Posted on 12/30/2004 2:08:16 PM PST by Marine Inspector
Carloads of Muslim New Yorkers, all U.S. citizens, were detained for hours by federal agents after they returned from an Islamic convention held in Toronto over the weekend. A Pace University student said she was asked by a border patrol officer at the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge crossing whether the wire in her bra was a weapon. A white Flushing resident said U.S. officials refused to tell her why she was being held for eight hours.
"It's just appalling," said Jean Tassi, 53. "If I didn't have on a head covering, I would have never been stopped."
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection official said agents acted on intelligence that conventioneers may have terrorists in their cars.
"We understand that most of these conferences are legitimate, but it is our duty, it is incumbent on us to verify the identity of everybody entering the U.S. - even citizens," said Kristi Clemens, a Washington spokeswoman. "I understand their frustration."
More than 30 people had attended "Reviving the Islamic Spirit" convention at the Skydome that was billed as a spiritually uplifting event.
"I refuse to be treated like this in my own country," said Miriam Soliman, 20, a Brooklyn-born finance major who said she was interrogated about her underwire bra.
I see.
Those planes just drifted off course and hit the WTC and the Pentagon ...
All we know about you is what we read.
I had a Texas license at the time also. It didn't help that I was traveling with my brother, and amongst us we owned an AK, a Bushmaster, a Beretta, a Ruger .44, etc., etc.
Okay, I think you are bluffing.
It is time for you to go public and contact the IG equivalent in your chain of command. I'm sure we can read about it in the MSM ...
Hell I get stripped down to my drawers every time I get on a plane (I have enough pins, screws and other hardware in me to build a small ship)
If they just fingerprinted and photographed me--I'd consider that a relief.
I also seem to remember that the 9/11 people were Muslims---not Swedes. Any problem I had with profiling ended on 9/11.
I've seen Muslims in cars crossing at the Port of Roosville (into Montana) that had Canadian tags that were not even given a cursory inspection while non-muslims had their cars pulled apart.
I'd love to hear the explaination for that.
You should be thankful that you have a job. I am retired military also an I expect more from a Marine. Yes there were idiots at the place mentioned and some professionals also. You and I both know what we represent and should always present a good image and bearing. I was a professional and took pride in training the students. I will not make any more comments about you, the funning is over. I do ask that you take it easy on my brother and sister freepers. We all have something good to contribute and how we do it is what enlightens us all. NSNR
"Osama bin Laden just got top muslim clearance to use a nuclear weapon on Americans."
Like he has the capability ?
Like he needs clearance ?
Like if he had one and didn't get "clearance" he would care ?
Like if he had one he would be waiting around before lighting it off ?
It means nothing to Islamists. If foreign-born, their US naturalization oath is a lie. If native born, they've "expatriated" themselves through membership in a movement dedicated to America's destruction.
I would have preferred these Jihadists' US passports were inspected with a paper shredder. Should have let Canada keep them.
Various ID's can be forged. Apparently, fingerprints are the accepted ID.
"Various ID's can be forged. Apparently, fingerprints are the accepted ID."
So lets print, and wait for results, EVERY citizen...
(of course foreigners who do not have fingerprints on file can get in no problem )
Cry me a river, Muslims.
Get out of my country, or stop complaining
post-haste.
Explain your idiot "religion" and why you
support it , and need to travel from this country
to a nearby one not so very friendly to us, to attend
a stupid=ass conference which is probably very similar
to an EST Cult meeting, with the threat of global bloodshed added as an essential ingredient.
Just what the world needs, Islam preaching to its own
already-converted with a "spiritually uplifting" message for "today". You should be asking global forgiveness for the fact that practitioners of your religion are fast becoming the global blight of the 21st Century.
Al Qaeda Leader Received Religious Justification to Use Weapons of Mass Destruction
An Islamic religious ruling that had been kept from the public for a year-and-a-half granted Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders permission to use nuclear, biological or chemical weapons against the United States and its allies. The existence of the ruling, or fatwa, was revealed by Michael Scheuer, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who headed the agency’s Bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999 during the course of a November 14 broadcast of the CBS news show Sixty Minutes.
The fatwa was issued by a prominent Saudi cleric on May 21, 2003, and is an ominous sign that bin Laden and al Qaeda no longer accept moral or religious values obstructing the use of weapons of mass destruction.
After the September 11 attacks, bin Laden was criticized by many Muslim clerics for attacking the United States without adequate warning. Scheuer, the author, as “Anonymous,” of the recent book Imperial Hubris: How the West is Losing the War on Terror, said bin Laden may now believe he is immune to similar criticism if a similar attack were launched against the U.S. with weapons of mass destruction.
Michael Scheuer CBS PhotoFatwas have been used several times in recent years as justification for anti-Western fervor and terrorist acts including several issued in the late 1990s in defense of Palestinian suicide bombers. These rulings actually served to support the English term ‘homicide bomber’ as the fatwas declared that such an attack was not, in fact, suicide but a “holy” act. Osama bin Laden himself issued a notorious 1998 fatwa on “Urging Jihad Against Americans.” According to Mohammad Faghfoory, a professor of Islam at The George Washington University, Osama bin Laden does not have the mainstream religious authority to issue legitimate fatwas despite his popular appeal. As bin Laden himself is not a religious authority, he has depended on Muslim clerics supportive of his terrorist methods. By providing this legitimacy, these fatwas play an important strategic role for bin Laden and his movement.
Sheik Nasir bin Hamid al Fahd, the cleric who granted the decree concerning WMD, is part of an ultra-conservative trio of Saudi religious leaders that has been relentlessly criticized by the Saudi government for inciting terrorist fervor and supporting terrorist organizations. According to a London-based, Saudi-owned newspaper, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, al Fahd, and his two colleagues, Ali al-Khudayr and Ahmad al-Khaladi, are part of what is known as the “Salafi Jihadi” trend. This movement is part of the recent emergence of a self-proclaimed “utterly pure Islamic model” that began to appear in the late 1990s, at the same time the Taliban regime emerged in Afghanistan. The Salafi School was formed in order to reply “to any criticism of the Taliban’s measures that did not enjoy the approval of prominent scholars of the Islamic world.” The movement simply served to justify any actions condemned by mainstream Islam. To them, the Taliban regime was the most legitimate representative of Islam and anyone who joins the cause of fighting international terrorism, i.e. dismantling Al Qaeda and the Taliban, is an “infidel”.
Al-Arabiya TV station aired a statement 7/29/03 from an Iraqi group calling themselves the Salafi (Fundamentalist) Jihadi Group. The group warned that its members would fight against America. In addition to the fatwa discussed recently by Scheuer, the “Three Takfir Sheikhs”, as they are known in the Arab press, meaning that they accuse others of being infidels, have published several other inflammatory edicts. According to Peter Valenti of the World Press Review, in his January 15, 2004 article, “Renovating the House of Saud”, their numerous decrees have “sanctioned arm resistance against the government”. In a tripartite fatwa released to coincide with a Saudi government hunt for 19 suspected terrorists, the Takfir Sheikhs claimed that “it is categorically forbidden to let down these mujahidin [freedom fighters] - the 19 wanted persons- to stand against them, defame, help those working against them, or report them.” According to Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, al Fahd is also extremely radical in his other writings. In “The Truth About Civilization”, al Fahd claimed that “there was no reason to be proud of all the achievements made by Muslim scientists in chemistry, medicine, and mathematics, because they were deviants and heretics.”
The Saudi government stepped up security and anti-terrorism operations across Saudi Arabia after September 11. All three sheiks were arrested in Mecca in June 2003 after their fatwas were connected to several acts of terrorism and anti-government activity in the country. Sheikh al Fahd is the specific cleric who granted Osama bin Laden and other terrorists carte blanche permission to use weapons of mass destruction. The 25-page document, translated into English as “A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction against Infidels” (Risalah fi hukm istikhdam aslihat al-damar al-shamel didh al-kuffar), published on May 21, 2003, resolves several specific moral dilemmas involving the use of WMDs including “the permissibility of attacking the polytheists by night, even if their children are injured” and “that these weapons will kill some Muslims”. Al Fahd meticulously solved these dilemmas, and many others, with his own interpretations of the Qu’ran, the sayings and deeds of the Prophet Mohammed and his companions and the rulings of past Islamic scholars, in order to eliminate any doubt towards the moral justification, and even the moral necessity, of utilizing weapons of mass destruction in the fight against the United States.
Osama bin Laden.First, al Fahd denied that international law, which strongly condemns the use of WMD, should be taken into consideration. Islamic law, in al Fahd’s view and other Islamic extremists, overrides any man-made laws. To the question of whether a nuclear attack would defy the Islamic tenet “that the basic rule in killing is to do it in a good manner”, al Fahd argued that this rule has exceptions in that “one kills in a good manner only when one can”. Following the radical cleric’s logic, it is permissible in certain circumstances to kill women, children, and fellow Muslims in pursuit of waging jihad.
These arguments aside, the basis of al Fahd’s case for weapons of mass destruction seem to be a perversion of the biblical tenet “eye for an eye”. According to al Fahd, an attack against the United States “is permissible merely on the basis of the rule of treating as one has been treated. No other arguments need be mentioned.” He has not described which actions would warrsant such a response, mentioning only “recent events” in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Al Fahd justified the mass casualties and destruction that would be expected to result from an attack of this nature. He wrote in the fatwa that “some brothers” have provided an estimate of the number of Muslims killed by American weapons to total almost ten million; therefore, an attack against America that would take an equal amount of lives is permissible. In his own words, “if a bomb that killed ten million of them and burned as much of their land as they have burned Muslims’ land were dropped on them, it would be permissible, with no need to mention any other argument. We might need other arguments if we wanted to annihilate more than this number of them.”
Al Fahd was criticized by Dr. Ayid al Qarni, a respected cleric and preacher, when both appeared on Saudi national television on November 22, 2003, according to a BBC news report the next day. In response to his colleagues criticism, and because of his self-proclaimed “shock” after the May 12, 2003 terrorist bombing in the Saudi capital of Riyadh that ripped through a large apartment complex, killing 23 people, including nine Americans, al Fahd contradicted many of the statements he made in his earlier fatwas, including the one concerning WMDs.
Al Fahd told television viewers that he “demanded that this interview be conducted to acquit myself of such actions and so that people will know that we do not approve of such acts, which are prohibited.” When asked by al Qarni whether he regretted issuing any of his previous fatwas, al Fahd stated that “yes, there are many fatwas...which contained unbridled enthusiasm, generalizations and mistakes.” However, many Saudis question the sincerity of his statements, as al Fahd was still in prison when he first began to retract his previous fatwas. It is largely acknowledged that the intelligence community believes that Osama bin Laden and his fellow terrorist leaders have a strong desire to obtain weapons of mass destruction for attacks against the United States and others. Traditionally, terrorist groups have been more focused on garnering attention for their “cause” and less on mass killings.
A 1999 GAO report noted that the CIA “estimates that terrorist interest in WMD is growing, as is the number of potential perpetrators.” Furthermore, it was revealed in a 1998 grand jury investigation relating to the African embassy bombings that bin Laden “was seeking nuclear weapons and materials, as well as chemical agents.” Some question whether al Qaeda has the ability to acquire such resources and technology, while many are confident that they both can, and have.
A Congressional Research Service report released in 1999, “the key obstacle to building such a weapon is the availability of a sufficient quantity of fissile material - either plutonium or highly enriched uranium.” It has been widely reported that highly enriched uranium (HEU) is the material of choice when building a nuclear weapon because it is easier to handle and safer than plutonium. There are hundreds of tons of HEU around the world including large stockpiles in Russia. The amount needed for a basic device is about 100 pounds, enough to fit into eight soda cans.
Osama bin Laden’s pursuit of HEU from Africa, Europe, and Russia was revealed in the February 2001 testimony of former al Qaeda member Jamal Ahmad Al-Fadl in the trial United States v. Osama bin Laden et al., for the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa.
The specter of “loose nukes”, nuclear weapons materials and technology that have been leaked from the former Soviet Union, potentially ending up in terrorist hands. Scheuer himself, during a November 2004 press event, claimed that al Qaeda decided that procuring the plutonium and technology necessary to build a nuclear weapon had proven to be too difficult, “so they’re after a kind of off-the shelf device, if they could find one.” The former Soviet Union would be the most likely place to find such a device. It is an extremely foreboding development that the moral and religious backing to use these weapons serves to overcome yet one more obstacle that stands in the way of a devastating attack.
Although it appears al Fahd may, at least publicly, be backing away from his support of such acts, it is unknown whether bin Laden will also reconsider their moral legitimacy, or if al Fahd’s retraction will have any effect on reducing terrorist acts. Scheuer is skeptical that it would help to reduce attacks, as the vast majority of people in Saudi Arabia and the Arab world tend to believe that the cleric was forced by the Saudi government to make the statement.
The Arab public sees al Fahd’s retraction, Scheuer explained, to be part of the “typical Saudi shell-game”. There is also the sense that these fatwas are a symptom, rather than a cause, of terrorist sentiment. As Muhammad al Mahfuz, a prominent writer on Islamic affairs, stated in a November 24, 2003 article in Al-Sharq al-Awsat, the sheikh’s “step is not enough. The reason for (the fatwa) remains.”
Islamic hatred towards America is as hot as the fires of hell.
Now you sound bitter.
Tell me, what would you do if you received a BOL on a white, late model Chevy Lumina diven by a 30 year old white male, blonde, blue, 5'11", 170 pounds, American citizen, suspected of murdering his family possibly fleeing to Canada?
Would you be on the lookout for this suspect or would you refuse to profile 30 year-old, white males with blonde hair, blue eyes and driving white Chevy Luminas as long as they're American citizens?
"Tell me, what would you do if you received a BOL on a white, late model Chevy Lumina diven by a 30 year old white male, blonde, blue, 5'11", 170 pounds, American citizen, suspected of murdering his family possibly fleeing to Canada? "
Probably not much - he should be watching people coming IN to the US ... hopefully the Canadians got the word on the outgoing...
I had a Texas license at the time also. It didn't help that I was traveling with my brother, and amongst us we owned an AK, a Bushmaster, a Beretta, a Ruger .44, etc., etc.
Jeez, you didn't tell them, did you? I figured what I didn't have in my possesion was none of their business and they couldn't check it anyway.
No let's print and wait for results, of every citizen who attends a convention when there is existing intelligence that says that the conventioneers of that convention may have terrorists in their cars.
(of course foreigners who do not have fingerprints on file can get in no problem )
Yes, and of course terrorists who have finger prints on file will be identified.
If there is a perp heading to the Canadian border why should the CBP not be looking for that person?
________________________________________
This is one of the most understated and overlooked threats in America - C.A.I.R.
"No let's print and wait for results, of every citizen ...."
Don't you think there is a problem here when you have allready identified that person as a citizen ?
... and what if there were foreigners in the car who are terrorists who do NOT have their fingerprints on file ? ( like 911 ? )
I am.
I am retired military also an I expect more from a Marine.
I hear this all the time and it truly bugs me. It's the same as the Civil Service tow the line thing.
Because I'm a Marine and a Civil Servant, should I not speak out against what is wrong in the Government? I took an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I work for the people of the United States, not GWB or his worshipers. If he or any of other Government employee does something good, then I will praise him. But as the Commander in Chief I hold him responsible for all the goes wrong.
Yes there were idiots at the place mentioned and some professionals also. You and I both know what we represent and should always present a good image and bearing.
Agreed, and I don’t see myself as not presenting a good image. Being silent to the corruption things you know goes on every day in the Government is not presenting a good image, IMO.
I am by far the most respected officer at my port. I am always polite and professional in all my dealing with the public and have been reward for doing so. I am also the biggest thorn in managements side, because I cut them no slake.
I was a professional and took pride in training the students.
I’m sure you did. IMO, the most professional instructors, were the physical training and tactics instructors.
I will not make any more comments about you, the funning is over.
Thank you. I will do the same.
I do ask that you take it easy on my brother and sister freepers.
I only return what they dish out. If they want to have a genuine discussion, then I would appreciate it. But as you can see, most do not.
My reason for posting this was not to defend or berate the CBP or the Citizens involved, but to point out that I think this is a bad president to set. The vast majority of posters here have no clue what my job involves and what the law allows me to do or not do. IMO, what these CBP officers did, was contradictory to everything in 8 USC. Maybe the Patriot Act allows for this, I don’t know. If it does, it should have been put out in a memo to everyone, informing us of the change in the law, but as I’m sure you know, it never works that way. We usually find out about news laws by reading the morning paper.
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