North Coast Online

Tamil Tigers In Our Midst

I work with a guy who came to Buffalo from Sri Lanka and surprised him yesterday with the news of the FBI's uncovering of a Tamil Tigers cell in Amherst.  I knew the Tigers were active in the Toronto area because there's been a great deal made of the fact that the Harper government has declared them terrorists where the Liberals had courted them.  I wouldn't have expected a presence in Buffalo.

He told me that they are quite active here in fund-raising if not actual recruitment.  By the way, he's no supporter.  It turns out, because of UB, there's a larger than might-be-expected Sri Lankan population here.  I'm reminded of the 70's when my South Buffalo Irish-American friends were constantly hit up to attend fund-raisers for the poor Catholics in Northern Ireland.

Who could resist? And they didn't.  It's only on some 30 years hindsight that they've now realized they were helping to subsidize the bombing-deaths of English civilians in London -- what we might otherwise call terrorism today.

No Shampoo For You

Domenico Betenelli, Jr explains the difference between sensible flight-screening and what currently passes as security in the United States.

The difference is that while the Transportation Security Administration screens out weapons, El Al screens out terrorists. While the TSA would not mind a weaponless terrorist on board a US flight, El Al on the other hand has no problem with a regular civilian with a potential weapon.

And they do it with a tool that the TSA, the Bush administration, and the entire left-wing establishment refuses to use: Profiling.

We screen out potential weapons, the Israelis screen out terrorists.  Read the whole thing.

Terrorism Doesn't Have A Skin-Color

Gerry Adams In Town.

Big whoop.  The old terrorist is certainly down on his luck if he's showing up here instead of Boston.

The Terrorists Among Us

Here's a story I suspect you'll only know of for having visited the blogosphere.

Three explosive devices found in a courtyard between two Georgia Tech dormitories on the East Campus Monday morning were part of a “terrorist act,” an Atlanta police official said.

 

One of the devices exploded, injuring the custodian who found them inside a plastic bag. Two others were detonated by a bomb squad.The custodian suffered ringing to the ears and was treated at a local hospital. The events led to a temporary evacuation Monday morning.

 

“It is a terrorist act at this point and depending on the outcome of the investigation it potentially could become a federal violation as well,” said Major C.W. Moss of the Atlanta Police Department.

 

The custodian found the three devices about 9 a.m. in a plastic-type garbage bag, Moss said. When he picked up the bag, one exploded, as it was designed to do when handled. The explosives were made up of chemicals placed inside plastic bottles and could have seriously injured someone, officials said.

Never Forget the Jumpers

This is a picture of someone's father, mother, son, or wife.  It's a picture of an innocent American who went to work on September 11, 2001 and decided, in the end, that it was a better bet to risk hitting the ground from 1000 feet up than it was to burn alive in an office cut off from rescue by an act of terrorism.

As long as I live, I will never be able to rid my mind of the images of those people who jumped from the top of the World Trade Center.

Click on Jumpers sighted from this link.

3,000 innocent people were murdered on that one day.  In the following four years almost 1,800 American military personnel have died  in the attempt to end Islamic terror.

While there's no direct connection between the two numbers, let's keep them in perspective and remember why we started to fight back.

Trying Terrorists As Criminals

City Comforts Blog on trying terrorists as criminals.

Personal security from bad people is an essential part of the comfortable city. But freedom from an overbearing goverment is also an essential. The just-concluded trial of the man convicted of attempting to bomb the LA airport prompted remarks from a Reagan-appointee and a very conservative jurist.

Second, Coughenour said that Ressam's sentencing should demonstrate to the world that the U.S. legal system can try terrorists.

Coughenour devoted most of his remarks to this point, noting that Ressam received a vigorous defense, and that his guilt was determined "in the sunlight of a public trial. There were no secret proceedings, no indefinite detention, no denial of counsel."

Coughenour's comments amounted to a rebuke of President Bush's terrorism policies. After 9/11, the Bush administration initially proposed secret military trials for some foreign terrorists. And, it has sent hundreds of terrorism suspects captured in Afghanistan to indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay.

Here's Judge Coughenour's statement as a PDF.

We are certainly capable in the United States of conducting trials for terrorists.  We had our first experience after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.  This isn't controversial.  The larger question is whether we should fight terrorism or continue to treat it as as a simple criminal act to be handled much as any rape, mugging, or break-in.

Personal security from bad people is an essential part of the comfortable city. But freedom from an overbearing goverment is also an essential. The just-concluded trial of the man convicted of attempting to bomb the LA airport prompted remarks from a Reagan-appointee and a very conservative jurist.

Second, Coughenour said that Ressam's sentencing should demonstrate to the world that the U.S. legal system can try terrorists.

Coughenour devoted most of his remarks to this point, noting that Ressam received a vigorous defense, and that his guilt was determined "in the sunlight of a public trial. There were no secret proceedings, no indefinite detention, no denial of counsel."

Coughenour's comments amounted to a rebuke of President Bush's terrorism policies. After 9/11, the Bush administration initially proposed secret military trials for some foreign terrorists. And, it has sent hundreds of terrorism suspects captured in Afghanistan to indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay.

Here's Judge Coughenour's statement as a PDF.

It's Time For Racial Profiling

One of the supposed justifications for avoiding racial profiling when looking for terror suspects has been that if we focus on young, Arab males then the jihadists could simply change their tactics and who knows, recruit blonde Swedish guys.  Charles Krauthammer responds.

OK. We can handle that. Let them try recruiting non-usual suspects for suicide missions. That will require a huge new wasteful effort on their part. And, more important, by reducing the pool of possible terrorists from hundreds of millions to, at most, tens of thousands, we will have reduced the probability of an attack by a factor of 10,000. Those are far better odds at far less cost to us in money and effort. And infinitely less stupid. 

It annoys me to no end that my (increasingly) little 82 year old mom, when she flies to Charlotte next month to visit my brother, may be selected for a search -- from her wheelchair.  It's laughable and we all know it.  It's expensive, that's obvious.  And in all the history of Arab-sponsored terrorism in the last half-century, no white-haired American elderly woman of European descent (or any other descent for that matter) has been anywhere nearby.

Krauthammer's right.  The time and expense that would be required to first convert elderly women to Wahabbist Islam and then to convince them to renounce a lifetime of American culture, and then to instill in them the belief that martyrdom is glorious (they'll have to come up with something better than 72 virgins to convince my Mom) is farfetched.  But searching Granny makes us all feel good -- it's fair -- no one's above suspicion; and, well,  ya gotta be fair.  But it's stupid, too.

And, in the end, it doesn't catch terrorists.  Time to reassess.

 

Stiffer Upper Lip Than Most

Chase Me Ladies, I'm In The Cavalry.

These bombs are frightfully tedious. I admire everyone’s refusal to be impressed, but it’s time to go beyond that, to being hardly even interested. Next time someone sets off a bomb in London I’m just going to yawn, and see what’s on Animal Planet.

Were you aware that the Weddell Seal can travel underwater for seven hours without surfacing? I was, because I watch Animal Planet.

The Enemy We Treat Like A Friend

Oriana Fallaci on her conviction that Italy's turn for an attack isn't far off.

Will the massacre touch us too?--will it really touch us the next time? Oh, yes. I haven’t the slightest doubt. I’ve never had the slightest doubt. I’ve been saying this, too, for the last four years. And I add: They have not yet attacked us [only] because of their need for a landing zone, a bridgehead, a handy outpost named “Italy.“ Geographically handy because it is the closest one to both the Middle East and Africa; that is, to the countries that supply the greatest number of troops. Strategically handy because we offer succor and collaboration to those troops.

But soon, they will go on a rampage. Bin Laden himself has promised it--explicitly, clearly, precisely. More than once. His lieutenants (or rivals) have done likewise. The Corriere itself demonstrates this with its interview with Saak Al-Faqih, the exiled Saudi who became friends with Bin Laden during the conflict with the Russians in Afghanistan and who, according to the American secret services, a financer of Al Qaeda. “It is only a question of time. Al Qaeda will strike you soon,“ said Al Faqih, adding that the attack upon Italy is the most logical thing in the world. Is not Italy the weak link in the chain of allies in Iraq? A link comes soon after Spain and was preceded by London only out of pure convenience. Then [he said]: “Bin Laden well remembers the words of the Prophet: “You will force the Romans to surrender. And he wants to force Italy to abandon its alliance with America.“ In sum, [and] emphasizing that similar operations will not be carried out [by Muslims] who have just arrived at Lampedusa or Malpensa; but instead after having achieved a mature familiarity with the country, after having penetrated its social fabric: “[The only problem with] recruiting the needed manpower will be the embarrassment of riches.“
[...]
When will the attack come? How will it come? Oh, God; I hate being a Cassandra. I hate being a prophetess. I am not a Cassandra; I am not a prophetess. I am only a citizen who reasons; and by reasoning foresees things that will happen according to logic. But one who hopes that she is wrong and, when they happen, curses herself for not being wrong. Nonetheless, regarding an attack on Italy, I fear two things: Christmas and the elections. We might slide by for Christmas. Their attacks are not rude, showy strikes. They are refined crimes, well-calculated and well-prepared. They need time to prepare themselves, and I don’t think they’ll be ready by Christmas. But the will be ready by the 2006 elections--the elections they want to see won overwhelmingly by pacifism. And of us, I fear, they will not be content [just] to massacre people. Because this is an intelligent and well-informed Monster, my dears. A Monster who (on our dime) studied in our universities, our renowned colleges, our luxurious schools. (With the money of their parents; be they sheikh or honest day-worker). A Monster who is not only knowledgeable about engineering, chemistry, physics, airlines, and subways: he is also knowledgeable about Art. Art, that their presumed “Beacon of Civilization” has never known how to produce. And I think that, along with our people, they want to massacre come work of art. How hard would it be to blow the Cathedral of Milan or Saint Peter’s Basilica sky-high? How hard would it be to blow Michelangelo’s David, the Uffizi, and the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence--or the Palace of the Doges in Venice--sky-high? How hard would it be to blow the Leaning Tower of Pisa--a monument recognized in every corner of the world, and therefore even more famous than the Twin Towers--sky-high?

But we cannot escape. We can confront the monster with honor, [with] courage; and by remembering the words that Churchill said to the English when he went to war against Hitler’s Nazism. He said “We will pour out tears and blood.” Oh, yes: we too will pour out tears and blood. We are at war: do we or do we not want to get this through our heads?!? And in war, you cry. Period.

Thus I had already concluded four years ago in this newspaper.

Translated and posted (read the whole thing) by Mystery Achievement.
(Hat tip to Roger Simon.)

More On Those Root Causes

After the second wave of London bombings there are of course those who believe they're reprisal for British involvement in Iraq.  But are they really?

We cannot know for sure. But we should at least recall history accurately. Al-Qaeda set off a truck bomb in the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993, almost a decade before George Bush invaded Iraq. President Clinton, the darling of the left, had been inaugurated a month before. It would be difficult to blame US foreign policy for the attack. America had gone to the aid of Muslim Kuwait and freed it from Iraqi occupation. Observing the letter of its United Nations mandate, it withdrew from Iraq and left Saddam Hussein in place (although it kept forces in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait with the agreement of those governments).

A few months later Clinton withdrew American forces from Somalia following the Black Hawk Down incident, in which 18 soldiers died. Osama Bin Laden commented that the decision demonstrated the “weakness, feebleness and cowardliness of the US soldier” who had “fled in the dark of night”.

During the Clinton presidency, as American forces went to the rescue of Muslims in Bosnia and as the president toiled alongside Ehud Barak, Israel’s prime minister, to bring peace to Palestine, Al-Qaeda escalated its attacks on the United States, bombing its embassies in east Africa and attacking the warship USS Cole. Clinton’s response — firing a few cruise missiles into supposed terrorist camps — was feeble.

Long before George W Bush became president a policy of turning the other cheek was met by a sharp intensification of the terrorist onslaught on America, culminating in the September 11 attacks.

As tributes were paid last week to Sir Edward Heath, I recalled his appalling decision in 1970 to release the Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled. She had hijacked an Israeli airliner but was exchanged by Britain for hostages seized in another hijack. The Black September group to which she belonged subsequently murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. The Germans released the perpetrators in return for yet more hostages. Lacking support from Europe, is it any wonder that Israel has taken care of its own security? Even if a majority in Britain thinks that the war in Iraq has increased our danger, I doubt that many favour bowing to terrorist pressure or believe that it would make them safer. People are not as stupid as Pilger thinks.

History would indicate that the Iraq War is merely the latest in a forty-year string of excuses to murder Westerners.  And that a hasty withdrawal from Iraq would only invite gloating from the jihadists  and, as happened after Somalia, intensified and more-frequent attacks