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"There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress." Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.” -Will Rogers (1879-1935)

"Stability in government is essential to national character and to the advantages annexed to it." -James Madison (1751-1836)

"Liberty must at all hazards be supported." -John Adams (1735-1826)


Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Where and what’s next?

First it was New York, DC and thousands. Now it has come to Detroit and three hundred. Where will it be next and how many targeted?

Here’s my view for whatever that’s worth.

I believe we have effectively cut the leadership of al Qaeda off from its followers. There have gone underground in Pakistan and can no longer show their head to be very effectual. This has lead to a lack of direction at the top of the individual cells causing planning to be accomplished at a much lower scale. This may be either a good thing or a bad thing depending on where your observation point is.

The conclusion that I draw from this and recent activity is that the individual cells of al Qaeda are freely planning and are now attempting their own plots. However these plots will be on a much smaller scale and could quite possibly take place anywhere. These guys in Yemen and Somalia are desperate to show their stuff and retaliate against the oppression they see as their enemy. They don’t play well with others and want to be King of the Hill and will stop at nothing to get to the top.

These guys in Yemen and Somali are up to the same old tasks as their former leadership: recruiting, training, funding and planning. Are we gonna wait like we did with the Afghanistan cadre and then realize that it’s now too late to close the barn door? We’ve all got to get smarter!

They think smaller and are satisfied with smaller scale destruction and carnage as their goals and achievements. They are willing to kill only hundreds, instead of thousands, to get their message out that they are now the ballgame. They are working through individuals instead of teams like the former leadership.

We need to be on the lookout for the guy and no longer the guys. They will come at us one at a time, just maybe never again in groups.

How do we as a people prepare for this wave of attacks? The answer is more than likely just like the passengers on the aircraft headed into Detroit did – on our own. Big brother can not be everywhere. I am not calling for the arming of America and the rest of the free world. But, it probably gonna be up to us and us alone. Big brother will fight the big ones and we must fight the little ones. We just might loose a few here and there; but together we can win the majority of them.

Umar Farouk Abdulmattalab #2

I don’t know what happened, but I owe everybody an apology. During the copy and paste to the blog site, I must have not paid strict attention and didn’t copy the entire entry over prior to posting to the blog. I’m sorry for the oversight.

H

Where do these guys get their names? What is an Umar Farouk Abdulmattalab and how could an Umar Farouk Abdulmattalab possibly come up with the cash required to fly back and forth across the Atlantic time and time again? It boggles my mind.

I think it is time to enact a law that prohibits anyone with a silly, stupid or un-pronounceable name from purchasing a ticket, airline or other, to enter the United States without first posting a Million Dollar tariff. This tariff would require transfer prior to the boarding of the transportation asset in question.

This alone would stop the kind of actions that happened this past week and provide for the transfer of dollars from those oil rich nations back into our offers. I further propose that the funds sit in an account managed by an institution such as the First National Bank of Bryan, Texas or it’s branch office over in Snook until such time as it gains a sufficient level of funds so as to make it possible to distribute those funds via check to each and every citizen of the United States.

If Nasir al-Wuhayshi and his cousins, Said ai-Shihri or Anwar al-Awlaki, want to find money lenders willing to finance the tariff requirement, I say let them come on down. We can then be waiting on them with a room at Guantánamo or even somewhere in Illinois.

We could also do away with the two lists currently maintained, the No-Fly and the Terrorist Identity Datamart Environment (TIDE), and just maintain one list; the We-Gonna-Lock-you-Up list. Cuts down the overhead, don’t you see?

I can see him now; my brother’s cousin’s cousin’s brother’s evil twin, sitting in his cube at the Department of Homeland Security developing this plan.

I heard some reporter over the weekend state that if “the next bomber just happens to be singing//humming praise to Ala when he//she tries to set off their device; the HLS will ban that on all airways. They just don’t get it at all! My best guess is that this will prevent the Vienna Boy’s Choir from touring on anything besides a bus for the near future; just maybe they will get one over-nighter every other year. They keep punishing only those of us that play by the rules and never affect any real security with their silly rules. Wait, I have to take off my shoes to go any further.

The TIDE list I mentioned earlier reportedly holds over 550, 000 names. That makes it ineffectual from the start. The no-fly list is a manageable size. Does anybody honestly think anybody on it is going to present themselves to an airport using their own name and looking like their own self and expect to be able to get on an airplane?

I also heard someone state that there should be a marshal on these flights. That individual has not a clue how many flights there are of this nature. We haven’t the personnel or training ability to marshal every flight that comes into the US; much less those moving around inside the US. Money is not the issue or Congress would have it printed long ago.

The Obama Administration has not taken us anywhere the Bush Administration ever did. We are not any safer than we were a year ago or three years ago for that matter. We need real improvements; not some guy sitting in a cube in the basement trying to think up another way to make the line longer.

THE Administration has lost sight of its primary objectives and allowed secondary objectives, health care for one, to dominate their time. They must get back to the big four: (1) security, (2) jobs, (3) jobs and (4) jobs; though not necessarily in that order.