Thanks for the heads-up, Mike.
This is yet another example of why, with advances in technology (which, unfortunately, make the world a 'smaller' place, and provide madmen with (1) the means to wreak havoc on others with much more impunity, and (2) the ability to ensure that their havoc affects multitudes more people than would have been possible during previous eras in human history), 'open societies' such as ours serve as easy prey for those with black hearts.
If the assertions in this article hold water, Moussaoui represents just another 'bad seed' who has so far been able to slip through the (ever-widening) cracks.
Yes, the holocaust of 9/11 was a wake-up call. Yes, we need to finally recognize that the dismantling, or emasculating, of our human intelligence networks after the (premature) declaration of the end of the Cold War marked the beginning of the era of heightened vulnerability. No satellite reconnaissance/aircraft reconnaissance, or any other modern intelligence machinery/technology, can ever replace the infiltration of hostile organizations by well-trained, duty-bound human intelligence agents.
It's time to perform CPR on our intelligence-gathering institutions. And, while we're at it, it's time to take a good look at the 'C' portion of our resuscitation efforts. The 'hearts' of the CIA/FBI have become so perverted as to render their originally-intended functions virtually unrecognizable. Just as is so often the case in the history of most (all?) federal agencies or programs of any duration, in the building of bureaucratic, or agenda-driven, kingdoms, the original purpose of the agency/program has been lost in the shuffle.
The CIA's original definitive mission was to collect, evaluate, and disseminate foreign intelligence to assist the President and senior policymakers in making decisions relating to our national security. The FBI's mission was to investigate violations of federal criminal law, to protect us from foreign terrorist activities, and to provide law enforcement assistance to federal, state, local, and international agencies. The definitions of both of those agencies have been so perverted, and their original intent so constrained by the infiltration of leftist ideology, that not only has our national security been potentially fatally compromised, but the very freedoms that these agencies were designed to defend have been placed in jeopardy, on occasion, by the Constitutional overstepping of the agencies themselves.
As regards terrorist threats from outside of our borders, even CIA Director Tenet said to his people, the day after the terrorist attack, 'The fight against those who use the weapon of terror to menace and murder is necessarily hard. The shield of fanaticism -- wielded by those ready to forfeit their lives to achieve their twisted dreams -- is not easily pierced.' Even the man whose charge it is to pierce the shield of fanaticism exhibits a tone of fatalism in his remarks.
That does not mean that we should throw up our arms in surrender to the black-hearted madmen. It simply means that we must do all that is within our power to shackle them, but we must lace our efforts with the necessary realization that such attempts to confine the madmen, within the necessary parameters of a free and open society, will not always be successful. The Catch-22 is that it is precisely the freedom and openness that we so prize that demands a degree of vulnerability from us in the process.
So be it.
An enemy that hides among his "moderate" coreligionists in the West in order to commit mass murder from hiding must not be surprised if the entire group is interned or expelled.
Self defense is a natural human right. If a mass murdring enemy hides perfectly among his group, the entire group must be rendered harmless.
If moslem arabs in the West are feeling put upon, tough s#!+. This is WAR! We must not permit the terrorists a "sanctuary" behind our lines.
Said as only you can say it, lass. Check your mail.