Posted on 07/07/2005 9:53:59 AM PDT by areafiftyone
An American terrorism expert says evidence shows so-called sleeper cells have been quietly plotting attacks like the ones that hit London Thursday, and that other cities across Western Europe might be vulnerable as well.
CBS News consultant, Col. Randy Larsen, director of the Homeland Security Institute, told co-anchor Rene Syler on The Early Show Thursday that he'd just read a report about "how Islamic terrorists are throughout Western Europe."
"Several times, we've discussed here, do we have sleeper cells in the U.S.? We think so, but we're never sure.
"But over 300 Islamic terrorists have been arrested in Europe since the '93 attack on the World Trade Center, many of them in the London area.
"Shortly after 9-11, they arrested some folks there who were making a sarin bomb, a type of nerve agent. They arrested people trying to build a dirty bomb. Just last year, they captured a ton of fertilizer in a warehouse that was going to be used to make a very large bomb, similar to what Timothy McVeigh used in Oklahoma City in 1995.
"So, there's no question that there's a large terrorist operation in London. And I think we see the result of that (Thursday). … It's clear it has all the earmarks of an al Qaeda attack."
Larsen noted that communications capabilities in the Washington, D.C., area have been improved since 9/11 to assure that "first responders" to attacks are able to use their cell phones.
But he says he learned in a trip to Scotland Yard after 9-11 that a key factor in fighting terrorism is to get things back to normal as soon as possible after an attack. Another key, he was told, is for affected areas to be resilient.
"We must not magnify the effects of these attacks," Larsen stressed. "We must not let the terrorist disrupt our lives."
He added, "A couple months before the attacks on the trains in Madrid, al Qaeda said that they were going to try to influence Spain's involvement in Iraq. And so, we must not respond to the terrorists in the way they want. So get things running (again in London) quickly."
Larsen says he wasn't "at all" surprised when he heard about the attacks: "We have been talking for quite awhile that a likely scenario was an attack on a subway system. It's an ideal place for a terrorist to plan one, and also doing it in a city like London, which is so dependent …London cannot operate without its subways and buses."
He also pointed out that, "Al Qaeda is a completely different organization than it was on 9-11. It's very fractured and splintered now. They have people who were trained by al Aaeda and received some funding and some logistical support, but it's pretty much up to those individuals operating in (different cities) to decide where and when to have attacks. It's a much different operation today.
"The way these folks work, they can go the logistics planning, to get the equipment they need and do the surveillance. Al Qaeda-trained people do a tremendous amount of surveillance to find the right targets, the right time of day or whatever. But then, you can put all those plans and equipment on the shelf, and then with one phone call, in as little as 24 hours, execute those plans."
You better fill your garter with more than a leg, sounds like you need to learn more about a date than you have in the past.
I have to wonder how many have filtered through our open borders along Mexico.
That released prisoners have been recaptured in Iraq or Afghanistan is known, documented and confirmed.
Armed, you are correct, I fear.
This statement tells us much:
"But he says he learned in a trip to Scotland Yard after 9-11 that a key factor in fighting terrorism is to get things back to normal as soon as possible after an attack. Another key, he was told, is for affected areas to be resilient."
"We must not magnify the effects of these attacks," Larsen stressed. "We must not let the terrorist disrupt our lives."
This PC world and Greed are going to kill us all.
But we do have this: http://www.memri.org/
While I may in fact agree with you, do not be so knee jerk in your reaction that you confuse Political Correctness with the United States Constitution.
Large numbers of FReepers blame most problems on PC and public schools. Religious freedoms in the US have nothing to do with PC.
"many of these nitwits are probably educable".
Most of them are highly educated. Many are Professors here in the USA.
You are aware though aren't you, that past released prisoners of Gitmo have gone back to Pakistan, Iraq, etc. and have been re-caught or killed because they have gone back to being enemy combatants.
Can't think of one that isn't. Not just in Western Europe, but anywhere in the world.
I wonder how many have come in under "Refugee Resettlement"
From: http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/511
"Muslims and Arabs are a relatively new part of the immigration nation USA. Zahid Bukhari, who has conducted a survey on political participation of Muslims in the US, calls them „the new kids on the block". But this does not mean that they are not significant. Islam has about three million adherents between New York and Los Angeles. The biggest concentration is at the East Coast, the Midwest, the South and in California (these and most of the facts of this part of the report are based on the research of Prof. Yvonne Haddad, Georgetown University, Washington D.C.; on her writings and an interview I conducted with her on June 21, 2002 in Washington). According to Prof Haddad, Islam is the fastest growing religion in the United States and by the year 2015 Islam will be the second largest religion in the US. There are 1209 mosques and Islamic Centres (which mostly is pretty much the same) in the USA, more than 60 percent founded in the last 20 years (according to information provided by the US Department of State."
I'm thinking of the Italians who've had their dresses over their heads over the recent CIA "kidnaping" operation in Milan.
I wonder how many lives that "kidnaping" may have saved.
We will only wake up when at least 100s of 1000s of Americans are slaughtered.
Thanks for the ping. Man, Squantos, did you ever touch all the bases. As usual, I’d like to add my two cents (not that I can elaborate on anything you said ... I just like to increase the value of the pot by a couple of pennies … :)
Every time I hear a news report about Natalee Holloway I want to spit nails. Were I her Mom, I would be indescribably grief-stricken, frustrated and angry. But how many people in this world are equally grief-stricken every minute of every day, for reasons equally heartbreaking … or much moreso? Do we even know the names of the three female Marines who were barbarically killed last month in Fallujah when a suicide bomber rammed their vehicle? I’m willing to bet that their pre-death assignments wouldn’t be classified as ‘party girl’ activities. Nor were the male Marines killed along with them spoiled, pampered, irresponsible free spirits, with parents of ‘social standing’, out looking for a quick score. Why are those murdered Marines simply nameless, faceless corpses, mentioned – anonymously – a couple of times and then forgotten by all but their family and friends, while Natalee Holloway’s name and face are being engraved on our national consciousness because of the tragedy of her disappearance? (Rhetorical question. I believe our answers would be identical.)
[Note: I performed a Google search under ‘Natalee Holloway’ and received 289,000 responses. I performed a Google search under ‘names of female Marines killed’ and ‘identities of female Marines killed’ and received ‘Your search did not match any documents’.]
Do me a favor. Close your eyes. Let’s think of America as the proverbial ship of state. Our ship is being attacked on all sides by enemies of all stripes. Some are terrorists from outside of our borders who see it as their destiny to bring us to our knees, with no limit on the amount of blood spilled in the process. Others live within our borders, and they envision a political ideology or a personal thirst for power as being far more important than the preservation of our ship from destruction, or from being overtaken by barbarians of the former sort.
While our ship is being mercilessly bombarded (from enemies in the distance, and from others on board) and is taking on water, some on board are simply looking through pretty pink binoculars, marveling at the grace and beauty of the water birds and ocean life they might chance to view and wondering if the intense smoke might be harming those lovely creatures in some way, completely oblivious to the noise and destruction around them. Others are attempting to find a way to communicate with the attackers in the hopes of reasoning with them and helping them to understand that what they are doing is actually quite detrimental to us. Others are battling among themselves over who should rightfully be sitting at the helm. And still others (most on this forum, I would venture to guess) are either looking desperately for weapons with which to return fire, or they are bailing with every ounce of their strength. The only problem for those who have chosen to bail is that the bucket that has been provided by the ship’s ‘leaders’ has no bottom.
This sentence from the article leaped off the screen:
Larsen noted that communications capabilities in the Washington, D.C., area have been improved since 9/11 to assure that "first responders" to attacks are able to use their cell phones.
Wouldn’t it be more prudent to secure the barn door, rather than bragging about the fact that, once the horses have escaped, you’ll have plenty of people on hand to try to round them up?
(pri-or-i-ty – noun – something that must be attended to before anything else)
I turn a deaf ear on reports of our ‘leaders’ bickering over how to repair the insolvency of the Social Security system. I turn a deaf ear to reports of our President and other G-8 leaders focusing their attention on funneling yet more money into corrupt African governments, or confronting the global warming mirage. I turn a deaf ear to the revelations of the Tom Cruise/Oprah Winfrey ilk. I turn a deaf ear to conjecture about how a .25 increase by the Fed will affect our twin deficits. I turn a deaf ear to any news report that includes the words ‘prisoners’, ‘tortured,’ ‘by’, ‘American’, and ‘troops’ in that order, and in the same sentence.
Being alive, and a citizen of a secure and sovereign republic, trumps any concerns I have about any of the above ‘crises’.
When one of our American ‘leaders’ begins talking about spending my tax dollars building a fifteen-foot tall, barb-wire-topped wall across our northern and southern borders, and placing a trained, armed American in a lookout post every quarter mile along those walls, I will listen.
When one of our American ‘leaders’ introduces legislation that (1) eliminates random airport and coastal cargo searches, (2) eliminates the term ‘illegal profiling’ from our national lexicon, and (3) only, but specifically, requires searches of anyone, or any cargo, that meets the rational definition of ‘suspicious,’ I will listen.
When one of our American ‘leaders’ formulates a viable means of confronting, or eliminating, the growing nuclear menace represented by China, North Korea and Iran – one that doesn’t involve taking them at their word – I will listen.
And I’m betting that I’m going to be hearing impaired for the foreseeable future.
~ joanie
One thing this attack got me thinking about is that here in the U.S. we have multiple major metropolitan cities as opposed to the small countries in Europe.
The point that Scotland Yard makes about getting back to normal is right on. Al Qaida will most likely try to use a nuke of some sort here. But even if it kills a hundred thousand people, we are such a huge country, we can keep going...if people don't become hysterical. This was said by the nuclear scientist Dr. Bill Wattenberg on his KGO radio show.
Another thing: we have less to fear from a tribe of savages than we do from an industrialized modern country who hates our guts, such as Red China. Depriving our citizens of their individual rights to things like guns or privacy will do nothing but help China when it gets ready to do something bad to us.
Ah, hello????
It'll never fly, Joanie. It makes much too much sense. Good ideas, well expressed.
Being alive, and a citizen of a secure and sovereign republic, trumps any concerns I have about any of the above ‘crises’.
Amen, lass!
When one of our American ‘leaders’ begins talking about spending my tax dollars building a fifteen-foot tall, barb-wire-topped wall across our northern and southern borders, and placing a trained, armed American in a lookout post every quarter mile along those walls, I will listen.
When one of our American ‘leaders’ introduces legislation that (1) eliminates random airport and coastal cargo searches, (2) eliminates the term ‘illegal profiling’ from our national lexicon, and (3) only, but specifically, requires searches of anyone, or any cargo, that meets the rational definition of ‘suspicious,’ I will listen.
When one of our American ‘leaders’ formulates a viable means of confronting, or eliminating, the growing nuclear menace represented by China, North Korea and Iran – one that doesn’t involve taking them at their word – I will listen.
Double amen, lass!
Thank you for some more of your common sense thoughts. I want a write in campaign started for something--supreme court justice maybe? ;)
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