Archive for category Homeland Security
Newsweek Waking Up?
Posted by Tom in Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Presidency on February 21, 2011
Hard to believe this interview of a Harvard professor on MSNBC and THE BLAZE. I leave it to the reader to figure it out!
Other States Poach Nevada’s Golden Opportunity
Posted by Tom in Environment, Homeland Security, Nevada, State Finances, Terrorism, Yucca Mountain on January 6, 2011
Nevada had better watch out, other states like Texas see jobs and revenue in nuclear sites. While it is true that Nevada has the only federal statutory designation as a repository for spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain, Texas now has decided to accept low-level waste from 36 states. Today’s WSJ sets it out well in Texas Welcomes Nuclear Discards.
Strange but Nevada has not seen the money, jobs, industry and research that can come with the current monopoly it has via Yucca Mountain on temporary storage of spent fuel. A group called Nevadans For Carbon Free Energy, http://NV4CFE.org, has developed the concept of an energy park that would provide temporary storage, develop reprocessing and recycling, and eventually grow into power generation. The benefits to the state include jobs, state revenue, and money for the residents along the lines of the Alaska Permanent Fund.
It’s worth serious consideration given the unemployment and budget deficits. Here’s a short video from their website:
Obama & Holder Want Terrorists Acquitted
Posted by Tom in Defense, Homeland Security, Legal, Presidency, Terrorism on October 7, 2010
Today’s New York Daily News editorial, Error by trial: Very first Guantanamo case in civilian court is an instant disaster, details the problems of trying military prisoners, foreign terrorists that have committed foreign acts of terror, in U.S. civilian courts and granting the rights of U.S. citizens in the process. On trial was one Ahmed Khalfan Ghallani an admitted participant in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania killing 224 including 12 Americans. Caught in Pakistan after training with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan he was interrogated and confessed.
“These facts come courtesy of Ghailani’s own mouth. He revealed them under interrogation while in clandestine CIA custody before transfer to Guantanamo. Therein lies the legal absurdity.
The CIA grilled Ghailani in the interest of national security – to prevent further terrorist attacks – and not as a run-of-the-mill criminal suspect with full U.S. constitutional rights.
Thus, Ghailani had no lawyer. Thus, in the words of Manhattan Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan, Ghailani was subjected to a “combination of social influence approaches and extremely harsh interrogation methods to obtain evidence” – techniques that were used “to obtain intelligence from a handful of detainees believed to possess particularly high-value information.”
So, years later, come time for opening statements in Kaplan’s courtroom, prosecutors chose not even to try entering a word of Ghailani’s testimony into evidence. Instead, they hung their case largely on one Hussein Abebe, a Tanzanian who was prepared to testify that he had sold five crates of explosives to Ghailani.
Bad move. Kaplan yesterday barred Abebe from taking the stand because the FBI tracked him down based solely on information provided by Ghailani under “coerced” questioning.
This ruling was distressingly inevitable.”
Now Obama and Holder are educated attorneys well versed in criminal and constitutional law. It is safe to say that they know that the rights of the accused in the U.S. are much more protective than the rights of: (a) terrorists in Kenya, (b) criminals in Pakistan, and (c) enemy combatants detained in war time. In short, Obama and Holder knew that this instant ruling was “distressingly inevitable.”
Why then, would the Commander in Chief charged with the defense of this nation and his chief law enforcement officer Attorney General Holder choose to take this wartime prosecution out of military hands and place it in New York, the site of the World Trade Center attacks on September 11th?
I have previously highlighted Dinesh D’Souza Obama analysis on these pages, but Kathryn Lopez’s NRO interview with D’Souza goes into greater depth and convinces me that his analysis is correct. In that analysis, Obama is an anti-colonists down to his core, socialists yes, but more important an anti-colonists. He favors the suppressed, exploited natives in Kenya, Pakistan perhaps those in the war regions. His father from which his dreams come, Dreams from My Father, was Kenyan. The interview is a must read.
D’Souza denies that Obama is merely a conventional liberal: “But conventional liberals don’t come out for the release of the Lockerbie bomber. Conventional liberals don’t return the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office. Conventional liberals don’t block oil drilling in America while subsidizing oil drilling in Brazil.Conventional liberals don’t try to turn the space agency NASA into a Muslim-outreach program. My anti-colonial theory beautifully explains all these facts.” There is indeed predictive value in this theory.
So I think it reasonable to believe that, despite protestations to the contrary, Obama wants acquittals in these civilian terrorists trials.
Remembering 911…Then Imagining Islam
Posted by Tom in Defense, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Military Policy, National Character, Terrorism on September 11, 2010
On this 9th anniversary of 911, I think back to that early morning phone call–”turn on your television.” Dede and I watched in horror from our California home, smoke and flames from the gaping tear in the WTC North Tower, then a plane hitting the South Tower. The Pentagon explosion and the heroic flight 93 Pennsylvania crash followed. Our planned vacation that morning was cancelled….no matter, I did not feel like a vacation.
There were plenty of good memorials posted today. Some will bring tears, like “Remembering Patrick Sullivan” by Jack Dumphy who tells of a brother naming his kids “Mary Patrick and Shane Patrice.” You get the picture.
But the one that impressed me most is less poignant and more accusatory, more an indictment of our progressive, politically correct, and invincibly naive ignorance. Andrew McCarthy’s NRO post “Imagining Islam” is a wake up call to all sensible Americans, no all sensible Westerners.
Andy posits a fantasy Islam that is secular and moderate. This religion is dedicated to human rights, against slavery, modern and tolerant of other religions and cultures. Arguably such a religion would have condemned the murderous killing of innocents that preceded and followed those of the WTC. It would have issued those condemnations loudly and en masse for at least the last nine years.
But for the last nine years we have heard nothing but silence.
“What excruciating truths have we yet failed to grasp on this ninth anniversary of 9/11? The first is that such an Islam does not exist. The second is that, despite this fact, American foreign and domestic policy continues to proceed as though it does exist — and as though it were the only real Islam. That is, nine years after Islamists made their commitment to our destruction as unmistakable as possible, nine years after the non-occurrence of all the wonderful things that would certainly have happened if the Islam of our dreams were the Islam of our reality, our national-security strategy is still steeped in fiction.”
Hussein Obama has put America on a foreign policy of “self delusion.” We no longer wage a “war on terror” but instead engage in sporadic “overseas contingency operations.” If we avoid saying whom we are fighting and why, we soon forget. Our president, our commander in chief, goes through the Arab world bowing and appeasing. He fights our natural allies and weakens our defenses. He now tolerates a nuclear Iran whose president shouts “Death to America!” He has our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan pursuing “nation building” with Shria law! This the law that stones women and kills homosexuals and bans religious minorities.
In the U.S. we defend the Islamists monument to the 911 slaughter at ground zero proffered by an imam paid by the U.S. State Department. This part of the religion of peace intends to take over our country not by violence but by out populating us and enacting Shria law as it is now doing in Europe.
But the violent wing of this fantasy religion of peace is still alive and healthy: “At home, even as al-Qaeda continues its efforts to reprise 9/11, a network of Islamist organizations — coordinated by the Muslim Brotherhood and financially backed by our friends, the Saudis — proceeds with what it calls its “grand jihad” to eliminate and destroy Western civilization by sabotage. This is not a secret. The Brotherhood’s internal memoranda were seized by the FBI. They boldly announce these claims in black and white. Two years ago, the Justice Department aptly labeled the constituent organizations — including the Islamic Society of North America and the Council onAmerican Islamic Relations — as unindicted co-conspirators in a terrorism-financing case in which several of their partners were convicted of funneling millions of dollars to Hamas. Today, those Islamist organizations are right back in business, with an open door to “engaging” government policymakers, as if nothing ever happened. In our imagination, they’re moderates, too.”
Hussein Obama’s policies weaken us. By failing to recognize our enemy and the values it seeks to impose, we eventually fail to recognize our own values and will soon lose them, to our regret.
Understand Islam, Fail To At Your Peril
Posted by Tom in Europe, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Law, Morality & Religion in the Public Square, Statism, Terrorism on August 2, 2010
I recently received a You Tube video entitled “Three Things About Islam.” It is long but provides good source references at the end. In sum, it makes three points: 1. Islam has not been hijacked. Westerners have been told and assume that it has been hijacked by violent jihadists, how otherwise could a religion be so violent. The Qur’an has both peaceful and jihadist verses often thought contradictory but it provides a rule for resolving apparent conflicts, the last in time governs. Unfortunately, the violent jihadist verses are later in time than the peaceful verces.
2. Sharia Law is a duty for all Muslims. Sharia is the anthesis of separation of church and state, indeed the anthesis of freedom. It combines religion and political aspects into one totalitarian society commanded by the Qur’an. The law is ancient commanding eye for eye justice, stoning, and dismemberment for proscribed offenses. It governs contracts and commerce. The world will not be at peace until all nations are governed by Shria Law. So creeping Shria as in the UK where Shria courts already exist is indeed a danger. At current birth rates Europe will be majority muslim within our children’s lifetimes. So whether through the bed room and creeping Shria or through 911 type jihad, Muslims are installing Shria worldwide.
3. Muslims lie to non-Muslims. The Qur’an sanctions these lies in order to convert infidels and advance Shria Law. This principal is called TAQIYYA. To say one thing to non-Muslims and the exact opposite to Muslims is frequently used in the Arab world today. This is the very means of calling Islam the religion of peace!
Hussein Obama has curried favor in the Arab world bowing to its leaders and apologizing for the United States. He is an advocate of the “religion of peace” view of Islam. He even urged the NASA director to reach out to Muslim countries. Methinks Hussein’s Muslim roots are getting in the way of his job as president!
The YouTube video is long and made for a British audience so I did not embed it in this post. If you are so inclined to further study, the link is here.
Gingrich on the Islamic Terrorist Threat
Posted by Tom in Defense, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Military Policy, Terrorism on July 23, 2010
Unprotected Against Jihad
Posted by Tom in Defense, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Individual Freedom, Law, Morality & Religion in the Public Square, Military Policy, National Character, Terrorism on June 1, 2010
Hussein Obama’s counterterrorism tzar, John Brennan trivializes the danger of Islam according to Andy McCarthy in today’s NRO post, An Islam of Their Very Own. The article is a must read with only two conclusions possible: Obama is stupid or naive or he is converting the U.S. to sharia, that is Islamic law. In essence, become Muslim or die, so ruled Mohamed after his militant successes.
“Brennan admonished that we must not “describe our enemy as ‘jihadists.’” Why not? “Because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam.” Right again. There is no gainsaying that jihad is deemed to be a divine injunction in Islam. If one regards all forms of Islam as “legitimate,” then jihad, too, must be legitimate. Yet “legitimate” is a slippery concept. It could mean that something is good. Or it could just mean that something is authentic — something that really exists, for good or ill.
“Islam falls into the latter category. It exists. In many of its iterations — not just al-Qaeda’s ideology but Islamist ideology, which is quite mainstream — Islam means the West existential harm. This is why we are supportive of reformist Muslims, however pessimistic some of us may be about their prospects. The point, though, is that Islam is not going away. It is part of the hand we are dealt, like it or not. We don’t need to trash-talk it gratuitously, but neither should we pretend that it is an asset on our security ledger. It’s not.
“Alas, the Hope administration doesn’t see it that way. For Brennan, as for Obama, Islam is immovably in the first category: “legitimate” as in “good” — end of discussion. To sculpt this alternative reality, two things are required. First, we must ignore Islam’s many troublesome elements — e.g., its supremacism, inequality, intolerance, denial of freedom of conscience, endorsement of violence, etc. Second, to the extent that the resulting atrocities can’t be ignored, we must pretend that what ails the Islamic world is our fault, not Islam’s.”
Andy’s point echos the points made during Herman Pirchner’s presentation and discussion at our last Reno Hayek dinner, namely that radical Islam and its Jihad is closer to the Koran than any reformist/secular branch of that “religion.” I put that in quotes to denote that it is more than just our concept of “religion;” it is government, society and religion in the sense that Mohamed imposed upon his conquests.
Here’s my empirical observation: not many, if any, Moslems have condemned the Jihads, the terror, the 911 carnage, the call to exterminate Israel.
These people are backward, immoral, intolerant, and violent. They advocate or tolerate “supremacism, inequality, intolerance, denial of freedom of conscience, endorsement of violence, etc.” For them, the end justifies the means, no matter how distorted either end or means in reality are. They blow themselves up in hopes of “virgins in heaven.” Pity those few virgins in number! But, that is the level of their intelligence.
Hussein Obama apparently ignores “man caused disasters.” Islam is good because he wishes it so. This is contrary to the reality that we witness every day. Islam is bad.
“Our political leaders can continue to trivialize jihad as if it were some benign struggle to brush after every meal. They can continue to ignore the core tenets that make sharia antithetical to a free, self-determining society. But they can’t do that and do the only job we need them to do: protect our lives and our liberties.” Andy McCarthy’s article is a must read.
Hussein Obama is hell-bent-for-leather to “hope and change” the United States into an Islamic nation under Sharia law. Be very fearful for our nation.
Incompetent Administration Condemns Arizona…
Posted by Tom in Constitution, Entitlements, Homeland Security, Humor, Immigration on May 23, 2010
…but none of these idiots has read its immigration law!
Now the New York Post has a suggestion for these logically challenged idiots: “The Mexico model.” Some highlights: “Asked Wolf Blitzer: “If people want to come [into Mexico] from Guatemala or Honduras or El Salvador or Nicaragua, they can just walk in?” “No,” responded Calderon. “They need to fulfill a form. They need to establish their right name. We analyze if they [don’t have] a criminal [record].” “Do Mexican police go around asking for papers of people they suspect are illegal immigrants?” asked Blitzer.“Of course,” said Calderon. “If somebody sneaks in from Nicaragua or some other country in Central America,” continued Blitzer, “they wind up in Mexico, they can go get a job?” “No, no,” Calderon replied. “If somebody [does] that without permission, we send back — we send them back.”
Then Hussein Obama’s number one on homeland security suggests that the Obama administration will refuse to enforce the U.S. law: “At week’s end, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was backing up the head of the Immigration and Customs Service — who said that he might not deport illegals detained under that statute. “ICE has the legal discretion to accept or not to accept persons delivered to it by non-federal personnel,” said Napolitano. “It also has the discretion to deport or not to deport.”
Read more:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/the_mexico_model_2DyxJuFroueHqDGXMzB04K#ixzz0oo6JfueS
We do not enforce our own laws. When Arizona enforces them we condemn and boycott the state without reading the law. We are bankrupting our boarder states and nation by granting the rights of U.S. citizens to non-U.S. illegals! What’s wrong with this picture?
Two Hypocritical Presidents
Posted by Tom in Defense, Homeland Security, Immigration on May 21, 2010
Hussein Obama continues to denigrate and debase America. The latest, he stood side by side with Felipe Calderon and and joined in Calderon’s criticism of the Arizona law that authorizes enforcement of U.S. law on illegal entry into the U.S. He is a hypocrite because the U.S statute which he has not enforced is more susceptible to profiling than the Arizona law. Calderon is a hypocrite because the Mexican law on illegal entry is worse than the U.S. law in terms of its harsh application. But to stand by Calderon’s side while Calderon demeans one of these United States is unforgivable for any American president.
William Bennett and Seth Leibsohn have an excellent article on the subject in NRO: “Allowing the running down of a part of the United States by the head of a foreign government, at the White House, standing next to the president — who not only didn’t challenge him, but encouraged him — is a foreign- and domestic-policy catastrophe. And in any catastrophe, one has to ask what were the conditions or causes that led to such a thing. Did the president tell Mr. Calderón ahead of time it would be okay to blast away at Arizona, which is to blast away at the United States? Or, less likely, was nothing said ahead of time and Mr. Calderón simply took note of the administration’s statements about Arizona thus far? Or, had Mr. Calderón simply observed over the past year not only President Obama and his administration’s take-down of Arizona but President Obama’s other attitudes about America, such as his bowing to foreign leaders and his calling America “arrogant,” “dismissive,” and “derisive” of our allies?
“There are nearly half a million illegal immigrants in Arizona. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, while illegal immigrants make up 9 percent of the Arizona population, they are responsible for 22 percent of the felonies in Arizona and they constitute 11 percent of the state prison population. Arizona is now the kidnapping capital of the United States, and Phoenix has the second-largest kidnapping problem in the world (second to Mexico City).”
“According to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, kidnapping in Arizona increased 402 percent between 2004 and 2008, with almost 70 percent of the kidnapping cases submitted for prosecution involving illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants account for 16.5 percent of those sentenced for violent crimes; 18.5 percent of those sentenced for property crimes; 33.5 percent of those sentenced for the manufacture, sale, or transport of drugs; and 44.4 percent of those sentenced or forgery and fraud in the Phoenix area. And, according to DOJ statistics, three Border Patrol agents are assaulted on the average day at or near the U.S. border. Someone is kidnapped every 35 hours in Phoenix, Ariz. — mostly by agents of alien-smuggling organizations. And one in five American teenagers last year used some type of illegal drug, many of which were imported across the unsecured U.S.-Mexico border. For example, most of the cocaine and meth consumed in America comes in from Mexico, and in some states, over 90 percent of the marijuana consumed is from Mexico.”
There is a compelling interest for the Arizona law because there is no adequate enforcement of the federal law nor adequate security of our Mexican boarder. Perhaps that’s why a majority of Americans agree with the Arizona position according to a recent Fox News Poll.