For the past two weeks, Alabama and the rest of the nation have been forced to watch the mainstream media try to thrash a dead horse back to life, and for no perceivable purpose. A fake news aficionado knows this can mean only one thing: a hidden agenda is afoot.
So it is with the ISIS bride of Hoover.
Americans woke up last Monday to see Hoda Muthana’s name splashed across the pages as if she had just made a major move similar to her secret trip to Syria in 2014. But had Muthana physically done anything worthy of a national news story? No. Nothing.
She simply decided that it would be great to leave the honeymoon hellhole she entered five years ago as a Jihadi bride. So, all of America was shaken awake and instructed to remember a forgotten woman and sigh with relief that she no longer thinks we are the great Satan of the West.
Media treatment then ensued with stories of Muthana’s “deep regret” of joining ISIS terrorists and promoting the bloodletting of Americans. Pictures were posted of her with her toddler son, the offspring of dead Jihadi husband #2, husband #1, who lies dead in Syria, and husband #3, who is alive, but not named or identified by Muthana.
A video interview was aired of Muthana at the refugee camp in Syria. There are thousands of stories to be told of women and children who survived the ISIS reign of terror but, lo and behold, Muthana and other Jihadi brides were selected as subjects by a left-leaning UK newspaper, The Guardian.
Real victims be damned, they’ll tell you who to feel sorry for.
Don’t forget the lengthy headlines with their rehabilitative words. Here’s my favorite, via ABC News:
The real reason for all of this emotional stage-setting and humanizing effort is fully unveiled when Muthana’s father filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in an effort to bring the ISIS bride back to the United States.
Americans have been subjected to a cleverly crafted media rollout, initiated by shrewd lawyers who know that it’s better to get control of the narrative with a humanizing effort for your client than be the subject of another independent reporter’s story and slant.
Imagine the headlines if this lawsuit had been quietly filed in court and someone inclined to real reporting wrote a simpler, more factual headline: “Man sues United States government to bring terrorist woman back to Alabama.”
That’s not going to sit well with the average patriotic American or the current administration.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says she’s not coming back. In fact, Muthana has no documentation due to a 2016 decision by the Obama administration to dissolve her citizenship. Her parents were sent notification of that while she was on a Jihad vacation in the Middle East.
Yet, a legal showdown on citizenship is underway.
This case raises a key question as it heads to an expedited court hearing with its claims that birthright citizenship should allow Muthana’s return.
Is citizenship such an absolute, immutable right in our republic, that any sane adult can simultaneously choose to reject their own country and citizenship, while also being assured that they will never lose it?
How does that actually work? Is an adult’s personal choice not really ever a legitimate permanent choice should unforeseen negative effects develop down the road? That is exactly what happened to Muthana when joining the evil enemy combatants.
Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) said she should be brought back and put on trial (as if living in Syria wasn’t 10 times more punishment than the worst prison in the U.S.). His first-announced senatorial challenger, Representative Bradley Byrne (AL-1) believes she has forfeited all claims to whatever citizenship she may have had. The reactions I have witnessed of fellow Alabamians is to sympathize with her rash mistake, but side with Byrne’s opinion.
Any ruling in favor of Muthana would seem to set a very dangerous precedent for a new form of boomerang citizenship; no matter what the citizen does to throw it away, it will still come back to them.
A court decision in Muthana’s favor will send the message that not only is it easy to ensure birthright citizenship, but anyone can grow up and commit treachery against the country with absolutely no concerns for natural consequences of losing that citizenship or the privileges it provides.
Andrea Tice is the director of the Yellowhammer News Radio Network
