In 2009, Carlos Bledsoe, a Bible Belt Christian converted to Islam and murdered Andy Long, a U.S. Army soldier, in Little Rock. The U.S. Government refused – and still refuses – to call it terror.
This American nightmare is now the subject of a stunning documentary, which shows that the first successful Al Qaeda attack on American soil since 9/11 was purposely not treated as a terrorist act by the Obama Administration.
The documentary, “Losing Our Sons,” will be the focus of a special webcast program on October 18th at 8PM EDT and can be viewed at the end of this article.
The film tells the story of how Carlos, a young African American college student raised in a middle class Baptist church-going home in Memphis, converted to Islam while studying in Nashville and was sent by local Islamic extremists to Yemen. There, he was trained by Al Qaeda operatives and returned home a year later to perform his personal jihad. After trying to kill two Jewish rabbis in Memphis and Nashville, Carlos shot and killed Andy Long outside a U.S. Army recruitment center in Little Rock. Carlos, who took the name Abdulhakim Muhammad was caught, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. He told the Associated Press the murder was “Islamically justified.”
Though Carlos was trained by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, crossed state lines to carry out multiple crimes, and confessed to killing Andy as part of his personal jihad, the Justice Department refused to bring any Federal charges against him. The murder was prosecuted in Arkansas state court as a simple drive-by shooting. The Defense Department has refused to give Andy Long a Purple Heart, which would signal that he died by the hands of an enemy combatant in a hostile act on a uniformed military man. The victims of the Fort Hood shooting are likewise denied recognition with a Purple Heart.
“Losing Our Sons” traces the stories of Andy and Carlos’s fathers, Daris Long and Melvin Bledsoe, as they try to tell the American people the truth of what happened to their sons. Audiences fume at scenes of Obama Administration officials denying in their testimony to Congress that Islamic extremism is at war with the United States. Melvin’s testimony about losing his son to a radical ideology is dismissed by certain Congressmen as “an anecdote.”
The special UStream webcast includes a live studio audience discussion with the two fathers, who talk about the murder, the U.S. Government’s response, and how they came together in their determination to warn the American people about the threat of radical Islam. Fox News’s Mike Huckabee interviewed the fathers on his show and emotionally recommended the film to his audience.
The film has garnered wide praise: “ACT! For America founder Brigitte Gabriel has called Losing Our Sons “riveting, powerful, educational, and a must see for every American.” Andrew McCarthy, who prosecuted the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing says that the documentary is “a wrenching wake-up call.” Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, insists that “the film stands as a warning to Americans about the consequences of a failing civic leadership.”
Americans are now watching the Arab spring turn into a winter with the Muslim Brotherhood in the ascendance across the Middle East. It is important to see how Islamic radicalism is making strides right here on American soil. Moreover, it is important to see how the Administration’s willingness to deny the reality of a resurgent Al Qaeda’s terrorism against America, now in the public eye because of Obama’s lies about the terrorist assault on our embassy in Libya, has actually been official policy for over three years.
By Charles Jacobs and Ilya Feoktistov, President and Research Director of Americans for Peace and Tolerance
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