The Alarm Clock

An open letter to the New York Times on the matter of Ahmed Mohammed and his hoax bomb, which he claimed was an electronic project

by Giuseppe Furioso

THE TIMES, like the rest of the media, was “played” by a fourteen-year-old from Texas named Ahmed Mohammed (pictured). Of course we now know it wasn’t a bomb — but did his teacher know that when she saw it in her classroom? It supposedly was, as he said, his “invention of an alarm clock.” It began to beep in class. This aroused his teacher’s suspicions since it was encased in a suitcase with all sorts of wires connected to what appeared to be electrical circuits. Based on the photo of it, not one person in a thousand would have suspected that it was an “invention of an alarm clock” and neither did his teacher, who rightly notified security officials. I strongly suspect that this was his intention from the start, judging from his “wise-ass” demeanor. He played both school officials and police like a virtuoso.

Here’s a proposal for all those liberal pundits who have lionized this little bastard and vilified the school and police: If you have a child about his age, have him carry a similar object through an airport — he’d be taken down immediately and the area would be evacuated and cordoned off until the bomb squad arrived.

Do the same thing at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport and your kid would be immediately shot and killed. This actually happened last year when an Israeli Army captain emptied his gun into a nine-year-old Palestinian girl who strayed too close to one of Israel’s security checkpoints carrying nothing more than her school briefcase — a briefcase that wasn’t even beeping or concealing a homemade alarm clock. When asked if he had any regrets about what he had done, the Jewish captain said he would do all over again.

Sincerely, Giuseppe Furioso

P.S. I am a former high school dean, and our entire school was once evacuated when a teacher found an alarm clock connected with a few wires to some black rods taped together on her desk. The kid who did it was caught and arrested. He did not say it was his science project.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Bravo, Giuseppe. We should also say loudly that no one named “Ahmed Mohammed” should be living in any of our nations in the first place.

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