For those still befuddled about the motivation (yeah, we’re talking about you, Mr. Attorney General) for Faisal Shahzad’s bombing plot, his e-mails should put to rest the notion that it was financial distress that was at work:

“Everyone knows the current situation of Muslim World,” he wrote in an e-mail he sent to a large group of recipients in February 2006. …

“Everyone knows how the Muslim country bows down to pressure from the west. Everyone knows the kind of humiliation we are faced with around the globe.”

The e-mail continues: “It is with no doubt that we today Muslim, followers of  Islam are attacked and occupied by foreign infidel forces. The crusade has already started against Islam and Muslims with cartoons of our beloved Prophet PBUH (peace be upon him) as War drums.”

Shahzad was referring to the 2005 controversy in which a Danish newspaper published satirical cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed that many Muslims found offensive.”Can you tell me a way to save the oppressed,” Shahzad asked. “And a way to fight back when rockets are fired at us and Muslim blood flows? In Palestine, Afghan, Iraq, Chechnya and elsewhere.”

And then there is another e-mail that includes this suggestion: “If you don’t have the right teacher, then Satan should become your sheikh.”

Now presumably Eric Holder knows about these, and much more. And yet he still couldn’t bring himself to explain the motivation for the bombing plot. This is not simply a case of dimness or confusion on the part of the administration but rather intentional obfuscation. It is determined not to acknowledge who the enemy is and explain what is at stake.