Watch Your Back—Crazed Vet Behind You!

I was prepared to write off the recent flap about a vet who found himself in a psychiatric ward after posting some strange comments on his Facebook page. He was put on a psychiatric hold by the local authorities after receiving information about the posts from DHS and the FBI. But after all, a judge reviewed the case, found no substantial evidence of any danger posed by the vet, and ordered his immediate release. So why should I care?

After reading the comments posted by Marine vet Brandon J. Raub, I was convinced that it was a matter of extreme overreach by the authorities, and probably a violation of his First Amendment free speech rights. He said, among other things, that “a day of reckoning is coming,” and “sharpen my axe, I'm here to sever heads.” Not exactly dinner table conversation, but I've probably said worse things right here on this blog (the most frequent being “I hate Barack Obama”). But the system worked, it was an isolated incident, and Raub is free to move on.

I'm not big on conspiracy theories, as we've discussed multiple times on this site. But that doesn't mean there aren't some conspiracies, or that like-thinking people can't act in ways that take on the form of conspiracy. One of the leitmotifs of liberal thinking is that all returning vets are either crazy or about to go crazy. They served their country under horrifying conditions, and it made them nuts. DHS has gone so far as to assert that all Iraq and Afghanistan vets should be watched carefully for signs of irrational or insane behavior since they could easily slip into madness and commit a terrorist act.

After doing some further research, I have decided that the Raub incident may not be so isolated after all. Raub was represented by the Rutherford Institute (think ACLU for conservatives). The FBI had conducted an interview with Raub, and decided that his views and his posts were “ominous.” The local authorities agreed, and acted on that information. But the judge found that there was simply nothing that fit the rules of clear and present danger, or clear and convincing evidence of a threat. He further found that Raub's comments and posts were not sufficient evidence that he was a danger to himself or others, the most basic of reasons to place a citizen under a psychiatric hold.

Except for a future civil suit against the authorities for misuse of their powers, that might seem to be the end of it. But the attorney for Raub asserts that there are twenty cases he knows of involving psychiatric holds or threats of holds just in the same county where Raub was detained. John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute says that he has been contacted by veterans nationwide who have had similar experiences with authorities attempting to have them declared mentally ill. How much of this is evidentiary and how much anecdotal remains to be seen. After all, some vets are crazy, just like people in every other stratum of society. But the numbers either harassed or “held” seem to reflect a dangerous trend.

One advocate of the religion of peace shouts Allahu akbar and opens fires on his fellow soldiers, and the liberals simply can't figure out what the underlying cause of the violence is. But angry vets who merely criticize their government's namby-pamby attitude toward terrorism and promotion of ideas foreign to American tradition in very colorful language are now subject to psychiatric holds.

In her April 2009 memorandum on the state of domestic terrorism (“intelligence assessment”), Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano specifically listed returning vets as potential terrorists. Asked about it recently, Napolitano didn't waver a bit, and said she stands by the assessment. Since that memo was issued, civil commitments of vets for psychiatric problems have accelerated rapidly. I'm far from ready to declare that there's a conspiracy involved here, but the like thinking of DHS and the FBI and the ease with which vets are detained based on “ominous mental health assessment” information provided to local authorities is certainly something for us to be concerned with. It may be coincidence, or it may be a pattern.

Genuine threats are prosecutable, as they should be. Even the First Amendment has its exceptions. But the expression of anger and frustration at the government accompanied by intemperate wording is not and should not be prosecutable. Those in government positions who wish to squelch free speech know that. Still, in at least in some cases, they seem to have taken a page out of the Soviet psikhushka program whereby dissidents were placed in psychiatric facilities so that they could be “re-educated” and their “crazy” views discredited with the public. “Crazy war vets” have already been pre-qualified by DHS as potential terrorists, so isn't this a great way to silence them?

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Meet Your Pilot—Captain Mohammed Jihad

I've just been given another reason to stay home. Alternatively, if I'm going to travel, I'll drive. I guess I won't be seeing anything outside the United States for some time to come. Behaving like all the other idiots in the Obama administration, the Transportation Security Administration (a clear misnomer) has enabled illegal aliens in a very dangerous way. These are the people who are responsible for your safety on public transportation.

The TSA should be known as the Keystone Kops. They prevent blue-haired grandmas, babies in diapers, and quadriplegics from boarding an airplane until they have first been irradiated and fondled, but they can't seem to stop dangerous people from becoming the pilots on those planes. If you find yourself flying into the Empire State Building or the Golden Gate Bridge, you probably have the TSA to thank.

Anybody remember 9-11? Nineteen jihadists, four teams and one terrorist with pilot training in America in each of the four teams. The government ran around like chickens with their heads cut off, and promised us that with the old agencies, new agencies, middle-aged agencies, and the Homeland Security super-agency, this would not be allowed to happen again. They lied.

Hiding in plain sight in Boston, twenty-five illegal aliens were being trained as pilots at a school run by, wait for it, an illegal alien. Six of the illegals have already received their pilot's licenses. And once again, it was only a fluke that brought the matter to light. Did the TSA conduct a check on American flight schools and discover the covert operation? Nope. The owner of the school was stopped for a traffic violation, and a routine background check showed him to be in the United States illegally. Still, nothing might have been done had not one person in the General Accounting Office reviewing licenses and payments for permits found what the police had already found. Only then did the TSA become involved.

Stephen Lord, the GAO's director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues testified before the House Homeland Security Committee this week. He was asked the following question: “Isn't it true that, based on your report, the Transportation Security Administration cannot assure the American people that foreign terrorists are not in this country, learning how to fly airplanes? Yes or no. Lord's answer was that at this time it cannot.

The illegal alien who owns the flight school was allowed to apply for and run a flight school without the required TSA security threat assessment. But he still managed to get two Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) pilot certificates. Under the laws developed after 9-11, such certificates are supposed to be submitted to the TSA routinely for review. Someone dropped the ball. Under the Alien Flight Student Program (AFS), foreign nationals are supposed to be subjected to a TSA security threat assessment prior to receiving any flight training at all. Remember that of the four 9-11 pilots, only one had any training at all in landing a large aircraft, but nobody at the time found that odd.

After making this find, the GAO starting look into the problem as a whole. There are about 25,599 foreign nationals in the FAA airmen registry who are not in the TSA AFSP registry. That's a whole lot of unvetted aliens. That means that currently there are 25,599 who have or will have FAA pilot certificates without ever having been investigated by the TSA. Under the law which should have been applied, none of those 25,599 should even have begun flight training, let alone receive FAA certificates.

Al Qaeda and al Qaeda-like organizations have evolved to meet present realities. Our mindless bureaucracies have not. The chances of a terrorist getting control of a major airline's jumbo jet and flying it into a skyscraper have been greatly reduced. But that solves an eleven year old problem, not a current one. How about all those small and medium-sized aircraft which could carry weaponized anthrax, bubonic plague, or a dirty nuclear bomb?

Well, let me set your mind at rest. The TSA and ICE have announced that they are “working on” a pilot program for vetting the names of foreign nationals against immigration databases.” My first thought is “what have they been doing for the last eleven years?” My second thought is, “Obama and Holder will squelch that the moment they hear about it.” And just in case your expectations are too high, the GAO noted that the two agencies “have not specified desired outcomes and time frames, or assigned individuals with responsibility for fully instituting the program.”

In all fairness, none of the twenty-five illegal students or the illegal flight school owner have been found to be terrorists or to have terrorist connections—yet. Those twenty-six worry me, but the other 25,599 really worry me. If one guy with a pilot's license in Utah can break into a small airport, steal a SkyWest commercial jet and nearly take off to avoid a murder arrest, what could 25,599 do? If only 10% of them have terrorist connections, and only 10% of that 10% seek to do America harm, that's 256 opportunities for committing mass murder. 9-11 took only four pilots and four planes.

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A Rant: What Were They Thinking???

Seriously, what were they thinking? We all know what the Secret Service did in Columbia last week. The United States Secret Service advance team, that Service under the guidance of the Office of Homeland Security, that has been tasked with the protection and security of our President for over 100 years, were discovered to have been cavorting with prostitutes while on duty in a foreign country. They were caught quite literally with their collective pants down because our Secret Agent-men refused to pay the tab for their women of ill-repute. Fortunately, nothing happened, but the potential just boggles the mind.

Yeah, okay, "men will be men", but let's think about this for a minute. These are agents whose sole job it is to protect and defend the life and security of our President. These agents who have THE highest security clearance in the country (if not the world), pre-booked a team of playful prostitutes for which they could cavort while they executed the protection and security protocols in advance of our President's attendance at an important summit meeting with other foreign heads of state in a foreign country. Yes, that is "pre-booked" as in "made a reservation in advance" as part of their advance security team protocol.

This was not a GSA-type convention in Las Vegas where all of our Secret Service Agents were meeting to exchange security protocol ideas, swap funny Secret Service Agent stories with fellow agents, or give "The Best Secret Service Agent Of The Year" Award. These men, while executing their sworn duties, were knowingly cavorting with women who possibly had NO security clearance at all. And not only did these highest security level Secret Service Agents brag to these women about who they were and why they were visiting their country, but they compromised the security of our President by entertaining these women within range of information on the security protocols and travel plans that are top secret for a reason. I have read enough spy novels to know that woman, even an innocent-looking prostitute, can use her feminine wiles to obtain top secret information to perpetrate a grave harm.

Is it sinking in that this is not just a scandal about sex and prostitutes, but a grave breach of security that compromised the life of The President of the United States? Is it also sinking in that this was paid for by the US taxpayers?

Oh, I know, these things have been happening for years and these particular Agents just got caught. Well, I do not care who has done this in the past. This kind of behavior is unacceptable and should forthwith never happen again.

So, I propose a new rule to be inserted into the next edition of the Secret Service Agent Handbook. A rule that I think should have gone without saying, but here you are in bold type and ALL CAPS so that there is no misunderstanding:

NEW RULE NUMBER ONE

WHEN ON OFFICIAL BUSINESS TO SECURE THE SAFETY OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR ANY REASON FOREIGN OR DOMESTIC, YOU WILL NOT HIRE, ENGAGE IN ADVANCE, OR BE IN THE COMPANY OF PROSTITUTES, WOMEN OF THE EVENING, OR ANY OTHER LIKE PERSONS EVEN IF THE LAWS AND/OR STATUTES OF THE HOST CITY, COUNTY, STATE, OR COUNTRY DEEM IT LEGAL. IT WILL BE CONSIDERED AN EMBARRASSMENT TO YOUR COUNTRY, A GRAVE DERELICTION OF DUTY AND BREACH OF SECURITY THAT WILL BE PUNISHABLE BY THE MANDATORY DISMEMBERMENT AND/OR SEPARATION OF THAT BODY PART OR PARTS FOR WHICH WERE DIRECTLY ENGAGED AT THE TIME OF SAID DERELICTION.

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Did The Terrorists Win On 9/11?

With the 10th anniversary of 9/11 behind us, it’s time to ask a question that few have been willing to debate openly: did the terrorists win on 9/11? That’s a really difficult question to answer. Let’s see what we can come up with?

If we take this question literally, then the obvious answer is NO. The goal of the terrorists was to intimidate America to the point that Americans would no longer resist Islam. Thus, Islam could conquer country after country until it dominated the world. That didn’t happen and won’t. The American spirit is too strong for terror to succeed, and any attempt to impose Islam in the United States will simply result in a whole bunch of dead and desecrated Muslims.

Unfortunately, there’s more to consider.

Despite ten years of being hunted by the most powerful military in the world, al Qaeda continues to exist. They have killed 6,500 American and Western troops, exhausted Western Europe’s military capability, and continue to pull off daily terrorist operations around the world. The Taliban control large parts of Pakistan and are prepared to return to Afghanistan the minute we leave. Fundamentalist Islamic groups will soon control Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya and probably Iraq, and are working on Syria and others. They control Sudan and Somalia, where they have turned pirating into a $538 million a year operation despite the collective efforts of the world’s navies. That’s a lot of success.

So did they win? No. Are they winning? Sort of.

Then there's the flip side to this question: did we lose? Again, literally, the answer is NO. America is still here and no one honestly thinks that's going to change. Indeed, if anything Islam is further from its goal today than ever because now we know what they're up to.

But again, there is more to consider. Our government has spent $1.2 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, and that doesn’t count things like TSA or lost productivity. That’s 8.5% of our national debt. By comparison, World War II cost only $2 trillion (in 1990 dollars). So we’ve spent a fortune.

At the same time, we’ve given up a lot of our freedoms so that our politicians can look like they are doing something. Note that I do not say “so we can be safe.” It’s fairly clear that airport fondlings have done nothing to keep us safer. Port security is a joke. The border is porous. Internal security is nonexistent. Essentially, we’ve been lucky that these terrorists just aren’t very bright or motivated.

Moreover, our security operations have become bureaucratic wastelands. We spent a fortune creating the Department of Homeland Security (annual budget $50 billion, funnels another $35 billion in grants), but it has achieved nothing. DHS has made no arrests that I’ve seen despite being given new powers like having the power to do warrantless wiretaps -- every arrest we’ve seen has been made by local cops, vigilant citizens or FBI stings. So what does DHS do with its time? It seizes the web domains of people who are illegally broadcasting NFL games. . . which has what to do with national security? DHS head Janet Napolitano also spends her time lying about the border being secure.

Congress has been shameful in all of this too. They’ve used the supposed security crisis to ram through all kinds of pork boondoggles and special interest legislation. They pander to us like we’re idiots, selling us fences, airport pat-downs, and anti-terror laws that are so broad anyone could be charged for anything. And they’ve put our soldiers -- our fellow Americans -- at risk because they didn’t know how else to look tough.

These are not good things. The terrorists didn’t hurt America or the American people, but our own politicians sure are giving it their best shot!

So what do we do?

First, we set new goals. Rather than fighting a “war” against something as nebulous and never-ending as “terror,” we need realistic goals such as neutralizing certain terrorist groups or replacing certain regimes. Then we come up with rational plans to achieve those goals.

Secondly, we reform our government. Strip away any function from DHS that is not actually related to security. Purge its laws of special interest goodies. Stop letting Congress force programs on the military. Consolidate all of the intelligence agencies.

And frankly, we need to do this for all agencies. Our government controls too much of our lives. It should not be micromanaging the country. We need to eliminate bailouts, czars, corporate handouts, and special interest tax carve outs. It needs to surrender its ownership of banks and car companies. It needs to stop picking economic winners and losers, and propping up things consumers don’t want. It needs to stop keeping us dependent on foreign energy and foreign labor. It needs to get out of education and out of our medical system.

Finally, we need to stop letting politicians use crises to grab power. 9/11 is not a valid reason to throw out the Constitution anymore than the financial crisis was a reason to throw out the Constitution. And we should never trade our freedoms for placebos.

Thoughts?

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Future Democrats Of America

Two recent developments highlight the determination of Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats to increase the rolls of the Democratic Party by making illegal immigrants legal. First, the Obama administration via the Department of Homeland Security, intends to "review the cases" of 300,000 illegals who have already been ordered deported.

Second, in support of this action using his Constitution-skirting executive power, Obama plans to grant amnesty to many of the illegals in that group, among others. These two actions are intertwined, and together comprise another stealth attack on the powers of Congress which has consistently defeated the left's DREAM Act. Still, this action goes beyond the intent of the DREAM Act in that it's a blanket form of amnesty where the DREAM Act was a ploy to keep college illegals in the country.

Why now? Well, among Latino voters, support for Obama has declined from 85% to 49% in just over a year. The assumption in the Obama administration is that all legal Latino immigrants and naturalized Hispanic-Americans support illegal immigration. The White House-Capitol Democrats have decided that since they can't get amnesty in through the front-door, they had better do something quickly to restore their popularity among Hispanic voters.

It has not occurred to them that Latinos are among those most negatively impacted by the Obama failure to energize the economy and their reasons for abandoning him may have very little to do with the issue of immigration. Illegal immigration itself has shown a small decline since new jobs are few and far between. Even among the nearly-monolithic Obama black vote, his numbers are slipping, and that also has nothing to do with immigration.

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano sent a letter to the DREAM Act Democrats stating: "From a law enforcement and public safety perspective, DHS enforcement resources must continue to be focused on our highest priorities [creating new Democrats?]. Doing otherwise hinders our public safety mission--clogging immigration court dockets and diverting DHS enforcement resources away from individuals who pose a threat to public safety." Oh, spare me!

First, if the issue is limited resources, why waste those resources on illegals who have already been ordered deported? Sure, that would sweep up a large number of criminals whose only crime is being here illegally and haven't committed any other crimes yet, but it would also spare the Department the time and effort required to segregate out those illegals who have committed other crimes. Every hour spent reviewing each and every case already ordering deportation is an hour wasted in going forward with future investigations and deportations.

Napolitano says the 300,000 cases will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. In other words, a limited number of federal employees looking one at a time at 300,00 cases. That number alone says there's a major problem, and reviewing each case will make a bad situation far worse. Admittedly, some of these cases are at the final stages, and have not yet come to a final order of deportation, but that doesn't change the fact that 300,000 cases will have to be reviewed, leaving no time to process the thousands of new cases arriving at ICE and DHS.

Second, this is a purely political move. There is no legal or constitutional justification for this action. The claim that it is a security matter is pure nonsense. The administration has been taking heat from irredentists and open-borders advocates since it recently bragged that it had deported more illegals than the Bush administration over a comparable period of time. Taking voluntary self-deportation after arrest into account, that was a simple lie. But this attempt at proving its steadfastness in enforcing immigration law backfired. It convinced nobody who wants the law enforced, and it angered those who were already suspicious of Obama immigration efforts that looked very much like enforcement.

Napolitano herself inadvertently admitted that the political heat was the basis of her actions. Even the liberal Los Angeles Times saw through the subterfuge, saying: "They announced the review as the Obama administration has sought to counter criticism that it has been too harsh in its deportation policies." Since most open-border opponents think that the administration has been too lax, it is obvious that this move wasn't designed to satisfy their demands for true enforcement of immigration law. This move is not only reprehensible on its face, but it is an intentional attack on the power of Congress to enact immigration law.

The ploy is working within the Democrat immigration left. Says open-borders advocate Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois): "This is the Barack Obama I have been waiting for and that Latino and immigrant voters helped put in office to fight for sensible immigration policies. Focusing scarce resources on deporting serious criminals, gang bangers, and drug dealers and setting aside non-criminals with deep roots in the US until Congress fixes our laws is the right thing to do." Which non-criminals? Surely he doesn't mean those immigrants whose first act was to commit the crime of entering the United States illegally.

One of the arguments that has been used to claim that this action and the DREAM Act were not purely political is that even after the stealth amnesty, these people are not voters anyway. Aw, hooey. First of all, in many Democratic enclaves they're already voting. Lax registration rules in other states enables them to vote semi-legally. And the real purpose is to create future voters for the Democratic Party that enabled them to turn their illegal status into legal status by a simple wave of the Obama hand.

Immigration reform is one of the most important issues to be handled by the next administration and the next Congress. Those illegals who have volunteered to serve in the US armed forces during a multi-front war should be given special consideration (particularly those here illegally solely because they were brought here as young children by parents who entered illegally). But blanket amnesty, no matter how disguised and what it is called is both foolish and dangerous. To top it off, Obama's executive order is another power-grabbing end-run around the Constitution.

In response to our featured placard-carrier: "If you're here illegally, you are a criminal."
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Portland: It's For Terrorists

One of the bigger stories this weekend, at least until Wikileaks decided to add a little chaos to the world, was brought to us by Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19 year old Somali-born U.S. citizen. On Friday, Mohamud tried to blow up a packed public Christmas-tree-lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon. No thanks to Portland, he did not succeed.

First, let’s look at the bomber. This will shock liberals, but he’s a monster. He didn’t turn to bombing as a last resort or to free his people and he wasn’t forced into this by economic duress. He comes from an upper-middle class home and he simply likes killing. Said Mohamud of what he was trying to achieve: “I want whoever is attending that event to leave, to leave either dead or injured.” Why? What motivated him? Well, said Mohamud:

“You know what I like to see? Is when I see the enemy of allah then, you know, their bodies are torn everywhere. It’s gonna be a fireworks show. . . New York Times will give it two thumbs up. . . do you remember when 9/11 happened when those people were jumping from skyscrapers? I thought that was awesome.”

What does this tell us? This tells us he has no regard for human life. Indeed, he gets a kick out of seeing people die. It also tells us that he sees anyone who is not a Muslim as an enemy of allah and he believes that entitles him to kill them -- so much for the “religion of peace” and so much for the standard liberal trope: “they’re just like us, they’ve just been forced to become violent.”

Secondly, let’s look at Portland. One of the most interest facets of this was the non-involvement of Portland in this arrest. Prior to this event, Portland voted 4-1 to refuse to let its police officers work with the FBI’s counter-terrorism task force because the FBI would not guarantee that it would comply with Portland’s anti-discrimination measures. And while Portland claimed this was a matter of principle, it more likely than not was the result of the Portland city council assuming they were safe from terrorism and that they could therefore put asinine political statements above the safety of their people.

And it was exactly this appeasement that attracted Mohamud to Portland. Indeed, when he was asked why he chose Portland as a target, he told the FBI that Portland has lax law enforcement because people do not “see it as a place where anything will happen. People say, you know, why anybody wants to do something in Portland, you know. It's on the west coast, it's in Oregon; and Oregon's like, you know, nobody ever thinks about it.”

Clearly, liberals cannot escape the wrath of Islam by being cowards and pretending they aren’t part of America’s war on terrorism. But then, the rest of us knew that. Just ask the Spanish. FYI, Portland is now reconsidering helping the FBI, but to save face they are claiming the decision is being made because they trust the FBI under Obama, which they did not do under Bush.

Finally, let’s look at how he was caught. The FBI began investigating Mohamud when they received a tip from his parents that they were concerned about him. Beginning around the age of 15, Mohamud began speaking of becoming a martyr. At that point, they became concerned. Said one member of the 8,000 strong Somali community in Portland, “Before this happened, the father informed Homeland Security and the FBI that something was going on with his son. This a good family. The father is an engineer at Intel. This is not somebody who is on public assistance. He is a family man, a businessman, a religious man, a soccer player.” (Insert soccer violence joke here.)

After receiving court permission, the FBI monitored his e-mail and found that he was communicating with someone in Pakistan, with whom Mohamud was talking about “preparing for violent jihad.” In June 2010, the FBI put him on a no-fly list, which kept Mohamud from flying to Alaska. The FBI then moved in with agents and befriended him. They provided him with a fake bomb. He drove the vehicle with the bomb to the Portland ceremony. They watched him punch in the cell phone code that would have set the bomb off, and they arrested him. That’s an excellent investigation.

There are several interesting points to this. First, it’s becoming clear that the only way to catch terrorists is to get the assistance of people in the community and then to infiltrate terrorist cells and befriend terrorists. All the rest, is just window dressing. . . “security theater.” In fact, this has always been true historically, but people never learn from history.

Secondly, it’s clear that what is causing this wave of terrorism has nothing to do with US policy or US excesses. These idiots are being swept up in a mania that is being pushed by a violent religion that chooses to separate humanity into two classes -- believers, who deserve goodwill, and infidels, to whom you can do anything. Until that changes and Islam comes out of the dark ages and renounces this two-tier world, people like Mohamud will continue to justify their hate with Islam.

Third, Portland got very lucky here. And if he had succeeded, the blame should rightly have fallen on their city council and every other city like Portland that seeks to coddle terrorists and interfere with efforts to fight terrorism. Appeasing the Hitlers of the world only gets people killed.

So let’s congratulate the FBI and the parents, let’s condemn Portland, and let’s hang the monster.

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Abuse Of Power: Feds Seize Websites

I am a long-time critic of the use of government criminal power to do the bidding of private interest groups. This weekend showed again exactly why. The Department of Homeland Security. . . which can’t seem to keep terrorists from boarding airplanes with bombs, can’t secure our ports, can’t secure our borders, and can’t catch or convict a single terrorist except by pure luck. . . spent its weekend doing the bidding of the Recording Industry Artists of America (RIAA) and undermining our judicial system.

I’ve spoken about the RIAA and my disgust for their tactics before. They are an organization that tried to create a monopoly on music, tried to stand in the way of innovation, and when that failed, they lobbied (successfully) to upturn a thousand years of jurisprudence, by eliminating ideas like “innocent until proven guilty” and “the right to face your accuser,” and used the power they obtained to extort money out of average people in the hopes of terrorizing people into stopping file sharing. Their targets have ranged from individual users, to parents, to colleges, to employers, to ISPs. . . guilt or innocent hasn’t mattered to them.

Well, now they’ve got Homeland Security doing their dirty work for them. This weekend, Homeland Security shut down at least 72 websites and seized their domain names because they have been accused of file sharing. There has been no conviction, no hearing, no warning. . . just the accusation.

What’s more, not all of the websites shutdown were even accused of file sharing. One website, Torrentfreak was essentially a search engine. It neither hosted copyright material nor did it directly link to copyrighted material. Instead, it linked to sites that linked to file-sharing material. In other words, this would be like shutting down Google because you can use it to find sites that offer illegal material.

Three things are worrying about this.

First, this is not something Homeland Security should be wasting their time on. Their primary mission is to protect us, i.e. to keep the homeland secure. Working on side issues like this is a distraction from the mission that they are already not doing very well.

Secondly, it troubles me greatly that they have converted what is a private matter between two parties, i.e. copyright infringement, into a criminal offense with the full power of the federal government coming down on the side of the politically connected. There are thousands of claims of infringement of varying degrees and with various levels of merit each year, is Homeland Security to start shutting down tens of thousands of websites each year?

Moreover, what happened to proving guilt? There was no trial in this instance. Even worse, there was no right to face the accuser and no right to appear in court to challenge the ruling or present counter-evidence. This was essentially a raid done on the basis of probably cause. Anyone who knows anything about the criminal justice system knows that “probably cause” is synonymous with “the accuser’s suspicion.” This is the most easily abused legal standard imaginable.

Letting the authorities seize websites and shut them down without a conviction is deeply troubling. Our court system is the only thing protecting us from an overreaching government. And the fundamental cornerstone of our court system is that you have the right to appear and to challenge the evidence against you. The system Homeland Security and RIAA are exploiting, however, is a system based on the principle of “guilty until you can get a trial date to prove yourself innocent.” That’s unAmerican.

Finally, it is very disturbing that all of this is being done to please a highly-connected political lobby. This was not done to protect the public from harm or to maintain law and order. This was done because the RIAA has been unable to stop file sharing by extorting money from the public (a process proven to be much abused by RIAA), so it wanted to step up the firepower. If we allow this, what’s next?

It is the slipperiest of all slopes when we sell the power to have the federal government’s brutal police power at your beck and call, and when all you need to do to get the government hopping is to swear that you have a suspicion of wrongdoing. Should we let Homeland Security shut down your website because a debt collector claims you haven’t paid a bill? Should we let Homeland Security shut down your website because you failed to pay spousal support? What if you’re giving out advice that might be considered criminal? Bomb making? Sure. But what about a website listing speed traps? What about a website listing how to avoid ObamaCare’s requirements? Do we really want the government doing this?

This is very bad for our country.

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Gropegate: TSA Bending To Not Break Their Union

In case you’ve been asleep for the past couple weeks, there’s been a wave of anger building in the public over the new security measures put into place by TSA to screen for terrorists. All signs now point to a policy shift. Why? I’d say it has everything to do with saving the unions. Seriously.

Gropegate began quickly when TSA introduced a new pat-down policy that requires TSA employees to do a police-style pat-down of airplane travelers. No sooner was this policy put into place than people began complaining about being groped by unfriendly TSA staff. As the number of complaints grew, so did the nature of the complaints. Soon we heard reports of TSA staff laughing at people’s genitalia as they went through the full body scan, of children being groped inappropriately, of a woman with a mastectomy being forced to show her prosthetic breasts, of passengers with false limbs being told to remove them, of a bladder cancer survivor ending up covered in their own urine as TSA messed with their medical equipment, etc. etc. Congressional offices were flooded with complaints.

By Sunday morning, pressure was building to the political breaking point, and by Sunday afternoon it had broken. Indeed, Sunday morning, TSA chief John Pistole struck a defiant tone when asked by CNN’s Candy Crowley if he would be willing to change TSA’s pat-down policy to make it less intrusive. He said he would not: “No, not going to change.”

But then Hillary Clinton was asked about the policy on “Meet the Press” and “Face the Nation.” She said that she understands “how offensive it must be” for some people to undergo such searches, and she said there is a need to “strike the right balance. . . to get it better and less intrusive and more precise,” a tacit admission that this policy needs to change.

Obama was asked too, and he said he “understand[s] people’s frustrations.” He then added that, “I'm constantly asking them whether is what we're doing absolutely necessary, have we thought it through, are there other ways of accomplishing it that meet the same objectives.” In other words, Obama is ready to make TSA a fall guy and his resolve to stand firm on this issue is withering under the pressure.

Thus, Sunday afternoon, when Politico asked John Pistole again if TSA might alter the policy, Pistole gave a very different answer: he said, the screening procedures “will be adapted as conditions warrant,” in an effort to make them “as minimally invasive as possible, while still providing the security that the American people want and deserve.” In other words, it’s time for a retreat.

So what brought about this change? More than anything, I would argue it was Obama’s fear that TSA was handing the Republicans an opportunity to crush their employee union.

When TSA was created to handle airport screenings, the Democrats won a substantial victory for government employee unions by ensuring that TSA employees would be unionized. This was supposed to guarantee that TSA got good employees. But of course, that’s not how unionization works. What TSA got instead was an insular culture lacking any oversight by the public. Indeed, its own Inspector General criticized TSA in 2004 for wasting half a million dollars in “unnecessary” award ceremonies at lavish hotels and for giving “lifetime achievement awards” to employees of an agency that had only existed two years. It also gave huge bonuses to its executives, averaging $16,000 more than other federal agencies, and it failed to justify those awards in more than 1/3 of the cases examined by the IG.

Enter Republican John Mica, the ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He criticized the new policy thusly: “I don’t think the roll-out was good and the application is even worse. This does need to be refined.”

What does Mica propose to do about this? He is proposing that airports nationwide drop TSA agents entirely and replace them with private contractors. Under a screening partnership program, 16 of the nation’s 460 commercial airports already have replaced TSA staff with private contractors. Reports are that the private sector staff are more courteous and more professional. They are also cheaper.

Right now, TSA employs 67,000 personnel. A shift to non-unionized private sector personnel would reduce the power of public sector unions by the loss of those members. That’s a huge hit that Team Obama cannot accept politically. But Obama can’t stop privatization because airports have the right to opt out of the TSA program. Thus, he needs to stop gropegate, which is handing the Republicans the perfect reason to push privatization. Consequently, I suspect Obama has decided that to save the TSA employee union, he must change the grope policy, even though he has repeatedly claimed that this policy is essential to protecting the American people.

But before you think I’m accusing him of undermining your safety, I’m not. I’m accusing him of fear mongering and hypocrisy, but not endangerment. The truth is that these gropes do nothing to improve airline safety. If you wanted to smuggle a bomb onto a plane, you could do it as an airport employee, without being groped. Or you could manufacture bombs out of everyday items that pass screenings, or mail them in a package that is likely to be put onto a plane. Or just drive near a runway and hit the plane with a missile. Any of these are just as effective. The point is that if a terrorist really wants to blow up a plane, groping the public won’t stop them. These searches are designed to give the public a false sense of security, to make people think that something is being done to protect them when very little really can be done to stop an intelligent and determined bomber. Thus, backing off on the grope-a-thon won’t lower our security at all.

I guess we should wait and see what excuse Obama gives for backing off?

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Scan This !

The past few days have reminded me why I have avoided flying for more than two years. And my last two flights weren't my choice. I had to handle a matter in Las Vegas, fast, and then get back three weeks later just as fast. I managed to smuggle a pen knife and a couple of other deadly weapons on my body, but I forgot they make you take your shoes off, so they found my bomb.

Luckily I had a civilian trial, so I'm free to bore you with my opinions on government unfettered by a conviction for terrorism. Is this a great country or what? OK, you got me. I made most of that up. But the Vegas trip was true, and even then I felt like an accused felon being checked for weapons. And all of this was before they instituted the latest wastes of time, energy and money. I didn't have to make the choice of getting a blast of carcinogenic rays or getting felt up by a drooling moron who finally got off unemployment and went to work for the TSA.

Now the truth is that unlike the gal in the photo, I am neither a vegan nor do I have the same toned gender equipment. But I'm not crazy about being bombarded by dangerous machine emissions, and I've always had a certain reticence about being touched intimately by total strangers (well, at least since I left Berkeley). I'm not particularly shy, but I prefer to make the choice of when and to whom I'm going to show my private parts. And no, I'm not talking about that incident at the porn theater.

The TSA says we shouldn't be upset because they give us a choice. That's like my doctor saying I have the choice of cancer or a heart attack. Or simply the old choice of the devil or the deep blue sea. Of course there is the third choice, which is to say screw this, I just won't fly. That's the one I've chosen, and intend to stick to until the government decides to hire Mossad to conduct airport security. Then I'll know I'm safe--both from terrorists and the hands of amateurs who have no idea what they're doing. Of course there would always be the issue of ethnic profiling, but since 98% of airline terrorists have been Middle Eastern Muslims, I'll take that option.

This is supposed to be a banner year for the airlines at Thanksgiving. I'd rather stay home and give thanks that I'm not at an airport waiting to be X-rayed by some machine that will show the steel pin in my leg as a lethal weapon or being groped by a dull-normal government employee (who is likely soon to be a union employee who can't even be fired). If the 24 million people expected to fly this Thanksgiving would follow my lead, the airlines and the government would both get the message very quickly.

I loved flying in the old days. I commuted back and forth between San Francisco and Los Angeles on a regular basis. Boy, do I miss PSA and those stewardesses. And there was the freedom of deciding on a whim to head for New York or New Orleans for an unplanned weekend. Today, the airport security check (and I use that term very loosely) takes longer than the flight. I'm not known for my ability to keep my opinion to myself, and I suspect the first time one of those losers ordered me to submit to one or the other of the useless procedures, I'd probably be saying something far worse than "if you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested." At least if a cop makes such a demand of you, you've probably done something suspicious that has drawn his attention, and he's likely to know exactly what he's doing.

That's a major part of the fallacious security measures being taken today. Unable to distinguish between a sweet old Swedish grandmother and a turbaned Middle Easterner with crazed eyes mumbling "Allahu akbar" everybody is treated as a potential terrorist. No logic, no signs, no observation--everybody's a possible mass murderer. It wouldn't help if they tried to use the Israeli methods which have been so successful, since the Israeli security people are highly-trained professionals and our TSA employees are people who failed the tests for jobs as street-sweepers. Our geniuses couldn't distinguish between an elephant and an elephant seal.

Instead of looking directly into the passenger's eyes and asking pertinent question while observing body language and listening for inconsistent answers, our Transportation Silliness Agents stumblingly read the questions off a card they can't seem to memorize and don't even watch the person they're questioning. If they're not reading from the card, they're looking off into the distance for the airline clock that will tell them it's time for lunch. "Gee, Mr. bin Laden, are you planning on blowing up any buildings or airplanes today?" "Nope" "OK--next passenger."

The other problem is that the screeners (and their idiot bosses and the dumbass politicians) spend all their time concentrating on everything more hardened than a Q-Tip as being potentially dangerous in the air, and no time at all considering the importance of keeping a dangerous person on the ground and off the plane. Box cutters were used by the 9/11 terrorists, so now we can't carry penknives. Some explosives can be liquified, so now we can't carry over a certain amount of apple juice or mother's milk. A shoe-bomber almost pulled it off, so now we all have to take our shoes off, as if the silly screeners would know a shoe-bomb when they saw one, on or off the passenger's foot. Those lethal weapons wouldn't have been lethal if the jihadists hadn't been allowed on the plane in the first place.

As for the present garbage security, a ridiculously suspicious scumbag boarded a Christmas flight to Detroit with murder in his heart and explosives in his crotch, so now Grandma Johanssen has to have her nether regions scanned or groped. There were at least seven significant signs that the underwear bomber was too dangerous to be allowed on an airline flight, and his underwear was the least of them. I guarantee he never would have gotten on that plane if he had tried to embark from Tel Aviv airport.

The liar, liar pants on fire panty bomber wasn't even stopped on the plane until smoke started emanating from his trousers. Was he thwarted in his nefarious scheme by the pilot, the co-pilot, and air marshal, or one of the flight attendants? Nope. An observant and alert Dutch filmmaker didn't think people's crotches should be smoking under any circumstances, so he jumped on the damned fool and poured liquid on his flaming pants. Maybe we could just eliminate the TSA employees and hire Dutch filmmakers to do the screenings before the lowlives get on board a plane. "Observant" and "alert" are not words I would use to describe the TSA employees I've seen. "Semi-conscious" comes a great deal closer.

The Constitution forbids only a certain type of discrimination, and the definition applies to "ethnic profiling." That is a political concept, not a legal one. Sooner or later there's going to be one too many complaints from suspicious looking and behaving Middle Easterners about discrimination, and we might finally see a clear exoneration of profiling at the Supreme Court. The Court has already made it clear that it is not "discrimination" that is forbidden, but "invidious" discrimination. That means discrimination which is arbitrary, capricious, irrational, and not reasonably related to a legitimate purpose. A 98% Middle Eastern terrorist fact, combined with the clear need to protect airline passengers and the folks on the ground eliminates any sensible argument about singling out a certain group for special attention before boarding planes. It's not arbitrary, it's completely rational (statistically and factually), and what can be more reasonable than saving large numbers of lives?

So I'm suggesting that the next time you think of flying for any reason other than a dire emergency, cancel the flight and instead send a letter to the airline stating that you have chosen not to fly, and will continue to do so until the airlines, airports, TSA and politicians get their act together and institute genuine airport security instead of an expensive, intrusive sham. It might give the new Congress and hopefully the next administration the idea that the nonsensical, bureaucratic, welfare-to-workfare phony security imposed by TSA and Janet Napoleontano at Homeland Insecurity is making airline travel extremely undesirable. That is damaging to a very important, money-producing, tax-paying major business. I think the proper term for this waste of time and energy and violation of personal privacy is "counterproductive."
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Part Two: How To Fight Islamic Terrorism

Last night, we talked about the myths that our leaders believe which keep them from designing effective policies to combat Islamic terrorism. Now let’s talk about what they should be doing. To defeat Islamic terrorism, we need to stop ordinary Muslims from wanting to become terrorists. Otherwise, this struggle will continue generation after generation. To achieve this, we need to change the mindset that leads average Muslims to become terrorists. We also need to hunt down existing terrorists, but the real key will be in stopping the flow of volunteers.

Stopping The Flow of Volunteers

The only way to stop Islamic terrorism is to stop Muslims from wanting to become terrorists. Without volunteers, their leadership becomes powerless and their organizations fall apart. There are no quick fixes in this regard, but there are certain policies that will work over time.

Policy No. 1: Reforming Islam

The first thing we need to do is to reform Islam. Yeah, you read that right.

The primary motivational force turning Muslims into terrorists today is fundamentalist Islam. The Islamic world is dotted with thousands of schools where radical clerics teach young children that all of their problems are the result of evil westerners and that eternal glory awaits them if they die fighting us. But to call these “schools” is a bit misleading. They are brainwashing centers. They teach children a version of the Koran (by rote memorization) that disdains all other knowledge and breaks the world into believers and infidels, all in the hopes of creating the next generation of jihadists. There is nothing scholarly going on here, it is pure brainwashing akin to doomsday cults.

NOTE: Many Muslims will complain that this is an unfair characterization because the majority of these schools do not teach radical Islam. But if radical Islam were truly considered a blight on Islam -- rather being seen as useful ally, the rest of Islam would work to eradicate it. . . they are not. And, in any event, their contention is irrelevant. These schools exist, and they either go unchallenged or whatever the moderates are doing isn’t working. In either event, it’s time to act.

What we need to do is to take a page from the terrorists own book. As they have done, we too must establish thousands of these schools across the Muslim world. As they have turned their schools into community focal points, so must we. These schools must network with other like-minded institutions. They must use the money available to them to provide jobs and charity and to provide “government services” where local government basically does not exist. This is the same model that Hezbollah uses to great effect in the Palestinian territories. It is the same model used by successful insurgents the world over. This is the model that lets you change the hearts and minds of local people.

Now for the controversial part. First, this needs to be a covert program. As far as the world can know, these schools must appear to be set up by one or more Islamic foundations of scholars or wealthy benefactors. If there is the slightest hint that America is behind the creation of these schools, they will be as welcome as lepers.

Secondly, and this is the real key, we need to control the curriculum. And by that, I don’t just mean whether or not math is taught. I am talking about controlling how Islam itself is taught at these schools. Specifically, we need these schools to teach an interpretation of Islam that removes the ideas (1) that there is a distinction between actions taken against believers and those taken against infidels, (2) that education is bad, (3) that Allah encourages murder, and (4) that women are inferior and should not be educated.

This may sound horrible to American sensibilities, given our rich history of religious freedom, but this is hardly unique in the world. The French are already doing something similar by requiring that all Imams in France receive the approval of the government before they can preach -- the idea is to keep out radical Imams. Other countries have created panels to offer approved versions of Islam. Similarly, keep in mind that these radical schools are themselves using a form of reinterpreted Islam created by Wahhabism. We would simply be changing that back.

The goal behind this plan would be to draw ordinary Muslims away from the more radical schools, and to inject a more tolerant and peaceful form of Islam into their increasingly radicalized society. If done correctly, this could change the Muslim world from one focused on hatred and beset by discrimination to one that can live in peace with its neighbors.

Policy No. 2: Eliminate Grievances

We also need to change the things we do that outrage the Muslim world. Two come to mind immediately.

Policy No. 2a: Eliminating Grievances: Minimizing The American Presence In Muslim Lands

The first thing we need to do is to lower our profile throughout the Muslim world. Rightly or wrongly, Muslims see the United States as the new colonial master. They are upset that we have troops scattered throughout the region. They are particularly upset at our presence in Saudi Arabia, at the war in Iraq and our continuing presence there, and at our war in Afghanistan. To fix this, we need to do the following:

• We need to exit Iraq and Afghanistan, and we need to stop sending large contingents of ground forces into the region. When military action is called for, we need to use covert operations, air strikes, or local troops whenever possible, preferably without claiming responsibility.

• We need to move our military out of sensitive countries, like Saudi Arabia, i.e. places considered holy by Muslims, and relocate them to places where their presence will be less controversial. We should also locate our bases away from their population centers.

The disappearance of American troops will rob the terrorist of their claim that we are crusaders or occupiers. Along the same lines, our leaders need to stop talking about this being a war, and they need to stop making bellicose threats. This is a propaganda war, and we need to stop playing into the terrorists hands by sounding like we intend to dominate the region.

Policy No. 2b: Eliminating Grievances: Changing The Way We Deal With Regional Governments

We also need to change the way we deal with governments in the region. Most Arab countries are run by repressive, corrupt despots. We get the blame for that because we have supported them throughout the years. We need to make significant changes in this regard.

First, we need to aim for energy independence by allowing off-shore drilling and investing in the necessary resources to spark a massive conversion to natural gas, instead of petroleum. Why? Because right now our need for Middle East oil holds us hostage to some of these governments. If we can achieve energy independence, which we can, then we free ourselves to act more freely throughout the region (not to mention that I would rather send $500 billion a year to middle America than the Middle East).

Secondly, we need to create a list of principles that we will treat as a prerequisite for getting aid from the United States. These principles should be designed to significantly improve the every day lives of people in these countries: free and fair elections, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, transparent government and enforcement of strong anti-corruption laws, respect for due process and rule of law, and independent judiciaries. We need to very publicly announce these and we need to stick with them.

These steps will make it virtually impossible for anyone to convince “the Arab street” that we are responsible for the oppression or failures that beset Muslims.

Third, when we do provide aid, we need to use this as a public relations opportunity. In other words, we need to stop handing out money and then looking the other way. Instead, we need to target specific projects or causes for which the aid is intended, and then we need to administer those ourselves. We need to let the local people know that American money is providing them with their jobs, with their roads, and with their food aid -- all of which needs to be prominently labeled with American flags and distributed by American workers.

This will ensure that our money is not wasted or misused, and that we get credit on the ground for our charity, rather than having the credit taken by the local governments.

All told, this will go a long, long way to making us again the beacon of hope and freedom, and making it so much harder for terrorists to find grounds for inciting hatred against us.

Hunting Down Terrorists

In addition to stopping the flow of volunteers, we do need to continue hunting down existing terrorists. This calls for infiltration combined with military action, and policing.

Policy No. 1: Infiltration & Military Action

Our main focus in terms of stopping existing terrorists must be infiltrating their organizations. We need to send hundreds of agents to every corner of the world to join these groups. And we need to treat this as a military operation, not a law enforcement operation. Our goal should not be to gather enough evidence to bring these people to trial, but should be to determine who they are and where they are so that they can be wiped out by military force.

Yet, we must be smart about this. We should not send the military to fight large scale ground wars against Muslims because that only feeds their propaganda machine and plays into the motif of America as colonizer. Instead, these should involve the so-called surgical strikes -- air strikes, snipers, special ops -- against specific targets, like terrorist training facilities or identified terrorist leaders or cell. And in each instance, we need to go in with the understanding that the moment the strike is over, our forces withdraw, preferably without ever claiming responsibility.

Policy No. 2: Effective Policing

In addition to infiltration, we should continue out policing efforts. This involves trying to interdict their money and weapons, and trying to build ties with local communities so that they turn these terrorists in. Generally, this involves doing the same kind of police work it takes to bring down street gangs and drug cartels -- something at which the FBI has become quite adept.

Conclusion

The key to ending Islamic terrorism is to starve these terrorist organizations of the volunteers they need to wage their terror campaigns. That makes this a propaganda war, not a shooting war. When we turn this into a shooting war, we play into their hands and feed their propaganda machines. Instead, we need to deprive them of the grievances upon which they rely, we need to wage our own propaganda war to combat fundamentalist Islam, and, when we do need to use force, we need to do so quietly.

The alternative is that we spend the next 100 years fighting in one Muslim country after another, as a never-ending supply of terrorists continue to mount attacks all over the world.

Thoughts?

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Part One: How To Fight Islamic Terrorism

We fight Islamic terrorism the wrong way. Yeah, this is one of those posts. Our leaders don’t understand the nature of terrorism, nor do they understand what motivates these terrorists. Thus, they don’t know how to fight them. In fact, they keep doing things that only make the problem worse. This is a two part post. In this part, we’ll talk about the three biggest myths we buy into that keep us from fighting Islamic terrorism effectively. In part two, I’ll offer some suggestions on new policies.

MYTHS

Myth No. 1: There Is A Military Solution To Islamic Terrorism

I know a lot of people don’t want to hear this, but there simply is no military solution to Islamic terrorism. In fact, using the military will be counter-productive in most instances.

Here’s the crux of the problem. Terrorists are not military forces. They do not fight on battlefields. (We’ll get to Afghanistan in a moment.) They do not hold territory, they do not occupy positions, and their goals are not to overcome your armed forces -- their goals are to cause your society enough terror and pain that you give in to their demands. Thus, they rarely present targets for the military to attack. Without targets, all the planes, tanks and troops in the world mean nothing.

Indeed, history is full of examples of governments trying to use their militaries to stop terrorists. But none of them succeeded. . . not honorable armies like ours that play by the rules of international law, not colonial armies that played by few rules, not even brutal, genocidal armies like the Nazis in the Balkans or the Russians in Chechnya who felt little guilt about wiping out population centers. They could all kill terrorists whenever the terrorists exposed themselves, but they just couldn’t stop the terror no matter how much force they used.

Why? Because terrorists have the ability to mask their identifies and to blend into civilian populations. This is the proverbial needle in a haystack problem. Worse, it is the needle in a stack of needles problem because terrorists can make themselves indistinguishable from the surrounding populations. Moreover, they choose the populations in which they will hide, which means you can't even narrow down the area you need to search.

Consider this. During the past ten years, Islamic terrorists have committed major acts of terror in each of the following countries: Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, Egypt, Algeria, Israel, Nairobi, Indonesia, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Chechnya, Russia, Spain, the Philippines, China and even the United States, among others. In most of these instances, it was a small cell of five to ten terrorists who pulled off these terroristic acts, and they struck without warning -- without anyone even knowing they were there. How could they pull that off? Because, until they acted, they were indistinguishable from the local populations. Thus, there was nothing military action could have done to stop them because it simply is not possible to kill what you cannot find or what you do not know exists.

Some argue that we can defeat terrorism by killing their leaders. But how do you find the leaders when you do not know who they are and they could be hidden anywhere on the planet? We've been trying to kill Al Qaeda's leaders for ten years and we haven't succeeded -- and we even know who many of those are. Arab states have been trying to kill the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood since 1928 and haven't succeeded. The British were never able to eliminate the IRA's leaders, and so on and so on.

And what’s to keep the terrorists from simply finding new leaders? Or what do you do about cells that work without direction from a leadership? To stop terrorism, you need to stop every terrorist, not merely rough up their network. Yet there just isn’t any way to do that with military action, no matter how strong your military is, because you just can't find them all.

Moreover, the danger of using the military to fight terrorism is that you may feed the fires of hatred that send people running into the arms of the terrorists. This is particularly true with Islamic terrorism, where every government in the Arab world (friend or foe) and every Imam from Detroit to Riyadh to Jakarta has used the United States as a scapegoat for so long that the United States has become the boogeyman for every single failure suffered by anyone in the Muslim world.

Further, the entire concept of Islamic terrorism has its roots in the idea that the West is seeking to dominate the Muslim world and is occupying Muslim lands. Sending the military to fight in those lands simply plays into that storyline and incites more young Muslims to join the cause.

Our leaders are kidding themselves when they claim that there is a military solution to Islamic terrorism.

NOTE: This is not to say that there aren’t moments when the use of military force isn’t appropriate or effective. Afghanistan was one such example (though I would suggest that we are now at a point where the costs of staying far outweigh the benefits). In Afghanistan, Al Qaeda aligned themselves with one side in what was essentially an Afghan civil war. In so doing, they exposed many of their leaders and followers in ways that let the U.S. military inflict damage on their network. However, while this might lead to a defeat for Taliban forces in their civil war, this cannot lead to the defeat of Al Qaeda, much less Islamic terrorism. Al Qaeda currently operates in as many as 65 countries. Thus, even if every single Al Qaeda member in Afghanistan could be killed, the rest of the network would continue. Not to mention that Al Qaeda is just one of hundreds of Islamic terrorist groups.

Myth No. 2: Terrorists Need Vast Sums of Money

This one frustrates me to no end. Every time a government intercepts money headed to some terrorist organization, they hail this as a huge victory. They rush to the nearest podium to describe this “significant blow to terror” and then assure us that without hundreds of millions of dollars, terrorists cannot function. What scares me is that they actually seem to believe this.

I don’t want to get into handing out of ideas, but with a $40 sledgehammer and a train schedule, an intelligent terrorist could reign havoc on any country with a rail system without ever getting caught. Look what Timothy McVeigh did with a rented truck and some fertilizer. The 9/11 hijackers spent a few dollars for knives and could have bought their airline tickets on credit cards. The DC sniper needed only an old, beat-up truck, a drill and a rifle. So don’t tell me that it takes money to be an effective terrorist. All it takes is creative thinking.

Depriving terrorist groups of money is a good idea, but we are again kidding ourselves if we think that can stop them.

Myth No. 3: We Can Defeat Islamic Terrorism Without Addressing Its Root Causes

I hate the phrase "root causes," but it is appropriate here. If you don’t understand what motivates your opponent, then you cannot understand how to defeat them. Sadly, our leaders have shown repeatedly that they don’t want to understand Islamic terrorism.

Islamic terrorism is motivated by religion, and fueled by a perception that we are the cause of all their problems. But our leaders don’t want to hear that.

Take the issue of religion. Until we are willing to admit that there is a problem with fundamentalist Islam, we will not be able to solve the problem of Islamic terrorism. Why? Because fundamentalist Islam is teaching vast numbers of Muslim children to hate westerners, to blame westerners for their problems, and that killing westerners is the pathway to eternal glory. These beliefs are wrong, but that doesn’t matter -- they are believed. With over a billion Muslims on Earth, it only takes a miniscule percentage of them accepting these beliefs to create a massive terrorist movement.

Yet, our left doesn’t want to believe that people can be truly motivated by religion, and they don’t want to tarnish "Muslims," who they view as allies against the religious right and against a Western culture the left despises. They don’t grasp that their willful blindness prevents them from undertaking the very policies that are needed to stem the flow of angry Muslims into these terrorist movements.

But the right isn’t much better. They don’t want to understand Islamic terrorism either because they don’t want the nuances interfering with the narrative that “Islam” is a unified enemy that needs to be “defeated.” They don’t grasp that there is a true civil war going on between modern Islam and fundamental Islam -- a slow-motion civil war being fought throughout the Middle East, Africa and South East Asia -- and that lumping them together has only made us an enemy of both sides.

Secondly, take the issue of perception. The United States has gone from being perceived as the beacon of freedom from colonial oppression to being seen as the new master and as the cause of all that is wrong in the Muslim world. Why? Two reasons. First, because of our support for oppressive regimes, we have come to be seen as imposing rotten government on Arab nations and, therefore, are seen as responsible for their actions. This has been made worse by the penchant of our “friends” in the region to use us as scapegoats. Secondly, maintaining a visible American military presence in Muslim countries feeds the argument that we are crusaders looking to occupy their lands, or that we have simply replaced the old colonial powers. All of this leads to a sense of outrage on the "Arab street" and makes it very easy for terrorist groups to recruit.

If we don't understand this, then we cannot come up with policies that let us defuse the hatred that drives these people to terror. If we can't stop them wanting to become terrorists, then we simply can't stop Islamic terrorism. Not only will they have an unending supply of volunteers, but we won't be able to get the kind of help from these communities that we need to locate and eliminate the terrorists.

Unfortunately, our leaders don’t want to hear this because it is very convenient for them to leave things as they are in the Middle East.

That's the problem.


Tomorrow morning, I’ll present some solutions.


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Terrorism: Uh, Just Because. . .

Why does Al Qaeda want to kill us? That sounds like the first thing you’d want to know if you were planning to fight them, doesn’t it? But apparently, knowing the answer to that question isn’t so important to the Department of Homeland Security. That was the lesson of a recent press conference put on by Janet Napolitano’s National Security team.

On January 7, 2010, White House correspondent Helen Thomas asked a simple question to Janet Napolitano and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan: “why does Al Qaeda want to kill us?”

The non-answers were disturbing. Here is their exchange:

Brennan: “They’re motivated by a sense of religious, sort of, drive. Al Qaeda has perverted Islam and has corrupted the concept of Islam. Al Qaeda has the agenda of destruction and death.”

Thomas: “You’re saying it’s because of religion?”

Brennan: “I’m saying it’s because of an Al Qaeda organization that uses the banner of religion in a very perverse and corrupt way.”

Thomas: “Why?”

Brennan: [smirks] “This is a long issue but Al Qaeda is just determined to carry out attacks here against the homeland.”

Thomas: “But you haven’t explained why.”

Thomas and Napolitano then moved on to other questions.

Did you notice how Brennan was unable to answer the simple question of why Al Qaeda wanted to harm us? All he was able to say is that they want to harm us because they are determined to harm us. That doesn’t exactly give one a warm fuzzy that DHS has the slightest clue how to fight Al Qaeda does it? Understanding your enemy is the first rule of any sort of engagement, from war to politics to negotiations. And if they don’t even know why Al Qaeda is doing what they are doing, then they don’t understand their enemy.

For the record, foreign policy experts think that Al Qaeda was founded in the 1980s by Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden formed Al Qaeda because he believed that jihad is required to replace all ideologies in the Muslim world (pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, democracy) with Sharia law. This was his original goal.

In 1990, he became enraged when the House of Saud chose to accept the help of the United States during the First Gulf War (1990) to defend Saudi Arabia, rather than accept his offer of support, which entailed bringing his army of mujahideen Afghan fighters to Saudi Arabia to oppose any invasion by Iraq. After that, he became obsessed with driving non-Muslims from the “land of the two mosques” (Mecca and Medina). He believes that the presence of American (foreign) troops in Saudi Arabia profanes sacred soil.

He particularly hates the United States and other Western countries because of perceived injustices they have perpetrated against Muslim states. These include putting non-Muslim troops in Saudi Arabia, supporting dictators in the Muslim world, and supporting Israel (which he believes needs to be eliminated). He also is angry about American culture, which he perceives as lacking morality. Indeed, in October 2002, he wrote a letter calling on Americans to “reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling and usury.”

That's why he wants to kill us, and that's the agenda that most Islamic terrorists have adopted.

Why couldn't DHS say that? And if they don't know that, why should we believe they know how to fight him?

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Need More Democrats? Then Just Endanger National Security

We have just gone through the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. In the wake of that tragic mass murder, a bipartisan Congress formed the 9/11 Commission both to investigate the attack and to propose methods by which future attacks could be prevented. Some good came out of it. One remedy was the REAL ID Act.

The REAL ID Act established strong standards for state-issued driver's licenses and identification cards. This included all of the most state-of-the-art enhancements to those cards available. The enhancements include eventual use of holographic images on every card, and a magnetic strip capable of protecting the security of the card and data privacy. And in order to obtain one of these cards, the applicant is required to demonstrate proof of citizenship, or sufficient verifiable information for the issuing authority to verify citizenship independently. Those legally allowed in the United States, but not citizens, would be allowed to have an ID card, but included in the information in the security strip there would be information proving the person has entered and remained in the United States legally.

As we predicted awhile back, the Obama administration is going to start slipping dangerous but low-profile legislative proposals to Congress while the nation's attention is on Obamacare and Cap and Tax. Secretary of Homeland Insecurity Janet Napolitano has put together her wish list of things she thinks are too cost-ineffective or redundant. Among them is REAL ID. The program, although not yet fully implemented in every state, has been a success. No terrorists have boarded an American plane successfully since 9/11. But absence is not proof. So how do we know it works?

The Act produced a very successful side-effect. One of the major concerns of the 9/11 Commission was terrorists sneaking across the borders and obtaining or manufacturing fake IDs. Since the Act was already accomplishing one purpose, the legislation covered another one--employers in certain categories are required to check REAL IDs for proof of citizenship or work visas. Scores of illegals have been caught and deported because of their attempts to duplicate REAL IDs unsuccessfully. And every illegal (and that doesn't just mean Mexican immigrants by any means) is a potential terrorist.

Napolitano has plenty of cover for her willingess to put America at greater risk again. Hard-pressed states have complained about the cost (couldn't we use some of those billions in unused stimulus money to defray the cost?). "Civil rights" activists naturally complain that it's racist. Scofflaw corporations complain that it interferes with their ability to hire low-wage unskilled labor. And the average citizen either doesn't know about the Act, or has forgotten about it. Truly effective laws do have a way of slipping out of the public consciousness.

So here's what's now before Congress. It's called the PASS ID resolution. It would roll back every meaningful portion of the REAL ID Act. It removes the requirement of states exchanging information on holders of their respective driver's licenses and IDs. It will negate the current portion of the Act which requires that upon implementation of the Act in each state, airlines must require the use of a REAL ID cards or an acceptable alternative (such as a diplomatic passport) before being allowed through the boarding gate. It would eliminate the "no tamper" security portion of the data strip. And the proposed legislation even further weakens its own inadequate provisions by extending the time for the states to comply with the pathetic PASS ID.

No security device is ever entirely secure or tamper-proof. But they can become sufficiently sophisticated that the number of people who would be capable of defeating them decreases exponentially. And the more sophisticated, the more expensive, thereby eliminating another large swath of potential terrorists being able to get past the system. I'll take 90% secure over 10% or 15% secure any day in the week. And before anybody screams "National ID, the government's out to get us," REAL ID standardizes high-security procedures already in place and improves them, but the final authority remains with the states. And frankly, I want the federal government to know the moment someone produces a fake or inadequate ID rather than a REAL ID-quality ID.

As I've said over and over again, if we even take a quick nap, this administration will exploit our inattention to increase government control of our lives and our economy while at the same time reducing our ability to defend ourselves and ferret out terrorists. They will continue to fund useless make-work projects and radical "community organizers." But protecting our very lives is too expensive. Still believe that Obamacare won't ration medical treatment?

Side Note: For those of you who may be unaware of this, after the most recent round of indictments and convictions for voter fraud, the Bureau of the Census has sent a formal notice to ACORN that its services will no longer be considered to be in the national interest for conducting the next census. Bye Bye ACORN
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Homeland Insecurity

"Today, I am proud to make two key personnel announcements for the U. S. Department of Homeland Security. President Obama is nominating David Heyman as Assistant Secretary of Policy and I am appointing Arif Alikhan as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development." With those words, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano put American national security at further risk.

President Obama and his immediate subordinates are continuing a slow descent into accommodationism and false confidence. Starting with a Secretary of Homeland Security who believes in easy immigration and easier citizenship, particularly for illegals, the various departments charged with protecting Americans from foreign and domestic terrorism are being peopled with hacks, one-worlders, appeasers, and worst of all, appointees of dubious loyalty to America.

David Heyman is more of the same in that he appears on the surface to be a well-organized and logical hands-on executive. He has lengthy experience in real-world implementation of security schemes, and is knowledgeable in the area of utilizing local and area-wide citizens in major emergencies rather than relying on state or federal agencies to do the work quickly and efficiently. He was even quite critical of FEMA's handling of the Katrina disaster, and had high praise for the authorities across the state border from Louisiana for their quick and localized action using local citizens and resources.

So far, so good. But Heyman is not being appointed as an administrator of the nuts and bolts of putting citizen groups together to act locally in a crisis. He has been appointed to work in the policy division--quite a different thing. All the planning in the world does no good if you're planning for the wrong disaster. Heyman is a professor with a very academic view of world affairs. His view of the Middle East is more the Chamberlain than the Churchill type. More Carter than Reagan. It's hard to plan an emergency rapid reaction when you are concentrating on planning how to convince the enemy not to attack in the first place. And Heyman is one who believes in international cooperation to resolve all national problems, area-wide negotiation, and denial of any ill will toward us from the Arab/Muslim world.

Planning for tornadoes and hurricanes is all well and good, unless you're in California and the "enemy" is earthquake or fire. Heyman bases his policy on the traditional concepts of national governments conducting clearly-defined wars. None of his policy papers indicate that he is willing to recognize the reality of present day non-governmental terrorism, religious fantacism as a factor in creating terror, and asymmetrical warfare. Nevertheless, as inadequate as Heyman's worldview may be, he is not disloyal, and does seem to believe in America's right to survive and protect itself. He just can't see the real threat in front of his face.

The second appointment of the day is considerably more troubling. Arif Alikhan is a devout Sunni Muslim. Let's make no mistake, there are no valid religious tests for holding office in America, nor should there be. But that doesn't mean we should close our eyes to what appointees say, what they believe in regard to religion and the state, and which social and political organizations they support.

Here's Napolitano's introduction to Mr. Alikhan: "Arif comes from Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigoso's office, where he served as Deputy Mayor for Homeland Security and Public Safety. As a key adviser to the Mayor, he has led the City's efforts to develop homeland security, emergency management and law enforcement initiatives, including operational oversight of Los Angeles Police, Fire, and Emergency Management departments. Pretty impressive, huh?

However, Napolitano neglected a few facts about him. Alikhan was instrumental in completely disbanding the Police Department's personnel and trashing plans for monitoring suspected Muslim terrorists in the Los Angeles area. Alikhan is an associate of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). The group was founded in 1988 as an outgrowth of several other radical Muslim groups. It attempts to be the civilized face of more militiant activism. It describes itself as "a public service agency working for the civil rights of American Muslims, for the integration of Islam into American pluralism, and for a positive, constructive relationship between American Muslims and their representatives."

It sounds innocent enough, until you know the rest of it. Its senior adviser is Maher Hathout, who has close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and who espouses Saudi-style Wahhabism. Despite its professed desire to work closely with other religious communities, in 2000 the Council severed its ties with the Jewish community as a result of the second Intifada and issued harsh, one-sided condemnations of Israel for its response to the Palestinian violence. It was active in attempts to repeal the Patriot Act, working hand-in-hand with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the American Muslim Council and the American Muslim Alliance. The organizations espouse the belief that the Patriot Act was designed solely as an assault on the civil rights of Muslims. And MPAC opposed vehemently the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the search for Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda leaders.

The Council claims that extremists in Islam are no more numerous in total or per capita than in any other faith. It holds Israel solely responsible for the "pattern of violence" in the Middle East, and declares Hezbollah to be a group of freedom fighters pursuing a liberation movement. Although Alikhan has not publicly espoused these positions since moving into government service, still he has not disavowed them or those who promote them. And we are to expect that a man such as this will influence administration policy in a logical manner, recognizing his duty to protect American national security above all else.

It's not just in the homeland security area that Obama's appointments have been dangerous to American security. The two above are part of a series of frighteningly naive appointments that the Obama administration has pushed. The President's appointments mentioned below (only a partial list) include only one other Muslim, lest anyone think this is an anti-Muslim column. It also demonstrates that one need not be Muslim to be wilfully blind to Islamic fanaticism. By their deeds shall ye know them.

How about Kareem Shora, appointed by Napolitano to the Homeland Security Advisory Council? He is the Executive Director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). Damascus-born Shora is a known associate of anti-Israel professor Rashid Khalili (who is in turn a friend of one Barack Obama), both of whom have praised jihadists as heroes and fight any reference to Hamas as a terrorist group. The President of ADC, Hamzi Moghrabi, stated: "I will not call Hamas a terrorist organization. I mean I know many people in Hamas. They are very respectable. I don't believe that Hamas as an organization is a violent organization." He also said: "I find it shocking that one would include Hezbollah in an inventory of Middle East terrorist groups." Hezbollah is second only to al Qaeda in the number of Americans it has killed in terrorist attacks.

ADC has also actively opposed all anti-terrorism measures such as watch lists, background check delays for visas and comprehensive screening of Middle East countries or specific individuals labeled as possible national security threats. ADC openly celebrated the release of Hezbollah prisoners in Israel in 2004, praising them as "heroes." I guess we know what kind of advice Shora will be giving Secretary Napolitano.

Adviser General Merrill McPeak says American Jewish voters prevent the U. S. from a constructive role in bringing about peace in the Middle East. Robert Malley has urged an imposed settlement on Israel which requires Israel to negotiate with Hamas. NSC adviser Samantha Power advocates imposition of terms on Israel by the U. S. unilaterally. George Mitchell, who in 2000 called for more concessions from Israel before he would demand that Palestinians fulfill their already existing, unfulfilled Oslo obligations. Daniel Kurtzer directly blames Israel for the failure of the 2000 Camp David accords.

And then there's the amazingly devious and chameleon-like Dennis Ross, who is a vocal supporter of Israel and friend of Rahm Emmanuel. Ross even held the Palestinian Authority largely responsible for the 2000 failure that other administration officials blame on Israel. He thereafter repeated his position that Israel could not negotiate with terrorist organizations. Right up untl he became an Obama insider. He now says that he was right all along, but what is different now is that Yasser Arafat was unable to make peace, but his current successor Mahmoud Abbas can. Well, the Bush administration failed at that little gem, so why not let the Obama administration do the same thing? The only difference in approach is that Bush gave the Palestinian Authority $600 million, while so far Obama has given the P.A. $900 million. As we all know, the only reason a peace plan fails is lack of funding. Ross is now Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for the Central Region (including Palestine, Israel and much of Syria and Lebanon).

Whether it's protection of American troops and personnel in the Middle East, or American citizens at home, Obama has shown a strong predilection for continuing the use of weak old-timers in office, or bringing them back for the sake of appearances. But at least they put up a show of believing that Israel deserves to exist, and Americans at home and abroad deserve to live. His new people who are expected to lead the charge tend to be very weak on American homeland defense and foreign intervention, and some are openly hostile. Those who came in as strong advocates for American national security quickly convert. A fish rots from the head down.

With people like this in charge, Secretary Napolitano is going to need much more than a simple metal detector to protect her and the rest of us from terrorist attacks.
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