Posted on 08/11/2006 8:52:07 AM PDT by knighthawk
This time, the maniacs came very close to scoring a kill. This time, by all grim accounts yesterday unfolding, they almost pulled off what many terrorism experts believe was intended to be the next "big one" - the next 9/11. It is no alarmist exaggeration to say that thousands of trans-Atlantic air passengers owe their lives to the vigilance of the British anti-terror authorities who thwarted a plan to blow a skyful of U.S.-bound jetliners out of the clouds.
It is world war we are staring down the maw of here in these awful times. Deranged jihadists have struck in the United States, in Britain, in Spain, in Indonesia and elsewhere. And they mean to strike again, wherever they can, whenever they can. This time, they almost did.
Truly terrifying is the fact that the two dozen plotters in custody are young, British-born Muslims who lived, by all outward appearances, rather pedestrian and peaceful lives as everything from a student to a builder. So normal did they seem, they were granted entry visas to the U.S., with some of them professing the sincere desire to visit Disney theme parks or see the Grand Canyon. Yet they burned with the same fanatic obsession to destroy Western civilization as does Osama Bin Laden himself.
They are the product of the same poisoned seed from which sprang the London subway bombers, a seed that is sown and fertilized in too many mosques worldwide. Theirs is an apocalyptic mind-set that has been reinforced by the most deranged Islamic leaders. Lest there be any doubt, consider a passage from an Iranian high school textbook, recently cited by Princeton University scholar Bernard Lewis in The Wall Street Journal.
Quoting Ayatollah Khomeini, the book reads, "I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against the whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all of them."
No doubt, the British terror suspects are inspirational heroes to many around the globe simply for having, at least in the short term, semiparalyzed air travel.
Indeed, officials acknowledge that passengers will experience "inconveniences," and that's for sure. At Newark yesterday, for example, the lines at the security checkpoints ran six football fields long.
But otherwise, they failed. This time.
Granted the good fortune of having survived another malevolent scheme, we might even be a bit grateful to this bunch of jihadists if they have shaken us anew from the torpor and lassitude that all too routinely settle when things grow quiet.
... but the good guys won
And here we owe great thanks to the British for busting up a plot that could well have caused more death and destruction than occurred on 9/11. MI5 showed extraordinary vigilance - months of it, the biggest manhunt in the country's history, as anti-terror operatives closed in on their quarry with every high-tech gizmo at their disposal.
Since before last Christmas, it is now learned, MI5 and New Scotland Yard and several other agencies have been working closely together, monitoring Internet sites frequented by known bad actors, identifying everyone who visited those sites, whittling that list down to a specific set of suspicious characters, then tapping phone calls and e-mails and analyzing the back-and-forth message traffic - finally even fitting out the suspects' automobiles and motorbikes with satellite tracking devices, the better to follow them everywhere they went, day in, day out.
In short, great police work, exactly the sort of eavesdropping and data-mining techniques that here in the U.S. get so loudly fussed at by those misguided souls who railed against telephone data-mining by the National Security Agency, and against warrantless eavesdropping on suspicious international calls, and against letting a judge issue a warrant so the law could listen in on any phone that a suspected terrorist chose to use.
Had MI5 not monitored Web traffic and tapped 70 cell phones, quite likely the terror bunch would have smuggled explosives aboard airplanes and blasted several thousand innocents to oblivion. The Brits smartly did just what they had to do. American law enforcement must have all the same weapons. It is well to remember that, in this war, the terrorists need to succeed only once, while we must succeed every time. We cannot afford to lose even one battle.
Ping
I saw the title and thought this was an article about the Democratic party!
This cannot be said often enough or loud enough. The Reids and Polosis and Kennedys of this country must be shunned for the fools, idiots, and tools of the enemy that they are.
Dems, terrorists--same thing. They work toward the same goal--bring down the US and the west. Of course, after that they diverge on who should be in charge...
We are going to reach a point where we will have to decide if there is any living with such a murderous ideology. I know where I stand.
The public has the right to know EXACTLY how this catastrophe was averted so the New York Times could list the counter-terrorism tools at the disposal of the British, so the terrorists would know how to go around them next time.
You know what Lenin said about "useful idiots".
I shudder to think what would've happened if the NYT....
Saudi Arabia and Iran can fund it.
Seriously, if second and third generation Muzzies are capable of being made into Jihadis (and we even have some in Dearborn) then there are going to be some serious issues coming to a head in the next few years. Things like expulsion will need to be considered. It's like having Nazi supporters in our midst, and free to travel, during WW2. As I recall, anyone like that would be rounded up and held in WW2, if we knew about them. Devout Islam is the same as being a fervent Nazi--it says everyone else is inferior, and tells you to defeat them, take over their countries, and kill them or force their submission, before imposing a horrific legal system on them.
They are talking about you here?
LOL!
I am so popular these days.....my name is thrown all over....on BOTH sides of all issues...
;-)
What a great idea. Any ideas on how to prove someone is a Muslim?
Unbelievable.
Carry a copy of the Koran and whenever you suspect someone might be Muslim drop it on the ground and whiz on it and watch their reaction.
Ping
What's going on right now is that we are trying to avoid doing the things that need to be done to deal with an internal enemy that is motivated and violent. It is against our nature to do those things. If law-abiding, patriotic Muslims are lucky (and if there is any such thing), the US will continue to be successful in the war on terror, and we will stop these plots and won't institute the kinds of things that a society has to to survive.
If they unleash a terrible attack on the US, all bets are off. What most people don't understand at this point, but may eventually, is that the problem is not with a few radical Muslims, but with Islam. This conduct is inherent in the religion. Good Muslims are not good citizens. Until Islam reforms and follows a doctrine that permits of coexistence with the rest of the world, this problem will remain. Even if it does reform, there will always be originalists who may not go along.
Long term, the ideology must be defeated. Most people scoff at Karl Marx's theories today, the dialectic and the dictatorship of the proletariat and all that poppycock. Socialism remains as a theory of organizing a society, but it is being attacked by free-market proponents who we are hopeful will someday win over the vast majority of the populations of an expanding list of free nations.
We must make Islam, Muhammad's delusions, as silly to average people worldwide as the idea that the state would fall away, or that it is held on the back of a giant turtle. That is how we win, not by making them feel respected, but by expanding our ideas and our civilization, and making everyone better off, smarter and in awe of what we have accomplished. Hopefully, we get there after decades of low-level war that we win. If radical islamics get hold of weapons or undertake operations that inflict unacceptable damage to us, we may need to be more active in eliminating the threat. That we do not do so right now, while we are unquestionably able to do so, is testament to our morality, not to their strength or value.
And for all the reasons of history the so called Islamic Terrorists or jihadists , for those who want to soft peddle them to history, fit all the characteristic of a fascist movement which shine across the years from Europe to inform us:
1) The use of indescriminate violence to achieve fear foisted by a minority on passive majorities.
2) A doctrine of superority vested in an ideology of racism and religion.
3) Am identifuication with a geographic area in which their land is sacred only to them and no other.
4) The philosophy of genocide.
5) The goal of unconditional conquest of those considered inferior.
6 ) The seizure of political power by their minority in nations which do not respond in kind with violence to control them.
7) The goal of forming an axis of nations in which they have seized power to establish , fund, promote, and equip themselves for world conquest using all available weaponry, including weapons of mass destruction.
8) The subversion of the ignorant to their purposes through mindless indoctrination, bombastic public speeches by leaders which mesmerize their Muslim audiences, justified by a philosophy of inhuman self righteousness.
9) The indoctrination of youth during their formative years to become weapons of the movement.
10) The total disregard for the preciousness of human life, whether their own or their so called inferiors.
I could go on. But these so called jihadists fit the fascist definition so well that they even have taken up the physical equivalent of the Zeig Heil salute which haunts us still from the corridors of European history.
It is the wisdom of history which calls out to us in the words of Winston Churchill, for the upcoming clash of our Western civilisation with theirs:
"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old." Let us fight them before they achieve their Axis. And let us make short, dirty work of it as our founding fathers would wish us to do.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.