Has the Greatest Generation that won World War II given way to the Generation Looking for the Easiest Way Out? Pam Meister
Has the Greatest Generation that won World War II given way to the Generation Looking for the Easiest Way Out? Only time will tell.
Exclusive: Are We Under an Islamist ‘Tet Offensive’?
Pam Meister
“And prepare against them what force you can and horses tied at the frontier, to frighten thereby the enemy of Allah and your enemy and others besides them, whom you do not know (but) Allah knows them; and whatever thing you will spend in Allah’s way, it will be paid back to you fully and you shall not be dealt with unjustly.†– Koran, Sura 8, verse 60
With the latest incident of an attempted terrorist attack on Christmas Day, coming so soon after the Fort Hood massacre, Americans should be asking if we are indeed under an Islamist “Tet Offensive.â€
While millions of Americans were celebrating Christmas last Friday, a Nigerian flying on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit attempted to detonate an explosive device strapped to his legs as the plane prepared to land. A government official told Fox News that the suspect, 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab “was sitting in seat 19A, which, according to the official, is above the plane’s fuel tanks and wing and next to the skin of the aircraft,†which, in an explosion, would likely have been accelerated by the fuel in the tank below.
Fortunately, the attempt to blow up the plane was foiled by alert passengers who helped to stop the would-be bomber from fully igniting the explosive device. Abdulmutallab is reported to have surfaced in at least one intelligence database, but was not on a no-fly list. Yet according to reports, Abdulmutallab was denied a renewal of his visa in Britain due to security concerns – he apparently “tried to apply for a course at a bogus college.â€
There are even allegations that Abdulmutallab was allowed to board the plane with no passport – witnesses describe the poorly-dressed Abdulmutallab being accompanied to the gate by a well-dressed companion, who spoke to ticket agents on his behalf. If true, this is a shocking breach of security regarding which flight passengers around the world should be demanding answers.
We’re fortunate that Abulmutallab’s plot did not come to fruition. Had it not been for the actions of passengers, flight crew – and perhaps the suspect’s own ineptness – this might have been a horrific tragedy. Yet we have Department of Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano stating, “The system worked.â€
What exactly “worked?†An expert source close to FSM breaks down the AP article that describes Napolitano’s claim of success:
quote:
1. “Homeland security head: The security system worked”
Nothing we did prevented that plane from being blown up. This was a case of a bad guy fumbling the ball on the one yard line through the end zone for a touchback. If the security system worked, then the system STINKS. Either Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s detonator was bad or else it was a case of “you need to be smarter than the equipment you’re using” and he screwed up. But if not for their screw-up, we’d have had a U.S. airliner blown up and crashing over a populated area on Christmas with hundreds killed.
quote:
2. “The father of the man accused of attempting to blow up the jetliner told U.S. officials in Nigeria he was concerned about his son’s extreme religious views. However, Napolitano says there was no specific information to place Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on a no-fly list.”
This is a byproduct of refusing to recognize the religious component integral to the enemies we face. The fact that the father informed us that his son was a Jihadi wasn’t enough for our PC system to keep him out of the U.S. This is the modern-day equivalent to allowing members of the SS into America because their membership in the SS was not sufficient specific information to exclude them.
quote:
3. Napolitano says that within 60 to 90 minutes of the incident all 120 flights that were in the air at time were contacted to make sure the attempted bombing did not extend beyond the flight to Detroit.
How were those other air crews supposed to know? Did they announce over the intercom, “Any terrorists on board with an explosive device strapped to your crotch, please raise your hand”?
Ace of Spades wonders
… what the hell it’s going to look like when the system doesn’t work, by the Obama Administration’s lights. If this is what they deem a “success,” Good Lord in Heaven, I tremble for what will come that provokes them to concede “mistakes were made.”
If Napolitano is going to make such idiotic claims as “the system worked†when it clearly failed, then no American should take to the skies until she has resigned. And the sooner the better.
Besides, I thought the administration was taking steps to change the opinion of radical Islamists around the world. Andy McCarthy:
Hadn’t Abdulmutallab heard that we are closing Gitmo? Hadn’t he heard that we’re phasing out military-commissions so we can show the world that we give even the worst mass-murderers civilian trials with all the rights of American citizens? Hadn’t he heard that President Obama has banned torture (yes, yes, I know, actually Congress banned it 15 years ago – details, details …)? Hadn’t he heard that the president has called for “a new beginning” in America’s relationship with the Muslim world? Hadn’t he heard that this is our new, smarter strategy to safeguard the nation from man-caused disasters?
I suspect he’s heard all those things.
Napolitano also says that there is no indication that this latest incident is part of a larger plot. This is where I believe she is mistaken, and where Americans need to take a look at the history books if they don’t wish for a repeat of one of the darkest moments in modern American history.
During the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese realized they could not sustain heavy losses being inflicted by American troops. The Americans were clearly winning. So they came up with a strategy called the Tet Offensive, which was a series of surprise attacks by both the Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces on numerous villages, towns and cities throughout South Vietnam, which took the Americans off guard. Some cities, like Saigon, were taken back quickly, but this was not true for all. The historic city of Hue, for example, took weeks to win back and by the time the Vietcong had been fought off, the city was nearly leveled, 100,000 citizens had lost their homes and thousands more had been executed.
Not even the North Vietnamese thought the Tet Offensive was a success, due to their staggering losses. But when Gen. William Westmoreland asked for 200,000 more troops and even suggested that the reserves would have to be activated to complete the Vietcong’s defeat, loyal supporters of the war began to question it, and a growing segment of the American public – egged on by student and other anti-war protesters – united, believing that the resolve of the Vietcong could not be overcome. It was a turning point in the war. (source)
Earlier this month, FSM contributing editor Christopher Holton recounted “A Year in Jihad,†documenting 45 individual acts of terror in the U.S. and around the world. To quote Holton, “This was never a war on ‘terrorism.’ Jihad is being waged against us and we have tied ourselves in knots to deny that reality.†And those acts of jihad do not need to be as large and catastrophic as the events on 9/11. In addition to the carnage wrought by Maj. Hasan at Fort Hood, there were a number of foiled plots and instances of aid being given to Hamas and other terror organizations. And let’s not forget about the disturbing “home grown jihad†incidents involving American Muslim converts in both Tennessee and North Carolina.
The attention span of fickle Americans wavers between celebrity scandals, reality television drama and who’s wearing what on the red carpet – not to mention legitimate worries about health care “reform†and the economy. Yet they continue to be failed by media who prefer to report on the Tiger Woods saga than the dangerous reality of jihad. Meanwhile, al Qaeda and other Islamist groups are patient. They are in it for the long haul. They probably realize that a huge event like 9/11 cannot be replicated, so they content themselves by peppering our consciousness with “smaller†events, designed not only to alarm American citizens, but to wear them down. They saw how we reacted to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – and, more importantly, they see how the current administration is reacting to those conflicts. If we become “tired†of these frightening incidents, we may indeed be tempted to mollify those behind the attacks with concessions. What would those concessions be? I shudder to think about the possibilities.
Has the Greatest Generation that won World War II given way to the Generation Looking for the Easiest Way Out? Only time will tell.
And time is running out.
Pam Meister is the editor of FamilySecurityMatters.org.
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