Posted on 05/09/2026 6:22:24 AM PDT by Libloather
The man who ran security at 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and the 1996 Atlanta Games — where a bomber killed two and wounded more than 100 — warns that Iranian “sleeper cells” are likely plotting attacks during next month’s World Cup, as federal officials race to secure the 39-day competition.
“I’m fairly confident there are Iranian sleeper cells or surrogate sleeper cells, and this would be an incredible opportunity for sleeper cells to attack,” Former LAPD Deputy Chief Bill Rathburn told The Post.
His comments came after the feds warned about Iranian “prepositioned sleeper assets” in the US while the war with Iran raged. The fighting is down to a simmer after the US launched strikes on Iranian targets Thursday following attacks on three US ships in a response President Trump called a “love tap.”
Chris Swecker, who ran security for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, held in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, also pointed to Middle East turmoil as a concerning threat factor.
“There’s an animation around the sport to begin with,” said Swecker, who served as assistant director of the FBI. “You’ve got the presence of foes coming to the World Cup from different parts of the world. It’s not like it can escape the radar of terrorist organizations. It’s right there front and center.”
He cited the threat from “card-carrying terrorist cells, as well as the influence those that have been radicalized on the Internet.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The reason the 1994 WC was such a success was because the immigrants here went to the games to support their teams, like Italian-Americans who supported Italy (who unfortunately did not qualify for this World Cup).
And like me, who is sad that Poland also didn’t qualify, I actually was hoping to go to one of their games if they qualified.
Where are the TV cameras?
Why would they attack a Mexican city?
It will be jointly hosted by sixteen cities—eleven in the United States, three in Mexico, and two in Canada.
Going to Seattle Sunday for a20 day cruise! BON VOYAGE,
Is this World Cup a bigger event than the Superbowl?
I don’t know about the “vast majority.” Soccer ranks somewhere near the WNBA in terms of popularity amongst us natives.
My point was many people here don’t really care about foreigners. Fair enough. But add “Iran” to a story and now everyone wants to be the Guardian of All People We Usually Detest.
Yes, add security, metal detectors, bomb-sniffing dogs, and all that. Protect Americans.
Adding the Iran to a story is the equivalent of the leftists crying Halliburton at every turn during Dubya’s presidency.
They need new material. We have always been at war with Eastasia. Can’t they come up with a better boogeyman? At least with NK we could make fun of their leader.
Thank you for your reply.
Absolutely, the best defense needs to be assembled. The leadership of Iran clearly hates us, and likely has all sorts of ideas. I wouldn’t recommend that we ignore Iran.
It is the fear pr0n that accompanies every story tied to Iran that I find tiresome.
Again, we suffered for 444 days and lost good people in the bombing in Lebanon. Both of those attacks should have been cause for swift and brutal self-defense. Why Reagan didn’t bomb them to smithereens (Carter’s ineffectiveness needn’t be pondered) is puzzling. But that was then.
And sure, I have no doubt that Iran’s leaders are constantly scheming.
But Iran can’t hit Maine at 7,000 miles away. The countries Iran can hit seem to have no intent to address them - except for Israel. So why is this our problem to fix? We cheered on Trump’s “no more world policeman” stance prior to Iran. We should go back to basics.
As for Iran’s human rights abuses, if we took action against every such nation we’d never fix our own problems. Further, if we adopted a policy of military intervention based in a nation’s internal matters, we effectively OK some other nation attacking America over some perceived “human rights abuse” here, like the private ownership of firearms, free speech, and religious freedom.
You posed a VERY detailed list of Iran’s attacks a little while ago. https://freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/4370612/posts?page=17#17. I’m not trying to dismiss your list, and frankly I haven’t scrutinized it. You’re a noble FReeper and I’ll take it as goodness.
But I’ve seen lots of attacks ascribed to Iran by other FReepers that, upon investigation, are really from someone else and Iran just takes credit for it to pump themselves up.
I don’t want to underestimate Iran. But I don’t think Iran is this Massive Threat that SOME people - not necessarily you - present.
If I was Emperor, we’d be arming the Iranian citizens and facilitating them going full Ceaușescu on their leaders. That would create lasting change.
I don’t think that would be wise on their part. They are winning the PR war right now.
A profound, entirely true statement. Well done.
"...Again, we suffered for 444 days and lost good people in the bombing in Lebanon. Both of those attacks should have been cause for swift and brutal self-defense. Why Reagan didn’t bomb them to smithereens (Carter’s ineffectiveness needn’t be pondered) is puzzling. But that was then..."
This was something I struggled with for many years. Decades. I have finally concluded that, even with Reagan in charge just over a year after it happened, we simply lacked two things:
We lacked the equipment and capabilities needed to carry out an attack on Iran without significant loss of life...a different calculus that we face today where we DO have the equipment and capability.
Secondly, we lacked the nerve to do it. And I retrospect, after much thought, I am at peace with that. We simply didn't have the national resolve to move on Iran, even if citizens like you and I would have favored it, even with loss of life.
I was only a few months out of the military at that point, but even if I had been in, I still would have advocated. But I understand the national dynamic better now.
Iran may not be able to hit Maine with ballistic weapons, but they sure can hit Western Europe. They would not go that route anyway-they would bring in a bomb on a containership and destroy a large city with harbor facilities. (That is just my opinion, and I could be wrong. I just do not think they would launch missiles at us, even as they chant DEATH TO AMERICA in Iran.
I do keep in mind that we can determine exactly where the fissile material came from-every country with weapon-grade fissile material can be minutely identified by the residue of an explosion. We would be able to tell exactly who created that fissile material, as each country's refining process leaves a DISTINCT radioactive fingerprint. That is a fact. So If Iran thought they could give a weapon to some other proxy of theirs like the narco-terrorrists or what have you, and they set it off, we would know nearly immediately where that fissile material originated from.
I believe the Iranian leadership is insane-insane with power and religious fervor. So I in no way trust them to have that knowledge they would not escape blame as a deterrent.
To be clear-an Iran without nuclear weapons is a destabilizing threat, not a massive threat.
But an Iran WITH a nuclear weapon is not only a destablizing threat, but also a massive one as well.
I have gotten to the point where I don't have much patience with those who cannot understand this in the same way I do, but that does not free me from the intellectual requirement that I keep in mind not only that other people may be right on this kind of thing, but that also, I may be wrong. I have spent decades pondering it and thinking about it, but I do keep in mind that I can be wrong about it. In that light, I will try to keep things civil if I can.
But I also keep in mind that in war, the enemy has a say in things no matter the plans you develop to defeat them.
Has anyone here put the pen to the paper and done the math on the number of those killed by "proxy"?
It's not a rhetorical question. If 183,000 Iranians died in the Iran-Iraq War while we were supporting Iraq, were all 183,000 Iranian deaths from America, by "proxy"?
(If 183,000 Iranians died by at the hands of America by "proxy", do the Iranian people have any right to feel aggrieved at their loss? Seeing how Americans can cite with detail about the number of Americans killed by Iranian "proxy", does anyone here doubt for even a minute that we would not be throwing that 183,000 figure at Iran every waking moment of our lives, had they inflicted that kind of a loss on the US?)
Most importantly, we lacked the moral high ground.
In American history books, there was no Iran before 1979. It has to be this way, because 26 years prior to 1979, the CIA stuck its beak in that country's business and helped in the overthrow of its elected leader. That person who got tossed out in 1979 simply had no moral right to be there; he only had the approval of the UK and the Greatest Country in the World.
So time began in 1979, which makes it easy to refer to all of the world's problems as having begun at that time in history. Most importantly, it helps the Greatest Country in the World pretend that its hands are clean when dealing with Iran.
They're always planning.
https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/safety-act
The purpose of the Act is to ensure that the threat of liability does not deter potential manufacturers or sellers of effective anti-terrorism technologies from developing and commercializing technologies that could save lives. The program is managed by the Office of SAFETY Act Implementation within the Science and Technology Directorate. The Under Secretary for Science and Technology is the deciding official for SAFETY Act applications.
They murdered 241 American citizens in the bombing of the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983. (Only an infantile, ignorant fool would say "Oh, that was Hezbollah, not Iran." Hezbollah WAS and IS Iran. And so is Hamas.)
They directly killed thousand of our servicemen and women in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They made their choice in 1979 to break international laws and norms, so the "We lacked the moral high ground" argument is null and void. The "oh, our hands are not clean" argument goes for every single nation that has ever existed on the face of the Earth.
American hands aren't clean. The Israeli hands aren't clean. The British hands aren't clean. Saudi Arabia's hands aren't clean. Germany's hands aren't clean. Italy's hands aren't clean. The American Indian's hands aren't clean. The Mexican hands aren't clean.
Nobody's hands are clean, and most significantly, Islam's hands are filthily not clean no matter happened at some date or what time a cherry picked point on the calendar. Picking and choosing where you want to deploy that counter-argument makes zero impact on me.
And when Iran attacked our embassy and took American diplomats hostages, they surrendered any right to any pretense of sovereignty under international law.
They made their own choices, not only murdering thousands of Americans, but tens or hundreds of thousands of people all over the world through their proxies (which in Iran's case, means IRAN) in places ranging from Lebanon to Spain and beyond.
Where is the championship game scheduled to be played - LA or Dallas?!
There ya go, now you got the right idea.
Another hard stop at 1979. Go back a little further. (At least fake it.)
Was the coup in 1953 against "international laws and norms" or not?
How does the Greatest Country in the World come off holding other countries to a higher standard than we hold ourselves?
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