Bullshit.

    I'm sorry for the language but this is bullshit: "'American troops in the Middle East were surprised to be shot at from the minarets of mosques,' Lopez explained, because the troops thought mosques were merely religious buildings like Christian churches."  [Emphasis mine.]

     That'd be Clare M. Lopez, "an intelligence expert with a focus on the Middle East," which she might be; but I guess she never saw many episodes of Combat or any movies about thge Allied invasion of Europe in WW II in which -- I'm sure you remember this -- church steeples and bell towers are shown to be a favorite of snipers and observers. This is basic, basic stuff.  Not knowing it is a fine example of Gell-Mann ammnesia and casts a huge cloud over claims of expertise.

     In the unlikely event that the statement is true, who are the idiots training and leading our troops and why are they unaware of the danger presented by high points offering good visibility, concealment and possibly even cover?  Nooooo, that's not happening.  That stuff is so basic there's no way what she says is true.

     Clare is one of a dozen women called out -- all but hitlisted -- in a SPLC hit piece (complete with scaaaary drawings, just in time for Halloween) about anti-Islamist women.  Okay, fine, opinions on all sides, okey-dokey, but the SPLC bit does look kinda like an assassination politics brief, which is not okay or fine.  Flipsidely, the quote above is from a PJ media story that also includes references to the "mosque" (it's not a mosque) "at" Ground Zero (nope, a block or two over) -- and yeah, that is irksome but you're living in a country with a First Amendment and still some notion that property-owners have some (a little) freedom in what they do with their own property; if that's unworkable for you, the war's already over and we lost.

     Is there a threat of bad guys doing bad things small and large, sometimes as part of wider schemes by larger groups?  Damn skippy there is, and a lot of 'em pray five times a day, too.  Scare-mongering from either side isn't how you stop 'em; it's sure not how you whup 'em.  Let them be jumpin' at shadows, while we remain calm and stop them when they try to start.  Oooga-booga, terrorists, I'm an average American woman and I'm armed and trained!  Yeah, baddies, nearsighted, fiftyish spinsters with literary pretensions are on to ya -- think how much worse for your evil dreams the rougher folk must be!