Posted on 05/08/2010 7:41:09 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
At this point, the Department of Homeland Security might want to reconsider the proposition that veterans, gun rights activists and people upset about illegal immigration pose the greatest threat of domestic terrorism. A DHS intelligence assessment released to law enforcement agencies last year warned that right-wing extremist groups were advancing their recruitment efforts among such crowds. Not that white supremacists and militia goons don't deserve close scrutiny. Given their rhetoric and propensity for violence, it would be foolish not to keep a wary eye on them.
But it would be even more foolish if you were a president or a Cabinet member or a leader of Congress to gin up the threat they pose, to impute to your political opponents their repulsive beliefs, to smear citizens peaceably exercising their constitutional rights with accusations of bigotry, and all the while avoid any mention of a more serious threat you refuse to name.
Last month, the Associated Press reported the Obama administration was rewriting the National Security Strategy, the central document of U.S. national security policy. Out are references to Islamic extremism. In are nondescript terms that gloss over radical religious sources of terrorism.
There are good reasons to take care not to stigmatize groups because of the actions of a few of its members. But one wonders why the U.S. government wouldn't show the same sensitivity to, say, veterans, gun owners and people upset about illegal immigration.
Of course Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano had already consigned the T-word to the dustbin of history. At her confirmation hearings last year, she refused to describe al-Qaida plots to attack the United States as terrorism. Instead, she referred to them as “man-caused disasters.”
In an interview with Der Spiegel, Napolitano explained that the suppression of the T-word was intentional. “We want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.” Preparing for all risks is smart. But it's idiotic to suggest that the guy in the camo jacket at the tea party rally somehow poses a greater risk of man-caused disasters than the threat that cannot be named.
That is how you fail to prevent Nidal Malik Hasan from killing 13 people despite warnings about his behavior from Army personnel, despite his Internet postings that endorse the nobility of martyrdom attacks and despite his correspondence with a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen linked to al-Qaida.
That is how you fail to prevent Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from boarding a plane bound for the United States despite his father's warning to CIA personnel that he had become radicalized, despite an unusual sojourn in the al-Qaida hotbed of Yemen and despite his tutelage under the same extremist cleric.
And if the suspect's own statements are to be believed, that is how you fail to prevent Faisal Shahzad from parking an IED in Times Square despite his recent five-month vacation in Pakistan during which he claims to have received training in bomb making, despite the Pakistani government's belief that he was in contact with Islamic militants, and then allow him to board a flight for the Middle East despite being under surveillance and being placed on the man-caused disaster no-fly list.
At a February hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, President Barack Obama's director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, warned that al-Qaida had made it a high-priority to carry out a large-scale attack on American soil within six months. As with Northwest Airlines Flight 253, only dumb luck prevented Times Square from becoming a worse tragedy than Fort Hood. Shahzad's attempt isn't the one Blair was talking about. To stop that one — the big one — will require more than dumb luck and a head-in-the-sand attitude toward Islamic extremism.
National Security Strategy (or lack thereof) Ping.
ping.
“Sunday, June 07, 2009
OBAMA APPOINTMENT: Arif Alikhan, Asst Secretary DHS
Arif Alikhan, currently deputy mayor for the city of Los Angeles, was appointed as assistant secretary for the Office of Policy Development at the Department of Homeland Security.
Muslim Democrats welcome Alikhan’s appointment
At a banquet/fundraiser for the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California last weekend, the first speaker was Arif Alikhan (Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles - in charge of public safety for the city). He bid farewell, as he is going to take a post as Assistant Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security. Arif Alikhan is a devout Sunni and the son of Pakistani immigrants....”
play up fake extremist christian terrorist
play down islamic terrorist
Yup!
Sorry I’m late, but I was just thinking:
After you say, WE KNEW THIS BEFORE THE ELECTION, what more is there to say?
This administration has done EXACTLY what they said they would do down to the nubbins. We knew where zebam’s loyalties were. We KNEW he deliberately took a muslim name. We KNEW he intended to stand with the muslims come hell or high water.
Now that it is becoming apparent to the public at large, every leftist who backed, and still backs, this destroyer of nations should know that we see them as traitors to this country and when they strike, we will destroy them...because they will not go quietly.
We will defeat them at the ballot box, but they will not accept that. They will become violent. We had best be ready for it.
HEADS UP. A post is to follow within an hour or three . . . another somewhat typical yet intensified warning plus a lot of links to such things . . . including the web bot link.
Why the arrogant P O S send Napolitano to Nashville on Friday is beyond me.
END TIMES PING LIST PING LEVEL ONE . . . MORE SOBERING THAN MOST . . . AN ABOVE AVERAGE SERIOUS WARNING AND A COMPILATION AND LIST OF LINKS . . .
Will be changing the planned post to this thread:
Probably within an hour, or two.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2510019/posts
Thanks for the ping!
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