Waiting For Trash Day

You know that you’re in trouble when national security policy starts reminding you of a Weird Al Yankovic song, “Even though the garbage I knew would reek...Thought that I could leave it for one more week”.

While many Americans were bemoaning the last tropical depression and fearing the next, Mahmoud Maawad was getting his pilot’s uniform tailored.

Despite being an illegal alien from Egypt, Maawad is a “student” at the University of Memphis. Arrested on charges of wire fraud and fraudulent use of a Social Security number, last week he was ordered held without bond after a September 9^th search of his apartment turned up an airline pilot’s uniform, a chart of Memphis International Airport, flight simulator software, a flight gear bag, several DVDs including “How an Airline Captain Should Look and Act,” and instructional programs on “airplane talk”.

You might think from this that Homeland Security is doing an excellent job of keeping you safe, but get ready to laugh because this is straight from an episode of the Keystone Cops.

Mawaad, whose taunting email address was “pilot747_200@hotmail.com”, entered the United States in 1998 on a visitor’s visa which expired in 1999. Illegally in the U.S. since then, he managed to obtain a fraudulent Social Security number which was then parlayed into bank credit and enrollment at the University of Memphis. You can’t fault the 29-year-old Mawaad for school spirit. In a line almost straight out of Animal House, he pledges that, “My school is everything. I stay in this country for seven years; I stay for the school." Hold on to those laughs.

Apparently the Tennessee-sponsored University of Memphis never bothered to issue Mawaad the required SEVIS (Student Exchange Visitor and Information System) document that proves foreign students have been cleared to study in the U.S.. SEVIS was instituted by the Department of Homeland Security to allow “DHS to collect current information from nonimmigrant students and exchange visitors continually during their course of stay in the United States.” Students like the ex-Mohamed Atta.

Even more absurd is that fact that Mawaad “was cited on March 11, 2005, by Memphis police for selling alcohol to a minor”. But, with all their laptop computers, moving into a new multimillion dollar “state-of-the-art facility”, pensions and benefits...did the Memphis police bother to find out if this guy was an illegal alien from Egypt (the home of 911 hijacker Mohamed Atta)? About as likely as the next winter Olympics going to be in Memphis.

For all of the good reasons that Mawaad should have been arrested years ago, none of them apply in this case. He was discovered because he stiffed Sporty’s Pilot Shop in Batavia, Ohio on the payment for his $3300.00 order. His debit card was overdrawn. Sporty’s, which previously sold training videos for large Boeing jets to 911 hijackers Mohammed Atta and Nawaf al-Hazmi in 2000, reported Mawaad after he stiffed them. That is were the fraud charges originate.

Four years and billions of security dollars spent after 911 and another Egyptian “pilot” is in America buying flight supplies from Sporty’s. Besides the ACLU and Norman Mineta, I can’t think of anybody else who would be happy at this news. If only America had the resolve to rid itself of foreign terrorists that it has for Katrina survivors buying Louis Vuitton handbags with Red Cross debit cards.

After the 1993 truck-bombing of the now open space formerly known as the World Trade Center, this country went Jersey barrier crazy for about six months and then we went back into hibernation. With the latest FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll finding that Americans are more concerned about a natural disaster than a terrorist attack, America is returning to the false sense of security felt between 1993 and 2001. And this is just what our little jihadist friends having been praying for.

Aside from making the Jersey barrier industry rich, not much else happened in the wake of the 1993 WTC bombing. “I would discourage the American people from overreacting to this,” President Clinton urged. So: (1) we didn’t overreact to that bombing; (2) we didn’t overreact to the 1994 Bojinka Plot; (3) we didn’t overreact to the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing; (4) we didn’t overreact to the 1998 Embassy bombings in Africa; (5) we didn’t overreact to the USS Cole bombing in 2000 and (6) we only overreacted temporarily to the September 11, 2001 attacks.

President Clinton never overreacted to anything until the American public overreacted to his taxpayer-funded human humidor hidden in the Oval Office. Our ex-president Clinton who now seems to relish his role as a B-rated Monday-morning-quarterback never did squat to fight the growing threat of terrorism that germinated under his watch. He was too busy using his missiles on aspirin factories and White House interns.

Mawaad is the second Arab (note that this is not a Midwestern grandmother) arrested in Memphis this year for terrorist-related activities. Previously, Rafat Mawlawi, linked to Osama Bin Laden, was nabbed. With two back-to-back arrests in Memphis alone, a reasonable person might suspect that Memphis is not the only spot in the country seething with terrorist garbage.

Perhaps it is time for Americans to “overreact” to a lack of reaction from the Department of Homeland Security to the threat of terrorists that still live among us. Liberals never seem to have overreaction problems when it comes to raising taxes, puncturing the skulls of the unborn or blaming the President for the Sun rising in the East. But...they go limp when it comes to protecting citizens from rapists, murderers and terrorists.

Why didn’t the University of Memphis properly vet this foreign student? Why wasn’t Mawaad uncovered when he was arrested for selling liqueur to a minor? Why was Mawaad in this country as an illegal since 1999 and nobody was looking for him? These are questions that need answers pronto. And...these are problems that need solutions ever sooner. It really is time for America to throw out the trash.

Meanwhile, it is reported that the 29-year-old Mawaad has joined Delta House. Sources overheard him lamenting, “Allah. Seven years of college down the drain. Might as well join the f...ing Peace Corps.”

Well, that sums it up.

"But, with all their laptop computers, moving into a new multimillion dollar “state-of-the-art facility”, pensions and benefits...did the Memphis police bother to find out if this guy was an illegal alien from Egypt (the home of 911 hijacker Mohamed Atta)? "

To be fair to the police, it still seems to be illegal for police to find out if somebody is an illegal alien. According to Bush, if I understand this correctly, this is an issue unrelated to terrorism, that only has to do with maintaining good relations with Mexico.

Mawaad is the second Arab (note that this is not a Midwestern grandmother) arrested in Memphis this year for terrorist-related activities.

What "terrorist-related activities"?!? Many great points lost when the author's histrionic sleight-of-hand is revealed. :-(

Some questions to ask...

What makes us think this joker isn't like the hordes of others in this country (incl. Arabs) trying to impress women by playing pilot or wanting to be a pilot?

Why would a terrorist (of the type implied by the article) buy a video on how to conduct takeoffs and landings? Is buying a leather flying jacket more the thing someone does to pose as a pilot for an attack, or something a fantasizing student would do?

Yes, they do. As does the question, "if this guy had terrorist ties, then why is he being nabbed now without the investigation of his ties ahead of time"? Wouldn't responsible law enforcement likely announce such an arrest only if they have nothing on him terrorist-wise, or they have something else up their sleeve? Seems to me, there's a lot of hot air implication, but not a lot of logic behind it. (Though I admit that there could be strategery going on...either by the terrorists or LEOs... :-)

If there is nothing to this then why was he detained based on the flight items in his apartment? Either there is more to this than we know, in which case the premise of the article is correct, or -- there is nothing here, in which case DHS and law enforcement is pretty incompetent. Either way, what are illegals doing in this country with no government agency caring about it?

"If there is nothing to this then why was he detained based on the flight items in his apartment?

The "flight items" were what he allegedly ordered and received but did not pay for."

If AlQueda is down to having to buy mail-order uniforms, flight training by Microsoft, and DVD's on "how to act like a pilot" with stolen credit cards ... I would say we are winning big time.

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