Showing posts with label Jihadists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jihadists. Show all posts

Friday, December 10, 2010

Political Correctness Equals Terrorist Infiltration

Political Correctness Kills: Study Shows How Terrorists Infiltrate U.S. Government

Barry Rubin reviewed, "Top 10 Failures of the US Government on the Domestic Islamist Threat" in today's PJM.

The actual paper is Here.

A review of PJM contributor Patrick Poole’s hair-raising 10 Failures of the U.S. Government on the Domestic Islamist Threat.

December 5, 2010 - by Barry Rubin


There is a very important — one might even say life-and-death — distinction that should be made in considering U.S. counterterrorism policy. Certainly, U.S. forces have had many successes in stopping intended terrorist attacks against the United States. Yet there have also been a number of failures. How to distinguish what made the difference?

The successes in the post-September 11 era have come when the techniques of police and military work or intelligence-gathering were used against full-time terrorists. Indeed, an observer could sum up the handling of terrorism in the United States in the almost-decade since September 11 by saying there have been no major attacks, and the policy has been successful.

When it comes to organizations planning attacks, this approach works very well. But when the threat involves individuals or small groups being radicalized and perhaps joining or supporting terrorist groups, the record is much worse.

The weakness is in analysis, profiling, decision-making, and understanding the nature of the enemy ideology. As a result, there have been a number of smaller attacks, including some not counted at all by a government that wants to keep its batting average high, and some near-misses that were averted due more to luck than to skill.

In addition, a huge amount of money has been wasted and effort misdirected, as many are coming to see regarding the current methods of airport security.

In understanding these vital issues one can read no better work than Patrick Poole’s 10 Failures of the U.S. Government on the Domestic Islamist Threat. (Patrick Poole is a frequent PJM contributor.)

He provides ten case studies, each of which is hair-raising, and none of which, arguably, has led to major corrective action. At the root of each one is a failure or refusal to comprehend revolutionary Islamism or the bureaucratic fear of taking on the enemy. Moreover, some cases show how the other side has even gained political influence in America.

Consider Abdulrahman Alamoudi, the Muslim leader who most frequently visited the Clinton White House. Poole rightly describes Alamoudi as:

The most prominent Islamic activist leader in America at the time, he had infiltrated the highest levels of political power. … [He was asked] by the Defense Department to establish the military’s Muslim chaplain corps, and appointed by the State Department to serve as a civilian ambassador, taking six taxpayer-funded trips to the Middle East. … Just days after the 9/11 attacks, he appeared with President Bush and other Muslim leaders at a press conference at the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C. despite his public comments a year earlier at a rally just steps from the White House identifying himself as a supporter of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations.

In July 2005 the Treasury Department revealed that Alamoudi had been one of al-Qaeda’s top fundraisers ….

Go back and reread the last two paragraphs. Shouldn’t this experience have created great skepticism about proclaiming Muslim leaders to be moderate without critically examining their record? Instead, the opposite has happened.

Then there was Ali Mohamed, a man who trained American soldiers on Arab culture and infiltrated the U.S. Army’s training program for intelligence officers in the Middle East. Simultaneously, he was teaching Islamist militants in the United States — including the cell that carried out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing — how to shoot and blow things up. Later, he became al-Qaeda’s chief military expert.

How might the Army have known to distrust this man? Well, he had been expelled from the Egyptian army because of his terrorist sympathies, and Egypt warned the United States about him.

We’ve heard a lot lately about al-Qaeda’s new star, Anwar al-Awlaki, who has been behind many of the recent terrorist attacks on America. But did you know, as Poole writes:

Despite being subject to a FBI investigation initiated in 1999, and having been interviewed by the FBI at least four times after 9/11 for his contacts with two of the hijackers, Al-Awlaki was leading prayers for congressional Muslim staffers inside the U.S. Capitol. … Al-Awlaki was also feted at a luncheon inside the still-smoldering Pentagon following the 9/11 attacks …

Poole also writes of:

… Anwar Hajjaj, a local Islamic cleric who still leads prayers for the Congressional Muslim Staff Association. Hajjaj headed the Taibah International Aid Association, which was designated a global terrorist organization by the Treasury Department in May 2004.

And about lobbyist Faisal Gill, appointed to a senior post in the Department of Homeland Security:

… a former aide to al-Qaeda fundraiser Abdurahman Alamoudi … [Gill] had omitted his previous employment as director of government relations for Alamoudi’s American Muslim Council on the Standard Form 86 required for Gill’s security clearance. Gill had been at the forefront of AMC’s political efforts to end the use of secret evidence in terrorism deportation proceedings. In his position in the Homeland Security Intelligence division, he had access to a wide range of top-secret information, including vulnerabilities of national critical infrastructure.

Gill was investigated and cleared at the time, despite the fact that he had lied.

Hesham Islam has been an especially powerful figure: the senior advisor for international affairs for Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England and the Pentagon’s point-man for Muslim outreach. When one officer wrote a good study of revolutionary Islamist ideology, Islam campaigned to get him fired. Other officials told me that Islam tried to push them out also.

Islam’s autobiography on a Defense Department site contained clear contradictions and omissions, while his own academic work was rather shockingly radical. His father had worked for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, while Islam claimed that he had survived a ship sinking that apparently never happened.

This study doesn’t include many other cases, most notably that of Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood terrorist, where the Army’s negligence was responsible for the tragedy. At the time, I called Hasan the first terrorist to give an academic lecture with Power Point — to an Army audience — explaining his intention to commit a terrorist attack. Since then, things haven’t improved, including the Army’s report that didn’t even dare to talk about jihad.

Let’s be clear. There should be no witch-hunt of Muslims. This is about applying the same kind of scrutiny to Muslims that anyone else gets. The truth: bureaucrats are afraid to follow clear leads and point out obvious problems, lest their careers be injured by accusations of Islamophobia.

During the 1930s, it was regarded as impolite to look into whether there were Soviet agents in the U.S. government. Despite the lies and exaggerations of certain people later, there was a very serious Communist infiltration that damaged U.S. interests.

There is clearly a parallel effort — no matter how uncoordinated and individual in nature — today. Read Poole’s study, and then demand better media coverage and government response to this problem.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Full Body Scans No Deterrent

Expert: TSA scans would let al-Qaida duplicate 9/11

Brigitte Gabriel warns unless U.S. starts profiling, nation is vulnerable


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: November 18, 2010
12:10 am Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

Read Article Here


Brigitte Gabriel
A terrorism expert says the invasive screening procedures demanded by the Obama-run Transportation Security Administration would do almost nothing to stop a determined terrorist because they already are experimenting with inserting explosives in a body cavity or even surgically implanting the destructive charges.

The comments come from Brigitte Gabriel, who is the founder of Act! For America, a 150,000-strong group that works to warn Americans against the dangers of militant Islam and the Muslims who follow it.

She also is a member of the board of advisers for the Intelligence Summit, and she lectures internationally on global terrorism.

Join more than 17,000 others in a petition demanding action against the intrusive airport screening procedures implemented by Janet Napolitano and send a letter to Congress, President Obama and others telling them exactly what you think about the issue.

The issue has hit a flashpoint in the last few days as newly installed TSA procedures demand that airline passengers submit to a full-body scanning machine that generates an essentially nude image of the passenger for TSA workers to see, or a full-body pat-down that includes what critics have called "groping" of private parts of the body.

"These procedures are not effective at all with terrorists," Gabriel told WND in an interview today. "If a true terrorist wants to go blow up an airplane, these machines will not detect it."

She said like drug dealers already have proven, substances hidden inside body cavities or even embedded surgically remain undetected by any or all of the TSA's procedures.

"If al-Qaida is planning against the U.S. multiple attacks in a day, in multiple airplanes, it could duplicate 9/11," she told WND. "Al-Qaida is testing inserting breast implants, stuffing breast implants with explosives."

She said a woman then could go into an airplane restroom and use a syringe similar to those used by diabetic patients to trigger an explosion that would disintegrate a modern jet.

"This is what al-Qaida is resorting to, and they're exploring surgery for men," she warned. "They want to implant explosives inside the body.

"Terrorists are conditioned and trained to blow themselves up, to become suicide bombers," she said. "They are ready to die to go to heaven to meet Allah."

It was last February that the special intelligence report Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin documented the same circumstances Gabriel described.

At that time, it was revealed in the special report that intelligence agents for Britain's MI5 service found that Muslim doctors trained at some of Britain's leading teaching hospitals had returned to their own countries to fit surgical implants filled with explosives.

The report documented that women suicide bombers recruited by al-Qaida were known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery. The lethal explosives – usually PETN (pentaerythritol Tetrabitrate) – are inserted during the operation inside the plastic shapes. The breast is then sewn up.

The report said similar surgery has been performed on male suicide bombers. In their cases, the explosives are inserted in the appendix area or in a buttock. Both are parts of the body that diabetics use to inject themselves with their prescribed drugs.

The report at the time quoted Jonathan Evans, head of MI5, saying, "Properly inserted the implant would be virtually impossible to detect by the usual airport scanning machines. You would need to subject a suspect to a sophisticated X-ray. Given that the explosive would be inserted in a sealed plastic sachet, and would be a small amount, would make it all the more impossible to spot it with the usual body scanner."

Experts confirmed in the report that a sachet containing as little as five ounces of PETN when activated would blow "a considerable hole" in a jet airliner, guaranteeing a crash.

Gabriel, who has addressed former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, members of Congress, the Joint Forces Staff College, the U.S. Special Operations Command, the FBI and members of the British Parliament, said the only accurate way to spot terrorists is to use the profiling techniques used in Israel, which despite being a major target for terrorism, has a substantially safe airline industry.

"They know how to profile, ask the right questions. This is what it's going to take," she said. "We need to throw political correctness in the garbage where it belongs. This is the time for the public to rise up and demand public officials to come up with ways to identity the threats by name."

Gabriel, who is author of the New York Times best-seller "Because they hate: A survivor of Islamic terror warns America," and "They Must Be Stopped: Why we must defeat radical Islam and how we can do it," was a news anchor for "World News," the Arabic evening news broadcast for Middle East Television seen throughout Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. She covered the Israeli withdrawal from Central Lebanon, the Israeli Security Zone and the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza. Her work was international in scope, bringing her in contact with world figures such as Margaret Thatcher, George H. Bush Sr., Itshak Rabin, Shimon Perez and Ariel Sharon.

She moved to the U.S. in 1989 and founded a television production company that worked with "The Today Show," "Oprah," "Dr. Phil" and others.

She told WND in Israel, terror experts are trained to watch for eye movements, breathing rates and other physical indicators that a "passenger" is more than just that.

Even something as simple as a cologne or perfume can be an indicator, she said, because terrorists essentially are preparing themselves to enter heaven.

Those factors can pinpoint a potential terrorist whether they are dark-skinned and named Mohammed or they are six-foot-tall, blue-eyed, blonde holders of American passports, she said.

The current TSA demands "insult our intelligence," she said. "It's nothing more than window dressing. … The American public must come together and revolt against these procedures. The Obama administration has failed in identifying our problem. The administration is not paying attention to terrorism."

She called out Obama even for his decisions to eradicate references such as "Islamic terrorist," "jihad" and "Islamic radicals" from the speech of the government.

"How on earth can we win against the jihadists if we are afraid to identify them by name," she said.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

The Jihadists' Deadly Path to Citizenship

The Jihadists' Deadly Path to Citizenship

By Michelle Malkin

America's homeland security amnesia never ceases to amaze. In the aftermath of the botched Times Square terror attack over the weekend, Pakistani-born bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad's U.S. citizenship status caused a bit of shock and awe. The Atlantic magazine writer Jeffrey Goldberg's response was typical: "I am struck by the fact that he is a naturalized American citizen, not a recent or temporary visitor." Well, wake up and smell the deadly deception.

Shahzad's path to American citizenship — he reportedly married an American woman, Huma Mian, in 2008 after spending a decade in the country on foreign student and employment visas — is a tried-and-true terror formula. Jihadists have been gaming the sham marriage racket with impunity for years. And immigration benefit fraud has provided invaluable cover and aid for U.S.-based Islamic plotters, including many other operatives planning attacks on New York City. As I've reported previously:

— El Sayyid A. Nosair wed Karen Ann Mills Sweeney to avoid deportation for overstaying his visa. He acquired U.S. citizenship, allowing him to remain in the country, and was later convicted for conspiracy in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that claimed six lives.

— Ali Mohamed became an American citizen after marrying a woman he met on a plane trip from Egypt to New York. Recently divorced, Linda Lee Sanchez wed Mohamed in Reno, Nev., after a six-week "courtship." Mohamed became a top aide to Osama bin Laden and was later convicted for his role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa that killed 12 Americans and more than 200 others.

— Embassy bombing plotter Khalid Abu al Dahab obtained citizenship after marrying three different American women.

— Embassy bombing plotter Wadih el Hage, Osama bin Laden's personal secretary, married April Ray in 1985 and became a naturalized citizen in 1989. Ray knew of her husband's employment with bin Laden, but like many of these women in bogus marriages, she pleaded ignorance about the nature of her husband's work. El Hage, she says, was a sweet man, and bin Laden "was a great boss."

— Lebanon-born Chawki Youssef Hammoud, convicted in a Hezbollah cigarette-smuggling operation based out of Charlotte, N.C., married American citizen Jessica Fortune for a green card to remain in the country.

— Hammoud's brother, Mohammed Hammoud, married three different American women. After arriving in the United States on a counterfeit visa, being ordered deported and filing an appeal, he wed Sabina Edwards to gain a green card. Federal immigration officials refused to award him legal status after this first marriage was deemed bogus in 1994. Undaunted, he married Jessica Wedel in May 1997 and, while still wed to her, paid Angela Tsioumas (already married to someone else, too) to marry him in Detroit. The Tsioumas union netted Mohammed Hammoud temporary legal residence to operate the terror cash scam. He was later convicted on 16 counts that included providing material support to Hezbollah.

— A total of eight Middle Eastern men who plotted to bomb New York landmarks in 1993 — Fadil Abdelgani, Amir Abdelgani, Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali, Tarig Elhassan, Abdo Mohammed Haggag, Fares Khallafalla, Mohammed Saleh, and Matarawy Mohammed Said Saleh — all obtained legal permanent residence by marrying American citizens.

A year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, homeland security officials cracked a massive illegal alien Middle Eastern marriage fraud ring in a sting dubbed "Operation Broken Vows." Authorities were stunned by the scope of the operations, which stretched from Boston to South Carolina to California. But marriage fraud remains a treacherous path of least resistance. The waiting period for U.S. citizenship is cut by more than half for marriage visa beneficiaries. Sham marriage monitoring by backlogged homeland security investigators is practically nonexistent.

As former federal immigration official Michael Cutler warned years ago: "Immigration benefit fraud is certainly one of the major 'dots' that was not connected prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, and remains a 'dot' that is not really being addressed the way it needs to be in order to secure our nation against criminals and terrorists who understand how important it is for them to 'game' the system as a part of the embedding process."

Jihadists have knowingly and deliberately exploited our lax immigration and entrance policies to secure the rights and benefits of American citizenship while they plot mass murder — and we haven't done a thing to stop them.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Jihadists Playing US For Suckers

- November 10, 2009

Jihadists In Military Playing U.S. for Suckers

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/11/10/cal-thomas-hasan-muslims-military-political-correctness/

by Cal Thomas

By now, the script should be disturbingly familiar. Whether in the Middle East, or increasingly in America, a fanatical Muslim blows up or goes on a shooting spree, killing many. This is quickly followed by "condemnations" from "Muslim civil rights groups," like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). We are then warned by the president and some newspaper editorials not to jump to conclusions, or to stereotype. Yasser Arafat wrote this script, which he used with great success throughout his bloody career as a terrorist.

Suddenly, the issue of gays in the military doesn't seem as important as jihadists in the military. If you were an enemy of America, not only would you fight overseas and develop nuclear weapons (Iran), you would also engage in an even more effective strategy by striking at America's underbelly. This is our most vulnerable region because we now tolerate virtually everything, indulge in political correctness and subscribe to a bogus belief that if radical Islamists can see we mean them no harm, they will mean us no harm.

The federal government at all levels has hired and promoted Muslims to influential positions. It requires "sensitivity training" for federal employees, including those who work at the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Last week, the House Judiciary Committee, dominated by liberal Democrats, defied the White House and removed from the USA Patriot Act a tool for tracking non-U.S. citizens in anti-terrorism investigations. As our enemies grow stronger and more emboldened, they see us becoming weaker and less committed.

No amount of evidence -- from Koran verses urging the killing of "infidels," to cries of "God is great," reportedly shouted by the alleged Ft. Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan -- will cure our self-deception. Sun Tzu famously wrote that all war is deception. But it takes two to deceive and the United States is behaving like a willing partner.

People claiming to know Hasan told interviewers he made frequent statements against the wars and the U.S. presence in Islamic countries. Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, told reporters after he was briefed on the shootings that Hasan "took a lot of advanced training in shooting." Why would a psychiatrist need advanced training in shooting unless he believed in murder as therapy? Shouldn't that, coupled with his statements about "the aggressor" and other actions -- including his preference for Muslim clothing -- have alerted someone in authority that he might be a time bomb waiting to go off? Yes, absolutely. But who wants to jeopardize a career by raising such questions and becoming the target of "civil rights groups" and politically correct dupes? Intimidating Americans into silence when they know better is also a very effective strategy when fighting a war.

Sound minds not brainwashed by our own "re-educators" should have seen this coming. Though born in America to Jordanian immigrant parents, Hasan described himself as a "Palestinian." He got into trouble by attempting to proselytize some of his patients.

Most top federal agencies, including the Pentagon and DHS, now have offices of "civil liberties," offices recommended by the 9/11 Commission to focus on "outreach" to the Muslim community. In this, they follow efforts by the Bush administration, which dispatched Karen Hughes to tell Muslim women in Saudi Arabia that American women are so free they can drive their own cars. The Saudi women were not impressed.

It's one thing to be suckered by others. It's quite another to sucker yourself.

How much longer will we tolerate fighting this war as if it were a minor crime wave? Our enemies are fighting to win and they are fighting everywhere, including within our borders. People trained to appear non-threatening, until the threat becomes obvious and it is too late to do anything about it, are infiltrating our government and society at every level.

It is irrelevant that some have put the number of radicalized Muslims worldwide at 10 percent. Even if that figure is accurate, one hundred million jihadists can cause a lot of damage, as they plot the destruction of Western democracies. Other wars have been won with far fewer soldiers and far fewer dupes.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Progress Report: Jihad

February 10, 2009
Progress in jihad: 122 girls' schools, 65 boys' schools destroyed in Swat

Also damaged or destroyed were two police stations, 12 police posts, 80 video centres, around 300 CD shops, 25 barbershops, 24 bridges, 15 basic health units, an electricity grid station and a main gas supply line. Sharia Alert and Progress Toward Barbarism Update: "Education for girls prime victim of Swat turmoil," by Javed Aziz Khan for the News International, February 10:

PESHAWAR: Girls’ education remained the prime victim in Swat where over 119,248 females in private and public sector schools have been affected while 122 schools for females and 65 others for boys destroyed since the ongoing violence erupted in the town, a study disclosed.

Two police stations, 12 police posts, 80 video centres, around 300 CD shops, 25 barbershops, 24 bridges, 15 basic health units, an electricity grid station and a main gas supply line were either destroyed or severely damaged by the militants during the past few months’ violence in once the tourist heaven.

Two cable networks were closed while another was blown up in the district during the recent past.

The study carried out by some non-government organisations reveals that 700 hotels were closed in the area that made 30,000 workers jobless....