Walid Phares
says even Obama has admitted that we're falling down on the job when
it comes to fighting the war on terror.
In 2002, one would-be
shoe bomber forced millions of travelers to take off their shoes.
In 1996, terrorists planned to bring down aircraft on transatlantic
flights by smuggling liquid explosives onto plane. They were
thwarted but they succeeded in preventing passengers from bringing
liquids into airline terminals.
Lesson number one: In this terror
war, the jihadists have the upper hand. THEY are in charge.
THEY are the ones who choose to use a new weapon and they are also the
ones who -- by using simple logic -- have refrained from using the same
terror weapons more than once. In fact, since September 2001, Al
Qaeda’s henchmen have avoided rushing into the cockpit of an airliner
with box cutters. Does this mean we were successful in deterring
the terrorists? Of course: as long as we can prevent them from
using the 9/11 methods, they won't be naïve enough or foolish enough to
repeat the same strategy. So are we winning the fight with Al
Qaeda by using these measures? No, we are simply protecting our
population until we win the war. But winning is not measured by
surviving potential copycat attacks.
Instead, this war will be
won by striking at the mechanism that produces the jihadists. And
on that level, we haven’t won this war either under the previous
administration nor under the incumbent one. For, as Obama admitted
late last month after a near-terror attack on Northwest Flight 253,
there is a "systemic failure" in our defense against the jihadi
terrorists.
In my analysis, it has to do with the refusal by our
leaders -- based on the opinion of their own experts -- to attack the
factory that produces terrorists and instead to wait passively until the
jihadists show up at our country's ports of entries.
We have
been fighting this war inside our own trenches and often behind our own
lines of defense. Preventing Al Qaeda’s zombies from killing our
airline pilots and flight attendants by securing cabin doors with steel
and installing machines to detect liquid, creams and potential
explosives is like fighting an invading army inside our own trenches and
neighborhoods with bayonets. If anything, it means that our
strategists have no way to remotely detect this threat and they can't
even decide what is and isn't a threat until it actually strikes us or
is a few inches from us. It is a pretty ironic situation when the
grand narrative of our government is that we are fighting terrorists or
extremists (pick your word, it has the same conclusion) in Waziristan,
Afghanistan, and beyond, so that our defense perimeters are thousands of
miles away.
So are we wrong to institute any of the security
measures? No, we need to take all possible measures to secure the
population, but we also need to take them in the framework of a grand
strategy to defeat the threat. And in this regard we do not have
one. The jihadists are monitoring our actions, our measures and I
do assume also are comfortably spying on us and looking into the deepest
of our security mechanisms. After the Nada Prouty and Nidal Hasan
penetration cases no one can convince me that neither Hezbollah nor Al
Qaeda haven’t deployed more agents throughout our national security
apparatus. The enemy knows our defense strategy, and some would
argue that they are already inside our walls. As we’re learning --
constantly and dramatically -- the so-called "isolated extremists" are
not that isolated and those believed to be "lone wolves" are in fact
part of a much greater, well-camouflaged packs. The jihadists are
way ahead of our security measures -- even though we need to apply them
nevertheless.
In the wake of the Abdulmutalib terror act the
Obama administration announced that any travelers flying into the United
States from foreign countries will receive tightened random screening,
and all passengers from "terrorism-prone countries" will be patted down
and have their carry-on baggage searched before boarding U.S.-bound
flights. The list includes Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria as well as
those travelling from Nigeria, Pakistan and Yemen. But here is the
problem: In the jihadi war room, this was duly noted. Thus, the
next human missiles will be selected from the "other" countries, and
there are many countries where combat Salafis are indoctrinated and
readied: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Indonesia
to name a few, by the way all U.S. allies. Even better, the jihadi
strategists could task recruits with German, British, French as well as
Australian and Canadian passports to wreck havoc in our cities.
The past year has shown us that the jihadis can also emerge from North
Carolina, Illinois, New York and other states all across the land.
Most likely the "emirs" of Al Qaeda will recommend dumping the use of
powder to blow up planes, and soon another Zawahiri tape will rail at us
for spending millions on a path they won’t use for a while.
As we
move to implement our mammoth security measures, the swift men of
jihadism are already mapping out the endlessly open areas of our
underbellies. In strategic terms we’re not going even going
anywhere near that direction, it is a dead end. The Al Qaeda
jihadists will keep coming, each time from a different direction,
background, with a new tactic. And they will surprise us.
Unfortunately, that is the price of a national security policy that
identifies terrorism as a "manmade disaster" and jihadism as form of
yoga.
Dr.
Walid Phares is the Director of the Future Terrorism Project at the
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the author of The
Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad
Terror Attacks Raise Tension Between Obama
And GOP
Byron York
says that while the White House celebrates the capture of accused
Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, some of the people most involved in
fighting terrorism in the United States are very, very worried.
On Wednesday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs rejected the suggestion
that Shahzad's ability to
travel to and from Pakistan, train with the Taliban, and place a car
bomb in the heart of New York City represented a "systemic failure" of
the nation's security agencies. (That's what President Obama said
happened in the case of Crotch
Bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.)
Far from seeing failure,
Gibbs saw reason for celebration. Shahzad was found quickly, he
pointed out, with federal, state and local authorities working together.
"So in many ways, we want to celebrate the success of, rightly so, of
what law enforcement was able to do," Gibbs said.
Tell that to
Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence
Committee. "These guys continue to be in denial," Hoekstra says of
the White House. "We're just a couple of smart people away from
having 300, 400, 500 Americans killed. We have to express our
appreciation to the FBI and the New York Police Department for capturing
this guy, but our focus should be on how he got to Times Square and
almost blew up an SUV loaded with explosives. That's not success
in my book. Success would have been identifying this guy and
making sure he didn't get to Times Square."
Particularly
troubling to Hoekstra and other committee Republicans is the confusion
over what U.S. authorities did or did not know about Shahzad before the
bombing attempt. The New York Times reported that in 2004, after
Shahzad sold a condominium, agents from the government's Joint Terrorism
Task Force questioned the buyer about Shahzad. There have also
been reports that Shahzad was in e-mail contact with radical Islamists
abroad and was on a Department of Homeland Security travel watch list.
But still other reports say American officials knew nothing about him.
What's the truth? "It's hard to believe that with this guy's
profile, he didn't leave some kind of footprints in Pakistan that you
would hope that we picked up somewhere along the line," Hoekstra says.
In other recent terrorist incidents, we learned from post-attack
investigations that U.S. officials knew about the perpetrators
beforehand. In the case of the
Fort Hood shooting that left 13 people dead, officials knew Maj.
Nidal Hasan had exchanged e-mails with radical Yemeni cleric
Anwar al Awlaki, had written
Internet postings justifying Muslim suicide bombings and had made
troubling statements to co-workers. Yet even after Hasan went on
his murderous rampage, Obama was slow to publicly recognize the attack
as Islamist violence and the Pentagon later tried to whitewash the story
in its official report.
After the Christmas Day airline bombing
attempt, we learned that U.S. officials had received a tip from
Abdulmutallab's father about his son's extremist views, that
Abdulmutallab's name had been in a terrorist database and that U.S.
officials knew he had been trained in Yemen.
Now there is Shahzad.
While the White House suggests that Americans "celebrate" his capture,
Hoekstra and fellow Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are
growing increasingly frustrated about what they see as the
administration's refusal to tell Congress what's going on. On
Wednesday, all nine Republican members sent a letter to Obama protesting
what they called the White House's deliberate withholding of critical
national security information.
"A clear pattern has emerged," the
GOP lawmakers wrote, "of the administration refusing to provide
requested briefings or information or to engage with us despite repeated
requests on issues such as Guantanamo, the Fort Hood attack, the
Christmas Day attack, Yemen, critical issues involving the [foreign
intelligence surveillance court], and now the Times Square attack."
Obama has made a new approach to terrorism one of the key features
of his presidency. He no longer calls the nation's anti-terror
effort the War on Terror. He has reached out to the Muslim world.
He has banned what the Bush administration called "enhanced
interrogation techniques." He has vowed to close Guantanamo and
supports granting full American constitutional rights to foreign
terrorists.
Yet the attacks and attempted attacks continue.
And everyone knows it was luck, and not anti-terror work, that prevented
American deaths on Christmas Day and in Times Square. Republicans
want to know what went wrong and are becoming increasingly angry at a
White House that is keeping details of the case to itself.
And the author forgets to mention
the Little Rock and
Bronx Bombers jihadis.
The jihadi attacks and conspiracies are occurring at a rate of one per
month. Sooner or later Americans are going to die -- and Obama
will be directly responsible.
Barack Obama Chamberlain
Allen Hunt
says that in the words of Dr. Phil, "How's that working out for
you?" Someone in Obama's inner circle of advisors needs to ask the
president that question and soon. In the wake of a new immigration
policy debacle, and yet another homeland security collapse, how's that
policy of appeasement of Islam working out for you? In Barack
Obama, we are witnessing the second coming, not of Christ, but of
Neville Chamberlain himself, the embodiment of appeasement.
In
the 1930's, Neville Chamberlain earned great praise from his own party
and from large numbers of the British people for his earnest willingness
to avoid war by believing Adolf Hitler. Each time Hitler
proclaimed like a child before a plate of Oreo cookies that one more
piece of land would sate his appetite, Chamberlain accepted Hitler at
his word and patted himself on the back for avoiding armed conflict.
As Hitler moved in to seize Austria, Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of
England, acquiesced. As Hitler set his sights on the Sudetenland,
Chamberlain negotiated a worthless settlement that he presented as a
basis for "peace in our time."
Unfortunately, Chamberlain's
appeasement policy left England weak and unprepared for war, thereby
making Churchill's task of waging war against Hitler all the more
difficult. Crafting foreign policy, combating tyranny, and staring
down evil are not for the faint-hearted. Wishing away a problem
rarely works; ask any addict. Relying solely on one's supernatural
powers of persuasion usually leads to delusion, failure, or worse,
collapse. In fact, this tall task of confronting evil requires a
strategy of strength rather than a policy of appeasement.
Regrettably, the latter seems to be the bailiwick of Obama.
We
have now witnessed a supposed "re-booting of America's image" in the
Muslim world as inaugurated by Obama's much ballyhooed Cairo speech.
He and the First Lady have treated us to Muslim celebrations and
declarations in the White House for Ramadan. Obama has hosted an
"Entrepreneur Summit" for Muslim leaders. He has issued paeans on
the inspiring splendors of Islam, "one of the world's great religions."
Obama has even gone to great lengths to praise an Islamic cartoonist for
creating pretend superheroes skilled in the art of collaboration and
peace, skills supposedly rooted in the Koran. Meanwhile, American
cartoonists at South Park live in fear of actual violence and censorship
as Comedy Central quivers at the mere threat of terrorist loons like
RevolutionMuslim.com and Faisal Shahzad. Perhaps Mr. Obama could
help inspire cartoonists in his own country not to fear telling the
truth about Islam rather than encouraging a Kuwaiti cartoonist.
Thus far, it looks very much like Barack Obama is channeling his inner
Neville Chamberlain. Appease and wish the problem away. So
far, not so good.
In the past six months, to name just a few
examples, America has experienced:
• A full-frontal terrorist assault on
one of our own military bases by Major Nidal Hasan. This
attack occurred in spite of the numerous red flags over the past
decade as Hasan made his way through American government-provided
education and military training.
• A near disastrous
airline terror attack by Umar the Crotch Bomber on Christmas as his
plane prepared to land in Detroit. The savior from that attack
was a Dutchman who dove across the aisle of the plane to smother
Umar and his flaming underwear. Never mind that Umar had
purchased a one-way ticket with cash, carried no luggage, and had
spent time in terrorist training. Secretary Napolitano's team
somehow had allowed him on a plane and never given it a second
thought -- "the system worked.".
• The planting of a
car bomb in Times Square by a man who had been on our watch list for
ten years, had received citizenship from our immigration
bureaucracy, had recently spent five months in Pakistan, and had
trained with terrorist groups. Somehow, Napolitano's excellent
leadership allowed the team at JFK airport to screen thousands of
passengers on a day while failing to detain Faisal Shahzad, a wanted
terrorist who walked right through security and onto a plane to head
home to the Middle East.
So what Obama and his team bring to national
security and the struggle against Islamic terror is a combination that
spells danger. First, an executive leader who naively thinks the
problem of terror can be wished away by summits and speeches.
Second, a government bureaucracy that is always modifying its policies
AFTER each security failure. A deadly cocktail.
What an
odd nation we are as we pursue our mindless quest for PCness when what
we need is an education and a dose of critical thinking. We can
thank God that the Islamists thus far have sent Barney Fife and Gomer
Pyle to attack us. Ineptitude has been our primary savior: bombers
who do not know what they are doing -- only matched by our own
ineptitude at naming the problem (radical Islam's inability to adapt to
Western mores) and dealing with it (with real immigration policies and
strong security strategies).
Frankenbombers
James White
says Al-Qaeda fanatics may be planning a horrific "Frankenbomber"
suicide attack by implanting explosives into a human body.
Defense analysts logged conversations between users of a online forum in
which Muslim extremists debate terrorism methods which could beat new US
aviation security checks.
The alarming posts included one by a
user who claimed to be a surgeon, promising a "new kind of terrorism."
It called on bomb makers and doctors to create the perfect solution to
murder "larger numbers of unbelievers and apostates."
The post
said: "What is your opinion about surgeries through which I can implant
the bomb... inside the operative's body? I am waiting for the
interaction of the experienced brothers to connect the two sciences
together and produce a new kind of terrorism, Allah willing."
Monitoring of the site by the SITE Intelligence Group also revealed that
stitching a bomb into the abdominal cavity made of plastic or liquid
explosives -- such as Semtex or PETN -- was judged the best method.
"It must be planted near the surface of the body, because the human
body absorbs shocks," advised one terrorist.
The forum discussion
comes as US passengers reacted angrily to "intrusive body searches"
involve pat-downs and scanners in a security crackdown.
Such
searches would not detect a "Frankenbomber" implanted with explosives,
it is believed.
Mark Rossini, a former senior FBI counter-terror
expert told the New York Daily News: "In the same way that drug
smugglers have placed bags of narcotics in the body cavities of animals
and had people ingest condoms filled with drugs, it would not be out of
the realm of Al Qaeda operational planners to conceive of such a
technique. No technique is off-limits to Al Qaeda to achieve its
destructive goals."
In August last year, Saudi Prince Mohammed
Bin Nayef was injured when a suicide bomber with explosives carried
inside his body managed to breach security and detonate the device.
Do You Believe The People Running This
Country?
Zip has
a video of an Obama Regime Official
saying, "We Actually Expected" released Gitmo detainees would return to
fighting Jihad.
On the recently announced soaring recidivism rate for Gitmo
detainees returning to terror, Soros' lackey and State Department
spokesman, P. J. Crowley, said on Fox News that "we actually expected
this to happen."
I watch
this guy and Janet Napolitano doing interviews on TV and I just have to
shake my head.
Jihad is forever. Obama and his crowd won't even
admit there is a jihad. They refuse to use the word. They have to let terrorists go or admit
their view of jihad is absurd.
U. S. In Direct Talks With Taliban
AFP
is reporting the Obama administration has entered into direct,
secret talks with senior Afghan Taliban officials, The New Yorker
magazine reports.
The talks were characterized in the story as
an attempt by the Obama administration "to assess which figures in the
Taliban's leadership, if any, might be willing to engage in formal
Afghan peace negotiations, and under what conditions".
Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll wrote that several sources, which
were not identified in the story, briefed him about the talks.
Earlier on Friday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that only
a political solution will end the war in Afghanistan.
"We will
never kill enough insurgents to end this war outright," Ms. Clinton said
during a speech in New York, and voiced hope for splitting off
rank-and-file Taliban from al-Qaeda extremists in Afghanistan.
She said the surge in US-led troops over the past year was part of a
strategy to "split the weakened Taliban off from al-Qaeda and reconcile
those who will renounce violence and accept the Afghan constitution".
The late Richard Holbrooke, who served as Washington's special envoy
to Afghanistan and Pakistan, was a leading advocate for a political
settlement. Holbrooke died December 13.
And it was notions that you can
split the rank-and-file jihadists from the college-educated jihadists
that killed him.
Evidently our State Department forgets that the
Taliban were as 7th century as it gets long before we went to
Afghanistan.
The Silent Moderates
An American Expat in Southeast Asia says that
while the initial reaction to Osama Bin Laden's death throughout
Southeast Asia was surprisingly muted with many expressing disbelief on
his demise, the general mood is disturbingly changing. Yesterday
afternoon the mosques were packed full from Indonesia and Malaysia to
the Philippines with thousands of Al Qaeda supporters and sympathizers
taking to the streets afterwards protesting and marching on the
respective United States embassies.
The show of sympathy for Al
Qaeda's leader was stunning with many shocked at the large number of
supporters who came out. To those in America and Europe who still
think that Al Qaeda's virulent strain of Islam had but a few supporters,
yesterday was an eye-opener. Manila's Golden Mosque which normally
attracts only around 500 worshipers for Friday prayers was filled to the
brim with over 5000 worshipers yesterday afternoon. In Malaysia,
Al Qaeda's sympathizers took to the streets and in Indonesia posters
were put up denouncing Obama as a terrorist and Osama as a mujahid.
In provocative displays of religious chauvinism Islam's fieriest
orators took this unique opportunity to stoke the flames of recrudescent
radicalism from a vast new contingent of self-radicalized moderates, by
denouncing the West and praising Osama Bin Laden. It is this new
contingent, the "silent moderates" who will seek no rapprochement and
offer no quarter with the West. Emboldened by the West's
appeasement, deference and lack of resolve, they number in the millions
and range from bomb-makers to home-makers but each one shares a common
goal and that is absolute victory.
While our adversaries overseas
are plotting to one day soon deliver the nuclear coup de grâce -- our
TSA agents are back home are either busy groping preteens in the
nation's airports or attending Muslim sensitivity classes. Time is
not on our side and neither will be victory if we don't pull our heads
out of the sand.
To paraphrase Churchill, the West has been
offered a choice between war and shame. She has chosen shame and
will get war.
Obama's Cultural Sensitivity
Judicial Watch
says that in the Obama Administration’s shameless effort to appease
Muslims, an FBIraid on a south Florida
mosque with terrorist ties was conducted under new rules of engagement
to assure cultural sensitivity towards Islam.
The culturally
sensitive raid led to the arrest of a Pakistani imam (Hafiz Muhammed
Sher Ali Khan) at a Miami mosque and five others, including his sons,
daughter and grandson. All were charged with providing financial
and material support for the Pakistani Taliban. The terrorist
organization is associated with Al-Qaeda and has claimed responsibility
for numerous attacks against American interests, including a 2009
suicide bombing at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.
Khan
founded an Islamic school that supports the Taliban’s jihad while living
in Pakistan and continued controlling and funding it as an imam in
Miami, according to the federal indictment. He used the school to
provide shelter and support for Taliban soldiers and to train children
how to kill Americans in Afghanistan, the indictment says. The
rest of the family helped create a network that flowed money from the
U.S. to Pakistan to purchase guns for the Taliban, according to the
feds.
Considering the seriousness of the charges it’s
inconceivable that federal agents made cultural sensitivity a priority
during arrests. The unbelievable details of how the "kindler,
gentler arrests" went down are featured in a local newspaper that
reports federal agents actually waited for prayer service to end before
moving in out of respect for Muslims. They also took their shoes
off before entering the mosque as per Islamic tradition.
The
Obama-appointed federal prosecutor in charge of the area, U.S. Attorney
Wilfredo Ferrer, went out of his way to assure that the case has been
handled under the administration’s new rules of engagement to show more
sensitivity toward religious practices. He stressed that most
Muslims are "as American as apple pie" and should not be branded by the
alleged terrorist actions of just a few.
As part of its
nationwide outreach efforts, the Obama Administration has conducted a
series of meetings with Muslim groups throughout Florida, including
training workshops to help law enforcement officers become more
sensitive about Arab, Muslim and Sikh communities. Ferrer, who
prosecutes federal crimes in the entire region, says Muslims shouldn’t
feel isolated because he’s their U.S. Attorney too.
While reading this, the lack of
"cultural sensitivity" shown in the Branch Davidians raid came to mind.
Lawmakers Resist Obama's $2B To Egypt
Fox News
is reporting that Obama's call for $2 billion in loan assistance to
Egypt has left many political figures scratching their heads as they try
to figure out why a debt-ridden U.S. would commit that much money to a
country whose new government may not end up friendly to America.
In Thursday's sweeping address on the uprisings in the Middle East and
North Africa, Obama said he wants the U.S. to forgive roughly $1 billion
in debt owed by Egypt and to provide another $1 billion in loan
guarantees to free up money for job-creation efforts there.
But
with the U.S. grappling with more than $14 trillion in debt and
lawmakers fighting over the terms for increasing the nation's own
ability to borrow money, Obama's call to help Egypt has face resistance
in Congress.
"Considering our own national debt, we cannot afford
to forgive up to $1 billion of Egypt's debt," said Rep. Elena
Ros-Lehtinen, the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
"I am deeply concerned that the president did not rule out providing
aid to Egypt if the Muslim Brotherhood is part of the government," she
said. "The U.S. should only provide assistance to Egypt after we
know that Egypt's new government will not include the Muslim Brotherhood
and will be democratic, pro-American and committed to abiding by peace
agreements with Israel."
Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who
is running for president, posted this message on his Twitter account:
"Pres. Obama: $2B in loan guarantees for Egypt'. Guaranteed with
WHAT?? We're broke. Who will guarantee our guarantee??"
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla, had a similar reaction.
"Where are
we going to get $1 billion?" he said to Dow Jones News Service.
"If we give them $1 billion, we're going to borrow $400 million from the
Chinese."
Even Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a senior member
of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which would have to allocate the
funds, told Dow Jones News Service, "I don't know where this money is
going to come from. Two billion dollars, when everything is
getting cut to the bone, is going to be difficult."
Obama's Servile Negotiations With The
Taliban
Tara Servatius says most Americans don’t
realize how far Obama has bowed down to the Taliban -- and how he is
potentially setting them up to rule Afghanistan.
While the fact
that we are negotiating with the Taliban has been fleetingly covered
here in America, a search using LexisNexis shows that the rest of the
story about the concessions we have offered them has been virtually
blacked out by the mainstream media in the U.S. Things are so bad
that we now aren’t even requiring that they renounce their ties to
al-Qaeda before we negotiate with them.
You’d have
to read British newspapers to learn that, and about how they have
humiliated our Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron on the
national stage in negotiations.
The Obama administration is so
desperate to appease the Islamic savages and cut a peace deal with them
that U.S. negotiators no longer require preconditions of Taliban
fighters we negotiate with -- like that they halt the killing of
innocent civilians and our troops or break with al-Qaeda, the Telegraph
of London reported.
Apparently, terrorist attacks on U.S. soil aren’t off-limits either.
Incredibly, these "negotiations" with the Taliban began last fall, just
five months after the attempted Times Square bombing attack by Faisal
Shahzad, which was funded by the Taliban.
U.S. negotiators and
their British counterparts aren’t even requiring that the Taliban
embrace the Afghan constitution that our troops and many Afghans paid
for with blood. Worse yet, they are aiming to turn control of the
county at least partly over to the Taliban in a "shared power" deal,
essentially throwing the Afghan people to the wolves.
Meanwhile
our troops take bullets enforcing the Afghan constitution and continue
to die fighting for what the Obama administration is giving away at the
negotiating table. The Taliban killed four U.S. soldiers and 42
innocent civilians in bombings at hospital and construction sites this
month, and was recently caught attempting to smuggle suicide bombers as
young as 9 years old into the country.
If the American public got
the full story on this, they’d be outraged. The Taliban is so
emboldened that it has even demanded we release 20 prisoners from the
Guantanamo Bay holding facility as part of negotiations, one of the few
details of these talks that has actually been reported by the U.S.
press.
