Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism

[Kramer]

BARRY GET YOUR (or shall I say OUR PRIORITIES) IN ORDER!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article6970574.ece

Hundreds of al-Qaeda militants are planning terror attacks from Yemen, the country’s Foreign Minister said today.

Abu Bakr al-Qirbi appealed for more help from the international community to help to train and equip counter-terrorist forces.

His plea came after an al-Qaeda group based in Yemen claimed responsibility for the failed Christmas Day airliner bomb plot.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, alleged to be behind the attempt to blow up an American-bound aircraft, spent time in Yemen with al-Qaeda and was in the country only days before the failed attack.

Dr al-Qirbi said: “Of course there are a number of al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen and some of their leaders. We realise this danger.

“They may actually plan attacks like the one we have just had in Detroit. There are maybe hundreds of them — 200, 300.”

Dr al-Qirbi said it was the “responsibility” of countries with strong intelligence capabilities to warn states such as Yemen about the movements of terror suspects.

The United States, Britain and the European Union could do a lot to improve Yemen’s response to militants on its own soil, he added.

“We have to work in a very joint fashion in partnership to combat terrorism,” he said. “If we do, the problem will be brought under control.

“There is support, but I must say it is inadequate. We need more training, we have to expand our counter-terrorism units and provide them with equipment and transportation like helicopters.”

Mr Abdulmutallab is said to have told US agents that there were more people “just like him” ready to carry out attacks.

An al-Qaeda group based in Yemen claimed responsibility yesterday for the failed attempt to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit as US President Barack Obama pledged to hunt down the plotters.

Photographs apparently showing the underpants worn by alleged bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and willed with explosives were broadcast today by ABC News.

The American government pictures show the singed underwear with a six-inch packet of a high explosive called PETN sewn into the crotch, the US network reported.

Mr Abdulmutallab was reported to be carrying about 80g of PETN, more than one-and-a-half times the amount carried by Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber”, in 2001 and enough to blow a hole in the side of an aircraft.

Mr Abdulmutallab’s former tutors at University College London, where he was a student between 2005 and 2008, described him as “well-mannered, quietly spoken, polite and able” and said that he never gave any cause for concern. He was president of the institution’s Islamic society between 2006 and 2007.

Nigerian-born Mr Abdulmutallab is being held at a federal prison in Michigan on a charge of trying to destroy an aircraft.

He apparently wrote of his loneliness and struggle between liberalism and Islamic extremism in a series of postings on Facebook and in Islamic chatrooms, the Washington Post reported today.

In January 2005, when he was attending boarding school, he wrote: “I have no one to speak too. No one to consult, no one to support me and I feel depressed and lonely. I do not know what to do. And then I think this loneliness leads me to other problems.”

Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, said it was unlikely that Mr Abdulmutallab acted alone and revealed that he was banned from entering Britain and placed on a “watch list” this year.

Mr Johnson said that the alleged terrorist was refused a new visa and had been monitored since May after applying for a bogus course.

[Christians4LessGvt]

A Tardy Wake-up Call for Spreading al Qaeda Menace

DEBKAfile Special Analysis

December 29, 2009


Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and his mother

The failure of Lagos and Amsterdam airport security to detect the explosives the Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab carried aboard two flights on Christmas Day was only a small side-effect of America's flawed intelligence policies and performance with regard to al Qaeda.

DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources note that in the past year, Washington was strangely deaf to a flood of notices from Saudi, Egyptian and Yemeni security agencies warning that al Qaeda networks had established themselves in Yemen and so gained a jumping-off base into the Arabian peninsula and across the strategic Gulf of Aden. The network was now directly linked from Yemeni shores to Osama bin Laden at his new headquarters in Pakistani Baluchistan.

These warnings went unheeded by the relevant agencies in Washington.

Only two months ago, on Oct. 7, President Barack Obama told the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean, Virginia: "We're making real progress in our core mission - to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda and other extremist networks around the world."

Citing a counterterrorism expert, Obama added: ?Because of our efforts, Al Qaeda and its allies have not only lost operational capacity, they?ve lost legitimacy and credibility.?

Only three days before the US president's speech, on Oct. 3, the FBI arrested the Chicagoan David Headley at O'Hare Airport and charged him with targeting and conducting reconnaissance for the al Qaeda branch Lashkar e-Taibe's terror massacre in Mumbai of November 2008, which left more than 170 people dead.

A month later, US Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan shot dead 13 comrades at the Fort Hood base in Texas. Federal investigators persist in refusing to call the crime an act of terror although Hasan was shown to have been in regular correspondence with Anwar al-Awkali, the imam who was religious mentor to 9/11 hijackers and himself, from the time he relocated to Yemen in 2008.

The failed Christmas Day airliner bombing has strong leads to Yemen indicating that the attempt was plotted, planned and aided from that country.

A statement posted Monday, Dec. 28 on an Islamist website in the name of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the attempt, named Abdulmutallab "our brother" and hailed him for his "heroic action."

The Yemeni government then disclosed that the young Nigerian had lived in Yemen from August to December on a visa to study Arabic. It is obvious now that what he really studied was the mechanics of an explosive device for crashing an airliner.

Yemen has been on US radar for some time, certainly since al Qaeda blew up the American destroyer USS Cole in Aden harbor on Oct. 12, 2000, killing 17 American seamen. Both the CIA and the FBI have maintained a covert presence in this Red Sea country in the past year at least, along with American civilian counter terror experts and small special units. Their mission is to help President Abdullah Salah's regime to survive in the face of two insurgencies, one fostered from Iran, and make sure that the burgeoning al Qaeda network is unable to repeat its USS Cole feat of destruction.

All of this, taken with the two warnings the Abdulmutallab family passed to the US embassy in Lagos about their fanatical kinsman, points to the serious malfunctioning of America's intelligence and anti-terror machinery.

The undercover US elements in Yemen were clearly not briefed about any imminent perils and therefore could not advise their masters in Washington that the future bomber was in Yemen or should be watched if he left. No one was still "connecting the dots" eight years after 9/11.

DEBKAfile's counter-terror experts are clear that the weakness is conceptual rather than technical or human. Because of this, President Obama interrupted his Hawaii vacation for a hard-hitting speech to the American nation. This time he vowed "to defeat" al Qaeda, a term he is normally loath to utter. And the US Homeland Secret Janet Napolitano was forced to correct her original expressions of satisfaction with US aviation security measures.

At the same time, the Obama administration is still playing it cool, refraining from elevating the orange alert level current in US airports for the past two years. And although security measures are to be reviewed and enhanced, nothing has been said about overhauling the agencies which fell down on the tasks they are taxed with to prevent and combat terror - or correct their fundamental approach to those tasks.

Americans should therefore not be surprised each time al Qaeda opens a new front against the West. Now it is Yemen which is finding itself dragged into the same boat as Afghanistan and Pakistan.

[Christians4LessGvt]

"Hundreds of al-Qaeda militants planning attacks from Yemen"

From Times Online

December 29, 2009

Hundreds of al-Qaeda militants are planning terror attacks from Yemen, the country's Foreign Minister said today.

Abu Bakr al-Qirbi appealed for more help from the international community to help to train and equip counter-terrorist forces.

His plea came after an al-Qaeda group based in Yemen claimed responsibility for the failed Christmas Day airliner bomb plot.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, alleged to be behind the attempt to blow up an American-bound aircraft, spent time in Yemen with al-Qaeda and was in the country only days before the failed attack.

Dr al-Qirbi said: "Of course there are a number of al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen and some of their leaders. We realise this danger".

"They may actually plan attacks like the one we have just had in Detroit. There are maybe hundreds of them? 200, 300.? "

Dr al-Qirbi said it was the "responsibility" of countries with strong intelligence capabilities to warn states such as Yemen about the movements of terror suspects.

The United States, Britain and the European Union could do a lot to improve Yemen'" response to militants on its own soil, he added.

"We have to work in a very joint fashion in partnership to combat terrorism," he said. "If we do, the problem will be brought under control".

"There is support, but I must say it is inadequate. We need more training, we have to expand our counter-terrorism units and provide them with equipment and transportation like helicopters."

Mr Abdulmutallab is said to have told US agents that there were more people "just like him" ready to carry out attacks.

An al-Qaeda group based in Yemen claimed responsibility yesterday for the failed attempt to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit as US President Barack Obama pledged to hunt down the plotters.

Photographs apparently showing the underpants worn by alleged bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and willed with explosives were broadcast today by ABC News.

The American government pictures show the singed underwear with a six-inch packet of a high explosive called PETN sewn into the crotch, the US network reported.

Mr Abdulmutallab was reported to be carrying about 80g of PETN, more than one-and-a-half times the amount carried by Richard Reid, the ?shoe bomber?, in 2001 and enough to blow a hole in the side of an aircraft.

Mr Abdulmutallab's former tutors at University College London, where he was a student between 2005 and 2008, described him as "well-mannered, quietly spoken, polite and able" and said that he never gave any cause for concern. He was president of the institution?s Islamic society between 2006 and 2007.

Nigerian-born Mr Abdulmutallab is being held at a federal prison in Michigan on a charge of trying to destroy an aircraft.

He apparently wrote of his loneliness and struggle between liberalism and Islamic extremism in a series of postings on Facebook and in Islamic chatrooms, The Washington Post reported today.

In January 2005, when he was attending boarding school, he wrote: ?I have no one to speak too. No one to consult, no one to support me and I feel depressed and lonely. I do not know what to do. And then I think this loneliness leads me to other problems.?

Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, said it was unlikely that Mr Abdulmutallab acted alone and revealed that he was banned from entering Britain and placed on a "watch list" this year.

Mr Johnson said that the alleged terrorist was refused a new visa and had been monitored since May after applying for a bogus course.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article6970574.ece

[Christians4LessGvt]

[Kramer]

can you actually believe that Obama called the guy a SUSPECT?

[Universe Prince]

Golly. I hope everyone is now appropriately living in fear.

[Kramer]

Golly. I hope everyone is now appropriately living in fear.

pick your fear

Obama is worried about your health care and Global Warming

Cheney & Bush saw terrorism as #1

Pick your fear, could be your own shadow

[Universe Prince]

pick your fear

Obama is worried about your health care and Global Warming

Cheney & Bush saw terrorism as #1

Pick your fear, could be your own shadow

Personally, I am far more concerned about loss of liberty. Protecting liberty should be the government's primary concern, not catching the bad guys or making sure the wealthy are punished in the name of falsely helping the poor. So let me know when you start caring about liberty.

[Kramer]

pick your fear

Obama is worried about your health care and Global Warming

Cheney & Bush saw terrorism as #1

Pick your fear, could be your own shadow

You want liberty? Bring back the Founding Fathers.
Your request can only happen with another revolution -- we need a good revolution about every 200 years or so, give or take 34 years.

Personally, I am far more concerned about loss of liberty. Protecting liberty should be the government's primary concern, not catching the bad guys or making sure the wealthy are punished in the name of falsely helping the poor. So let me know when you start caring about liberty.

[Universe Prince]

You want liberty? Bring back the Founding Fathers.
Your request can only happen with another revolution -- we need a good revolution about every 200 years or so, give or take 34 years.

Nah. We just need more honesty, which is to say, for people to stop lying about how the government is the people, and to stop telling lies about how liberty must be sacrificed for pragmatism, which almost never ends up being all that pragmatic except to the politicians and their political goals. If anyone really thinks we are safer now than we were pre-September 11, 2001, there is a bridge in Brooklyn I would love to sell you. If anyone thinks the U.S. Congress is going to pass a bill that makes health care better for everyone, there is a bridge in San Fransisco I would love to sell you.

You can have either bridge really cheap too. There are secret plans (I know you won't tell anyone) to use stimulus dollars to build new bridges, and so the others will soon be demolished, and you will be guaranteed to double, no, triple your money as you sell the pieces to collectors and scrap metal yards. I'd do it myself, but, conflict of interest, ethics boards, you know how that goes. So speak up now, this deal won't be available for long.

[Kramer]

You want liberty? Bring back the Founding Fathers.
Your request can only happen with another revolution -- we need a good revolution about every 200 years or so, give or take 34 years.

Nah. We just need more honesty, which is to say, for people to stop lying about how the government is the people, and to stop telling lies about how liberty must be sacrificed for pragmatism, which almost never ends up being all that pragmatic except to the politicians and their political goals. If anyone really thinks we are safer now than we were pre-September 11, 2001, there is a bridge in Brooklyn I would love to sell you. If anyone thinks the U.S. Congress is going to pass a bill that makes health care better for everyone, there is a bridge in San Fransisco I would love to sell you.

You can have either bridge really cheap too. There are secret plans (I know you won't tell anyone) to use stimulus dollars to build new bridges, and so the others will soon be demolished, and you will be guaranteed to double, no, triple your money as you sell the pieces to collectors and scrap metal yards. I'd do it myself, but, conflict of interest, ethics boards, you know how that goes. So speak up now, this deal won't be available for long.

you got two choices
1. wave your magic wand
2. a revolution or it won't happen

we need to get people into the streets, get people involved, people to vote for good candidates. The teaparty groups are the beginning. It needs to multiply by 1,000,000 and then you will see liberty return.

[Universe Prince]

you got two choices
1. wave your magic wand
2. a revolution or it won't happen

Or it won't happen fast you mean. Don't assume I'm as impatient as you are.

we need to get people into the streets, get people involved, people to vote for good candidates.

That assumes there are good candidates for whom to vote. I suppose there are, but they are few in number, and most folks don't get the opportunity to vote for one.

[Kramer]

you got two choices
1. wave your magic wand
2. a revolution or it won't happen

Or it won't happen fast you mean. Don't assume I'm as impatient as you are.

we need to get people into the streets, get people involved, people to vote for good candidates.

That assumes there are good candidates for whom to vote. I suppose there are, but they are few in number, and most folks don't get the opportunity to vote for one.

you like to assume a lot so let's assume that good candidates will come forward to replace the crap we currently have in Congress. Don't forget the "Sleeping Giant" is now stirring. We have the better half of 2010 to gear up.

[Universe Prince]

you like to assume a lot

Actually, I try to not assume.

so let's assume that good candidates will come forward to replace the crap we currently have in Congress.

And we are supposed to assume this because...?

Don't forget the "Sleeping Giant" is now stirring. We have the better half of 2010 to gear up.

I'll believe it when I see it. I still remember how the "Republican Revolution" turned out. They were going to reshape the government and bring fiscal responsibility to the Congress. Didn't happen.

[Kramer]

you like to assume a lot

Actually, I try to not assume.

so let's assume that good candidates will come forward to replace the crap we currently have in Congress.

And we are supposed to assume this because...?

Don't forget the "Sleeping Giant" is now stirring. We have the better half of 2010 to gear up.

I'll believe it when I see it. I still remember how the "Republican Revolution" turned out. They were going to reshape the government and bring fiscal responsibility to the Congress. Didn't happen.

because the sleeping giant is stirring
you need to have faith in humanity