Homeland Insecurity

"Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation?...I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past....Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation. ..I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array if its purpose be not to force us to submission?"Patrick Henry-- 1775.

Terrorist attacks are supposed to make us paranoid to the point that we disrupt our lifestyles and routine. I will admit that recent reports about the potential of a "spectacular" attack on American shores before the summer is out has made me truly frightened for the first time since 9/11. Its not so much the terror threat, but the fact that domestically the war on terror is being treated like the weather, everyone talks about it but no one does anything about it. Six years after 9/11 our government has not done anything to secure our boarders. Six years after 9/11 the majority party in congress does legislative party does not even believe there is a war on terror:

A Democrat House Committee secretly ordered the removal of all references to the "Global War On Terror," nonchalantly claiming it wasn't political. Who are they fooling?The Military Times reported that Erin Conaton, a staffer on Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton's House Armed Services Committee, banished the term "Global War On Terror" from the 2008 defense bill, in a Mar. 27 memo to Democrats.

Six years after 9/11 and there are just too many people in positions of responsibility with a 9/10 mindset. It is time for action not discussion:

Time to act on threats to U.S. and Britain James P. Pinkerton

July 3, 2007

The recent terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom need to be considered alongside the controversies in the United States over homeland security and immigration.

To put it bluntly, two great countries are under threat. Some people want to do something about the threat, others want to do nothing.

Let's start with the attempted car-bombings across the Atlantic. All the suspects in the case appear to be Muslim; at least one is named "Mohammed." As the "7/7" bombings - which killed 52 innocent transit riders almost exactly two years ago - demonstrated, a critical/lethal mass of Muslims residing in the United Kingdom hate the society in which they live.

In the days and weeks to come, more details will spill out as to whether the would-be mass murderers in London and Glasgow are linked to al-Qaida. But in a sense, such linkage doesn't really matter, because the idea of "al-Qaida" has become a rallying point for those many Muslims swept up in the pro-fundamentalist/anti-Western tide surging through the Islamic world - including the Muslim archipelagoes scattered throughout the West.

So here's a prediction: It will be soon be perfectly clear that these latest attackers found considerable reservoirs of sympathy within the 1.6 million Muslims living in the United Kingdom.

To its credit, the Muslim Council of Britain issued an immediate statement in the wake of the London incident, urging Muslim Britons to "help the police so that they can bring whoever was involved in this plot swiftly to justice."

That statement urging cooperation with the authorities is nice, but one doesn't need to look very deep into the MCB Web site, www.mcb.org.uk, to see a much different, much more hostile attitude toward British officialdom. For example, the site prominently displays a May 29 story, credited to the IRNA (Islamic Republic News Agency, official news organ of Iran), headlined, "UK lecturers revolt against Muslim 'witch hunt.'" That "revolt" was in response to London's stepping up surveillance of Muslim Britons. And yet, last year the government reported that "violent extremism in the name of Islam is a real, credible and sustained threat to the U.K." No kidding.

But of course, the Iranian news article, as it appeared on the MCB Web site, didn't dwell on that prospect. Instead, the piece approvingly cited the British academic labor union's denunciation of "Islamophobia," and its further declaration that "attempts at increased surveillance on Muslim communities are ... encouraging racist and xenophobic tendencies in Britain."

So that's the Muslim Council of Britain. Now the question becomes: How should the historic population of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland deal with these Muslims in their midst?

One thing is clear: No nation that values its own survival will tolerate murderous terrorists, or those who harbor murderous terrorists. The British cherish their civil liberties, but they have demonstrated that they cherish their survival more. When World War II broke out, British security officials interviewed all Germans and Italians living in the country; it was a mass loyalty test, and 27,000 flunked and were locked up.

Was it fair? Was due process followed? The British authorities let the lawyers and historians sort it out - which they could, because the good guys won that war. Oh, and by the way, during the war, immigration into Britain slowed to a trickle.

Back to America, also a Muslim terrorist target. Half of the Washington governing class, led by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, is still angry at the American people for blocking "comprehensive" immigration reform, and so Chertoff has stopped incremental border security measures, as a way of punishing us for being uppity.

Meanwhile, the other half of the D.C. governing class, led by Democrats in Congress, wants to shut down the terrorist-interrogation facility at Guantánamo and investigate, instead, the Bush administration's overseas wiretap program.

So even as Britain wakes up to the terrible threat from within, America still sleeps.