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Terrorism: Do You Feel Any Safer, Yet?
The Times Square event was perpetrated by a Pakistani-born, naturalized American citizen. This particular American has been in our country since 2000, attended our schools, even getting a Master’s degree, so he’s probably no dummy. What he is not is a well-trained bomb expert. What does that tell us? It tells us that his attempt at blowing up a car full of propane gas was not a subject in which he had received meaningful training. There are probably hundreds of five-year-olds who have blown up their kitchens by playing with matches near a gas stove, and this man, with his Master’s degree, couldn’t figure out how to blow up a car? So, he’s an amateur with a gripe against America, not, as our government will attempt to convince us, a well-oiled killing machine who is an integral part of an international conspiracy to destroy America. You might classify him as a casual conspirator, which is bad enough, but he’s no Osama bin Laden. Let’s turn our attention to the US intelligence community. No one in any of those organizations had anything to do with the failure in Times Square. They had no idea that it was going to happen, and knew little, if anything, about the perpetrator. No one apparently knew that he had been trained by the Taliban in Pakistan (Our bureaucrats say he was he was.). It seems no one knew anything about the man. He was not on any “no fly watch list” or would not have been allowed to board the flight out of JFK airport. Here is a man of apparent Arab/Muslim descent, with an Arab/Muslim name, buying a one-way ticket to a Muslim/Arab country, and paying cash for the ticket. And no one thought to say, “Hey, wait a minute.” So this guy who eventually tried to blow up Americans did not exist, as far as the people entrusted with our safety are concerned. Feeling safer, yet? These intelligence agencies are our first line of defense, says our government. A billion dollar new federal agency was created to keep the “homeland” safe, yet, it seems we must rely on the incompetence of the people out to hurt us, and not on our own people, to stop them from killing us. When a terrorist act succeeds, no one is blamed for it, no one gets demoted or fired, a commission is set up to investigate the incident, but nothing meaningful comes out of that committee. One lasting effect of any particular failure of our government to protect us is usually a bunch of dead Americans. Check out 9/11. Procedures don’t change. Policies don’t change. Danger survives. We are not safe anywhere in our country, and that includes a United States Army Base, where an officer in the US Army killed 13 fellow soldiers. Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a devout Muslim, had sent 18 emails to a radical Muslim cleric, some of which were intercepted by two FBI task forces in Washington, D.C. and San Diego, California, where they were deemed harmless and unimportant. No one raised a red flag and said, “We better watch this guy carefully. He’s a Muslim and he’s talking to a radical Muslim cleric and is regularly sending money from his army salary to Islamic charities.” These charities are known as conduits for cash to terrorist groups. We knew this was going on and didn’t take a closer look at the guy? You can’t make this stuff up. And we now have the geniuses in Washington spouting the same ludicrous “reasons” for the attempted bombing in Times Square. “They” hate us for our freedoms. “They” hate our way of life. The Times Square bomber was reaping the benefits of living in America. He didn’t hate his schooling. He didn’t hate cheeseburgers or chocolate ice cream, or that opportunities still abound in our country to create a marvelous life for yourself, if you want one. He was wallowing in those benefits. What he may hate is that President Obama, while campaigning, promised to curtail US operations in Pakistan, and instead, increased drone attacks, killing even more Pakistani innocents than ever before. One of those attacks may have killed a friend or relative of Mr. Shahzad. Even one four-year-old kid he didn’t know, but was a Pakistani. That would do it for me. How about you? Would it upset you if a friend’s child was killed by some American sitting in front of a screen in Florida, directing fire into a Pakistani home where someone is supposed to be hiding from us? These are guesses, but the man is talking, so we may learn what triggered his attack. It probably won’t be hatred for our freedoms. I do not write this as an endorsement of the Times Square bomber’s action. I am solidly behind any useful, meaningful procedures by our government that will keep us safe from these dedicated murderers. If a terrorist is caught, he should suffer the most extreme consequences of his actions. He is an unguided missile of mass destruction, as guilty of an inability to address the real reasons that terrorism is flourishing around the world as is our own government. While fixing our porous defenses and better protecting ourselves against further attacks, we must put the idea of terrorism under a microscope, to find out how and why this disease spreads across borders, as easily as a flu virus. Until we do that, our only defense is to keep our fingers crossed that they don’t get it right the next time. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com Allan Sanford writes for the conservative web site, www.JumpIntoPoliticalWaters.com/ |
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