Posted on 06/08/2002 9:07:51 PM PDT by mhking
Coast Guard warns of terrorist threat in Puget Sound
06/08/2002
The Associated Press
SEATTLE - The Coast Guard warned Saturday evening of a potential terrorist threat to maritime interests around Puget Sound.
Based on information received across the U.S. Government, there is a credible threat to maritime interests from swimmers and divers, Lt. Scott Casad of the Coast Guard Marine Safety Office Puget Sound said in a release.
He said the Coast Guard had told local port officials and maritime business owners to be on guard for suspicious activity.
No further details on possible targets or what triggered the warning were released. Casad did not immediately return a phone call Saturday evening.
The warning followed one from FBI national headquarters on May 23 that various terrorist elements have sought to develop an offensive scuba diver capability.
FBI agents have been questioning scuba diving instructors in Washington and around the country about any suspicious activity, including students interested in learning about underwater demolition.
Also, the Washington State Patrol last week was making random vehicle searches at public ferry terminals. The searches were done on the advice of the Washington State Ferries Security Committee, made up of staff from the Coast Guard, State Patrol and ferry system.
The Coast Guards Casad asked Saturday that any suspicious maritime activity be reported to the Coast Guard Marine Safety Office Puget Sound, at (206) 217-6230 or 1 (800) 688-6664.
The reason i ask is because all of this 'color coding' stuff (which by the way is too darn complicated for most) and reporting every single 'warning' sounds to have several Achilles heels! For example the risk of over-saturation of the authorities with 'warnings.'
Anyway tell me if you have some effective appliable method (and i emphasize appliable).
"A yellow alert is in the middle of the range indicating "significant" risk of attack. The next level, orange, could prompt calling in armed forces to back up law enforcement, and the highest alert of red would warn of a "severe risk" of terrorist attack."
Blond islamoborgs with a stolen uniforms and ids would be the best profile for a sneak attack.
Osama bin Laden and his pals have demonstrated that they are intelligent and savvy enough to engage in psyops and disinformation campaigns against the American people. I believe they will try to strike when and where it is less, if not least, expected.
I have alwasy posted that the current trend of focussing on Arab looking males might actually be expossing the US to an attack. Most people do not know this, but most Muslims are NOT Arab!
And in certain areas eg Chechnya and the Balkans, you will find caucasian muslims who engage in openly terrorist acts. For example al Queda is said to have connections with the separatists in Chechnya!
What if one of these men came over here (or to Canada and then here)! Trust me they would pass through our checkpoints like a hot knife through butter since no one is looking for them!
Or maybe a Sudanese African Jehadi (UBL spent years in the Sudan, and he has linkages there).
Or maybe an Indonesian belonging to Abu Sayyef (which also has links to al Queda).
Just concentrating on Middle-Eastern Jehadis is foolish, especially when you consider that al Queda and other similar groups are basically guerilla terrorist groups, meaning they will try to take advantage of any perceived weaknesses. And it would be stupid for them to use Arab looking men on a plane hijacking since everyone and their granny seems to be wary of that!
I only pray that the FBI/CIA are ensuring that they are looking at the other more subtle alternatives (because it is IMO that a takeover of a civilian airliner by an Arab Jehadi is next to nil)! It would be weird for them to attack a target that is now relatively better protected!
And yes, i think the whole airport makeover came too late! And that the risk of non-Arab looking Jehadis is being ignored (which in my opinion would eb the most sagacious plan of action since few associate 'Islamic Terrorist' with a blue-eyed blond haired male)! Yet there are chechnyans out there associated with UBL!
And all these threats reported on TV are really not helping much because
a) They saturate the authorities with too many objectives (and make the deficient in meeting other obligations...eg i doubt the FBI will be able to get bank robbers and lower-level serial killers anymore since they are too busy making sure no terrorist is 'drilling tunnels' or 'building spaceships' or whatever 'threat' is in vogue).
b) Secondly there is a chance that continuous warnings that never occur will desentisize the American public. Think of the story of the boy who cried wolf, one to many times. I do not think in Israel they have 'color coding' from amber to magenta to sarunni! (And by the way, instead of all those colors why not a simpler numer system, from 1-5, with 5 being something big and 1 being something 'eheard on the grapevine').
Anyway I hope the Feds know what they are doing (although i feel sorry for the position they find themselves in .....they have to ensure nothing else happens, and then at the same time they are oversaturated with tasks! and now they have to join forces and intergrate with other groups that have disimilar organization plans than they do! Talk about a hard job!)
Unfortunately, that's just the price you have to pay. Unfortunately, privacy in public has to compromised (among other things) when we have jihadis infiltrated among us and apparently still trying as we speak. It's necessary. Absolutely. What choice is there.
Actually, it is not necessary. If our $2T/yr gov't would divert funds from the Urban Breeder Program and pay attention to who is crossing our borders, and paying attention to them once they are here, we would not have to have the WHP conducting dragnet searches of citizens, and the Feds running credit checks on every airline traveller.
Then again, if you want a 1984 style of police state to go with our IRS, this is the perfect excuse. Makes me sick that I voted for GWB and by extension Ashcroft, Maneta, Powell, and all the other morons running our new police state.
We all have to pay to travel on one of those ferries. We have no more right to travel on one of those ferries than to walk into a five star restaurant bare footed and bare chested and claim to have a right to eat when the maitre d tosses your butt out the door for not meeting the dress code.
Wrong!
The ferries are run by the WADOT, and is a state agency. You have every right to be on a ferry, provided you are in compliance with the fares, and carriage of HAZMAT, and the proper licensing of vehicles.
What you are talking about is Alaska Airlines, which is a private entity. They have the right to deny you passage.
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