Carson's Silence On Mumbai Attacks

U.S. Rep. Andre Carson's office issues a statement on just about everything these days. In recent weeks, his office issued a statement recognizing World AIDS Day, announced an economic recession, applauded Obama's national security team choice, congratulated Barbara Lee on her election as Congressional Black Caucus Chair, observed the passing of Obama's grandmother and saluted our veterans, among many others. Noticeably missing from Carson's lengthy list of public statements was a reaction to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India last week, which U.S. intelligence believes was committed by a Pakistani militant group with ties to Al Qaeda and which left close to 200 hundred dead and hundreds more injured.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said there is no doubt the terrorists targeted Jewish institutions. Six Jewish victims were bound, gagged and shot to death in the attack on Chabad House in Mumbai. Olmert described the images from Chabad House, including pictures of the murdered victims wrapped in prayer shawls as "shocking" and tak[ing] us back to events that we pray never recur." Two-year old Moshe Holtzberg, shown above at his parents' funeral, likely witnessed the brutal killing of his parents. He was rescued by his nanny, who found him crying next to his parents' bodies. His mother was six months pregnant.

As one of only two members of Congress who is Muslim, Carson should speak out forcefully against these horrific terrorist acts carried out by extremist factions of Islam. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), America's largest civil liberties group, issued a tepid condemnation of the terrorist attacks, which ignored the fact that Jews were targeted by the attacks. "Witnesses say the attackers sought out American and British citizens," the statement read. CAIR helped organize a fundraiser in D.C. for Carson when he first sought election to Congress in a special election to replace his grandmother in Congress earlier this year.

Last week's deadly terrorist attack in Mumbai is a reminder that nothing has changed since the election of Barack Hussein Obama. Islamic extremists still harbor hatred towards Jews, Americans and Westerners in general and will stop at nothing to prove their point. Until moderate Muslims become more forceful in their condemnation and step up their efforts to root out these extremist factions within their religion, the senseless killing will go on.