By Tariq Alhomayed
[Asharq al-Aswat] How disturbing was the initial statement attributed to a Yemeni source that was published in the Washington Post following the young Nigerian Omar Abdulmutallab's failed attempt to blow up a US Delta plane. The official told the newspaper, "If and when the would-be bomber's alleged link to Yemen is officially identified, authorities will take immediate action." The source added that the Americans are yet to present any information [on the incident] to his country.
What is worrying is that in our Arab world, there are still people among us who are asking for proof; as if all these crimes being committed in the name of religion and in our countries and elsewhere are not enough that we still [need to] look for evidence. It's as if we're talking about a shop burglary or an ordinary murder case.
It is enough to look carefully at the initial response from Nigeria in comparison to the response from Yemen; Nigerian officials were the first to provide the media with information on the terrorist's identity and that in fact, his father was the first one to alert the US embassy of his son's intentions before the incident took place. Moreover, religious figures in Nigeria condemned the terrorist act and warned of its danger. Yemen, on the other hand, spoke about evidence and we have Sanaa admitting that the young man visited Yemen and stayed there on the pretext of studying the Arabic language!
The problem here is that the size of Al Qaeda in Yemen and the spread of this group is no longer a secret. We have recently seen how some leaders of the organization are coming out openly in front of the television cameras and the Yemeni government itself revolted against Al Qaeda last week and carried out major operations against the organization; so why the hesitation and hypersensitivity?
The comments made by a security official last Monday were comforting when, in response to the statement released by Al Qaeda that claimed [responsibility for] the failed attempt to blow up the US airplane, he stressed that his country, "will never be a safe haven for those killer terrorists and drug traffickers, and its [Yemen's] mountains will never be a Tora Bora for them."
I have no doubt that Yemen wants to combat Al Qaeda but that will not happen if there is hesitation and hypersensitivity, especially as some regions in Yemen [already] pose more of a threat than Tora Bora. Al Qaeda is a plague, which [Yemen] should not be sensitive about declaring war upon and the first stage of that war is about information and exchanging information quickly. The best example here is the US Delta plane incident as it is evidence of a gross security error and negligence. The father of the young Nigerian man himself informed [authorities] of his son and the British refused him a visa to enter their country. However, the US security apparatus failed in using the information [it had] and only by the grace of God was a major disaster prevented.
Today, after all the terrorist acts we have seen, it is no longer acceptable to justify terrorism or to be hyper sensitive about fighting terrorism because we have all become victims. It is true that Yemen needs friendly states to stand by it against terrorism but Yemen must firstly stand by itself by providing its friends with information, not only in terms of security but also in terms of the media in order to mobilize public opinion against terrorism and terrorists.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009 00:00 ||
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He's a liberal oreo with the proper credentials and a cool temperament. Or you could say he's the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.
#7
Funny that not just the Chinese, Saudis, Oogo et al but our allies' leaders treat him with such contempt. Sarko despises him. Brown humiliated him over the Lockerbie case. Bibi views him as a clown.
Prob'y time to just start viewing him as a token who achieved his purpose, of repaying our slavery debt, and let the nation get back to evaluating presidential candidates and every other candidate on his or her merits. (Merit... remember that concept?)
...that patina of cosmopolitanism in President Obama's background concealed the isolationism of the liberal coalition that brought him to power. The tide had turned in the congressional elections of 2006. American liberalism was done with its own antecedents--the outlook of Woodrow Wilson and FDR and Harry Truman and John Kennedy. It wasn't quite "Come home, America," but close to it. This was now the foreign policy of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden. There was in the land a "liberal orientalism," if you will, a dismissive attitude about the ability of other nations to partake of liberty. It had started with belittling the Iraqis' aptitude for freedom. But there was implicit in it a broader assault on the very idea of freedom's possibilities in distant places. East was East, and West was West, and never the twain shall meet.
We're weary, the disillusioned liberalism maintains, and we're broke, and there are those millions of Americans aching for health care and an economic lifeline. We can't care for both Ohio and the Anbar, Peoria and Peshawar. It is either those embattled people in Iran or a rescue package for Chrysler.... Go read it all.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/31/2009 05:43 ||
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A courageous man, with a name like that.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/31/2009 8:35 Comments ||
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#2
when one utters the Islamic-Manchurian candidate, who comes to mind?
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
12/31/2009 10:06 Comments ||
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#3
"Ideology is so yesterday," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed not long ago, giving voice to the new sentiment.
Spoken like a true tranzi. Absolutely frightening. The weak horse left and the Obami may believe this, but rest assured not one of our enemies does. Friends either for that matter.
We're threatened by backward 7th century savages worldwide. Oderint dum metuant is a far safer attitude for US foreign policy. I won't hold my breath.
During the Inquisition in the Middle Ages, papal investigators would insert a pointed stick into the rectum; this interrogation technique became known as questioning somebody in the Spanish fashion. I was reminded of this arcane bit of history by the recent arrest of a suspect who was trying to blow up the Delta Airline jetliner as it approached Detroit airport.
The Nigerian passenger is supposed to have been carrying the deadly explosive PETN in a strap taped below his underwear. Covering himself with a blanket, he then tried to inject the chemical with a detonator, causing the whole device to catch fire and burn him badly. Luckily, the plane and the passengers survived the terrorist attempt.
The explosive carried by Umar Farouq Abdulmuttaleb was the same chemical used a few months ago by Abdullah Asieri to try and kill Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi prince who heads the countrys counter-terrorism efforts. In this case, the device did explode and injure the prince who was saved only because the body of the would-be assassin absorbed most of the blast. A pound of PETN was hidden in Asieris anal cavity, and was triggered by a mobile phone.
When Richard Reid concealed explosives in the soles of his shoes and tried to blow up a passenger jet in December 2001, he caused millions of pairs of shoes to be removed ever since, inconveniencing passengers for the foreseeable future.
However, while taking off your shoes before boarding a flight is easy, even though it might be a hassle, how does airport security cope with a possible bomb taped under your underwear? Worse, how can aspiring suicide bombers be kept off planes when they are carrying explosives in their rectums?
The reason Abdulmuttaleb was able to board the Delta Airline flight in Amsterdam is that the explosives detector couldnt pick up the chemical taped against his body under his underwear. Similarly, Asieri was able to spend hours with the Saudi prince because security devices and guards failed to detect the PETN secreted in his anus.
So where does this leave airport security? Even worse, where do these dangers leave the travelling public? As somebody who takes international flights quite regularly, I am selfishly concerned about the additional time security checks will now need. Already, passengers are being warned to report to the airport even earlier; henceforth, the lines at the security checks can only grow longer.
According to the internet, US-bound passengers will have to remain in their seats for the last hour of the flights, and they will be unable to use blankets and pillows, or access their hand-held luggage in that period. A CCTV camera may soon be placed in all the toilets. While I can cope with these inconveniences, what are we to do about being searched in the Spanish fashion?
If airline security staff can ask us to take off our shoes, will they next ask us to strip to our underwear? And what comes next? A more serious and real concern is the stereotyping of suspected suicide bombers. Whether we like it or not, the only ones who have either carried out, or plotted, the mid-air destruction of passenger aircraft have been Muslims.
Given the persistent targeting of US-bound aircraft, it is a matter of time before passengers with Muslim names flying to American destinations have to undergo even more stringent security checks. As it is, they are facing increasing difficulty in obtaining US visas, even though this is not true of Abdulmuttaleb whose multiple-entry visa was not revoked despite a warning about his militancy from his own father.I often wish these angry, unhinged terrorists would pause for a moment and reflect on what they are trying to achieve. Just suppose the Delta flight to Detroit had tragically gone down with its 278 passengers and crew. Did Abdulmuttaleb really think his act would change American policies any more than 9/11 did? In the event, the people who will suffer most from his insane attempt are fellow Muslims.
This is true of all extremist attacks the world over. While I separate resistance struggles and nationalist movements involving Muslims from the global jihad led by Al Qaeda, the fact is that ultimately, random violence targeting the innocent gains nothing.
We in Pakistan have become hardened to suicide attacks carried out by poor, uneducated teenagers who have been brainwashed by their cynical mentors. But Abdulmuttaleb was a privileged young man enrolled at University College in London. In this sense, he was similar to the 9/11 bombers, most of whom were highly educated and extensively travelled people.
If there are any profiles to be drawn here, it is that educated young Muslims are most likely to get visas to travel to the US, and will therefore be the subjects of special scrutiny. Already, a Muslim male between 18 and 40 attracts the attention of security staff at airports in the West. This is likely to increase manifold.
As airlines and airports tighten security still further, all passengers are going to be inconvenienced. Although the cause of this travel misery is a handful of misguided idiots, most passengers will blame Muslims, not entirely without reason. This will feed into the Islamophobia that is inexorably rising in the West.
Ever since 9/11, many Americans have eyed fellow-passengers with long beards with suspicion and fear. Some captains have had Muslims off-loaded because other passengers refused to fly with them. This media-fuelled environment of fear and distrust will widen the growing divide between Muslim immigrants and their Western host communities.
Muslim students wishing to study in the States will be the other big losers. Already, they undergo tough visa checks after getting admission; now, security-related procedures will make the whole experience a nightmare. Even when they have their visas and their admissions, actually getting into the US will be problematic with Homeland Security officers having the authority to refuse anybody entry.
Before we begin accusing Americans of being anti-Islamic in the wake of this latest attempted terrorist atrocity, we should consider the responsibility every government has to protect its citizens. Just because ours has been unable to prevent repeated attacks does not mean others should fail in this duty as well.
Given all these likely new obstacles to getting into the United States, its just as well that the country does not figure on my travel itinerary in the near future. Somehow, I do not think I would enjoy being searched in the Spanish fashion.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/31/2009 10:02 ||
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This environment of fear and distrust will widen the growing divide between Muslim immigrants and their Western host communities
I bet if we study the teacings of Bin Laden & Zawahiri we will find part of their plan is to emplace a wedge between Muslim immigrants and their host countries - these random attacks may really be for the purpose of stoking anti-Muslim attitudes so they can exploit the 'poor, downtrodden' Muslim sentiments.
#3
how can aspiring suicide bombers be kept off planes when they are carrying explosives in their rectums?
Easy. Use Israeli-style screeners to ask every passenger a few simple q's while they're waiting in line at security. No bags for a 1-way trip, you paid cash, you have no business or family ion Detroit, you're sweating, sir? Step over here, please....
Works for the Israelis and can work for us. If we ever get over our stupid tech fetish and rely on old-fashioned face-to-face humint, that is.
#4
The problem comes down to this: when you have to make command decisions, you will make some people happy and you will pi$$ off others. In this case, your job is to protect the citizens of the United States from terrorist acts. Based upon your available knowledge, Muslim males between the ages of 18 and 40 are historically prime suspects, and the lassies are starting to show up on the radar screen, so you put your resources where they are best used.
So will you do your job and pursue potential terrorists with logic and techniques that have been shown to work, or will you do nothing but play with your techno toys (the technological imperative) and try not to antagonize your potential terrorist?
The Israelis chose the former, and the TSA the latter. This comes down to the quality of leadership at the top, which is presently in short supply, and to the rest of the world is weak and ripe for attack.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/31/2009 15:14 Comments ||
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Emile Hokayem
The popular movement in Iran is rapidly transforming from protest into uprising. Since the death of its spiritual mentor, Grand Ayatollah Hosein Ali Montazeri, there have been the most intense and violent confrontations yet with the Iranian security forces. The question is whether it will become a revolution; and if so, when.
Judging from the slogans -- Marg bar dictator (Death to the dictator), once a rarity, is now heard as often as Allah-u-Akbar, a rallying cry intended to deny religious legitimacy to the regime -- and the unrelenting mobilisation of the Green movement, the tipping point may not be far away.
" Many observers expected the movement, a disparate mix of opposition groups that has taken to the streets since the fraudulent presidential elections of June 12, to lose momentum after the initial protests "
Many observers expected the movement, a disparate mix of opposition groups that has taken to the streets since the fraudulent presidential elections of June 12, to lose momentum after the initial protests. Repression, intimidation and disorganisation would lead to resignation among the movement's followers. Some argued that because it was bourgeois (for which read illegitimate and superficial) and apparently confined to urban areas, it did not reflect any genuine popular desire to shake the system. In fact, the protesters were the ones rejecting the democratic return of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency.
The opposition's leaders -- under constant surveillance, cut off from their base and with no plan (or intention) to overturn the system put in place by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini -- could be punished, perhaps even lured back. The regime could count on Iran's rural poor, who had benefited from the largesse of Mr Ahmadinejad's populist policies, and on the republic's committed security apparatus.
That expectation and these assumptions have proved wrong: the depth of discontent with the nature and workings of the regime clearly cuts across social and regional divides. It may seem to be on a roll in the Middle East, boasting of regional political successes against the US and technological prowess in its nuclear programme, but there is something rotten at the heart of the Islamic Republic.
" The best gift for Tehran would be the perception that the world is indifferent to its internal convulsions and the promise of the Green movement, but ratcheting up the pressure could achieve the same negative result. The opposition itself is calling for targeted sanctions that would focus on the security structure, and for diplomacy that would prioritise human rights over security issues "
The demonstrations have now spread to the entire country, and anger at the security forces has overcome fear. Poor, it turns out, does not mean blind or stupid. The underprivileged can see that their lot has not improved during the Ahmadinejad years, and that cash handouts are a stopgap measure that cannot compensate for the corruption and mismanagement that plague Iran's economy.
Extraordinary reporting and footage on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, the main means of communication with the outside world, are evidence of that. A few days ago a crowd attacked Bassiji militiamen and released two men from the gallows. Demonstrators overwhelmed policemen, and then proceeded to protect them.
Faced with a potential loss of legitimacy, the regime could resort only to force. In recent weeks, the reaction has ranged from the petty (stripping the former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani of some of his titles and seizing the Nobel medal from Shirin Ebadi) to the criminal (the murder of the opposition leader Mir Hosein Mousavi's nephew, the killing of a young doctor who refused to whitewash the evidence of a prisoner's death). In addition, the regime has intimidated Iranians abroad, allowed torture and rape in prisons and ordered thugs to destroy the offices of senior dissident clerics such Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanei.
This behaviour is an indication more of desperation than of confidence. With little popular or religious support, the leadership finds itself at the mercy of its security apparatus. There is a significant consensus among Iran-watchers that the management of the crisis is now solely the responsibility of the Revolutionary Guard force, which has the most to lose from political upheaval. The commanders of the Bassiji and Pasdaran forces have issued the starkest warnings, deliberately conflating opposition protests and foreign pressure.
These are signs that the regime can escalate its response in coming days, from declaring martial law and intensifying repression to jailing the opposition's principal leaders -- Mir Hosein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohammad Khatami. Yesterday, pro-regime demonstrators in Isfahan and Hamdan even demanded their execution for treason.
Not everyone in decision-making circles would welcome such aggravation. There are many conservative politicians, still loyal to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who question the merits of supporting Mr Ahmadinejad at any cost and are concerned by the militarisation of the regime. The loyalty of the security forces, especially the police and the regular military, cannot be assumed. And the memory of the fall of the Shah in 1979 is never too far away.
Just as the international community has no business encouraging or provoking regime change in Iran, it should now refrain from unwittingly extending a lifeline to a government under duress. If the Islamic Revolution falls, it should be under the weight of its own contradictions and failures.
Just as the international community has no business encouraging or provoking regime change in Iran, it should now refrain from unwittingly extending a lifeline to a government under duress. If the Islamic Revolution falls, it should be under the weight of its own contradictions and failures.
Fixated on the threat of Iran's suspected nuclear ambitions, Washington is having a hard time navigating Iranian politics. Barack Obama finally spoke on Monday of Iran's iron fist. In fact, the US can undercut the opposition by doing too much to engage Tehran; with, for example, the ill-advised idea of sending Senator John Kerry on a mission there.
The best gift for Tehran would be the perception that the world is indifferent to its internal convulsions and the promise of the Green movement, but ratcheting up the pressure could achieve the same negative result. The opposition itself is calling for targeted sanctions that would focus on the security structure, and for diplomacy that would prioritise human rights over security issues. It may achieve the former, but not the latter as long as the opposition does not define what the broad tenets of its foreign policy would be if it came to power.
And that, of course, is expecting far too much from a movement that as yet has no political platform on either domestic or foreign matters.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
I suppose it's better than being Nuked by the Israelis.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/31/2009 0:50 Comments ||
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Bull. Less that 10% of Iran's population are Urban. And less than 1% of these are rioting.
I'm impressed that it took 12 comments before anyone at Politico said that (or anything like that) after a report that Rush Limbaugh has been hospitalized with chest pains and is in "serious" condition.
AND: Rush Limbaugh has said on his show many times that once the government runs health care, there is a threat that life-or-death decisions will be made based on politics, and people will worry that if they criticize the government or espouse the wrong opinions decisions will go against them.
h/t Instapundit
America still has a race problem, though not the one that conventional wisdom would suggest: the racism of whites toward blacks. Old fashioned white racism has lost its legitimacy in the world and become an almost universal disgrace.
The essence of our new "post-modern" race problem can be seen in the parable of the emperor's new clothes. The emperor was told by his swindling tailors that people who could not see his new clothes were stupid and incompetent. So when his new clothes arrived and he could not see them, he put them on anyway so that no one would think him stupid and incompetent. And when he appeared before his people in these new clothes, they toonot wanting to appear stupid and incompetentexclaimed the beauty of his wardrobe. It was finally a mere child who said, "The emperor has no clothes."
The lie of seeing clothes where there were none amounted to a sophisticationjoining oneself to an obvious falsehood in order to achieve social acceptance. In such a sophistication there is an unspoken agreement not to see what one clearly seesin this case the emperor's flagrant nakedness.
America's primary race problem today is our new "sophistication" around racial matters. Political correctness is a compendium of sophistications in which we join ourselves to obvious falsehoods ("diversity") and refuse to see obvious realities (the irrelevance of diversity to minority development). I would argue further that Barack Obama's election to the presidency of the United States was essentially an American sophistication, a national exercise in seeing what was not there and a refusal to see what was thereall to escape the stigma not of stupidity but of racism.
When the US Goverment allows 25% of political asylum seekers to come from countries that admire al-Qaeda, have no educational system, arrive in the US and establish a parallel society, send boys home to fight along side of al-Qaeda or Islamist regimes, well yes that can breed ill-will on behalf of the host citizenry.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
