Do you ever wonder if Dick Cheney was on to something? Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Was President Obama sleeping on terrorism shortly after taking office? A few opposition party members suggested that perhaps the President Of The United States actually believes or wishes that the enemy scaled back its anti American hatred simply because the U.S. nominated a darker skinned president with a Muslim (Arab) middle name. Truth is, any distraction or relaxation caused by the election of the 44th president, provided a perfect opportunity for terrorists to do what they do best; catch the world off-guard.

Yes, much of Cheney’s criticism has been ill-directed and hypocritical, since much of the mess exists the way it does because of his misguided personal greed, ambition and strategy. That does not minimize the value in the point that the US government, from an intelligence and local preparedness stature, seemed to have been drifting back into pre-911 mode, with regard to where attention needs to be focused. Cheney’s obsession with waging war to flex muscle and profit from it is absurd. Cheney reminding us to continue to take the other forces of evil more seriously must be appreciated. After all, who better to take advice from about dealing with a sinister bully, than a sinister bully who we at least know is on our side, ultimately.

Multi-national security teams and most politicians who speak publicly on the issue of terrorism often come across as a bunch of amateurs, debating high school politics. Like a chorus, we hear these terrorism “experts” on Sunday morning talk-shows yapping about how we must “beef up” security measures and make them more “robust”: Code for throwing more money at the problem, as is the solution for everything in government. Al Qaeda, while adjusting and being relatively successful, isn’t doing it with more money. They are simply working with what they've got and thinking outside the box. They search for weaknesses and exploit them.

Too often, the current administration and its cohorts seem to be full of excuses and buts. They often don’t seem to know if they are coming or going with regard to Intelligence dissemination. We'll chuck it up to growing pains. Having said that, they must acknowledge that when it comes to anti-terrorism in the current atmosphere there is no time for inexperience. Some officials go as far as to admit that they’ve been distracted from national security by healthcare, the environment and the economy. Huh? Our government can’t walk and chew gum at the same time? If each person does his/her job and communicate with the others by way of countless methods of communication which now exist, shouldn’t there be more harmony in how the job ultimately gets done? Anti-terrorism is the walking, the economy can be the gum chewing and everything else should just be people you wave at as you walk and chew.

The President is taking responsibility and admitting that his administration needs to be more focused, and efficient. Still, like most politicians, he hoists his chest whenever he talks about how many more hundreds of millions of dollars is being given to that country, or how many more will be invested into this strategy. Too often the intuitive community organizer slash Harvard professor that the nation chose to figure out a better/different way to lead, appears stricken by a strain of the same inexplicable blindness that plagued the previous administration. Throwing more hard earned tax dollars at the problem is precisely what the enemy wants! The USA and its allies continue to exhaust their resources while admitting to the wasteful inefficiency of their espionage operations. We burn money on mega-destructive war efforts that only expand the hatred and on arming a growing number of Islamic regimes.  When we’re not unleashing ammunition ourselves, we’re using them to bribe people who wind up pointing the very same big guns on us. As a world community, even if we can’t always successfully curtail and undercut the misguided hatred, we need to settle on better ways to deal with a finite number of terrorists in caves and basements, besides spending trillions of dollars and countless lives.

On January 7, 2010, during a follow up address after the President acknowledged and assessed the shortcomings in the anti-terror intelligence campaign, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napalitano said she would be meeting with her European counterparts for the first time, to discuss joint efforts. A year on the job and it took a near-miss on Christmas day for them to find this necessary; for the leader to point out that people appointed the deadly serious job of protecting the masses must take their jobs seriously. I wonder how soldiers on the battlefield with bullets flying over their heads and IADs under their feet feel, knowing that the ones making the big decisions and deciphering the intelligence are still half-stepping. Even when they have their eye on the ball, they drop it.

The USA is slated to have over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, while the acknowledged truth is that Al Qaeda is widely dispersed and the last place we’ll find the real current operatives is in Afghanistan. Are we sending troops there because we have already established bases there and allied soldiers will then be closer to striking the bad guys in Yemen, Somalia, or wherever else these thugs are gathering nowadays? One can only hope there is that much strategy involved. They talk about Pakistan, but in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the thugs are Taliban who have no direct initiative to terrorize westerners in their western lands, at least not currently. The USA and England continue to make the link between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, as if they are trying to sell a story. Whenever they get pressed to answer real questions, they admit that the mission is to defeat and dismantle Al Qaeda. Yet, the US continually release suspected terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to Yemen, where even if they weren’t hardened terrorists prior to seizure, they have since developed new reasons to hate America and join their brethrens in the fight against the infidel.

Wonder how those words taste to President Obama, about his plan to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp?  Suspected and alleged terrorists, Al Qaeda operatives, prisoners of war; where shall we put em? Problem is, he made it such a live issue during and after his presidential campaign and stated his position so firmly. To change his mind now could amount to political suicide. Imagine how many ways the GOP party of no will spin this. The Republican Party salivates at any opportunity to criticize the current administration. This is their job, at least as they envision it. Politriks as usual.

Closing Guantanamo makes no sense, as long as there are detained terror suspects  to house, unless there is a territorial problem with having the facilities there. Obama’s only valid reason for wanting it closed is because he believes that it serves as a recruitment tool for Al Qaeda. Well… the prisoners released from there continue to  join and lead the enemy’s camp at a very disturbing rate. This should have been anticipated, expected and more closely monitored.  So what if Al Qaeda uses Guantanamo as a recruiting toll? It is one of many that are available to them. These thugs will always find tools to motivate each other on their jihad march. It’s not as if moving them to Illinois will eliminate the motivation. By any sensible calculation, it might make conditions worse. They will not only continue to use the US detention of their members as a spur, they will indeed think of ways to terrorize the Thompson Correctional Facility in the heartland of America. Given their success rate and the number of times we get caught with our pants down, I don’t like the odds, and neither should American citizens living in that region. Jobs or no jobs, it poses serious additional risks. If anything, Guantanamo is much less of a potential target, since a terror attack there would punish their jailed comerades far more than it would regular American citizens. It is also far less accessible to them. Instead, they focus on things like air travel.

The 2005 "911 Commission Report" gave airline passenger screening an "F"; information sharing among the intelligence community got a "D". Apparently this didn't get the message across. Perhaps airline passenger screening, internationally (almost entirely), should be done by military personnel. If terrorists show up at the airport and see soldiers in uniform, with guns, screening people and handling visas...they will think thrice about proceeding. Then there'd be a new problem of rogue soldiers like Hasan at Fort Hood. Still, airport security staff in pretty white shirts and grey pants, who can't wait for their breaks so that they can go play with apps on their mobile devices or for their shift to end so they can pick up their child from the babysitter, don't instill fear in the enemy. The enemy is able to sense and take advantage of the occasional lack of focus and inconsistency in this system. Maybe private security firms and lax TSA agents who cry union and get bolstered by collective bargaining advantages that help them avoid having to do certain activities that actually make flying safer, is not the best approach. Make no mistake, hard work and dedication put forth by many TSA (Transportation Security Administration) screeners in the US is respected and appreciated. But TSA is a division of the Department of Homeland Security, which is a bloated and convoluted federal agency sucking from the money pot. It continues to grow exponentially since its inception after the 911 attack. At a much lower cost, stateside military personnel could serve as airport seaport and border security inside the USA, while there is a joint intercontinental military effort to secure airline transportation internationally. Expensive body scanning equipment merely presents a minor hurdle for the enemy.
                                       
On January 3rd, 2010 the President's Homeland Security Advisor, John Brennan was asked about Umar Abdulmatallab's attempt to damage an airline full of passengers on Christmas day. He stated that despite Al Qaeda's previous assassination attempt of a Saudi Prince with the use of highly explosive PETN, the intelligence community had no evidence or reason to believe there would be any attempted attack on aviation. He said that the assassination attempt was made in a room. Are you kidding me? So if the enemy doesn't tell you exactly what it's going to do, then you don't anticipate or prepare for it? Even when they run an old play from the Al Qaeda playbook, we get caught off guard, leaving airline passengers to save themselves. Some say the enemy is evolving, cunning and hard to keep up with. Really? Eight years after Richard Reid’s attempt to blow up an airline with PETN, the ONLY strategic difference with the Christmas day 2009 attempt is that they moved the explosive from the shoe to the crotch!

The even more important point is that Abdulmatallab should have never made it onto that airline. We all know now about the warning signs, including his own father outing him weeks before. He was put on a terror watch-list but nobody was watching him (CIA code name: The Nigerian). England had denied him a visa due to suspicion. As The Daily Show's John Stewart aptly put it:

"He paid $3000.00 for his ticket. It's December, he’s going from Nigeria to Amsterdam to Detroit, without a coat? With a one-way ticket; oh, do you think he’s going to Detroit to start a better life? Whadya think, he’s goin there cause he heard there’s lots of jobs?"

On December 31, 2009, five CIA agents and two Blackwater opertaives were killed by a suicide bomber while others were seriously injured. A known Al Qaeda double-agent was allowed to meet with critical and high ranking CIA personnel, without being properly screened because they thought they could trust him. The doctor who blew himself up and murdered these agents at a post in Khost, Afghanistan was originally arrested as an Al Qaeda operative. During interrogation he tricked our “swift minded” agents into letting him go by convincing them that he would turn to their side and spy on Al Qaeda. After spending considerable time re-entrenched in Al Qaeda operations he called up his CIA handlers and said he had some juicy information on the location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The CIA arranges a meeting and gather top agents who carry exclusive, high level sensitive materials in their brains after years of information gathering. They were so excited and eager to hear his juicy info that they didn’t screen him. Unfortunately they didn't even get a chance to pat him down because they were all within blast range when he go out of the vehicle he arrived in. Even writers and movie directors know better. Are we to accept that our spies are idiots, or just naive and incompetent? Intelligence agents must be held to higher standards. Maybe they should have read David Ignatius' book: "Penetration" (Body of Lies), or at least seen the movie.

To be fair to President Obama, he has, since his inauguration, stepped up the game as far as covert operations and understanding that extremists must be sought out in small pockets, with pinpoint strategy, as opposed to invading and colonizing entire nations that are low on the list as actual terrorist breeding grounds. Where he has been lacking, is the unearned confidence he seemed to have in the intelligence gathering and leveraging, which continues to fail us. Furthermore, announcing that there are 14 specific countries from which passengers will be more closely scrutinized, better be a psych-out. Otherwise, it is another instance where our leaders show their hand just to enhance the impression to critics that they are on the job.

If you are aware of Blackwater, aka Xe Services, LLC and you're rubbing your eyes in confusion after reading the opening line in two paragraph above... you're not hallucinating. A major surprise to us, is that Obama has allowed this American, Christianity touting, mercenary army to continue to ride along-side the US military, even after all the "shit" they've gotten into. They are so deeply entrenched that they are front and center in highly classified intelligence matters of national and world security. The bush administration granting Blackwater the power it did, was a horrendous mistake. Yet after rapes, murders and rampant disregard for any rule; while having to answer to no government agency or official and being banned from Iraq by Iraqi government in 2009, they continue to operate there and everywhere else. The US government is even having to answer to the German government regarding Blackwater running around Germany, trying to execute assassination plots. To learn about the true history and atrocities of Xe (pronounced 'zi')... 
check out Jeremy Scahills book. Here's Scahill, Take a listen:

You may ignore it, but that cuts to the heart of the matter.  Asking some of us to ignore the power of nonsense, is like telling us to continue to brush our teeth with sandpaper because eventually it's going to feel better.  You can run from it, but that would be like trying to beat Jamaica's superhuman trackstar Usain (lightening) Bolt in a 100 meter dash.  You can counter it with logic, reason and common sense, but that can prove to be equally exhausting, and in the end you may give in, due to the sheer power in numbers.

Last July President Obama had to backtrack and munch on a few of his own choice words. Obama referred to one infamous police officer as "acting stupidly" for arresting a world renowned intellectual who was upset at being accused of breaking into his own home.  We all know what the president meant, but some tried to make him feel guilty for stating the obvious. The fact is, even the leader of the free world is forced to defend stupid; or at least watch it go by and resist the temptation to call a spade a spade.  Even "the man" had to time-out for stupid, and invite it over for a beer, just to keep the common-sense-slayers from going on a rampage. This is the vast extent to which stupidity has garnered power throughout the course of time.  Let’s face it. We humans, as beings of higher intelligence, have far too long, put up with the notion that we must accept “stupidity” as a fact of life; an ever present element which we must tolerate and work around, but never actually condemn or try to eradicate.

My mother said to me recently, “You know the devil is strong.  You can’t let every little thing bother you.”  I had not heard that one for a while, and it rang true at the moment.  Even weeks later I thought I could still appreciate the wisdom of this philosophy.  But the devil can go to hell.  Some of us have our limits.  Even as many little things "roll off your back", many little stupids don't.

When I was a child, my father use to always go on about how the world is full of stupid people. For years I thought he was either seeing things that weren't there, or seeing things I couldn't yet see.  Now I know it was the latter.  Therefore, let us acknowledge that the mental numbness phenomenon is a worldwide epidemic. We witness it globally, in all its many faces as it blends in so well with every outfit.  Like a dependable watch, it is always on time and requires no batteries. It is always ticking, and somebody with a properly functioning mind is always about to go off!

Bill Maher, in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN, tried to explain why he referred to America as "a stupid country...in general...this country gets dumber and dumber by the day".  Maher, while not backing off his philosophy, did explain that he realizes there are tens of millions of very bright intelligent people within this large country.  Let's second that, but let us not forget that the prevailing winds tend to spread stupidity, for the most part.  Blitzer, of course, tried to get Maher to acknowledge that his statement was the kind that might actually require some sort of apology.  Fat chance!  We’re talking about Bill Maher here!  And he was right, and he knew it.

How about we up the vigilance against stupid? This is a new world, in which we turn rocks (even the big heavy ones) and shed light on the shady snakes beneath.  Don't just stand by and let the week minded and those working too hard to care, get taken advantage of.  Fight fire with water, not gasoline.  Always expose the artists behind the cons and kick stupidity where the sun don’t shine!  Easier said than done.

You ever ask yourself, how does stupid get to be in charge?  Are the wiser folks just always preoccupied?  Are they too busy fending off the round of foolishness that just landed, so they're never quite prepared for the round that is landing?  Is it just a case of too much stupid, too fast?
                                                                                   Dickipedia: Tea-Baggers  by The HuffingtonPost

Remember the so called “Brooks Brothers” protest a few years back, where paid republican staffers faked a lame hallway-rally during the recount debacle which secured a stolen presidency for GW Bush?  How do we explain the brain-freeze between the White House and the Pentagon which  allow US war and humanitarian efforts to be hijacked by private armies like "Blackwater" through defense contracts which must be illegal by some federal statute, if not by laws of morality and common sense?  How about the desperate campaign waved by the wing-nuts, to question President Barack Obama’s citizenship?  Think of knuckleheads showing off their assault weapons at presidential rallies arranged to promote health-care reform...in 2009!  How about  the aptly termed "astroturf" town-hall stage-shows, orchestrated by the party of no, passing itself off as a grass-roots organization, in order to spread lies about proposed health-care reform?  Stupidity, sponsored by greed and supported by confusion--Oh boy!

So brush off your brain, ready your mental armor.  Roll up your sleeves and sharpen as many wooden stakes as you can secure.  Fill your quiver with arrows drenched in holy water. Count your silver bullets, for there’s a fight a coming and we need soldiers.  The flaming immortality of stupid is due for a dousing, once and for all!  And we don't care how much True-Blood or stupid-gas they've got stashed in the basement. Hey, stupid can be powerful maan, and it’s been around for a very long time.  Besides, you know what they say: There's another one born everyday.

American Muslim in the Holy War (cont'd from main pg)  

Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, Israel, Jordan, The West Bank, Palestine, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, The old world between Europe, Africa and Asia where Allah rules supreme and refuses to unclench his fist. These eastern states live and govern according to “the book”. The Qur'an (Koran) rules, the same way some people in the United States wish that the Bible ruled the ways of life for all its citizens. Some contrast lies in the fact that America was founded by rebel spirits. Some were evil rebel spirits, but rebels non-the less. If Native Americans and West Indians were left alone to evolve at their own speed, clutching their own fundamental beliefs, religious or otherwise, who knows what would exist now as far as societal type and what governs? Who among us is truly qualified to measure evil; to determine in the eyes of God, what should or shouldn’t be, beyond obvious strands in morality?

Now, Muslims in the US military will, no doubt, have to deal with a backlash as a result of the Fort Hood Massacre. They will undergo more scrutiny, for sure. Anything else would be irresponsible. To this end, the following exchange ensued:
Gregory: "Do you have any reason to believe that having Muslims in the army, puts them in a very difficult position, makes them more conflicted; fighting a war against Muslims in Afghanistan or Iraq?" 

Casey: "That's something we have to look at on an individual basis, but I think we as an army have to be broad enough to bring in people from all walk of life." 

I feel the need to express that General Casey represented the army, himself, and our great nation very well, as he always does. He was realistic, contrite and open-minded about the conditions surrounding the single event, as well as the broader outlook. I can’t help, however, the disturbing feeling that his utopia vision, in an effort to remain politically correct, made him come across as a bit of a dreamer. While there is nothing wrong with dreaming, maybe the Pentagon should acknowledge the stark reality that when an idea has the very real potential to blow up in your face; and by blowing up in your face, I mean blowing up in your face, it should probably be the road less traveled.
                                                                                                                                           (by The Professor 11/8/09)