns, that people can get hold of. And we have seen that before that you have lone wolf attacking, you know, the barracks, from the army and other places. But I think this time, we can also like target the civilians such in, you know, shopping malls or other places like we have seen in France.
KELLY: How conscious do you think they are of the fact that we're going into a holiday season here in America that happens to be a religious holiday for many millions?
STORM: Yeah, but that's what they want. This is terrorism. So, the terrorist wants to scare, wants to make people afraid to live a normal life. So what they do is to -- to terrorize them mentally, so they're too afraid to go outside. You know, Prophet Muhammad said in Hadith, in Sahel Bugatti, and this one here. He said -- victorious by terror. This is the same for Prophet Muhammad which 99 percent of all Sunni Muslims follow. So he said it in this book here, "I have been made victorious by terror." So what he means is he terrorized his enemies so they were scared. Even if they were not there but they were just scared of him.
KELLY: There's no thought whatsoever. They don't follow any conventional battle lines. There's no women and children exception. I mean, they go shoot up anybody.
STORM: Yes. Again, I would quote from here because I do not want people to think that I am saying something from my own mind. In this book here, Sahih Al Bukhari, Hadith number 3012. A book number is book of Jihad - - it says that it is permissible if it serves to cause to kill women, children and babies --
KELLY: Is this radical Islam? Is this what you're talking, radical Islam?
STORM: No. You know, this is fundamentalistic, this is literally in the book. This is in the book. So, this is not me saying it or somebody else. This is Prophet Muhammad who orders and "I say it's permissible to kill civilians, even children and babies if it justifies the cause."
KELLY: I mean, Morten, how is civilization supposed to combat a group like that?
STORM: See, that's what I'm trying to call for a reformation of Islam. Islam is to be reformed. Islam is today, it's violent, it's intolerant and very dangerous to the whole world. It's a supremacist, you know, ideology, which has the aim of being totalitarian like taking over the world. I mean, let me just quote something from the Koran here. You know? This is Surah number eight Al-Anfal verses 39, and it says, "And fight them until there is no fitnah -- means disbeliever of the religion — besides Allah, and the religion, along with me for Allah." So, in Islam, in the Koran, Allah encouraged the Muslims to keep on fighting until there are no (other) religions left. That means everything is left out.
KELLY: Every non-Muslim is -- and every non-Muslim needs to be eliminated.
STORM: So, I do not understand. I do not understand how we make peace for these people as long as they believe in this.
KELLY: Morten, thank you.
Storm was inaccurate in one respect, when he spoke of "copycats in America will do their best to do what their 'brothers' have done in Europe."
The statement itself isn't technically wrong, but it's incomplete, as it has become clear women have been involved in these attacks, including Tashfeen Malik, who "is said to have posted a pledge of allegiance to ISIS around the time she and her husband killed 14 people Wednesday" in San Bernardino.
Maybe Scott Eric Kaufman will ridicule Storm for missing that angle — because we can be quite confident that he will never have the maturity or integrity to admit that events have proven that a guest appearing on the eeeeeevil Fox News actually knew what he was talking about.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
