<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; airport</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/tag/airport/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com</link>
	<description></description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 31 Dec 2014 16:20:06 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en-US</language>
		<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
		<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	
	<item>
		<title>Libya Under Siege</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-klein/libya-under-siege/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=libya-under-siege</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-klein/libya-under-siege/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Aug 2014 04:55:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jihadist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[militia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seize]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TRIPOLI]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=239552</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Egypt and the United Arab Emirates respond to a jihadist takeover -- while the U.S. stands in their way. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/libya-tripoli-airport-seized-by-islamist-militias.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-239555" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/libya-tripoli-airport-seized-by-islamist-militias-421x350.jpg" alt="libya-tripoli-airport-seized-by-islamist-militias" width="328" height="273" /></a>While media attention has focused of late on the so-called Islamic State (ISIS), which has seized large swaths of territory in Syria and northern Iraq, jihadists are also on the march in Libya. A coalition of jihadists, operating under the name Dawn of Libya, has claimed to have taken control of Libya’s main international airport in its capital city Tripoli as well as some other locations in the capital city itself. Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, is already in the hands of other jihadists including Ansar al-Shariah, some of whom may have participated in the killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans nearly two years ago.</p>
<p>“We will not accept the project of democracy, secular parties, nor the parties that falsely claim the Islamic cause,” a statement issued last week by an alliance of Benghazi-based jihadists, including Ansar al-Shariah, declared.</p>
<p>Whatever excuses the Obama administration may try to make with regards to the chaos brought about by ISIS in Iraq, including continued finger-pointing at the Bush administration, the mess in Libya has happened entirely on President Obama’s watch. It stems from President Obama’s decision to back the rebels in forcibly removing Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from power without any thought about the destabilizing consequences for Libya, North Africa and the entire Middle East region. Obama himself admitted that there were lessons to be learned from the Libya regime change operation. “Do we have an answer [for] the day after?’” Obama said to New York Times op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman on Aug. 8<sup>th</sup>.</p>
<p>Qaddafi was of no strategic threat to the United States. Indeed, one of the positive byproducts of the Iraq war launched in 2003 was the fear Qaddafi had of a similar invasion that led to his decision to give up entirely his nuclear arms program. But Obama got sucked into a military conflict in Libya that morphed from a limited humanitarian rescue operation into a war to bring about regime change. Obama yielded to pressure from France, the United Kingdom and the Arab League to expand the objectives of the operation. Members of his own administration characterized his role as “leading from behind.”</p>
<p>Removing Qaddafi left a huge vacuum for the jihadists to fill. Libya lacks any real central government today. Instead, two rival parliaments appear to be emerging, the original one controlled by the jihadists and a newly elected one more closely aligned with anti-jihadists.  Weapons from Qaddafi’s stockpiles have been dispersed to militias within Libya as well as to North Africa and Syria, some falling into the jihadists’ hands. Militias in support of the jihadists and opposing the jihadists are fighting each other in Libya, with the jihadists appearing to have gained the upper hand. With the country on the brink of civil war, and a possible replication in Libya of the self-declared caliphate that ISIS has established in parts of Iraq and Syria, U.S. and other Western nations have pulled out their diplomats from Tripoli. The United Nations has reduced its presence to a bare minimum.</p>
<p>Obama’s response to all this has followed his usual pattern of dithering and indecision. But it is even worse than that. The Obama administration appears to be trying to impede Egypt and the United Arab Emirates from proceeding on their own to protect their countries from the rising tide of jihad across the Middle East, including right on Egypt’s doorstep in neighboring Libya.</p>
<p>According to an August 25<sup>th</sup> report by the New York Times, four senior American officials said that the United States was caught by surprise upon learning that “Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have secretly teamed up to launch airstrikes against Islamist-allied militias battling for control of Tripoli, Libya.”</p>
<p>Egypt reportedly provided the bases from which to launch the attacks, which occurred in the vicinity of Tripoli. The United Arab Emirates, which has one of the more proficient air forces in the region, reportedly furnished the pilots and planes to carry out the strikes.</p>
<p>Egyptian officials denied any involvement in the airstrikes in their discussions with Obama State Department diplomats. The United Arab Emirates has been cagier in its remarks on the subject.</p>
<p>According to the New York Times report, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have cooperated previously in special force operations inside Libya, targeting jihadists.</p>
<p>Instead of welcoming the operation to thwart jihadists who already have American blood on their hands, the Obama administration reacted angrily. “We don’t see this as constructive at all,” one senior American official was quoted by the New York Times as saying.</p>
<p>This foolish remark ignores the simple truth that the jihadists fighting to take over Libya are of the same ideological bent as the ISIS jihadists who beheaded Jim Foley and whom we are now fighting directly. In fact, Libya&#8217;s <a href="http://www.veooz.com/photos/RG_FLYV.html"><span style="color: #0463c1;">al-Battar brigade is working with ISIS</span></a> and has returned from fighting in Syria to join Ansar al-Shariah. It issued a statement last June warning that heads would be cut off, stomachs slit and Libya filled with graves to revenge the shooting of one of its jihadists who had fought in Syria.</p>
<p>Ramzi Yousef, a member of Ansar al-Shariah said, &#8220;The group of al-Battar, the word refers to one of the names of the sword an affiliate of Ansar al-Sharia. It was founded in Syria and all its members are from Libya. They are the fiercest because they do not negotiate but just act.&#8221;</p>
<p>Expressions of support have also been exchanged between ISIS and Libyan jihadists.</p>
<p>The Obama administration is fully aware that Qatar – the same country that is helping to bankroll Hamas and the jihadists fighting in Syria – is providing support to the Libyan-based jihadists. Just as Secretary of State John Kerry tried to push Israel into accepting a Qatari-brokered ceasefire with Hamas on largely Hamas’s terms instead of the ceasefire terms supported by Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the Obama administration is favoring Qatar’s interests over those of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. And this means it is effectively coming out on the side of the jihadists in Libya, as the Obama administration did in Egypt itself when it helped install, and then tried to keep in power, the Muslim Brotherhood.</p>
<p>Against any common sense reckoning of U.S. interests in the region, the Obama administration criticized the two Arab countries trying to fend off the jihadist threat in Libya on their own -before the threat in Libya metastasizes into something much larger on the model of ISIS. Rather than fume and pressure Egypt and the United Arab Emirates to stand down, the Obama administration should welcome regional coalitions like this to fight the jihadist scourge wherever it pops up. Instead of leading from behind, President Obama should just get out of the way.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-klein/libya-under-siege/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>8</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Homeland Insecurity Alert: Dry Ice and Dry Runs</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/michellemalkin/homeland-insecurity-alert-dry-ice-and-dry-runs/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=homeland-insecurity-alert-dry-ice-and-dry-runs</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/michellemalkin/homeland-insecurity-alert-dry-ice-and-dry-runs/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 Oct 2013 04:03:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michelle Malkin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dry run]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TSA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=207555</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why airports aren't nearly as safe as we think they are.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/LAXAirport_1381773839904_1097424_ver1.0_320_240.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-207567" alt="LAXAirport_1381773839904_1097424_ver1.0_320_240" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/LAXAirport_1381773839904_1097424_ver1.0_320_240.jpg" width="320" height="240" /></a>Testing, 1, 2, 3, testing. Jihadists never go on furlough. While shutdown theater preoccupies Washington, terror plotters remain on the clock. The question is: Will America keep hitting the post-9/11 snooze button?</p>
<p>At Los Angeles International Airport, two dry ice bombs exploded this week, and two others were found in a restricted area of the airport. According to the Los Angeles Times, the devices &#8220;appeared to be outside the terminal near planes where employees such as baggage handlers and others work on the aircraft and its cargo.&#8221;</p>
<p>That reminds me: It&#8217;s been more than a year since watchdogs warned Capitol Hill that our massive homeland security bureaucracy was neglecting these very areas of our nation&#8217;s airports. Grandmas, babies and war heroes are routinely groped, manhandled and humiliated in the name of transportation safety. But untold numbers of ground personnel still have easy, breezy access to airplanes and luggage.</p>
<p>In August, seven baggage handlers at Kennedy Airport were arrested after being videotaped stealing jewelry, cash, watches and computers from passenger luggage. In June, a baggage handler at Atlanta&#8217;s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport was arrested after using his credentials to bypass airport security and carry backpacks containing what he believed were drugs and guns onto commercial flights. It&#8217;s almost as if any bumbling bimbo can connive his or her way into supposedly secure territory.</p>
<p>A Nigerian illegal alien named Bimbo Oyewole did just that. He used a dead man&#8217;s birth certificate and Social Security number to get a job with a private security firm at Newark Airport. Con artist Bimbo went undetected for more than two decades while supervising security guards who policed tarmacs, planes and cargo. Last summer, in the wake of Bimbo&#8217;s belated bust, the DHS inspector general called for stricter background checks on baggage handlers, maintenance workers and other civilian airport employees.</p>
<p>But by the feds&#8217; own admission, legions of workers who were grandfathered into the system may yet be traipsing around restricted areas of our nation&#8217;s airports — doing God knows what. TSA does not keep systematic records on airport security breaches reported to headquarters. &#8220;I&#8217;m going to tell you right now that the next incident is going to come from the ground,&#8221; Rep. Chip Cravaack, R-Minn., testified last spring. &#8220;It&#8217;s going to come from the shadow of the aircraft, not from the terminal. I&#8217;m telling you that.&#8221;</p>
<p>Rest assured, however, that we are as vulnerable as ever to the old tried-and-true scheme of sending hijackers aboard planes to take them down. The U.S. Airline Pilots Association spelled it all out in a memo obtained by WTSP Tampa Bay reporter Mike Deeson last week.</p>
<p>&#8220;Bringing down an airliner continues to be the Gold Standard of terrorism,&#8221; the document warned U.S. Airways pilots. &#8220;If anyone thinks that our enemies have &#8216;been there, done that&#8217; and are not targeting commercial aviation — think again. There have been several cases recently throughout the industry of what appear to be probes, or dry runs, to test our procedures and reaction to an inflight threat.&#8221;</p>
<p>The assessment bluntly described &#8220;a group of Middle-Eastern males&#8221; who boarded a flight at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., for Orlando, Fla., on September 2. Onboard, the men made &#8220;a scene&#8221;: running toward the flight deck door, loudly opening and shutting overhead bins, and making what appeared to be a coordinated attempt to distract flight attendants. Federal air marshals were concerned enough about the behavior to &#8220;make their presence known.&#8221; The memo notes that a security search found &#8220;evidence of tampering&#8221; on the plane.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s just the latest suspected dry run since the 9/11 attacks:</p>
<p>—In May 2011, Yemeni national Rageh Ahmed Mohammed al-Murisi rushed the cockpit door aboard American Airlines Flight 1561 shrieking, &#8220;Allahu akbar!&#8221; at the top of his lungs more than 30 times intending to take down the plane and kill everyone on board.</p>
<p>—In July 2011, Saudi Arabian national Saleh Ali S. Alramakh caused United Airlines Flight 944 from Chicago to Germany to divert to Cleveland after violating airline security rules during a bizarre meltdown. He locked himself in the bathroom when passengers were supposed to be seated, scuffled with flight attendants and had to be restrained by the flight crew and other passengers.</p>
<p>—In 2010, Pakistani national Muhammad Abu Tahir was sentenced to prison after disrupting AirTran Airways&#8217; Atlanta to San Francisco Flight 39. After defying flight attendants and locking himself in the bathroom, the plane was diverted to Denver. His immigration status and occupation were unknown, though he had lived in the U.S. since at least 2002.</p>
<p>—In December 2009, of course, failed underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit with skivvies loaded with plastic explosives.</p>
<p>—In 2006, U.S. and British officials acknowledged al-Qaida dry-run plans involving operatives smuggling liquid explosives onto planes through their carry-on luggage.</p>
<p>—In 2004, 13 Middle Eastern men aroused the suspicion of federal air marshals, flight crew and passengers on Northwest Airlines Flight 327 with disruptive red-flag behavior at takeoff and landing.</p>
<p>—And in August 2001, one month before 9/11, actor James Woods witnessed four suspicious Middle Eastern males aboard an American Airlines flight from Boston to Los Angeles. Woods shared his fears with the pilot and filed a report with the FAA. His warning was ignored. Years later, the feds confirmed it was indeed a dry run and that 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta was on Woods&#8217; flight.</p>
<p>Feckless feds keep admonishing the rest of us to &#8220;say something&#8221; if we &#8220;see something.&#8221; But what good will it do if they&#8217;re asleep at the wheel, blind to corruption and deaf to jihad?</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/michellemalkin/homeland-insecurity-alert-dry-ice-and-dry-runs/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Airport Security &amp; Double Standards</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/david-menzies/airport-security-double-standards/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=airport-security-double-standards</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/david-menzies/airport-security-double-standards/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Sep 2013 04:09:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Menzies]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hijab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[LAX]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Los Angeles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muslim]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[niqab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Women]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=203710</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[At LAX, some head coverings are more equal than others. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/niqab-2.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-203750" alt="niqab-2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/niqab-2.jpg" width="288" height="193" /></a>“Take off the cap!” barked the TSA official working security at Los Angeles International Airport.</p>
<p>The recipient of this curt order was my young son, Sean, who was brandishing a Batman baseball cap. News Flash: Apparently, 11-year-old Canadians are responsible for a disproportionate amount of terrorism. But I digress…</p>
<p>In any event, the kid complied and dad (for a change) kept his triple-XL mouth shut. When you have a flight to catch it’s seldom prudent to perturb those ever-so-pleasant folks working airport security.</p>
<p>Still, I felt compelled to return to the screening area once the family was safely seated in the departure lounge. And here’s what I observed: some Muslim women proceeded through the checkpoint without having to remove<i> their</i> headwear (hijabs.)</p>
<p>How odd. If one can presumably stash a box-cutter or a dollop of C4 underneath a baseball cap, surely an hijab can serve the same purpose?</p>
<p>I approached a policeman standing guard. I politely asked him: why the apparent double-standard?</p>
<p>He told me hijabs cannot be removed because “that would be against their religion.”</p>
<p>I corrected the officer, noting there’s nothing in the Koran that mandates the wearing of the hijab.</p>
<p>“OK,” he conceded. “But it’s a cultural thing or something.”</p>
<p>Or something.</p>
<p>Then he said in a tone reminiscent of how a principal would speak to a seven-year-old: “You see, sir, in America, Americans and people visiting America have rights.”</p>
<p>No argument there. Except for a small caveat: surely there’s a reasonable expectation that one’s “rights” will be curtailed somewhat when one enters an airport. That’s why we are prodded and poked and X-rayed when we proceed through security in the first place. That’s why one can’t waltz into a terminal brandishing a legal handgun.</p>
<p>The cop simply shrugged. I upped the ante: if those women had been wearing full-face coverings such as a burqa or niqab, would they have been forced to unveil to confirm their identities?</p>
<p>“Nope,” came the reply. “It’s because that’s a religion thing, too.”</p>
<p>My jaw was now resting on the linoleum.</p>
<p>Reminding him that the vast amount of terrorism in the world today emanates from those shouting “Allahu Akbar!” before pressing the detonator, the poor constable’s face contoured as though he had just bitten into a sour lemon. Our conversation was over.</p>
<p>Still, on reflection, perhaps I got off easy. After all, I wasn’t detained against my will and put through the wringer – which is precisely what happened to author David Jones at London’s Gatwick Airport last year.</p>
<p>According to an article in <i>The Telegraph</i>, Jones placed his belongings into a tray to pass through the X-ray scanner when he spotted a Muslim woman in a niqab breeze through the area without showing her face.</p>
<p>In a light-hearted aside to a security official who had been assisting him, the 67-year-old said: “If I was wearing this scarf over my face, I wonder what would happen?”</p>
<p>Oh dear. Red alert! Jones was promptly accused of racism and sequestered. An airport security guard, a British Airlines official, and even a policeman all agreed he had been “insensitive” with his comment and needed to apologize. After being detained for almost half-an-hour, Jones issued a <i>mea culpa</i>; otherwise, he risked missing his flight to Portugal.</p>
<p>But Jones also rightly noted: “I had not made a racist remark but purely an observation that we were in a maximum security situation being searched thoroughly whilst a woman with her face covered walked through. I made no reference to race or religion.”</p>
<p>Amazingly, Department for Transport rules don’t prevent people covering their faces at U.K. airports for – you got it – “religious reasons.”</p>
<p>Bottom line: Wednesday marks the 12<sup>th</sup> anniversary of 9/11. How sad that whatever lessons we supposedly learned on that dark day back in 2001 already seem to have been sacrificed upon the alter of political correctness.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/david-menzies/airport-security-double-standards/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>26</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Lessons from the L.A. Airport Terrorist Plot</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/lloyd-billingsley/lessons-from-the-l-a-airport-terrorist-plot/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=lessons-from-the-l-a-airport-terrorist-plot</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/lloyd-billingsley/lessons-from-the-l-a-airport-terrorist-plot/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Oct 2012 04:46:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Lloyd Billingsley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ahmed Ressam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[algeria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[canada]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Los Angeles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[plot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sentenced]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorist]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=162873</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ahmed Ressam sentenced to 37 years, but how many more are waiting to take his place? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/lloyd-billingsley/lessons-from-the-l-a-airport-terrorist-plot/ahmed-ressam/" rel="attachment wp-att-162889"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-162889" title="ahmed-ressam" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/ahmed-ressam.jpg" alt="" width="280" height="210" /></a>The hit film <em>Argo</em> recalls the 1980 “Canadian Caper” that helped Americans escape Iran. The Algerian terrorist <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/terrorist-37-years-lax-bomb-plot-article-1.1191159">Ahmed Ressam, sentenced to 37 years in prison on October 24</a>, recalls the ineptitude and indifference that allowed the terrorist, also known as Benni Noris, to escape detection in Canada, facilitating his plot to blow up Los Angeles International Airport.</p>
<p>According <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/trail/inside/cron.html">to an investigation by PBS’s Frontline</a>, Ressam became a militant Islamist in the early 1990s after an Islamist party won the Algerian elections. Ressam left for France where he lived illegally for four years before departing for Montreal with a bogus French passport Canadian officials easily spotted, but which did not prevent him from remaining in Canada. Ressam requested political asylum and Canadian officials accepted his story without checking with France, Algeria, or Interpol.</p>
<p>In Montreal Ressam augmented his welfare payments by robbing tourists. He was arrested four times but convicted only once and, incredibly enough, served no jail time. In Montreal, Ressam also linked up with the Osama bin Laden network and the Algeria-based Armed Islamic Group (GIA), which hijacked an Air France plane and attempted to crash the Eiffel Tower. The GIA also bombed the Paris Metro and attempted to murder European leaders at a G-7 meeting.</p>
<p>A car bomb case near Roubaix gave French police evidence that led to Ressam’s Montreal apartment. French authorities asked Canada for a search warrant but Canada took six months to process the request. When Canadian authorities did attempt to deport Ressam, he adopted the alias of Benni Noris and easily eluded them.</p>
<p>Ressam left Canada for Afghanistan in 1998 and there Al Qaeda, according to Frontline, gave him “training in light arms – including machine guns and rocket propelled grenades – the use of explosives and poison gas, methods for assassination, sabotage, and urban warfare.” And consider the ease of travel outlined in the Frontline story:</p>
<blockquote><p>Ressam traveled alone – on the Canadian passport under the name of Benni Noris – back to Montreal. He says that he brought with him chemicals and directions for making explosives. He flew from Pakistan to Seoul, South Korea, and then on to Los Angeles International Airport. It was this visit to the Los Angeles airport that provided him with the inspiration for his bombing target. He thought he could place a bomb, hidden in a suitcase, in the passenger waiting area. After surveilling the airport and calculating how long it would take security guards to check abandoned luggage, he caught a flight to Canada. Back in Montreal, under the name of Benni Noris, he signed a lease on an apartment and obtained a driver&#8217;s license. CSIS [Canadian Security Intelligence Service] officials say during this period they were actively looking for Ahmed Ressam and were unaware of his alias.</p></blockquote>
<p>Ahmad Ressam should not have been allowed to remain in Canada and should have been deported after his first robbery. His lenient treatment was not one of Canada’s <em>plus brillants exploits</em> but U.S. immigration officials also proved inept. They accepted Ressam’s fake Canadian passport, and failed to inspect the rented Chrysler in which Ressam had stashed 100 pounds of explosives in the wheel well. In Port Angeles, Washington, <a href="http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20110503/NEWS/305039995">customs inspector Dan Clem searched the Chrysler and found the explosives</a>. Ressam fled on foot but customs inspector Mike Chapman helped chase him down and police arrested the Algerian bomber.</p>
<p>In custody Ressam cooperated and his information helped convict a Bin Laden associate. But Ressam recanted all his cooperation when he did not get the deal he wanted, less than 27 years in prison. The Justice Department wanted life in prison for Ressam, who gets 37 years – nearly 13 years after his attempt at mass murder. In that time the Algerian terrorist has become fluent in political correctness, claiming <a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019505699_ressam24m.html">in a letter to the court</a> to be “against killing innocent people of any gender, color or religion.” Now who would do a thing like that?</p>
<p>“Look truthfully at yourselves,” Ressam’s letter said, “you will see how many innocent people you have killed under the guise of various slogans.”</p>
<p>Ahmed Ressam may be out of circulation but it is certainly possible that other Islamic militants are targeting Los Angeles. That city remains home to the U.S. movie industry. Islamists want the U.S. government to take away filmmakers&#8217; free-speech rights and punish the producer of “Innocence of Muslims.” So a sequel to Ressam’s attempt could well be in the works.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/lloyd-billingsley/lessons-from-the-l-a-airport-terrorist-plot/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>13</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Al-Qaeda-Allied Qatar Buys into Europe’s Busiest Airport</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/al-qaeda-allied-qatar-buys-into-europe%e2%80%99s-busiest-airport/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=al-qaeda-allied-qatar-buys-into-europe%25e2%2580%2599s-busiest-airport</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/al-qaeda-allied-qatar-buys-into-europe%e2%80%99s-busiest-airport/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 22 Aug 2012 04:29:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Heathrow]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[khalid sheikh mohammed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saudi Arabia]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=141138</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The U.K. sells another piece of itself to the enemy. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Picture-5.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-141201" title="Picture-5" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Picture-5.gif" alt="" width="375" height="247" /></a>London’s Heathrow Airport is the busiest airport in the European Union with 70 million passengers passing through its corridors. It is busier than France’s Charles de Gaulle Airport and Spain’s Madrid-Barajas Airport. It has more than three times the traffic of New York’s JFK Airport and receives flights from around the world. Heathrow’s operator, BAA Limited operates multiple airports in the UK, including two in London and two in Scotland. And the Qatari monarchy has just bought a fifth of BAA.</p>
<p>Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of September 11, was a former employee of the Qatari government. Mohammed had coordinated a mass air bombing plot with his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, who had been behind the original World Trade Center attack, and had wired him money from Qatar for the World Trade Center bombing.</p>
<p>The 9/11 Commission Report states that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was able to evade capture after the World Trade Center bombing due to the intervention of a prominent Qatari official, widely believed to be Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalid Al Thani, a member of the Qatari royal family, and the Minister for Islamic Affairs at the time. Presently Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalid Al Thani is Qatar’s Minister of the Interior.</p>
<p>By aiding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=129838&amp;page=1#.UDGd6cZlRi8">, Sheikh Al-Thani</a> allowed him to continue plotting attacks against the United States and that led directly to September 11. It was Sheikh Al-Thani who had encouraged Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to move from Pakistan to Qatar. And from Qatar, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was able to engage in terrorist plots while officially working for the Qatari government.</p>
<p>Qatari links to Al-Qaeda have been one of the worst kept secrets in the region. Members of the Al-Thani royal family have aided Al-Qaeda and there are reports that Jihadists even had their own training camp in Qatar. A report <a href="http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL31718.pdf">by a former intelligence officer</a> stated that Bin Laden was hosted by Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalid Al Thani before the Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 Americans.</p>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20060106130700/http:/www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1592472,00.html">The Qatari government has reportedly been sending millions of dollars</a> to Al-Qaeda every year and Wikileaks cables from the US embassy in Doha, the Qatari capital, revealed that US officials knew of a Qatari link to September 11 and described Qatar as the “worst” on regional counterterrorism—which is a truly horrible assessment when you consider that Qatar was being compared to the likes of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.</p>
<p>Al-Jazeera, the Al-Thani clan’s pet propaganda network, has been the destination of choice for Bin Laden videos. Bin Laden’s first statement, five days after September 11, was broadcast by Al-Jazeera, indicating a fairly quick turnaround time. The Bin Laden tapes gave Al-Jazeera a great deal of prominence even as the network was overseen by Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani, Qatar’s Minister of Information.</p>
<p>In light of all that, Qatar’s buy of a fifth of BAA which controls six airports and which formerly managed four American airports, including Baltimore-Washington International Airport  and Logan International Airport, which was the departure point of choice for two of the 9/11 planes, giving it extensive inside knowledge of their operations, is extremely troubling. Qatar does not yet have a majority stake, but it has bought a sizable portion of the majority shareholder’s stake in BAA, which, if previous patterns hold, it will likely expand on.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/al-qaeda-allied-qatar-buys-into-europe%e2%80%99s-busiest-airport/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>20</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Che Guevara Adorns Reno-Tahoe Airport</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/humberto-fontova/che-guevara-adorns-reno-tahoe-airport/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=che-guevara-adorns-reno-tahoe-airport</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/humberto-fontova/che-guevara-adorns-reno-tahoe-airport/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 08 May 2012 04:43:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Humberto Fontova]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Che Guevera]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cuba]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[painting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reno]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tahoe]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=131235</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The "godfather" of airplane hijackings now greets the flying public in Nevada.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Reno-Airport-Art-Flap.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-131297" title="Reno-Airport-Art-Flap" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Reno-Airport-Art-Flap.gif" alt="" width="375" height="242" /></a>A painting of Che Guevara subtitled <em>“Revolucion!” </em>by a Mexican–American artist is on display at the International Airport in Reno, Nevada, USA.</p>
<p>Ernesto “Che” Guevara scorned Mexicans as “a rabble of illiterate Indians,” jailed artists at a higher rate than Stalin, co-founded the terrorist movement that pulled off among the first and deadliest airplane hijackings in the Western Hemisphere, and craved to nuke the USA.</p>
<p>In November 1958, Cubana Airlines Flight 495 from Miami to Varadero was hijacked at gunpoint by terrorists belonging to Castro and Che’s July 26<sup>th </sup>Movement. The plane crashed in Cuba killing 14 passengers. Che’s glowing face now greets all passengers preparing to board at Reno-Tahoe Airport. How very thoughtful of airport officials.</p>
<p>Actually, in the interest of historical accuracy, I should clarify that Che Guevara’s anti-American bloodlust could have been slaked only by nuking the American patrons of this American airport born before 1962.  So he mostly craved to nuke the parents and grandparents of the Americans who patronize, run and fund Reno-Tahoe International Airport. This obviously includes those who awarded 1st place in the airport’s employee Art contest to the Che Guevara iconography now on prominent display.</p>
<p>An American of Cuban heritage who lives in Nevada has complained about the painting, but as usual, to no avail.  “Artistic freedom” trumped him to a pulp, as explained by an airport spokesman. “The painting of Ernesto &#8216;Che&#8217; Guevara will remain on display through May 9 with the other nearly 100 items in the <em>employee</em> art exhibit,&#8221; said airport spokesman Brian Kulpin.</p>
<p>Reno-Tahoe airport passengers will be comforted to know that an airport employee feels the same affection for the hemisphere’s Godfather of airplane hijackings that Leonardo da Vinci felt for Mona Lisa and Andy Warhol for Marilyn Monroe.</p>
<p>And needless to add, if an American of African heritage complained about a picture of, say, former KKK  chieftain David Duke (who killed nobody and hijacked no planes) in the same place  it would be ceremoniously taken down and perhaps ceremoniously hurled in a dumpster or burned. Artistic freedom be double-damned.</p>
<p>Then whoever put it up would run the gauntlet of media inquisitions, groveling apologies at every stop. And he’d still probably lose his job.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/humberto-fontova/che-guevara-adorns-reno-tahoe-airport/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>53</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Fires of Hate Burn on in Afghanistan</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/rick-moran/fires-of-hate-still-burning-in-afghanistan/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=fires-of-hate-still-burning-in-afghanistan</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/rick-moran/fires-of-hate-still-burning-in-afghanistan/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 15 Mar 2012 04:55:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rick Moran]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airfield]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attack]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Panetta]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=125720</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Panetta arrives to tame tensions, but a terrorist attack breaks out instead.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/af_2168149b.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-125733" title="af_2168149b" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/af_2168149b.gif" alt="" width="375" height="249" /></a>The situation remains tense in Afghanistan. On Wednesday, an Afghan civilian who worked for coalition forces as an interpreter <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303863404577281601570500194.html?mod=googlenews_wsj">crashed a stolen truck</a> through protective barriers and drove at high speed onto a military airfield just minutes before US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was to land. The airfield was located at Camp Bastion, a British military base that adjoins the American base Camp Leatherneck in southern Afghanistan&#8217;s troubled Helmand province. Although the attack did not injure anyone but the perpetrator, the incident was the most <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/leon-panetta-arrives-in-afghanistan-pledges-no-change-in-strategy/2012/03/14/gIQAvEnBBS_story_1.html">serious breach</a> of security involving an American official of the war and highlighted the extraordinary strain between the government and military of President Hamid Karzai and their US and NATO partners.</p>
<p>In remarks delivered later during his trip, Panetta made it clear that such incidents &#8212; including the recent massacre of civilians &#8212; would not alter President Obama&#8217;s planned withdrawal of American combat forces by the end of next year when the Afghan army and police are handed responsibility for security in the war-torn country. In Washington, President Obama, who said after a meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday that <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/15/obama-cameron-afghanistan-withdrawal">&#8220;real progress&#8221; </a>was being made in Afghanistan, pledged to stick to the withdrawal timetable he set last year despite recent incidents involving the accidental burning of some Korans and the massacre of 16 civilians by a US soldier, which have enraged the Afghan people and government. Obama and Cameron <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cameron-obama-navigating-tricky-global-issues-in-white-house-meeting-ahead-of-formal-dinner/2012/03/14/gIQAHKG8AS_story.html">mapped out</a> a strategy for the next year while putting on a show of &#8220;rock solid&#8221; unity.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a new <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-03-14/poll-afghanistan-pullout/53529896/1">Gallup poll </a>revealed that 50% of Americans want to speed up the withdrawal timetable while only 24% believe we should stick with Obama&#8217;s plan. Just 21% think we should stay in Afghanistan until the mission is accomplished.</p>
<p>Such pessimism was not likely alleviated by the airport incident Wednesday. The Afghan civilian lost <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303863404577281601570500194.html?mod=googlenews_wsj">control of the truck</a> &#8212; stolen earlier from a NATO soldier who was injured when he was pulled from the vehicle &#8212; and ended up in a ditch near the ramp where the secretary was to deplane. He emerged from the crash on fire, fleeing the scene in another truck before he was apprehended. He is reported to have suffered serious burns over 70% of his body.</p>
<p>It is thought that the interpreter did not know that Secretary Panetta was on the plane. Panetta&#8217;s visit was unannounced, but <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-14/panetta-visits-afghanistan-amid-calls-to-speed-u-dot-s-dot-troop-exit">there is evidence</a> that at least some Afghanistan military personnel knew the Secretary was coming before he landed. All 20 Afghan soldiers who were requested to come to the meeting with Panetta were asked to come <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-14/panetta-visits-afghanistan-amid-calls-to-speed-u-dot-s-dot-troop-exit">unarmed.</a></p>
<p>Marine Major General Charles “Mark”  Gurganus, the new NATO International Security and Assistance Force commander for the area that covers Helmand Province, <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-14/panetta-visits-afghanistan-amid-calls-to-speed-u-dot-s-dot-troop-exit">then ordered </a>the American and other coalition soldiers to stack arms as well, ostensibly to avoid the impression that we can&#8217;t trust our Afghan allies.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/14/us-afghanistan-idUSBRE82B1F820120314">Panetta told</a> the assembled coalition forces at Camp Leatherneck, &#8220;We&#8217;ll be challenged by our enemy. We&#8217;ll be challenged by ourselves. We&#8217;ll be challenged by the hell of war itself. But none of that, none of that, must ever deter us from the mission that we must achieve.&#8221; The secretary, commenting on the massacre and Koran burnings <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/14/us-afghanistan-idUSBRE82B1F820120314">said</a>, “We will not allow individual incidents to undermine our resolve to that mission and to sticking to the strategy that we’ve put in place.&#8221;</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/rick-moran/fires-of-hate-still-burning-in-afghanistan/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>39</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>A Profile in Arrogance</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/john-perazzo/a-profile-in-arrogance/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-profile-in-arrogance</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/john-perazzo/a-profile-in-arrogance/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Feb 2010 05:10:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[John Perazzo]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bribe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CAGW]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cambria County]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Carmen V. Scialabba]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[citizens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Committee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congressman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[congressman john]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conspirator]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[corruption probe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[country]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Crew]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[district]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ethics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[February]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fellow democrats]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[financial assets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[financial rewards]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Harry Reid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house committee on standards of official conduct]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Immigration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[immunity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[investment firm]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jack Murtha]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Murtha]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[legislative career]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[light]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[logical place]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Massachusetts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Melanie Sloan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Money]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Neill]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[order]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[outcome]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pennsylvania]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[phony investment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[political influence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[political legacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pork]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[porker]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Bush]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Jimmy Carter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Prettyman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prosecutor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rep. Jack Murtha]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rep. Murtha]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[responsibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[retinue]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Robert]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saddam Hussein]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[secret dealings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sheikh]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sloan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Speaker O'Neill]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[taxpayer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Thomas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twelfth District]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[type]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.






Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[undercover agents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[use]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wall Street]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[War]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Washington]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[western Pennsylvania]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[yasser habib]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[year]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=50520</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Jack Murtha’s sleazy political legacy.
]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/murtha1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-50523" title="murtha" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/murtha1.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" /></a></p>
<p>Congressman John “Jack” Murtha, who died last week at the age of 77, represented western Pennsylvania’s Twelfth District in the House for 35 years. But Murtha’s impressive longevity belies his more dubious political legacy. The narrative of Murtha&#8217;s legislative career was punctuated on virtually every line by self-absorption, self-interest, secret dealings, and an ugly brand of political hackery that placed Murtha&#8217;s own lust for power above the welfare of his country.</p>
<p>A logical place to begin an examination of Murtha&#8217;s career would be the early 1980s, when the Congressman was named as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the so-called “Abscam” (a contraction of “Abdul scam”) corruption probe of several U.S. legislators. That inquiry was conducted between 1978 and 1980 – not by right-wing enemies of Murtha and his fellow Democrats, but by President Jimmy Carter&#8217;s Justice Department. Initially, the FBI established a phony investment firm called “Abdul Enterprises” in New York City and invented a fictitious Middle Eastern sheikh, “Yasser Habib.” Bureau agents, posing as “Habib” and his attendants, offered bribes to Murtha and several other members of the House and Senate in exchange for their pledge to provide political favors to the “sheikh.” Specifically, the legislators were asked to help “Habib” purchase asylum in the United States and transfer his financial assets out of his native country. In exchange for their assistance, the Congressmen were offered handsome financial rewards.</p>
<p>Murtha, for his part, rejected a blatant $50,000 bribe but not the influence buying tactics. Murtha unambiguously left open the possibility that he might be willing to “do business” with the “sheikh” and his retinue at some point in the future. A 54-minute FBI videotape shows Murtha, then a member of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, telling the FBI undercover agents:</p>
<blockquote><p>“You know, you made an offer. It might be that I might change my mind someday.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Murtha explained that he simply needed some time to get to know the “sheikh” and his cohorts a bit better, and to develop a sense that he could trust them not to squeal, before he would be ready to risk accepting such a large bribe:</p>
<blockquote><p>“I want to deal with you guys awhile before I make any transactions at all, period. After we&#8217;ve done some business, well, then I might change my mind [and agree to the scheme]. I&#8217;m going to tell you this. If anybody can do it — I am not bullsh&#8211;tting you fellows — I can get it done my way. There&#8217;s no question about it.”</p></blockquote>
<p>“You know,” Murtha added cautiously, “we do business for a while, maybe I&#8217;ll be interested, maybe I won’t.”</p>
<p>These were the words of a political opportunist whose eagerness to complete a lucrative transaction was tempered only by his fear of being caught in the act. “I&#8217;ve gotta be completely to the point where I can disclaim anything,” Murtha stressed. “And that&#8217;s why I&#8217;m so careful about making any deals.”</p>
<p>As fortune would have it, Murtha actually did think of a way to structure a mutually beneficial arrangement with the “sheikh,” short of taking the $50,000 bribe at that point in time. Murtha said that in lieu of accepting the bribe just yet, he would be glad to offer political favors to “Habib” in exchange for money which the “sheikh” might make available, through Murtha, for businesses in the latter&#8217;s congressional district. Said Murtha:</p>
<blockquote><p>“I wanna do business with you. I mean I want to get the goddamn jobs in the area. You know, if you, the bank deposits in my area. [There's] nothing I&#8217;d like better. Later on, you know, after we&#8217;ve dealt awhile, you know we might change our minds. We might want to do more business. But right now, I think I can do more this way than any other way.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Murtha proceeded to crudely express his concern that the public might someday find out about his secret willingness to put a price tag on his political influence:</p>
<blockquote><p>“When I make a fu**in’ deal, I want to make sure that I know exactly what I’m doing &#8230;  And what I&#8217;m sayin&#8217; is, a few investments in my district, a few you know, is big to me … to a couple of banks which would get their attention. And investment in a business where you could legitimately say to me — when I say legitimately, I&#8217;m talking about so these bastards up here can&#8217;t say to me, well, why, in eight years from now, that&#8217;s possible, we&#8217;d never hear a thing for eight years, but all at once, ah, some dumb bastard would go start talking eight years from now, ah, about the whole thing and say, &#8216;[Jesus Christ], ah, this happened,&#8217; then he, then he, in order to get immunity so he doesn&#8217;t go to jail, he starts talking and fingering people and then the [expletive] all falls apart.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>All told, seven members of Congress (six of them Democrats) accepted bribe money from the “sheikh.” The House Ethics Committee appointed a special prosecutor, Barrett Prettyman, to investigate the matter. Then, in early 1981 the Committee became concerned that Murtha, too, had violated House rules by failing to report the attempted bribery to law-enforcement authorities. Prettyman began looking into Murtha&#8217;s activities as well. In addition, as the Wall Street Journal<em> </em>explains, the prosecutor was “rumored to be offering deals in exchange for testimony that would take the scandal inside the office of [House] Speaker O&#8217;Neill” – a reference to Thomas “Tip” O&#8217;Neill, the Democratic U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts. At that point, a jittery O&#8217;Neill moved to shut down the Murtha probe as quickly as possible. That decision so infuriated the special prosecutor, that he promptly resigned in protest.</p>
<p>Of course, Murtha was not really innocent. He even testified in federal court that he had gone so far as to call his “immigration guy” to discuss the possibility of helping the “sheikh” – who had just offered Murtha a $50,000 bribe – to resolve his immigration concerns. Ultimately, the congressman, as stipulated by the terms that would enable him to avoid prosecution, testified against two House colleagues who had been implicated in the FBI sting. In other words, Murtha himself had morphed into the same type of shadowy figure he had previously claimed to fear: a “dumb bastard” who “would go start talking … in order to get immunity so he doesn&#8217;t go to jail.”</p>
<p>Abscam was by no means Murtha’s only involvement in financial chicanery. In 2004 the congressman, who was then the ranking Democrat on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, steered more than $20 million in federal appropriations to at least ten companies that were represented by KSA Consulting, a Maryland-based lobbying firm where two of the senior partners were Murtha’s brother, Robert “Kit” Murtha, and a former aide to Rep. Murtha, Carmen V. Scialabba.</p>
<p>Murtha always viewed taxpayer dollars essentially as slush funds that he could use to finance his own political pet projects. In February 2008 the taxpayer watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), which promotes fiscal responsibility and federal earmarks reform, named Murtha as Congress’s 2007 “Porker of the Year” “for flouting the rules and playing games with reform, while filing spending bills with pork and arrogantly threatening anyone that challenges his authority.” Noting that Murtha had secured 72 earmarks worth $149.2 million for his district in fiscal year 2007, CAGW said:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Rep. Jack Murtha has long been known inside the Beltway for using threats, power plays, and backroom deals to control spending decisions. There is an area of the House floor known as ‘Murtha’s corner,’ where the legendary appropriator dispenses earmarks. The overwhelming vote for Porker of the Year shows that his shameful behavior is attracting attention throughout the country.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Midway through 2009, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) – which reserves most of its criticisms for Republicans – anointed Murtha as the U.S. Congress&#8217;s “King of Pork,” in recognition of the $192 million in earmarks he had secured for his district in 2008, coupled with another $134 million in earmarks he had requested during the first half of 2009. CREW executive director Melanie Sloan put it this way:</p>
<blockquote><p>“The more Rep. Murtha’s dealings are exposed, the more we all learn about how Congress really operates and the more disgusted the public becomes. CREW will continue to shine the light on Rep. Murtha until the congressman changes his ways or is indicted. I’d take a bet on which is the more likely outcome.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Impervious, as always, to the taxpayers&#8217; legitimate concerns about how their hard-earned money was spent by government, Murtha glibly shrugged off Sloan&#8217;s comments by saying: “If I’m corrupt, it’s because I take care of my district.”</p>
<p>Further questions about Murtha’s use (or misuse) of taxpayer money were raised by the expenses associated with the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport in Johnstown, Pennsylvania &#8211; the congressman&#8217;s home district. This facility is equipped with a $7 million air-traffic-control tower, a $14 million hangar, and an $18 million, state-of-the-art runway. As a result of Murtha’s influence, more than $150 million in taxpayer funds were funneled to this airport between 1999 and 2009, including $800,000 (from the February 2009 stimulus bill), which was allocated for repaving an “alternate runway.” These massive expenditures hardly seem justified: Only three flights per day – all to Washington,  DC – originate from the Murtha airport.</p>
<p>His many financial shenanigans aside, Murtha in recent years was best known to the public as an inveterate critic of the U.S. war effort in Iraq. In October 2002 Murtha voted, albeit grudgingly, to authorize America’s use of military force against Saddam Hussein: “I only voted for it,” he explained, “because I [had] said to [Vice President] Cheney and the President, ‘You have to go to the U.N.,’ and when they did that, what the hell could I do?”</p>
<p>After that, Murtha did everything he could to hamstring President Bush, to paint the war effort as a foolish endeavor, and to thereby pressure the President to adopt the type of minimalist approach to the war that would only prolong the slow bleed – an outcome that Murtha well understood could potentially cause great harm to the country. But he was more interested in the political benefits he and the Democrats could derive from it. Presaging Harry Reid (who would infamously proclaim “this war is lost”), in May 2004 Murtha asserted that the Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq had made the war “unwinnable.” In November 2005 he announced that “the Army is broken,” and that “the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq” was not only “impeding … progress” there, but indeed was acting as a “catalyst for violence.”</p>
<p>Then in May 2006, the Haditha story landed in Murtha&#8217;s lap. It was an unsubstantiated allegation that a squad of eight U.S. Marines had killed, without cause, up to two-dozen unarmed civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha. The congressman appeared immediately on ABC’s <em>This Week</em> program, where he said that the Marines had “overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.” “There’s no question in my mind about what happened here,” declared Murtha. “There was no gunfire [from the Iraqis]. They [the American Marines] killed four people in a taxi and then in addition to that, they went into the rooms and killed them.” He further alleged that the U.S. military was trying to “cover up” what had occurred in Haditha.</p>
<p>In the May 17, 2006 edition of <em>Hardball</em> with Chris Matthews, the host said to Murtha: “[W]hen you say &#8216;cold blood,&#8217; Congressman, a lot of people think you&#8217;re basically saying you have got some civilians sitting in a room or out in a field and they&#8217;re executed just on purpose.” Murtha replied, “That’s exactly what happened.”</p>
<p>Except that it wasn’t. By June 2008, it had become apparent that Murtha’s allegations against the eight Marines were entirely unfounded. Charges had been dismissed against six of the eight, while a seventh had been fully acquitted. Moreover, two of the Marines – including Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the only one who was still facing any charges – filed defamation and slander suits against Murtha.</p>
<p>Murtha not only remained unapologetic but he signed on to another Democratic campaign to discredit the war effort, voting in favor of a June 2008 resolution drawn up by Congressman Dennis Kucinich to investigate the feasibility of impeaching George W. Bush for “high crimes and misdemeanors” – as punishment for having led the U.S. to war in the first place.</p>
<p>Indeed, after voting to authorize it, Murtha opposed the U.S.-led war effort at every step. In June 2006 Murtha voted against a Congressional proposal to formally declare that Iraq was a crucial theater in the overall War on Terror, and that it would be unwise to set a firm withdrawal date for U.S. troops. Four months later, Murtha voted in favor of withdrawing American troops at the earliest practicable date. Then, in early 2007, Murtha spoke out against the Bush administration’s planned troop “surge” &#8211; where an additional 21,500 soldiers would be deployed to Iraq in an effort to quell the insurgency there. Vowing “to stop this surge,” Murtha stated that “surges have not worked in the past” because enemy forces “disappear, and then they come back later on. To think that a surge will work is, in my estimation, false thinking.” Murtha could not have been more wrong, as the troop surge successfully turned the tide of the war.</p>
<p>One irony of Murtha’s career is that although he worked tirelessly to secure taxpayer dollars for his district, he did not hold his constituents in high esteem. In October of 2008, just weeks before the presidential election, he accused voters in his Pennsylvania home district of being bigots because, in his estimation, they were not supporting Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy in sufficiently large numbers (though Obama was in fact leading in the local polls). “I think Obama is going to win [the local vote], but I don’t think it&#8217;s going to be a runaway,” Murtha said. “There is no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area,” he added. “The older population is more hesitant [to embrace a black candidate].”</p>
<p>Murtha’s remarks drew considerable media attention, and the congressman issued an ambiguous “clarification” the next day: “It&#8217;s [the racism is] better than it was a few weeks ago. It&#8217;s better than it was a few months ago.” In an interview with a local news channel the following week, Murtha sought to further “clarify” his remarks: “What I mean is there’s still folks that have a problem voting for someone because they are black&#8230;. This whole area, years ago, was really redneck.”</p>
<p>It was some thanks to the voters who had sent him to Washington for over three decades. As a final act in Murtha&#8217;s career, it was also fitting. For all his political success, Mutha remained a self-anointed know-it-all who considered himself not only more enlightened than the “rednecks” who inhabited his district, but also better qualified to spend money than the hardworking Americans who made it.</p>
<p><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden" /> <input id="jsProxy" onclick="jsCall();" type="hidden" /> <input id="gwProxy" type="hidden" /> <input id="jsProxy" onclick="jsCall();" type="hidden" /> <input id="gwProxy" type="hidden" /> <input id="jsProxy" onclick="jsCall();" type="hidden" /></p>
<p><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden" /><input id="jsProxy" onclick="jsCall();" type="hidden" /></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/john-perazzo/a-profile-in-arrogance/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>58</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Stephanie Gutmann: Doing Security the Israeli Way &#8211; The American Spectator</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/stephanie-gutmann-doing-security-the-israeli-way-the-american-spectator/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=stephanie-gutmann-doing-security-the-israeli-way-the-american-spectator</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/stephanie-gutmann-doing-security-the-israeli-way-the-american-spectator/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:17:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[airline]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airline security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[American]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[american spectator]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bureaucracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[buzzword]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[checkpoints]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CNN]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[doing security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ethnic profiling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[everyone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[example]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Head]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hour]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[interview]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Isaac Yeffet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israeli Way]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israelis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Journal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[languages]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[layer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[line]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Money]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[order]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rosetta Stones]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[screening]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[screening system]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Secret]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security personnel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[something]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spectator]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[system]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wall Street]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wall Street Journal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[way]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=46627</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;Let&#8217;s do things the way the Israelis do.&#8221; That&#8217;s the latest buzzword in airline security. It&#8217;s nice to hear the Israelis being praised for something, but if we don&#8217;t understand what the Israelis do, we&#8217;re just going to be adding another layer of bureaucracy to an already overloaded system CNN spent an hour interviewing Isaac [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2010/01/15/doing-security-the-israeli-way"><img src='http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/12635341523288.jpg' alt='' /></a></p>
<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s do things the way the Israelis do.&#8221; That&#8217;s the latest buzzword in airline security. It&#8217;s nice to hear the Israelis being praised for something, but if we don&#8217;t understand what the Israelis do, we&#8217;re just going to be adding another layer of bureaucracy to an already overloaded system</p>
<p>CNN spent an hour interviewing Isaac Yeffet, former head of El Al security, for example, and all it came away with is that the Israelis interview everyone on line while they&#8217;re waiting to go through security, that the security personnel speak at least two languages, and that the system costs a lot of money. (Hey, let&#8217;s order up a lot of Rosetta Stones!) According to the Wall Street Journal, &#8220;the secret to [the Israelis'] successful airport security is not labor-intensive checkpoints, but a screening system that is frowned upon in many other countries: ethnic profiling.&#8221;</p>
<p>via <a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2010/01/15/doing-security-the-israeli-way">The American Spectator : Doing Security the Israeli Way</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/stephanie-gutmann-doing-security-the-israeli-way-the-american-spectator/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>&#8220;Notional&#8221; Security &#8211; by Thomas Sowell</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/thomas-sowell/notional-security-by-thomas-sowell/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=notional-security-by-thomas-sowell</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/thomas-sowell/notional-security-by-thomas-sowell/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 13 Jan 2010 05:01:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Thomas Sowell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Administration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airline passengers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[american soldiers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anybody]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bui]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cairo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christmas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[christmas day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cold weather]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[convention]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[counter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[country]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[danger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[equator]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fellow officer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fort Hood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Geneva]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hasan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hot weather]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[irresponsibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israel israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israeli security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[laxness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lip]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lip service]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[luggage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Major Nidal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[man]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mike Huckabee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nidal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[official]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[part]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[photographic equipment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[plan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Political Correctness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[profile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reason]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security checks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[self preservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[smithereens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[southern hemispheres]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[system]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TIME]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[weather]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wife]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=45834</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Far better to be blown to smithereens than to be politically incorrect.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-45840" title="Obama 2008" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/obaman.jpg" alt="Obama 2008" width="450" height="335" /></p>
<p>The latest &#8220;screw-up&#8221; that let a man with explosives get on a plan on Christmas day is only part of a larger laxness and irresponsibility when it comes to national security. This administration pays lip service to national security and gives out with a lot of rhetorical notions that makes it notional security instead of national security.</p>
<p>The Muslim major who was arrested for the murders of American soldiers at Fort Hood had left so many clues to his hatred of this country that all you had to do was count the dots, without even connecting them, to see where he was coming from. But for a fellow officer to alert higher authorities to the danger would have meant risking damage to his own career moreso than to that of Major Nidal Hasan.</p>
<p>That is because we have become so obsessed with political correctness that both common sense and self-preservation have to take a back seat. We don&#8217;t dare &#8220;profile&#8221; anybody going through security checks because that&#8217;s not politically correct. Far better to be blown to smithereens than to be politically incorrect.</p>
<p>Probably the country with the strongest security checks for airline passengers— and the strongest reason for such checks— is Israel. Israel profiles. I have been to Israel more than once and it is clear that they profile.</p>
<p>Fortunately, my wife and I obviously don&#8217;t fit their profile, whatever that may be. Others who have been to Israel are amazed when I tell them that we have gone through Israeli security four times and they have never opened our luggage.</p>
<p>That is all the more surprising, since we take a lot of luggage. We have stopped in Israel while on trips completely around the world, including countries both above and below the equator, so we had to have clothing for hot weather and cold weather, since the seasons are the opposite in the northern and southern hemispheres. Moreover, I carry a lot of photographic equipment in a large, separate piece of luggage.</p>
<p>In short, our luggage could carry enough explosives to blow up any building in the country.</p>
<p>But, whatever their security system and whatever their profile, they didn&#8217;t seem to want to waste any time on us.</p>
<p>The last time we flew into Israel was from Cairo, where the Israeli security officials at the Cairo airport detained the lady in line in front of us for 45 minutes, opened her luggage, spread the contents across the counter, and asked her all sorts of questions. When they had finally finished with her and my wife and I stepped up to the counter, the official in charge waved us on impatiently, saying, &#8220;Hurry up, you&#8217;ll miss the plane.&#8221;</p>
<p>This was no special treatment for us. They had no idea who we were. We were just not the kind of people they spent time on, for whatever reason.</p>
<p>Recently, an Israeli security official was interviewed on Fox News Channel by Mike Huckabee. The official said that he has testified before Congress and offered to help with suggestions on how the American airport security system could be improved— and he clearly thought it needed a lot of improvement.</p>
<p>Apparently the only response he got from American security officials was a polite letter. &#8220;They didn&#8217;t tell me to go to Hell,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They were polite.&#8221;</p>
<p>There is no stronger indication of danger than officials who don&#8217;t want to hear what anybody else has to say, even when those who offer to help have a system that works better than ours.</p>
<p>The fundamental issue goes beyond the Fort Hood massacre or the Christmas bomber. These are just symptoms of a larger set of attitudes and expediences reflecting the same outlook.</p>
<p>Putting terrorists on trial in American criminal courts, under rules designed for American citizens, tells you all you need to know about whether the Obama administration is serious about security or is still playing the political correctness game.</p>
<p>Terrorists are not covered by the Geneva convention for the simple reason that they do not abide by the Geneva convention. They are enemy combatants and you do not turn enemy combatants loose to go back to killing Americans while the war is still on— not if you are being serious, as distinguished from being political or ideological.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/thomas-sowell/notional-security-by-thomas-sowell/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>15</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Terror in the Skies Requires Real Action on the Ground &#8211; by Michael Reagan</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/michael-reagan/terror-in-the-skies-requires-real-action-on-the-ground-by-michael-reagan/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=terror-in-the-skies-requires-real-action-on-the-ground-by-michael-reagan</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/michael-reagan/terror-in-the-skies-requires-real-action-on-the-ground-by-michael-reagan/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Jan 2010 05:00:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Reagan]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Abdulmutallab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Alert]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[american authorities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[american opera]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attack]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attempt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blatant act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bombing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chief Janet Napolitano]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christmas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[christmas day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[christmas in afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cia headquarters]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cia station chief]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[counterterrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[country]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[courage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[extremist views]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[farouk]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[God]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[grace of god]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[headquarters]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[high priority]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[homeland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Intelligence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Janet Napolitano]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[john brennan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[list]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[minor victory]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mr. President. You]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[northwest flight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[president]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[proper communication]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[real war]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[retraction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security chief]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[self protection]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[show]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[system]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TIME]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[war against terror]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[way]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=45269</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Mr. President, we can’t afford any more of your on-the-job training.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-45273" title="obama2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/obama2.jpg" alt="obama2" width="450" height="325" /></p>
<p><span><span>This country is on alert now in a way it has not been for almost nine years. Between the attempted Christmas Day terrorist attack, the bombing of the CIA headquarters in Yemen, and near-daily airport scares, we have been forcefully reminded that a real war against terror continues to be waged here at home and abroad.</span></span></p>
<p>And even as I applaud Americans for not letting recent events unduly disrupt their lives and thereby giving the terrorists a minor victory, I remain deeply concerned about the current state of our homeland security.</p>
<p>Shortly after the incident on Northwest Flight 253, Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano first insisted that “the system worked” regarding the Christmas Day attempt. This particularly blatant act of defensive self-protection was such an obvious falsehood that Counterterrorism Czar John Brennan has had to go from news show to news show offering a retraction. This bumbling effort is not exactly the type of first response that Americans should expect from those tasked with protecting our country.</p>
<p>Indeed, as the days progress, we are beginning to see just how great a retraction was needed. American authorities knew, before he ever boarded that plane, that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had extremist views and received training from Al Qaeda. In an act of tremendous courage, Abdulmutallab’s own father apparently had reported him as a person of concern to the U.S. embassy and CIA station chief. Abdulmutallab was on a government watch list. He had been spending time in a country with known terrorist activity.</p>
<p>With proper communication between security and counterterrorism agencies and proper scrutiny, this young man would have been put on a high-priority list. At the airport, he would have been flagged, he would have been searched, and he would have been caught. Instead, it is only through the grace of God and the courage of a passenger that the lives of over 200 were saved this Christmas.</p>
<p>In Afghanistan, we were not so fortunate, and seven American operatives were killed.</p>
<p>We do not have to live in fear in order to be smart about the dangers. We do not have to be an international bully to rightfully assert our position and interests around the world. The Obama administration, however, cannot seem to get a handle on the wide middle ground between “fear-mongering” and cowering in submission.</p>
<p>In many ways, this Christmas Day attempt is a great opportunity for the president. With no loss of life, systemic and human errors were revealed and can now be fixed. And they must be fixed.</p>
<p>We need to move forward with a comprehensive strategy to connect our intelligence dots. We can already see that tremendous strides have been made since the disastrous intelligence failure of 9/11, but we learned two weeks ago that we have not come far enough. Whatever motivation or resources are required, we need to improve our intelligence and make full use of it, rather than letting cases like Abdulmutallab’s fall through the cracks.</p>
<p>It would be all too easily to blame this on poor screening at airports here and overseas, and to reactively devote all our energies to bigger and better checkpoint technologies. To some measure, some of these recommended upgrades may be appropriate. But the greatest challenge will be for the president to take a step back and look at the entire system with all its moving parts and streamline the process. In doing, he must act with the conviction that the threat is imminent and real.</p>
<p>It’s time to step up to the plate, Mr. President. You signed up for this job, and we can’t afford any more of your on-the-job training.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/michael-reagan/terror-in-the-skies-requires-real-action-on-the-ground-by-michael-reagan/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>14</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Stopping the Next “Underwear Bomber” &#8211; by Alan M. Dershowitz</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/alan-m-dershowitz/stopping-the-next-%e2%80%9cunderwear-bomber%e2%80%9d-by-alan-m-dershowitz/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=stopping-the-next-%25e2%2580%259cunderwear-bomber%25e2%2580%259d-by-alan-m-dershowitz</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/alan-m-dershowitz/stopping-the-next-%e2%80%9cunderwear-bomber%e2%80%9d-by-alan-m-dershowitz/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:17:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Alan M. Dershowitz]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ability]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airline]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airline security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airliner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[area]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[briefcase]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[card]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[catastrophic success]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christmas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[christmas day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[complete control]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cruel joke]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Detroit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Explosive]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[failure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[international airports]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[invitation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islamic Terrorists]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[low security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[metal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[metal detectors]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Newark]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[newark airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nothing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[part]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[planes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[potential]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prediction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Privacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reaction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security checks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security system]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[successes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[suicide]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[suicide bombers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[system]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[test]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[year]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=44969</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How rigorous but vital security precautions could prevent the next terrorist tragedy.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-44971" title="jfk_airport-retina_scan" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/jfk_airport-retina_scan.jpg" alt="jfk_airport-retina_scan" width="410" height="273" /></p>
<p>My dire New Year prediction is that Islamic terrorists may well succeed this year in blowing up a civilian airliner. They have already twice proved that suicide bombers can get through security. And those are only the successful security bypasses that we know about. Who knows how many other potential terrorists, who have been tasked to test our system, have made it through?</p>
<p>For all we know, the Christmas Day “failure” was also a test, at least in part—a test that included the potential for catastrophic success, but a test designed to probe weaknesses in our airline security system. Only ten days later, another person <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/03/new.jersey.airport.breach/index.html">got past security at Newark Airport and was never found</a>. Who knows how many other people have simply managed to walk around the metal detectors or through the security exit. I myself saw a man run passed security at Newark Airport several years ago. When I notified security, their response was to search <em>my</em> briefcase and nearly make me miss my flight. There was no search for the security evader and no shutdown of the concourse.</p>
<p>Airport security in many parts of the world is a cruel joke. Worse, it is an invitation to terrorism. In many international airports, security is no better than in the least secure country from which any flyer begins his flight. Once in the secure area of some airports, there are no further checks when boarding a second flight. There must be security checks at every gate, not merely at the entrance to the general boarding area. Otherwise, passengers whose flights begin at low security airports can board planes without going through reasonable security.</p>
<p>Nor have we learned enough from the near successes of the shoe and underwear bombers. In both cases, we should have acted as if they had succeeded. That they did not had absolutely nothing to do with our security, but rather with a factor over which the would-be terrorists had complete control, namely improving the effectiveness of their explosive triggers. Imagine what the reaction would have been if hundreds of Detroit-bound passengers had been murdered. That is what the reaction should now be to this near-catastrophe.</p>
<p>We must adopt a multi-tiered approach to airline security. Frequent flyers who pose no security threat should be eligible for a non-transferable telemetric security card that is keyed into their retina for near foolproof identification. They could quickly pass through metal and explosives detection. Other fliers can opt for increased security or increased privacy. Those who opt for increased security would be subjected to intrusive scanning, without a metal box protecting their private parts. After all, it was the private parts that were the location of the most recent explosives. If you are too prudish to have your private parts scanned, then opt for privacy. In that case, you have to come to airport three hours early and be subjected to a thorough external pat down and a lengthy sit-down interview.</p>
<p>The time has come to take airline security seriously. We must also upgrade security in railroad and bus terminals, but Al Qaeda’s obsession with airlines should influence our priorities. Those civil libertarians who claim that increasing security will not work are simply lying. It will work, though not perfectly, and it will also diminish privacy and civil liberties, though not significantly. Life is composed of tradeoffs. Those civil libertarians who deny that there are tradeoffs are serving neither the interests of civil liberties nor of truth. Among the most important civil liberty is our ability to travel without excessive fear of terrorism, and without excessive intrusion into our privacy.</p>
<p>We must increase the quality and training of the security personnel at the airports. It should become a job for retired and experienced law enforcement officials. It should pay well and it should be subject to rigorous testing. Security “testers” should be using every available tactic to try to evade security. Those in charge of protecting us should be graded by their ability to spot terrorist threats.</p>
<p>There must be more searching interviews of travelers who do not opt for the security card or the scanning. There is nothing wrong with profiling, so long as it does not lump together all members of a particular race, religion or ethnicity. Profiling, based on a wide variety of characteristics that are directly associated with the risk of terrorism, is a good thing. So is “negative profiling”—that is, excluding certain categories of travelers from super-scrutiny based on their obvious non-involvement in terrorism.</p>
<p>Finally, we must have air marshals on every flight. This will be expensive, but nobody ever said that safe travel coupled with reasonable privacy would be cheap. We will implement all of these proposals—and more intrusive ones—as soon as the first plane is blown out of the sky and hundreds of innocent travelers are murdered. Why not do it now, before a preventable tragedy occurs?</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/alan-m-dershowitz/stopping-the-next-%e2%80%9cunderwear-bomber%e2%80%9d-by-alan-m-dershowitz/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>78</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>When Security Trumps Common Sense &#8211; by Dennis Prager</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dennis-prager/when-security-trumps-common-sense-by-dennis-prager/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=when-security-trumps-common-sense-by-dennis-prager</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dennis-prager/when-security-trumps-common-sense-by-dennis-prager/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:03:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dennis Prager]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ACLU]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airline]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airline passengers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airports]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[altitude]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amsterdam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[available technologies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ban]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bathroom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bod]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[body]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Charlotte Bryan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[diabetics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dignity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[escort]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fellow passengers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flight passengers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[frequent delays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[half hour]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hereby]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hour]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[incapacity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[intelligent approach]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[irrationality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jason Chaffetz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lavatory]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nudity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[objection]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[opposition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[order]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[planes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Privacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rep. Chaffetz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Robert Poole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[scanner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seatbelt signs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[skin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[someone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[something]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[terrorists]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TSA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Utah]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=44973</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I am not prepared to obey rules that hurt the innocent while doing nothing to prevent terrorism.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-44974" title="Airplane-Bathroom-Sign" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Airplane-Bathroom-Sign.jpg" alt="Airplane-Bathroom-Sign" width="385" height="288" /></p>
<p>If the government prohibits airline passengers from getting out of their seats during the last hour of a flight, I hereby announce that I will get out of my seat either to escort someone who needs to use the lavatory or because I do. I understand that I may be arrested, but I am willing to make this a cause celebre.</p>
<p>Aside from a genetic incapacity to be directed by irrationality, I will make this protest on behalf of fellow passengers who are in pain because of this idiotic rule. What are diabetics, for example, supposed to do? And considering the fact that &#8220;the last hour of a flight&#8221; is always more than an hour, often considerably more &#8212; given the frequent delays in approaching airports and given the approximately 15-20 minutes between landing and passengers actually disembarking.</p>
<p>I am not prepared to obey rules that hurt the innocent while doing nothing to prevent terrorism.</p>
<p>When exactly will airline passengers be permitted to relieve themselves? Seatbelt signs are now illuminated &#8212; meaning passengers are not allowed out of their seats &#8212; for at least the half hour it takes to leave the gate and achieve optimum altitude. And on many planes, those signs are (often pointlessly) illuminated for much of the flight after that as well.</p>
<p>Therefore, if passengers are not allowed to get up during the last hour, that would mean that on a two-hour flight, passengers would be fortunate to have a total of 20 minutes when they could stand to stretch, get a book or go to the lavatory.</p>
<p>Furthermore, since passengers are also not allowed to &#8220;congregate&#8221; outside the lavatories, passengers will actually have to compete with one another in order to get to the bathroom. The slower ones, or the ones seated furthest from the lavatories, may not have any chance to go to the bathroom in a two-hour or longer flight.</p>
<p>These useless, dignity-robbing, rules could have been averted if available technologies and a more intelligent approach to catching terrorists had been adopted.</p>
<p>One such technology is full-body scanning.</p>
<p>According to Robert Poole, adviser to the White House and Congress on airport security following 9-11, the explosives &#8220;which the terrorist concealed in his underwear would have been detected had he been required to pass through one of the 15 millimeter-wave body-scanners now in use at Schiphol (Amsterdam Airport).&#8221;</p>
<p>And Charlotte Bryan, a former top TSA and FAA official, told CNN that a body scanner could have stopped Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, terror suspect on Northwest 253.</p>
<p>The major objection to the scanner comes from the ACLU and from libertarians on &#8220;privacy&#8221; grounds. This objection led the House of Representatives to ban full body scans. That the ban was led by a Republican, Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz, who continues to defend his opposition to body scanning, only shows that the left has no monopoly on foolishness.</p>
<p>But it was House Democrats who overwhelmingly voted to ban body scans. Only a fifth of the Democrats in the House voted against the ban while two-thirds of the Republicans voted against it.</p>
<p>The ACLU, which can almost always be depended on to say something foolish and advocate a position that harms society, calls the process &#8220;virtual strip search.&#8221; And Chaffetz declared, &#8220;I just think it&#8217;s too invasive. Nobody needs to see my kids &#8212; I have a son and two daughters &#8212; and see my wife naked in order to secure an airplane!&#8221;</p>
<p>So, the leftist and libertarian opposition centered on the issue of privacy. And the conservative opposition &#8212; to conservatives&#8217; credit, the smallest of the opposing groups &#8212; centered on &#8220;nudity.&#8221;</p>
<p>It is difficult to say which one is more idiotic. Both illustrate what happens when dogma supersedes common sense.</p>
<p>What privacy are we even talking about? I cherish my privacy, but anyone who actually looks at the scans made by the whole body scanner cannot seriously talk of either privacy or nudity. They are indeed &#8220;virtual&#8221; images, meaning no skin is shown and the human figure looks metallic.</p>
<p>The ACLU and Rep. Chaffetz have read too many Superman comics &#8212; they imagine the superhero&#8217;s &#8220;X-ray vision.&#8221; But that is not possible. There is no skin shown. So how can there be &#8220;nudity&#8221;?</p>
<p>I willingly relinquish whatever &#8220;privacy&#8221; I lose by being scanned for the even more precious value of staying alive.</p>
<p>Those who think that TSA employees will be leering at naked bodies have a little too much sex on their minds. Same-sex TSA employees will be looking at metallic-like images of thousands of bodies that pass through airport security. Look on the Internet at those images and then tell me that they are &#8220;nude.&#8221; A necrophiliac would be bored.</p>
<p>As a conservative, I am embarrassed by people who put thousands of lives in danger under the guise of protecting their wives and daughters from appearing &#8220;naked.&#8221;</p>
<p>So until my government does something intelligent &#8212; like screening for dangerous people, not dangerous weapons (as Israel so successfully does) &#8212; to protect this frequent flyer, I will not play the pretend game of &#8220;do something&#8221; that prohibits me from relieving myself on the grounds that terrorists only blow up planes after going to the bathroom during the last hour of a flight.</p>
<p>I will surrender a lot of things to stay alive. But I will not surrender my intelligence. That and being told when to urinate are the real losses of dignity, not a full body scan.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dennis-prager/when-security-trumps-common-sense-by-dennis-prager/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>23</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Security Theater Now Playing at Your Airport &#8211; by Daniel Pipes</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/daniel-pipes/security-theater-now-playing-at-your-airport-by-daniel-pipes/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=security-theater-now-playing-at-your-airport-by-daniel-pipes</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/daniel-pipes/security-theater-now-playing-at-your-airport-by-daniel-pipes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Jan 2010 05:23:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Pipes]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[aftermath]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[agent]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Airlines]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ann]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ann marie]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ann-Marie Doreen Murphy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ann-Marie Murphy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[approach]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Austria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bag]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ben Gurion airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bombing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chambermaid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conversation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Halevy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Harris]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Detroit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[doreen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[false bottom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[first trip]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Heathrow]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[heathrow airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hilton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hilton hotel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hindawi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[holy land]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hour]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[inspection]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ireland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[irish lass]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kilograms]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[London]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mickey Mouse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Miss Murphy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Neil C. Livingstone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[night]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nizar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[northwest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[northwest airlines]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[northwest airlines flight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Park Lane]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[passenger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[propensity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recent arrival]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sallynoggin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[screening]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security agent]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tel Aviv]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TIME]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toronto]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trip]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TSA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S. Transportation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[united-states]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vacation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Washingtonian]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=44791</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Is America willing to embrace the strategies necessary to stop terrorism?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-44800" title="security" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/security.jpg" alt="security" width="355" height="262" /></p>
<p>As hands are wrung in the aftermath of the near-tragedy on a Northwest Airlines flight approaching Detroit, a conversation from London&#8217;s Heathrow airport in 1986 comes to mind.</p>
<table style="margin-left: 12px; margin-bottom: 5px;" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="337" align="right">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: 1px solid black;"><img src="http://www.danielpipes.org/pics/new/large/1077.jpg" border="0" alt="" width="337" height="208" /><!-- caption begin --></p>
<p style="margin: 4px; font-size: smaller;">Nizar al-Hindawi and Ann-Marie Murphy.</p>
<p><!-- caption end --></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>It consisted of an <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/1064/terrorism-the-syrian-connection#Murphy">El Al security agent quizzing one Ann-Marie Doreen Murphy</a>, a 32-year-old recent arrival in London from Sallynoggin, Ireland. While working as a chambermaid at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane Murphy met Nizar al-Hindawi, a far-leftist Palestinian who impregnated her. After instructing her to &#8220;get rid of the thing,&#8221; he abruptly changed his tune and insisted on immediate marriage in &#8220;the Holy Land.&#8221; He also insisted on their traveling separately.</p>
<p>Murphy, later described by the prosecutor as a &#8220;simple, unsophisticated Irish lass and a Catholic,&#8221; accepted unquestioningly Hindawi&#8217;s arrangements for her to fly to Israel on El Al on April 17. She also accepted a wheeled suitcase with a false bottom containing nearly 2 kilograms of Semtex, a powerful plastic explosive, and she agreed to be coached by him to answer questions posed by airport security.</p>
<p>Murphy successfully passed through the standard Heathrow security inspection and reached the gate with her bag, where an El Al agent questioned her. As reconstructed by Neil C. Livingstone and David Halevy in <em>Washingtonian</em> magazine, he started by asking whether she had packed her bags herself. She replied in the negative. Then:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;What is the purpose of your trip to Israel?&#8221; Recalling Hindawi&#8217;s instructions, Murphy answered, &#8220;For a vacation.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Are you married, Miss Murphy?&#8221; &#8220;No.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Traveling alone?&#8221; &#8220;Yes.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Is this your first trip abroad?&#8221; &#8220;Yes.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Do you have relatives in Israel?&#8221; &#8220;No.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Are you going to meet someone in Israel?&#8221; &#8220;No.</p>
<p>&#8220;Has your vacation been planned for a long time?&#8221; &#8220;No.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Where will you stay while you&#8217;re in Israel?&#8221; &#8220;The Tel Aviv Hilton.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;How much money do you have with you?&#8221; &#8220;Fifty pounds.&#8221; The Hilton at that time costing at least £70 a night, he asked:</p>
<p>&#8220;Do you have a credit card?&#8221; &#8220;Oh, yes,&#8221; she replied, showing him an i.d. for cashing checks.</p></blockquote>
<p>That did it, and the agent sent her bag for additional inspection, where the bombing apparatus was discovered.</p>
<p>Had El Al followed the usual Western security procedures, 375 lives would surely have been lost somewhere over Austria. The bombing plot came to light, in other words, through a non-technical intervention, relying on conversation, perception, common sense, and (yes) profiling. The agent focused on the passenger, not the weaponry. Israeli counterterrorism takes passengers&#8217; identities into account; accordingly, <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3238101,00.html">Arabs endure an especially tough inspection</a>. &#8220;In Israel, security comes first,&#8221; <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-harris/what-israel-can-teach-the_b_408720.html">David Harris</a> of the American Jewish Committee explains.</p>
<p>Obvious as this sounds, overconfidence, political correctness, and legal liability render such an approach impossible anywhere else in the West. In the United States, for example, one month after 9/11, the <a href="http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/rules/20011012.htm">Department of Transportation</a> issued guidelines forbidding its personnel from generalizing &#8220;about the propensity of members of any racial, ethnic, religious, or national origin group to engage in unlawful activity.&#8221; (Wear a <em>hijab</em>, I semi-jokingly advise women wanting to avoid secondary screening at airport security.)</p>
<p>Worse yet, consider the panicky Mickey-Mouse, and <a href="http://www.judithmiller.com/6755/tsa-withdraws-subpoenas-against-journalists">embarrassing</a> steps the U.S. <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/7840/detroit-northwest-near-tragedy">Transportation Security Administration</a> implemented hours after the Detroit bombing attempt: no crew announcements &#8220;concerning flight path or position over cities or landmarks,&#8221; and disabling all passenger communications services. During a flight&#8217;s final hour, passengers may not stand up, access carry-on baggage, nor &#8220;have any blankets, pillows, or personal belongings on the lap.&#8221;</p>
<p>Some crews went yet further, keeping cabin lights on throughout the night while turning off the in-flight entertainment, prohibiting all electronic devices, and, during the final hour, requiring passengers to keep hands visible and neither eat nor drink. Things got so bad, the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/29/business/AP-US-Airline-Attack-Passenger-Confusion.html?_r=1&amp;pagewanted=print">Associated Press</a> reports, &#8220;A demand by one attendant that no one could read anything … elicited gasps of disbelief and howls of laughter.&#8221;</p>
<p>Widely criticized for these <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_Clouseau">Clouseau-like</a> measures, TSA eventually decided to add &#8220;enhanced screening&#8221; for travelers passing through or originating from <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iY9DulyOxxf4IdXndcN-BDM-FvIA">fourteen &#8220;countries of interest&#8221;</a> – as though one&#8217;s choice of departure airport indicates a propensity for suicide bombing.</p>
<p>The TSA engages in &#8220;<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/airport-security">security theater</a>&#8221; – bumbling pretend-steps that treat all passengers equally rather than risk offending anyone by focusing, say, on religion. The alternative approach is <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother"><em>Israelification</em></a>, defined by Toronto&#8217;s <em>Star</em> newspaper as &#8220;a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death.&#8221;</p>
<p>Which do we want – theatrics or safety?</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/daniel-pipes/security-theater-now-playing-at-your-airport-by-daniel-pipes/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>21</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>A Failed Anti-Terror Strategy &#8211; by Jamie Glazov</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jamie-glazov/a-failed-anti-terror-strategy-by-jamie-glazov/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-failed-anti-terror-strategy-by-jamie-glazov</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jamie-glazov/a-failed-anti-terror-strategy-by-jamie-glazov/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:16:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Glazov]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Abdul Mutallab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Abdulmutallab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[abject failure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airline]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airline security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[american presidency]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amsterdam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attack]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[book]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[christmas day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Detroit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[drink bottles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[explosive chemicals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[failure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[forthcoming book]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Guide]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hour]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic history]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islamic Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad Watch]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jihadist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jihadists]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lome]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[massive failure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muhammad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[northwest flight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nothing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pamela Geller]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[plane]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Richard Reid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[robert spencer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[scholar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Schuster]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security scanners]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Simon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[simon and schuster]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[something]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[strategy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[terror strategy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[thing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Togo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TSA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=44499</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Nothing Obama is doing will make a recurrence of the terror attempt on Flight 253 any less likely.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-44501" title="nap" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/nap.jpg" alt="nap" width="450" height="254" /></p>
<p>Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/" target="_blank">Jihad Watch</a>. He is the author of ten books, eleven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York Times Bestsellers <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0895260131/ref=ase_robertspencer-20/103-1603172-8127010?v=glance&amp;s=books" target="_blank">The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)</a></em> and <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1596980281/sr=1-1/qid=1153855439/ref=sr_1_1/103-7948108-5943057?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books" target="_blank">The Truth About Muhammad</a></em>. His latest book, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1596981040?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=robertspencer-20&amp;linkCode=xm2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creativeASIN=1596981040" target="_blank">The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran</a></em>, is available now from Regnery Publishing, and he is coauthor (with Pamela Geller) of the forthcoming book <em>The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America</em> (Simon and Schuster).</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong><strong> </strong>Robert Spencer, welcome to Frontpage Interview.</p>
<p>What do you see as the key lessons of the failed terror attempt on Northwest Flight 253?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Spencer: </strong>The chief lesson of the attempted jihad attack on Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day is that our entire anti-terror strategy is a huge and abject failure. Flight 253 revealed a massive failure not only of airline security procedures, but also of the larger strategy that America and the West has been pursuing against jihad terrorism.<strong> </strong></p>
<p>As for airline security procedures, Abdulmutallab was able to get on the airplane without a passport, and with ingredients for an explosive that would have destroyed the plane and killed everyone in it.</p>
<p>TSA officials are busy tightening security procedures with new Abdulmutallab-inspired rules such as forcing passengers to stay in their seats for the last hour of the flight, but these new measures will do nothing to prevent another attack. One thing we have seen over the years since 9/11 is that airport security is always one step behind the jihadists: after jihadist Richard Reid attempted to set off a bomb hidden in his shoes, we all have to take off our shoes and send them through security scanners.</p>
<p>After a group of jihadists tried to sneak onto planes explosive chemicals hidden in drink bottles, we can’t carry drinks through airport security terminals. Because Abdulmutallab attempted his jihad attack just before the plane landed, now we can’t get up during the last hour of the flight.</p>
<p>The one thing that the TSA should have learned, but hasn’t, is that next time the jihadists will do something else, not just repeat what they did before. And even if every passenger were given a full body cavity search, they will find some way to get around it.</p>
<p>But attempt a new approach based on sensible profiling? The TSA would rather fold up shop altogether. <strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong><strong> </strong>Liberals love to portray Islamic terror (this is when they are forced to even admit it exists) as the result of American capitalism and imperialism and how it has subjected poor people into misery. But Abdul Mutallab doesn’t fall into this narrative very neatly. Maybe it has something to do with some stuff he was reading while he was enjoying material wealth, personal comfort and relaxation thanks to capitalism?</p>
<p><strong>Spencer: </strong>They constantly ignore the possibility that the jihadis might not always be reacting to things America has done, but may hate us for reasons of their own, independent of our actions. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a classic recipient of Western largesse designed to win over the loyalties of Muslims – he was educated at the British International School in Lome, Togo. Yet contact with solicitous and friendly non-Muslim Westerners obviously did nothing to quell his jihadist fervor. And the son of a rich man (who notified American authorities about his jihadist sentiments, to no avail), Abdulmutallab once again proves false the idea that poverty causes terrorism. The myriad aid programs that are based on this false assumption have done nothing to stop or even slow jihad terrorism, and they never will.</p>
<p>Abdulmutallab was, in all likelihood, &#8220;radicalized&#8221; not by Western oppression but by the teachings of the Qur&#8217;an and Sunnah. All the concerted efforts by the State Department and DHS to ignore the jihad doctrine and reach out to people they deemed to be “moderate Muslims” have likewise not worked.</p>
<p>According to the Nigerian newspaper <em>This Day</em>, when Abdulmutallab was at the British International School, “he was known for preaching about Islam to his schoolmates and he was popularly called ‘Alfa,’ a local coinage for Islamic scholar.” This illustrates yet again that, contrary to the popular view, Islamic jihadists present themselves among their fellow Muslims as the exponents of authentic Islam, making their case from the Qur’an and Sunnah &#8212; and those Muslims who oppose jihadist violence and Islamic supremacism have never successfully refuted their arguments.</p>
<p>Outreach to moderate Muslims has not aided in this effort, and has deceived the general public into thinking that the influence of peaceful Muslims over jihadists is much larger than it actually is.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong><strong> </strong>Your thoughts on Obama and Napolitano in terms of how they are handling this this attempted terror attack?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Spencer: </strong>Napolitano&#8217;s initial statement that &#8220;the system worked&#8221; was incredible, and Obama&#8217;s slowness to respond and failure to break off his vacation inexcusable &#8212; as was his later reference to this apparent Al-Qaeda operative as an &#8220;isolated extremist.&#8221; Their abysmal failure to come to grips with the jihad doctrine has left us vulnerable to attacks from quarters they consider safe, as Abdulmutallab himself illustrates: as a rich man&#8217;s well educated son, he fits none of the conventional non-Islamic explanations for jihad violence that prevail among government and media analysts. He should be the cause of a wholesale reevaluation of our policies and procedures. But that isn&#8217;t going to happen.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong><strong> </strong>What we need is profiling, yes? And our culture won’t allow. Tell us the psychology here that leaves us tragically vulnerable.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Spencer: </strong>We have, as a culture, been sold a bill of goods by leftist ideologues who have convinced us that to make a realistic appraisal of the source of a threat and to react accordingly would constitute &#8220;racism&#8221; and &#8220;bigotry.&#8221;</p>
<p>Islamic terrorists are generally not grandmothers from middle America &#8212; why should everyone be subjected to increasingly annoying and futile airline security procedures when we know what group is committing these attacks, but just don&#8217;t want to admit it?</p>
<p>Profiling is flawed and will not be a perfect solution, as there is no common racial or any other characteristic that the jihadis share. But a sensibly educated TSA would be able to spot people who might constitute a greater risk, and respond accordingly.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, no matter how many young Muslim men blow things up or try to do so, we cannot even have this conversation as a nation, because the race wolf-criers have completely dominated the field.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong><strong> </strong>Concluding thoughts? What concerns you the most in what you see happening? What are the grave consequences if we don’t get it right?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Spencer: </strong>One thing is certain, Jamie: nothing we are doing now will make a recurrence of the Flight 253 incident any less likely. New security methods are needed, as are new strategies to combat the global jihad. But instead, we just keep reapplying the same old failed policies. And they will continue to fail, because of a continuing failure to evaluate realistically the situation we&#8217;re in.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong><strong> </strong>Robert Spencer, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jamie-glazov/a-failed-anti-terror-strategy-by-jamie-glazov/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>38</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Flight 253 and Counterterror’s Epic Fail &#8211; by Robert Spencer</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/robert-spencer/flight-253-and-counterterror%e2%80%99s-epic-fail-by-robert-spencer/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=flight-253-and-counterterror%25e2%2580%2599s-epic-fail-by-robert-spencer</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/robert-spencer/flight-253-and-counterterror%e2%80%99s-epic-fail-by-robert-spencer/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Dec 2009 05:13:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Abdulmutallab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[air passengers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attack]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attack on christmas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[body cavity search]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bomb]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[british]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christmas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[christmas day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[detonators]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Detroit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DHS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[effort]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fact]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[failure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[farouk]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[full body cavity search]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[golfing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hawaii]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Janet Napolitano]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jasper Schuringa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jihadists]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[little baggies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lome]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mid flight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nigerian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[northwest airlines]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[northwest airlines flight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nothing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[passenger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[plane]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[response]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[robert spencer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Secretary Janet Napolitano]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security procedures]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security scanner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Son]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stocking feet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[system]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[terro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transportation security administration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[truth]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[umar]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=43720</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A failed jihad attack exposes the failure of anti-terror efforts.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-43722" title="alg_flight-253_terrorist" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/alg_flight-253_terrorist.jpg" alt="alg_flight-253_terrorist" width="485" height="305" /></p>
<p>An attempted jihad attack on Christmas Day has revealed that Americans are much more vulnerable to such attacks than most have believed – while government officials whistle in the dark. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, tried to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 just before it landed in Detroit. In response, Barack Obama chose not to cut short his golfing vacation in Hawaii; the White House announced that he would “likely” have something to say about this latest attempted jihad attack on U.S. soil “in the next few days.” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was ebullient, maintaining that “the system worked” and “everything happened that should have.”</p>
<p>Unless the “system” consisted of relying on passengers to tackle jihadists (as Jasper Schuringa, the Dutch passenger on Flight 253, subdued Abdulmutallab), and trusting that jihadis’ detonators will malfunction (as did Abdulmutallab’s), Napolitano’s statement couldn’t possibly be farther from the truth. In reality, nothing worked. Nothing at all, both in terms of security procedures for individual air passengers, and in terms of the larger strategy for dealing with jihad terrorism.</p>
<p>All the stupid and humiliating airport security procedures, all the little baggies for toothpaste and shampoo, all the padding through the security scanner in stocking feet, didn’t work. Abdulmutallab was able to board the plane with the makings of a bomb that would have destroyed the aircraft and killed everyone in it. The Transportation Security Administration has scrambled since Christmas Day to stiffen security procedures, but its effort is foredoomed: jihadis study these procedures carefully, always searching for ways to circumvent them. And such ways exist, even if every passenger were subjected to a full body cavity search – bomb ingredients can be separated and combined mid-flight, or spirited onboard in ways as yet unimagined by the most visionary TSA official.</p>
<p>Abdulmutallib was also on a terror watch list, although that fact, and the fact that he had been known to anti-terror officials for several years, did not prevent him from boarding Flight 253 – showing that such lists and even official scrutiny are as useless as taking off your shoes in the airport security line. What’s more, the jihadi’s father warned American officials about his son, who was being watched already. And <em>still </em>nothing was done to keep him from boarding the plane.</p>
<p>Abdulmutallab likewise demonstrates the failure of long-term anti-terror strategies. Educated at the British International School in Lome, Togo, he was a classic recipient of Western largesse designed to win over the loyalties of Muslims. Yet his encounter with kindly non-Muslim Westerners spending their lives to educate him and his peers did not blunt the fervor of his jihadist fanaticism. And as a rich man’s son, he once again gives the lie to the firmly and widely held assumption that poverty causes terrorism. All the aid programs based on the assumption that poverty does cause terrorism and that money for schools and roads and hospitals would win over Muslim hearts and minds have not worked, and will not work.</p>
<p>All the concerted efforts by the State Department and DHS to ignore the jihad doctrine and reach out to people they deemed to be “moderate Muslims” have likewise not worked. According to the Nigerian newspaper <em>This Day</em>, when Abdulmutallab was at the British International School, “he was known for preaching about Islam to his schoolmates and he was popularly called ‘Alfa,’ a local coinage for Islamic scholar.” This illustrates yet again that, contrary to the popular view, Islamic jihadists present themselves among their fellow Muslims as the exponents of authentic Islam, making their case from the Qur’an and Sunnah &#8212; and those Muslims who oppose jihadist violence and Islamic supremacism have never successfully refuted their arguments. Outreach to moderate Muslims has not aided in this effort, and has deceived the general public into thinking that the influence of peaceful Muslims over jihadists is much larger than it actually is.</p>
<p>As far as the DHS and Janet Napolitano are concerned, the Flight 253 incident is a massive and unmitigated disaster, showing the complete and abject failure of their anti-terror policies across the board. The Flight 253 attempted jihad attack shows that the American response to jihad terrorism has failed not just in one detail or a single area. Rather, the failure is massive, comprehensive, all-encompassing. The anti-terror approach adopted since 9/11 is not working, and is never going to work. Until it is scrapped, there will be many, many more incidents like the one on Flight 253. But rather than have the decency to admit the truth, the DHS chief is putting on a brave face and pretending that up is down and down is up. And the President keeps golfing.</p>
<p><strong>Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/">Jihad Watch</a>. He is the author of ten books, eleven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York Times Bestsellers <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0895260131/ref=ase_robertspencer-20/103-1603172-8127010?v=glance&amp;s=books">The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)</a></em> and <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1596980281/sr=1-1/qid=1153855439/ref=sr_1_1/103-7948108-5943057?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books">The Truth About Muhammad</a></em>. His latest book, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1596981040?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=robertspencer-20&amp;linkCode=xm2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creativeASIN=1596981040">The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran</a></em>, is available now from Regnery Publishing, and he is coauthor (with Pamela Geller) of the forthcoming book <em>The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America</em> (Simon and Schuster).</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/robert-spencer/flight-253-and-counterterror%e2%80%99s-epic-fail-by-robert-spencer/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>64</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>What the Near-Tragedy in Detroit Revealed &#8211; by Daniel Pipes</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/daniel-pipes/what-the-near-tragedy-in-detroit-revealed-by-daniel-pipes/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=what-the-near-tragedy-in-detroit-revealed-by-daniel-pipes</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/daniel-pipes/what-the-near-tragedy-in-detroit-revealed-by-daniel-pipes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Dec 2009 05:00:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Pipes]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Abuja]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airbus 330 300]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Airplane]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amsterdam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[baggage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bank of nigeria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[businessmen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[christmas day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[complaint]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[counterterrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Department]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Detroit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[detroit metropolitan airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[device]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enforcement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[farouk]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[firecrackers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[first bank of nigeria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Focus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fuel tanks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[incident]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Janet Napolitano]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[landing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[law]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[list]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mr. Abdulmutallab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Newark]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[northwest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[northwest flight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pentaerythritol]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Phyllis Chesler]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[plane]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Radicalization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[restroom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sad state]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[screening]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[screening data]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shari]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Son]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[subsequent investigations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[system]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[umar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[underwear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[united-states]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wall Street]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wall Street Journal]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=43738</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Will America now open its eyes to the sad state of counterterrorism eight years after 9/11?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-43740" title="flight" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/flight.jpg" alt="flight" width="450" height="253" /></p>
<p>The near-success of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, to set off an explosive on Christmas Day should open the American public’s eyes to the sad state of counterterrorism eight years after 9/11.</p>
<p>The incident involved a Nigerian in Seat 19A – ideally placed over the fuel tanks, atop the wing, and next to the exterior of the aircraft – of Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit. As summarized by the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126184081273605825.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular"><em>Wall Street Journal</em></a>, it</p>
<p>happened as the Airbus 330-300 carrying 289 people was approaching Detroit. Mr. Abdulmutallab went to the plane&#8217;s restroom for about 20 minutes, and upon returning to his seat he stated that his stomach was upset, and he pulled a blanket over himself, according to the Justice Department complaint. As the flight was heading for a landing at Detroit Metropolitan Airport before noon, the complaint alleges, Mr. Abdulmutallab set off the device. Passengers heard popping noises similar to firecrackers, smelled an odor, and some observed Mr. Abdulmutallab&#8217;s pants leg and the wall of the airplane on fire.</p>
<p>Subsequent <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/northwest-bomb-plot-planned-al-qaeda-yemen/story?id=9426085">investigations</a> learned that the plot was organized and launched by Al-Qaeda leaders in Yemen, who arranged for 80 grams of PETN (pentaerythritol) to be sewed into Abdulmutallab’s underwear. Investigators concluded that only a chance <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/northwest-flight-saved-failed-detonator/story?id=9426532">malfunction</a> prevented the explosives from bringing down the Northwest plane.</p>
<p>Umar Farouk’s father, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/25/AR2009122501355_2.html?">Umaru Abdulmutallab</a>, former chairman of the First Bank of Nigeria and one of his country’s most prominent businessmen, recently went to the U.S. embassy in Abuja to warn about his son’s “radicalization and associations,” prompting American officialdom to place the son on a terror watch list of about 550,000 names, the Terrorist Screening Data Base. But they did not place him on the list of about 15,000 individuals who must go through additional screening, much less the list of about 4,000 people on the “no-fly” list, who are not allowed to fly to or in the United States. Nor did they revoke Abdulmutallab’s two-year, multi-entry tourist visa. Nor did an air marshal accompany his flight.</p>
<p>Despite these multiple failures, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/27/investigators-cross-globe-looking-details-plane-bombing-suspect/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fpolitics+%2528FOXNews.com+-+Politics%2529">Janet Napolitano</a>, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, astonishingly claimed that the system “worked really very, very smoothly” in Detroit. This myopia increases my worries about U.S. law enforcement. In fact, had the system worked, Abdulmutallab would never have entered the airplane, much less set off an explosive device.</p>
<p>Looking ahead, the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/25/AR2009122501355_2.html?">Transportation Security Administration</a> has issued an emergency order requiring travelers headed for the United States to undergo a “thorough pat-down” at the boarding gate, with a focus on the upper legs and torso and an inspection of carry-on baggage, with a focus on syringes. During the final hour on all U.S. flights, passengers must remain seated, may not access carry-on baggage or keep personal item in their laps.</p>
<p>More <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/us/27security.html">delights may follow</a>, reports the <em>New York Times</em>: “Overseas passengers will be restricted to only one carry-on item aboard the plane. … On one flight, from Newark Airport, flight attendants kept cabin lights on for the entire trip instead of dimming them for takeoff and landing. … All carry-on items would be screened at security checkpoints and again at boarding. … In effect, the restrictions mean that passengers on flights of 90 minutes or less would most likely not be able to leave their seats at all.”</p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/677/what-next-body-cavity-searches-at-airports">Phyllis Chesler</a> plaintively asks, “Are we all going to be subjected to underwear checks before boarding our flights? If so, Al-Qaeda will soon secrete explosives in body cavities. Will we all be searched there as well?”</p>
<p>In other words, because U.S. security agencies refuse to take the sensible precaution of concentrating their resources on the small target pool of suspects, namely <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/4122/should-airport-security-procedures-include-ethnic">Muslims</a>, about 1 percent of the population, hundreds of millions of passengers must bear the burden of extra cost, inconvenience, and loss of privacy.</p>
<p>The Detroit abruptly renders invalid several aphorisms I honed over recent years:</p>
<ul>
<li>Had U.S. law enforcement devoted the attention to the 9/11 plotters that it has since given to counterterrorism, 9/11 would never have taken place.</li>
<li>While <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2008/01/sudden-jihad-syndrome-its-now-official">Sudden Jihad Syndrome</a> by isolated individuals remains beyond the abilities of American institutions to stop (viz., the <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/7737/sudden-jihad-inordinate-stress-ft-hood">Ft. Hood shooter</a> last month), terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda are well under surveillance.</li>
<li>Government authorities have terrorism under control, so we private analysts can focus instead on the non-violent forms of radical Islam known variously as “stealth jihad,” “creeping Shari‘a,” “lawful Islamism,” or “Islamism 2.0.”</li>
</ul>
<p>The Northwest incident takes me back to 9/11 itself, when I wrote a <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/63/mistakes-made-the-catastrophe-possible">bitter analysis</a> how the U.S. government had “grievously failed in its topmost duty to protect American citizens from harm.” That failure continues.</p>
<p>What size disaster must occur to inspire a serious approach to counterterrorism?</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/daniel-pipes/what-the-near-tragedy-in-detroit-revealed-by-daniel-pipes/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>43</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Security reviews under way after airliner attack &#8211; AP</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/security-reviews-under-way-after-airliner-attack-ap/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=security-reviews-under-way-after-airliner-attack-ap</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/security-reviews-under-way-after-airliner-attack-ap/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Dec 2009 02:44:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[abundance of caution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Administration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airliner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Atlantic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attempt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[aviation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[aviation security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bag]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bathroom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[body]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[brazen attempt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[concoction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Detroit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[equipment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Explosive]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Friday]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[investigators]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jitters]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[man]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[material]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nigerian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nigerian man]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[northwest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[northwest flight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[plane]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Review]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[smuggling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[success]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sunday]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[suspect]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trans atlantic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Yahoo]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=43706</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Investigators piecing together a brazen attempt to bring down a trans-Atlantic airliner said Sunday the suspect tucked a small bag holding his deadly concoction on his body, using an explosive that would have been easily detected with the right airport equipment. His success in smuggling and partially igniting the material on Friday&#8217;s flight to Detroit [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Investigators piecing together a brazen attempt to bring down a trans-Atlantic airliner said Sunday the suspect tucked a small bag holding his deadly concoction on his body, using an explosive that would have been easily detected with the right airport equipment.</p>
<p>His success in smuggling and partially igniting the material on Friday&#8217;s flight to Detroit prompted the Obama administration to promise a sweeping review of aviation security.</p>
<p>Adding to the airborne jitters, a second Nigerian man was detained Sunday from the same Northwest flight to Detroit after he locked himself in the plane&#8217;s bathroom. Officials reported that he was belligerent but genuinely sick, and that, in an abundance of caution, the plane was taken to a remote location for screening before passengers were let off.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091228/ap_on_go_ot/us_airliner_attack;_ylt=AsFZ7PiETVkdlpYCigRZHzqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNpN3EwOWxiBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkxMjI4L3VzX2FpcmxpbmVyX2F0dGFjawRjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzEEcG9zAzIEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcnkEc2xrA3NlY3VyaXR5cmV2aQ--">Security reviews under way after airliner attack &#8211; Yahoo! News</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/security-reviews-under-way-after-airliner-attack-ap/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>TSA accidentally reveals airport security secrets &#8211; washingtonpost.com</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/tsa-accidentally-reveals-airport-security-secrets-washingtonpost-com/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=tsa-accidentally-reveals-airport-security-secrets-washingtonpost-com</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/tsa-accidentally-reveals-airport-security-secrets-washingtonpost-com/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:14:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Administration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Agency]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[com]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[contract]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[document]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[online]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[part]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[passenger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[passenger screening]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[screening]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[screening practices]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[solicitation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spring]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Transportation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transportation security administration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TSA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tuesday]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[washingtonpost]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=41201</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Transportation Security Administration inadvertently revealed closely guarded secrets related to airport passenger screening practices when it posted online this spring a document as part of a contract solicitation, the agency confirmed Tuesday. via TSA accidentally reveals airport security secrets &#8211; washingtonpost.com.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The Transportation Security Administration inadvertently revealed closely guarded secrets related to airport passenger screening practices when it posted online this spring a document as part of a contract solicitation, the agency confirmed Tuesday.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/08/AR2009120803206.html?wprss=rss_politics">TSA accidentally reveals airport security secrets &#8211; washingtonpost.com</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/tsa-accidentally-reveals-airport-security-secrets-washingtonpost-com/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>CAIR’s Strategy of Deception &#8211; by Jamie Glazov</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jamie-glazov/cair%e2%80%99s-strategy-of-deception-by-jamie-glazov/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=cair%25e2%2580%2599s-strategy-of-deception-by-jamie-glazov</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jamie-glazov/cair%e2%80%99s-strategy-of-deception-by-jamie-glazov/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:12:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Glazov]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ahmad Sakr]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Brotherhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CAIR]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[co author]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conditioning]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[congrats]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[congressman keith ellison]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[counter terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[country]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dave gaubatz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dg]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enforcement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Flying]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gaubatz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hatred]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hooper]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ibrahim Hooper]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ideology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[imam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Imams]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic organizations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[isna]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[keith ellison]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[larry shaw]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[law]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MAFIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Maine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mode]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muslim]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[national security issues]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Paul Sperry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prayer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[professions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[public]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[roundtable]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[school]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[senator larry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shalit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sharia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[terrorism research]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[terrorist groups]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[terrorist organizations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TIME]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Travel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Underworld]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[violence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Zaid Shakir]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=40756</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the Muslim Brotherhood in America pulls the wool over the eyes of our law enforcement and public officials.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-40818" title="hooper" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/hooper.gif" alt="hooper" width="450" height="338" /></p>
<p>Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Dave Gaubatz, the first U.S. civilian (1811) Federal Agent deployed to Iraq in 2003. He is the owner of <a href="http://www.daveg.us./">DG Counter-terrorism Publishing</a>. He is currently conducting a 50 State Counter-terrorism Research Tour (CTRT). He is the co-author (with Paul Sperry) of the new book, <a href="http://www.muslimmafia.com/">Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that’s Conspiring to Islamize America.</a> He can be contacted at <a href="mailto:davegaubatz@gmail.com">davegaubatz@gmail.com</a>.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> David Gaubatz, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Congrats on your book, <em>Muslim Mafia</em>.</p>
<p>I would like to talk to you today about how CAIR and other Islamic organizations deceive the public.</p>
<p>But first, give us some updates on your work and what is going on.</p>
<p><strong>Gaubatz:</strong> Thank you Jamie. I owe thanks to the WND staff at all levels, to Paul Sperry (co-author), and to all of the researchers who worked on this CAIR project.  Without them, the book would not exist.</p>
<p>On Dec. 1, 2009, I was asked to speak at the National Security Roundtable, hosted by Ronni Shalit, in NY.  The trip to NY was a pleasure and it was an honor to speak to such a well informed group of people.  The group consisted of people from many professions, including law enforcement, attorneys, bankers, and many more.  What I am beginning to see is that Americans are becoming more informed of national security issues and they are no longer simply sitting back and expecting our elected officials to insure our nation is secured.  Americans are beginning to insist that our nation be secured.</p>
<p>We have a very, very valuable commodity in our country, as does every country: our children.  It is apparent Americans are no longer going to rely on elected officials (many who wittingly and some unwittingly) who support the interests of Islamic based terrorist organizations more than they do our troops and our country.  The message to politicians who support terrorist groups either from being uninformed, naïve, incompetent, or intentionally (like Congressman Keith Ellison (MN) and Senator Larry Shaw (NC) is either do your job (protect our children from Islamic based terrorism) or leave office.  You are no longer wanted.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> What do you think, is the state of New York better protected than before Sept. 11,  2001?</p>
<p><strong>Gaubatz:</strong> For a few months after the murder of thousands of people by Islamic terrorists, the people of NY came together. Unfortunately it did not take long before many forgot what happened in their city, what is happening to our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, and what has been happening (terrorist attacks) to the people of Israel for many years.  Many have again fallen into the trap of a false sense of security.  Anytime a city or state allows people to openly declare they are seeking the destruction of our country and are calling for violence against innocent Christians and Jews in their theological texts, no location is safe.</p>
<p>I am not an attorney, but as an American I do not believe our U.S. Constitution was designed for allowing treason, sedition, and calling for killing our citizens.  Our Constitution was designed to protect our country.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> How can our law enforcement effectively and timely protect our country from future attacks?</p>
<p><strong>Gaubatz:</strong> We have a long educational process of our law enforcement and politicians ahead of us. This has to happen before we can truly realize any steps forward in protecting our country.  Few understand Sharia law (Islamic law) and they can’t rely on organizations such as CAIR, ISNA, MSA, and the host of other terror supporters to explain to them what Sharia law actually means in regards to the protection of our country.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> So tell us a bit about Sharia law.</p>
<p><strong>Gaubatz:</strong> Sharia law covers every minute of every day of a person’s life in Islam.  Of course there are many peaceful aspects of Sharia, but as the 17 year old Rifqa Bary and many others have tried to inform people, Sharia law also has many violent aspects which can no longer be ignored.  Sharia law is an all or nothing. A Muslim can’t decide (and be in conformance with Islamic law) that they want to abide by some aspects and ignore other aspects such as death for apostasy or calling for hatred and violence against Christians and Jews.</p>
<p>Islamic scholars and many Imams will be the first to tell you (and they do so in their materials/lectures) that even if one does not have the ability to perform an aspect of Sharia; they must at least have it in their heart and a desire to comply with mandatory Sharia obligations. Of course there are millions of Muslims who do not want violence or hatred, but according to such Islamic leaders as Imam Siraj Wahhaj, Zaid Shakir, Ahmad Sakr, and many more operating in the U.S., these Muslims are ‘non-practicing’ Muslims.  CAIR and ISNA executives endorse these scholars as well.  Many people do not realize that numerous Islamic centers and mosques in America will not allow CAIR to advocate its ideology at their centers.</p>
<p>People should begin to understand that CAIR has approximately 5100 members out of 1.5 to 8 million Muslims in America.  CAIR is strong because it utilizes its manpower of foreign funding wisely.  CAIR does not truly help the Muslim people who actually need its assistance, CAIR represents the Muslim Brotherhood and therefore utilize their resources to intimidate, threaten, extort, and blackmail U.S. corporations and people to conform to their ideology. CAIR further spends hundreds of thousands operating a media PR machine to influence our law enforcement and politicians.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Ok, let&#8217;s focus in on some specifics of how the Muslim Brotherhood (CAIR, ISNA, MANA, etc,) intentionally deceives law enforcement and public officials.</p>
<p><strong>Gaubatz:</strong> Two quick examples. Both pertain to prayers. One was the ‘Flying Imam case’ in which several Imams began praying loudly at an airport and then caused disruptions on a plane.  This was merely a ‘hoax’ in order for the Imams to instill fear into the public, and by later suing the airlines and threatening the innocent people who reported their suspicious activities. This tactic by Islamic leaders and CAIR (Muslim Brotherhood) in regards to terrorism is called a ‘conditioning process’. One is simply ‘softening’ their enemy to conform to later demands.</p>
<p>CAIR officials know that within Islam there is no requirement for a loud prayer which causes disturbances when in the ‘mode’ of traveling.  Performing prayers while traveling is mentioned numerous times in Islamic articles, manuals, and essentially means when a Muslim is in the mode of traveling they can shorten their prayers, conduct them in silence, and/or perform them later (more convenient time). <a href="http://www.islamonline.com/">www.IslamOnline.com</a> , Fiqh Us Sunnah, Tafsir Ibn Kathir, and numerous other references are available to provide more clarification.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Do you believe the ‘Flying Imam Suit’ crossed any boundaries into criminal activity?</p>
<p><strong>Gaubatz:</strong> Of course. These Imams were well trained. They all knew they had no obligation to pray in the airport or on the aircraft. They were in the mode of travel.  The imams and CAIR should be prosecuted for their actions. This is another form of setting up and again conditioning not only the public, but aircrew personnel, and even law enforcement to ignore such obvious disruptions in the future. Again CAIR, the Imams, and anyone who provided support during this conspiracy to disrupt airline travel (safety) should be prosecuted.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Give us some more examples of “conditioning” tactics used by CAIR and other Islamic leaders to deceive the public.</p>
<p><strong>Gaubatz:</strong> Well, there’s the current CAIR hoax being played in Maine pertaining to a young girl in school who CAIR and others say must be given a separate room to pray.</p>
<p>First, there are no obligations for a female or male child to perform anything other than a silent prayer while away from their home or mosque.  There are numerous clear discussions by Islamic scholars on this issue and from ones endorsed by CAIR and the ISNA.</p>
<p>CAIR knows that there is no expectation of an employer or public school administrator to set aside space or time for prayer.  The prayers, if conducted, can be combined with an earlier or later prayer after school/work, or if they are considered to be in travel mode they are authorized to shorten the prayer or not conduct one at all.  CAIR has intimidated many employers to allow time for worshippers during Friday’s Jummah prayer, but there are no requirements on children to even attend the mosque (specifically females).</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Could you provide us with some evidence of how CAIR officials are intentionally deceiving school administrators and even law enforcement in these areas?</p>
<p><strong>Gaubatz:</strong> Yes. CAIR’s Muslim Brotherhood mouthpiece Ibrahim Hooper explained this to our researchers on more than one occasion during the research project.  Hooper himself often used the ‘traveling’ rule to ignore conducting prayers when he was with my researchers.  Islamic terrorists and their supporters do not recognize weakness. Now is a prime opportunity for law enforcement and prosecutors to charge the Imams, CAIR, and others who have conspired to disrupt air travel (federal) and the safety of innocent people.  In addition, school administrators should refuse to comply with CAIR in regards to prayers (other than silent) at public schools, and in no case authorize separate praying rooms.  The old saying ‘give an inch and they will take a mile’ is applicable here.  We have to deny terrorists more opportunities to later attack innocent people.  We need to stop their actions now or we will suffer later.</p>
<p>During my research of many Islamic Centers, the Imams and others would often refer me to one of their 3500 plus websites (many designed and ran by a respected Islamic Scholar Yusef Estes and his assistants). <a href="http://www.islamonline.com/">IslamOnline.com</a> is one such site he and other Islamic readers refer Muslims to for guidance on Islamic rulings.  A Muslim student asked a question about prayer at school and this is what the scholar and ISNA advised: One will notice only adult males are required to even attend Jummah prayer:</p>
<p><em>“Dear questioner, thank you very much for having confidence in us, and we hope our efforts, which are purely for Allah’s Sake, meet your expectations.</em></p>
<p><em>Friday prayer is mandatory on every Muslim male who is adult, healthy and free. Every Muslim should strive hard to perform it on time unless something beyond his capacity disrupts that. Muslim students in the West can modulate their schedule in order to be able to perform Friday prayer in its appointed time. They can gather together, even in the campus and perform the Friday prayer, which demonstrate unity and co-operation.”</em></p>
<p>In his response to the question, Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, former president of the Islamic Society of North America, states the following:</p>
<p><em>“Friday prayer is obligatory on every Muslim man who is adult, healthy and free. It should not be missed unless there is a real excuse. Allah Almighty says in the Qur&#8217;an: <strong>“</strong>O you who believe when the call for Friday prayer is given then hurry to the remembrance of Allah and leave all business. This is better for you, if you know. (Al-Jumu&#8217;ah: 9)</em></p>
<p><em>The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, is reported to have said, <strong>‘</strong>Those who neglect three Friday prayers without any excuse may have their hearts sealed with hypocrisy.’”</em></p>
<p><em>The time for Friday prayer is the same as the time for Dhur prayer, that is from </em><em>noon</em><em> until the mid-afternoon (i.e. the time for &#8216;</em><em>Asr</em><em> prayer)</em><em>.</em></p>
<p><em>According to Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal, Friday prayer can also be prayed before </em><em>noon</em><em>. The minimum of worshippers required to hold Friday prayer is only three. So if there are three Muslims at some place and they find it difficult to join a larger Jama&#8217;ah for Friday they can have their own prayer. I have mentioned these points to emphasize the importance of Friday prayer and the flexibility in performing it.</em></p>
<p><em>Muslim students in high schools, colleges and universities can organize their own prayers according to the convenience of their class schedule. Also, if your school does not have three or more Muslim students to hold your own Friday prayer at your school, then try to change your class schedule from the beginning of the school year. I have seen some students take early classes in one period in order to be able to attend Friday prayer at the Masjid. Make an effort to perform this prayer. There is a great reward and blessings from Allah in this prayer, you will feel the blessings throughout your week.</em></p>
<p><em>If for some reasons you are unable to perform Friday prayer, then pray Dhur instead. But this should not be done on a regular basis. It is an option for necessity only. May Allah bless you and help you to remember Him and make your prayers on time.&#8221;</em><em> </em></p>
<p><em> </em><strong>FP:</strong> David Gaubatz, thank you for taking the time out to speak with us.</p>
<p><strong>Gaubatz:</strong> Thanks Jamie.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jamie-glazov/cair%e2%80%99s-strategy-of-deception-by-jamie-glazov/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>12</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

<!-- Performance optimized by W3 Total Cache. Learn more: http://www.w3-edge.com/wordpress-plugins/

Object Caching 2800/3079 objects using disk
Content Delivery Network via cdn.frontpagemag.com

 Served from: www.frontpagemag.com @ 2014-12-31 13:15:24 by W3 Total Cache -->