Growing Al Qaeda Threat from Yemen; Beleaguered Arabian Nation Home to Sophisticated Branch of Terrorist Franchise; Like a Pre-9/11 Afghanistan
“For many years now, al Qaeda has had a presence in Yemen,” says Peter Clarke, the former head of counterterrorism for London’s Metropolitan Police and a CBS News consultant. “The internal conflict and instability there give it an operating base and a training base, and we’ve seen just how dangerous this can be.” For a time, the government, based in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a, effectively had a truce with the local branch of al Qaeda, welcoming many home after the end of a 1990’s war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Skilled fighters, they were useful in combating rebellion in the south.
Al-Qaeda practices beating body scanners (European privacy laws prevent them being made compulsory)
A body scanner at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport would not necessarily have detected the explosives which the would-be syringe bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had sewn into his underwear. A Dutch military intelligence source told De Telegraaf newspaper that Al Qaeda has its own security scanners and has been practicing ways of concealing explosives. The terrorist group has even carried out test runs at smuggling explosives through European airports, the paper reports. On Monday Schiphol’s operational manager Ad Rutten said the explosives carried by the 23-year-old Nigerian Abdulmutallab may well have been detected had he been scanned by one of the airport’s 15 body scanners. Schiphol was the first airport to run a trial of body scanners, which use sound waves to see through passengers’ clothing. At present the scanners are only an optional alternative to the conventional metal detector, as European privacy laws prevent them being made compulsory.
Politics and the no-fly list
Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been one among a chorus of voices that accused the former administration of being far too sweeping, placing “infants, nuns and even members of Congress” on terrorist watch lists. The writer Naomi Wolf has called travel restrictions such as the no-fly list, “a classic part of the fascist playbook” akin to the depredations of Nazi Germany, where “families fleeing internment were traumatized by the uncertainties that they knew they faced at the borders.” This was hysteria directed against Bush counter-terrorism mechanisms that the Obama administration has left almost entirely unchanged. … We will never know whether fierce criticism from the left had any direct effect on the processing of Abdulmutallab’s file, but the political environment is important to consider going forward. The officials managing the watch lists are not eager to be hauled before a congressional committee if they blunder and bar innocent people from getting on flights. But they are also acutely aware of the potential price tag of being under-inclusive.
Stop Releasing Terrorists
There will be time in the days and weeks ahead to assess the leadership of Obama’s national-security team. There will also be opportunity to discuss the prudence of immediately handing Mutallab over to the criminal justice system rather than treating him as an enemy combatant and interrogating him about ongoing plots. What should not wait another day, however, is for President Obama to disavow his plan to shutter Guantanamo Bay. … The remaining Gitmo detainess are among the worst of the worst: The Obama administration continues to hold them, despite enormous pressure from the president’s political base, because they pose a grave danger to American national security and cannot be relocated to any responsible country. The 600 presumably less dangerous detainees already released from Gitmo have exhibited an alarmingly high incidence of return to the battle, endangering our armed forces as well as civilians such as the passengers on Northwest Flight 253. To spring any of the last 200, at this time, would be irresponsible.
Brady calls for second hearing on Thomson
[Illinois State Senator Bill] Brady is also asking Governor Quinn to advise the COGFA committee on what types of prisoners are expected to be housed at Thomson, should the facility be sold to the federal government. “Recent news reports suggest the terrorists that would be housed in Illinois under the Obama/Quinn plan are more dangerous than first thought,” said Senator Brady. “While I am convinced we could guard the most violent offenders in Thomson, I am concerned Illinois would become a new target for terrorist activity.” Senator Brady is calling for the second hearing on Thompson to take place first week of the new year. The original hearing was held Tuesday, December 22nd in Sterling, Illinois. Traditionally, the committee would release its recommendations within 30 days.
Gitmo-Yemen Plans Complicated
The New Gitmo: Thomson, Ill.
It will be interesting to see whether the guards at Thomson are willing to put up with the same abuse heaped on our service men and women at Gitmo. Protesters will be a permanent fixture in town. Think of Cindy Sheehan in Crawford, Texas, but worse. The protesters who descend on Thomson will demand the release of terrorists caught on the battlefield trying to kill American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. Allied to the protesters’ cause will be the lawyers. Some work for a noble purpose — preserving the adversarial nature of our military justice system. They are usually JAGs defending detainees under orders. Others are simply naïve, perhaps equating these terrorists with some wrongfully convicted prisoner obtaining help from a law school’s innocence project clinic.
The Detroit bomber: America lacks the guts to fight back
Before political correctness took hold, America knew how to flush out the mob without worrying about offending Italians, and how to fight Nazis without being too concerned about the feelings of Germans. Many within these two ethnic groups realised that the solution was to turn in those who were causing the average person to make common-sense judgments based on the average offender’s profile. It worked. Now few people automatically associate Italians with the mob or Germans with Hitler. And therein lies the solution for Muslims who are sick of being given side-eye on airplanes.
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