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Posts Tagged ‘9/11’

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THE NEXT 9/11: HOW IT WILL HAPPEN: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on September 15, 2014 at 2:18 am

Thirteen years after 9/11, America is now selling its Islamic enemies access to the very weapons–jet-fueled airplanes–they need to wage jihad against us.

World Trade Center on September 11, 2001

This is happening thanks to the greed of American airline corporations and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Essentially, it comes down to this:  Wealthy Americans hate waiting in long airport security lines.

But wealthy Americans–unlike poor and middle-class Americans–have lots of money to spend.

So they’re willing to shell out a good portion of it to the airlines and TSA so they won’t have to stand in line with the unworthy peasants.

And the airlines and TSA are happy to scoop up that money in return for giving these self-important Richie-Riches preferred treatment.

Even if this comes at the security of the nation they claim to love.

Consider the following:

TSA offers Pre-Check, a program from the Department of Homeland Security.  It’s for frequent fliers of many airlines.

According to the TSA’s website, here’s how it works:

  • An applicant must be a U.S. citizen or Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR) and cannot have been convicted of certain crimes. If an applicant has a record of any of the crimes identified in the eligibility requirements, they may choose not to apply, as the application fee is nonrefundable.
  • Interested applicants must visit an application center to provide biographic information that includes name, date of birth and address. An applicant will be fingerprinted and will be required to provide valid required identity and citizenship/immigration documentation. An applicant also has the option to pre-enroll online to provide basic information and make an appointment before visiting an application center. There is a nonrefundable application processing fee of $85.
  • After completing enrollment, successful applicants will receive a Known Traveler Number (KTN) via U.S. mail approximately 2-3 weeks following the visit to the application center. An applicant also may check status online by visiting https://universalenroll.dhs.gov/ and clicking on “Service Status.” The Known Traveler Number is valid for five years.
  • Once approved as eligible for TSA Pre✓™, the enrollee must enter the provided KTN in the ‘Known Traveler Number’ field when booking travel reservations on any of the ten participating airlines.  The KTN also can be added when booking reservations online via a participating airline website, via phone call to the airline reservation center, or with the travel management company making reservations.  Additionally, the KTN can be entered in participating airline frequent flyer profiles, where it will be stored for future reservations.

Click here: TSA Pre?™ Application Program | Transportation Security Administration

The website further notes: “TSA is accepting applications at more than 300 locations nationwide, including 26 airports.”

And what does a Pre-Check passenger get in return for his $85 registration fee?

  • S/he is allowed to go through a special line at security with reduced screening.
  • Shoes, jackets and belts need not be removed.
  • Many electronics (including laptops) can be left in their carry-on.
  • Magnetometers (metal detecting scanners) are used instead of advanced imaging technology.

Here’s the difference between a scan by a magnetometer and one using advanced imaging technology:

If you’re trying to carry a metallic firearm aboard a plane, the magnetometer will likely pick it up.  But if you’ve filled your computer with plastic explosive, the magnetometer won’t pick it up.

Or maybe you want to prove a more successful shoe-bomber than Richard Reid, who tried to blow up an American Airlines flight in 2001.

Being allowed to skip the requirement to remove your shoes will certainly take you a long way toward reaching your goal.

Of course, TSA isn’t alone in wanting to make money from deep-pockets passengers.  The airlines have also been quick to get in on the act.

Most airlines make it possible for frequent-flier passengers to acquire elite status–for a price.

Passengers having any one of the following elite status memberships are eligible for this benefit:

Delta: Gold Medallion, Platinum Medallion and Diamond Medallion members
United: Premier Silver, Premier Gold, Premier Platinum, Premier 1K members
American: AAdvantage Gold, AAdvantage Platinum, and AAdvantage Executive Platinum members
USAirways: Silver Preferred, Gold Preferred, Platinum Preferred, and Chairman’s Preferred members
Southwest: A-List and A-List Preferred members
Alaska: MVP, MVP Gold, and MVP Gold 75 members
Jetblue: TrueBlue Mosaic members and those seated in Even More Space seats
Virigin America: Elevate Silver and Elevate Gold members

Click here: Travel Tuesday Top 10: Ways To Get Through Airport Security Faster in the US | The Points Guy

Yes, the greed of corporations and government agencies is partly responsible for this disgraceful–and highly dangerous–situation.

And so is the belief among the wealthy that they are the elect, and thus deserve special consideration.

But there is another factor at work here: The Calvinistic belief–shared by most Americans–that wealth is a sign of God’s favor, and thus proof that its holder is worthy of deference, if not awe.

In combination, they are steadily moving this nation closer to the day of the next 9/11 disaster.

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ISLAMICS VS. THE WEST – HE PREDICTED IT: PART TWO (END)

In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 19, 2014 at 9:10 am

During the 1930s, Winston Churchill, a seemingly failed politican, repeatedly warned his British countrymen against the growing menace of Nazi Germany.

The leaders of Britain, France and the United States–the three great victors of World War 1–hoped that if they simply ignored the increasingly aggressive behavior of Adolf Hitler, they could somehow escape catastrophe.

Winston Churchill

When, in the early 1930s, Hitler began re-building a powerful German army (Whermacht) in open defiance of the Versallies Treaty that had ended World War 1, Churchill gave warning–and was ignored.

When Hitler ordered his army to occupy his native Austria in 1938, Churchill warned that the Nazis would not be content with the conquest of one nation.  And was ignored.

In 1938, Hitler demanded that Czechoslavakia cede the Sudetenland, its northern, southwest and western regions, which were inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans.

Adolf Hitler

When British Prime Minister Nveille Chamberlain surrendered to Hitler’s demands at the infamous “Munich conference,” his fellow Britons were ecstatic.  He returned to England as a hero.

Churchill knew better: “Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor.  They chose dishonor.  They will have war.”

In March, 1939, the German army occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia.

Hitler next turned his attention to Poland–which he invaded on September 1, unintentionally triggering World War II.

In time, historians and statesmen would regard Munich as an object lesson in the futility—and danger—in appeasing evil and aggression.

It is a lesson that current world leaders have forgotten as Islamic fundamentalists increasingly flex their military and economic muscles–and demand that Western nations bow to their demands.

  • In Iran, scientists continue to fashion a nuclear weapons program–while insisting they intend to use the atom only for “peaceful purposes.”
  • In Pakistan–which has 90-110 nuclear warheads–Osama bin Laden lived less than a mile from the Pakistan Military Academy, the country’s West Point.  So much for America’s “ally” in the “war on terror.”
  • The rising tide of Muslim population growth spells deadly challenges for non-Islamic nations.

Winston Churchill’s warnings fell on deaf ears until other world leaders–most notably Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin–were forced by events to take action.

So did the warnings of Harvard political science professor Samuel P. Huntington.

In 1993, he published an essay in Foreign Affairs called “The Clash of Civilizations?”  In this, he argued that the post-Cold War would be marked by civilizational conflict.  Among his assertions:

  • People are divided along religious and cultural lines.
  • Islamic civilization do not share the general ideals of the Western world–such as individualism and democracy.
  • Their primary attachment is to their religion, not to their nation-state.
  • When the Muslim world conflicts with other civilizations, tensions and wars result.
  • Arab dictatorships were fragile and could be overturned by the masses of unemployed young men. But even if they fell, the new regimes would not modernize along Western lines.
  • A fundamental clash of civilizations between Islam and the West is inevitable.
  • Relations between Muslims and non-Muslims–such as Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Buddhists and Jews–have been marked by Islamic antagonism and violence.
  • Western nations should distance themselves from Islamic ones.  The more both civilizations interact, the greater tensions between them will be.

Huntington’s critique of Islamic civilizations ignited a firestorm of controversey–especially his statement: “Islam has bloody borders.”

In 1996, Huntington expanded his thesis into a book–also called The Clash of Civilizations.  Once again, he minced no words:

“Some Westerners, including President Bill Clinton, have argued that the West does not have problems with Islam but only with violent Islamist extremists.  Fourteen hundred years of history demonstrate otherwise.”

Huntington cited British scholar Barry Buzan as giving several reasons for an inevitable war between the West and Islam:

  • Western secular vs. Islamic religious values.
  • Past historical rivalry between Christianity and Islam.
  • Jealousy of Western power by Islamic nations.
  • Islamic resentments of Western domination during the post-colonial restructuring of the Middle East.
  • Islamic bitterness and humiliation at the achiveements of Western civilization over the last 200 years.

Much of the fury Muslims were directing toward the West, wrote Huntington, was aimed at its embrace of secularism.  Westerners were attacked not for being Christian but “for not adhering to any religion at all.”

Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, a quasi-war developed between some Islamic nations and some Western ones.  On the Islamic side: Iran, Sudan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.  On the Western side: The United States and Britain.

“In this quasi war,” wrote Huntington, “each side has capitalized on its own strengths and the other side’s weaknesses.”  For example:

  • Muslim terrorists exploited the openness of Western societies to plant car bombs at selected targets.
  • Western powers used their superior air power to bomb selected targets in Islamic countries.
  • Islamics plotted the assassination of Western leaders.
  • The United States plotted the overthrow of hostile Islamic regimes.

Writing at a time before the United States directed its full military power at conquering Afghanistan and Iraq, Huntington ominously noted:

“During the 15 years between 1980 and 1995…the United States engaged in 17 military operations in the Middle East, all of them directed against Muslims.   No comparable pattern of U.S. military operations occurred against the people of any other civilization.”

The war that Huntington warned was coming and was, in fact, already in progress, has since erupted into full-scale conflict, with no end in sight.

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ISLAMICS VS. THE WEST – HE PREDICTED IT: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 16, 2014 at 10:54 am

There is a famous joke about racial profiling that’s long made the rounds of the Internet. It appears in the guise of a “history test,” and offers such multiple-choice questions as:

In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by:

  • Olga Korbut
  • Sitting Bull
  • Arnold Schwarzenegger
  • Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by:

  • Lost Norwegians
  • Elvis
  • A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
  • Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

During the 1980s a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:

  • John Dillinger
  • The King of Sweden
  • The Boy Scouts
  • Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:

  • A pizza delivery boy
  • Pee Wee Herman
  • Geraldo Rivera
  • Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

On September 11, 2001, four airliners were hijacked. Two were used as missiles to take out the World Trade Center; one crashed into the Pentagon; and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by:

  • Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
  • The Supreme Court of Florida
  • Mr. Bean
  • Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

It’s well to remember the bitter truth behind this joke, especially in light of the latest Islamic atrocities:

  • On April 15, two pressure-cooker bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing 3 people and injuring 264.  The culprits: Two Muslim brothers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan  Tsarnaev, who had emigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union.
  • On May 22, two Islamic terrorists, wielding machetes and shouting “Allahu Akbar!” (“God is Great!”)   hacked a British soldier to death on a London street.

Writing in the British newspaper, The Spectator, Douglas Murray issued a warning to his fellow Britons: “Over recent years, those who have warned that such attacks would come here have been attacked as ‘racists’, ‘fascists’ and–most commonly–‘Islamophobes.’

“A refusal to recognise the actual threat (a growingly radicalised Islam) has dominated most of our media and nearly all our political class.”

One man who did foresee the present conflicts with stunning clarity–and had the courage to say what has since become Politically Incorrect–was Samuel P. Huntington.

Samuel P. Huntington (2004 World Economic Forum).jpg

Samuel P. Huntington

A political scientist, Huntington taught government at Harvard University (1950-1959, then at Columbia University (1959-1962).  He returned to Harvard in 1963, and remained there until his death in 2008.

The author of nine books, in 1996 he published his most invluential one: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.  Its thesis was that, in the post-Cold War world, people’s cultural and religious identities would be the primary sources of conflict.

Among the points he makes:

  • Modernization does not mean Westernization.
  • Economic progress has come with a revival of religion.
  • Post-Cold War politics emphasize ethnic nationalism over ideology.
  • Civilizations are fundamentally differentiated from each other by centuries-old history, language, culture, tradition, and, most important, religion.
  • As the world becomes smaller, different civilizations increasingly interact.  These intensify civilization consciousness and the awareness of differences between civilizations.
  • Economic modernization and social change separate people from age-old identities (such as hometowns and familiar neighbors).  Religion has replaced this gap, providing a basis for identity, socialization and commitment that transcends national boundaries and unites civilizations.
  • The West, at the peak of its power, is confronting non-Western countries that increasingly have the desire, will and resources to shape the world in non-Western ways.
  • Cultural characteristics and differences are less mutable and hence less easily compromised and resolved than political and economic ones.

The most controversial part of The Clash of Civilizations focuses on Islam.  Huntington points out, for example, that Muslim countries are involved in far more intergroup violence than others.

And he warns that the West’s future conflcts with Islamic nations will be rooted in the Islamic religion:

“Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”

Huntington argues that civilizational conflicts are “particularly prevalent between Muslims and non-Muslims.”  Among the reasons for these conflicts: Both Islam and Christianity have similarities which heighten conflicts between their followers:

  • Both seek to convert others.
  • Both are “all-or-nothing” religions; each side believes that only its faith is the correct one.
  • The followers of both Islam and Christianity believe that people who violate the base principles of their religion are idolators and thus damned.

Other reasons for the Western-Islamic clash are:

  • The Islamic revival, which began in the 1970s and is manifested in greater religious piety and in a growing adoption of Islamic culture, values, dress, separation of the sexes, speech and media censorship.
  • Western universalism–the belief that all civilizations should adopt Western values–infuriates Islamic fundamentalists.

These are not differences that will disappear–overnight or even over the span of several centuries.  Nor will they be sweet-talked away by Politically Correct politicians, however well-meaning.

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PC: CONCEALING THE TRUTH WITH LIES

In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics on July 14, 2014 at 10:37 am

On June 8, 2010, newspapers around the world headlined the latest triumph of Politically Correct language.

The Israeli government had apologized for circulating a video parodying the lyrics of Michael Jackson’s hit, “We Are the World.”  Its purpose: To mock terrorists from the Gaza flotilla smuggling arms into Gaza.

In early June, 2010, six Hamas ships set out in defiance of the Israel’s blockade of Gaza.  One of those ships, the Mavi Marmara, suffered nine casualties during a subsequent Israeli raid on the flotilla.

In the video, Israelis dressed up as activists offer their own take on the incident through song.

Among its lyrics:

We’ll make the world
Abandon reason
We’ll make them all believe that the Hamas
Is Momma Theresa
We are peaceful travelers
We’re waving our own knives
The truth will never find its way to your TV

Click here: The Flotilla Choir Presents We Con The World – YouTube

The Israeli Government Press Office distributed footage of the music video to foreign journalists on June 4, but then sent an apology to reporters just hours later, insisting it had been an accident.

“The contents of the video in no way represent the official policy of either the Government Press Office or of the State of Israel,” Israel’s Government Press Office later told CNN.

But the retraction did not stop “We Con the World” from becoming an Internet hit, getting over three million views in less than a week

By issuing such an apology the Israeli government forfeited a vital weapon in its ongoing struggle for not simply sovereignty but survival: Ridicule.

Every great tyrant has feared the laughter of his enemies. For that reason, the Roman Emperor Augustus banished the satirical poet, Ovid, from Rome and the KGB worked overtime to suppress anti-Communist jokes.

It’s clear that Israeli bureaucrats–like American ones–have caught the Political Correctness disease, where even the most criminally depraved are off-limits as targets for satire.

During most of the eight-year Presidency of Bill Clinton, the State Department applied the “rogue state” moniker to nations like Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

In a 1994 lecture, Madeleine Albright, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, defined a rogue state as one that actively tried to undermine the international system.

But in 2000, the State Department declared that it would no longer refer to such nations as “rogues.” Instead, they would now be referred to as “states of concern.”

“Rogue,” said a State Department spokesman, was inflammatory, and might hamper the efforts of the United States to reach agreements with its sworn enemies.

In short, it’s become Politically Incorrect to refer to even our sworn enemies as enemies.

As Steven Emerson, president of the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) puts it: “If you can’t name your enemy, how can you defeat him?”

During World War 11, GIs–and their commanders–routinely referred to German soldiers as “krauts.”  Japense soldiers were universally referred to as “Japs.”

Throughout the Vietnam war, North Vietnamese troops were called “gooks,” “dinks” and “Charlie.”  During the 1991 Gulf War, American soldiers called Iraqi soldiers “ragheads.”

Admittedly, that’s not the sort of language to use in polite company.

But there is nothing polite about war, and it’s unrealistic to expect those whose lives could be snuffed out at any moment to be Politically Correct in talking about their enemies.

The United States has been at war with Islamic nations since September 11, 2001.  But terms such as “jihadist,” “jihadi” and “mujahedeen” are now officially forbidden by the Pentagon.

So is “Islamofascism,” a term often used to describe Islamic aggression against other countries–especially non-Muslim ones.

Similarly, the American government now seeks to impose the same Political Correctness restrictions on how to refer to daily invasions of its sovereign bordeers.

“Illegal alien” is taboo–although totally accurate.   An “alien” is defined as “a foreigner, especially one who is not a naturalized citizen of the country where they are living.”

And a foreigner who violates another country’s immigration laws is in that country illegally.

“Undocumented immigrant” is the new fashionable term to be used by all federal agents charged with enforcing our immigration laws.

Liberals feel that this sounds nicer, and won’t offend our “little brown brothers” south of the Rio Grande.

“Undocumented immigrant” makes it seem as though the mass violations of America’s national border are no big deal.  You might even think the illegal alien simply lost his legal papers while sneaking across the border.

More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science, laid out the guidelines for effective propaganda.  In his notorious book, The Prince, he wrote:

…Men in general judge more by the eyes than by the hands, for every one can see, but very few have to feel.  Everyone sees what you appear to be, few feel what you are….

Apparently, many people in government are now convinced: If you don’t admit there is a problem, the problem doesn’t exist.

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WHAT AMERICA OWES THE NRA: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 28, 2014 at 12:11 am

In peace, sons bury fathers, but in war fathers bury sons.
–Herodotus

Among the major accomplishments of the National Rifle Association:

  • The NRA has steadfastly defended the right to own Teflon-coated “cop killer” bullets,” whose only purpose is to penetrate bullet-resistant vests worn by law enforcement officers.

  • The NRA and its lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action, is responsible for the “stand-your-ground” ordinances now in effect in more than half the states. These allow for the use of deadly force in self-defense, without any obligation to attempt to retreat first.
  • In 2012, the NRA rushed to the defense of accused murderer George Zimmerman, the self-appointed “community watchman” who  ignored police orders to stop following 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and ended up shooting him.
  • Police did not initially charge Zimmerman because of Florida’s “Stand-Your-Ground” law, which the NRA had rammed through the legislature.

George Zimmerman

  • On February 26, 2012, Zimmerman shot unarmed Trayvon Martin, who was wearing a “hoodie.”  In March, the NRA issued its own version of a “hoodie”–the Concealed Carry Hooded Sweatshirt, designed to hide firearms.  Selling on the NRA’s website for $60 to $65, it is advertised thusly:
  • “Inside the sweatshirt you’ll find left and right concealment pockets.  The included Velcro®-backed holster and double mag pouch can be repositioned inside the pockets for optimum draw.  Ideal for carrying your favorite compact to mid-size pistol, the NRA Concealed Carry Hooded Sweatshirt gives you an extra tactical edge, because its unstructured, casual design appears incapable of concealing a heavy firearm – but it does so with ease!”
  • Anyone—including convicted criminals—can buy these “hide-a-gun” sweatshirts, putting both the public and law enforcers at deadly risk.
  • The NRA often claims that law-abiding citizens defend themselves with guns millions of times every year. But the FBI has determined that, of the approximately 11,000 gun homicides every year, fewer than 300 are justifiable self-defense killings.
  • The NRA supports loopholes that allow criminals to buy guns without background checks, or allow terrorists to buy all the AK-47s they desire.
  • The NRA’s executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, tried to defeat Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.  Yet the President has meekly signed legislation allowing guns to be brought into national parks and onto Amtrak trains.  Since becoming Chief Executive, he has made no effort to curb gun violence.

  • High-capacity magazines were prohibited under the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban.  It expired in 2004. The NRA–aided by the Bush administration and Republicans generally–easily overcame efforts to renew the ban.
  • Political scientist Robert Spitzer, author of the book The Politics of Gun Control, notes that since the passage of the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and the assault weapons ban in 1994, state and national laws have been drifting toward more open gun access:
  • “In 1988, there were about 18 states that had state laws that made it pretty easy for civilians to carry concealed hand guns around in society. By 2011, that number is up to 39 or 40 states having liberalized laws, depending on how you count it, and the NRA has worked very diligently at the state level to win political victories there, and they’ve really been quite successful.”
  • On January 8, 2011, Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head while meeting with constituents outside a Tucson, Arizona,  grocery store.  Also killed was Arizona’s chief U.S. District judge, John Roll, who had just stopped by to see his friend Giffords after celebrating Mass.  The total number of victims: six dead, 13 wounded.  Severely brain-damaged, Giffords was forced to resign her Congressional seat.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords after being shot

  • “The NRA’s response to the Tucson shootings has been to say as little as possible and to keep its head down,” said Spitzer.  “And their approach even more has been to say as little as possible and to simply issue a statement of condolence to the families of those who were injured or killed and to wait for the political storm to pass over and then to pick up politics as usual.”
  • In the spring of 2012, the House Oversight Committee prepared to vote on whether to hold U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for allegedly refusing to provide documents related to “Fast and Furious.”  This was an undercover operation launched by the Bush administration to track firearms being sold to Mexican drug cartels.
  • The NRA notified Congressional members that how they voted would reflect how the NRA rated them in “candidate evaluations” for the November elections.  This amounted to blatant extortion, since the NRA has long accused Holder of having an “anti-gun” agenda.

Summing up the current state of gun politics in America, the April 21, 2012 edition of The Economist noted:

“The debate about guns is no longer over whether assault rifles ought to be banned, but over whether guns should be allowed in bars, churches and colleges.”

That is precisely the aim of the NRA–an America where anyplace, anytime, can be turned into the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral – October 26, 1881

And that is precisely what the United States is fast becoming.

Except, so far, the vast majority of victims have not been armed gunfighters but unarmed innocents.  And it’s been the “gun rights” types whom the NRA supports who have done the killing.

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WHAT AMERICA OWES THE NRA: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 27, 2014 at 12:02 am

On September 11, 2001, Islamic terrorists snuffed out the lives of 3,000 Americans in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania.

World Trade Center – September 11, 2001

But within less than a month, American warplanes began carpet-bombing Afghanistan, whose rogue Islamic “government” refused to surrender Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the attacks.

By December, the power of the Taliban was broken–and bin Laden was driven into hiding in Pakistan.

For more than ten years, the United States–through its global military and espionage networks–has relentlessly hunted down most of those responsible for that September carnage.

On May 1, 2011, U.S. Navy SEALS invaded bin Laden’s fortified mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan–and shot him dead.

U.S. Navy SEALs

Now, consider these statistics of death, supplied by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence:

  • One in three people in the U.S. knows someone who has been shot.
  • On average, 32 Americans are murdered with guns every day and 140 are treated for a gun assault in an emergency room.
  • Every day on average, 51 people kill themselves with a firearm.
  • Another 45 people are shot or killed in an accident with a gun.
  • U.S. firearm homicide rates are 20 times higher than the combined rates of 22 countries that are our peers in wealth and population.
  • A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used to kill or injure in a domestic homicide, suicide, or unintentional shooting than to be used in self-defense.
  • More than one in five U.S. teenagers (ages 14 to 17) report having witnessed a shooting.
  • An average of eight children and teens under the age of 20 are killed by guns every day.
  • American children die by guns 11 times as often as children in other high-income countries.
  • Youth (ages 0 to 19) in the most rural U.S. counties are as likely to die from a gunshot as those living in the most urban counties.
  • Rural children die of more gun suicides and unintentional shooting deaths.
  • Urban children die more often of gun homicides.
  • Firearm homicide is the second-leading cause of death (after motor vehicle crashes) for young people ages 1-19 in the U.S.
  • In 2007, more pre-school-aged children (85) were killed by guns than police officers were killed in the line of duty.
  • Medical treatment, criminal justice proceedings, new security precautions, and reductions in quality of life are estimated to cost U.S. citizens $100 billion annually.
  • The lifetime medical cost for all gun violence victims in the United States is estimated at $2.3 billion, with almost half the costs borne by taxpayers.

In short, in one year on average:

  • More than 100,000 Americans are shot in murders, assault, suicides, suicide attempts, accidents or by police intervention.
  • 31,537 people die from gun violence.
  • 18,783 people kill themselves.
  • 584 people are killed accidentally.
  • 334 are killed by police intervention.
  • 252 die but intent is not known.
  • 71,386 people survive gun injuries.

(These statistics are based on death certificates and estimates from emergency room admissions.)

And who, more than anyone (including the actual killers themselves) has made all this carnage possible?

The National Rifle Association (NRA), of course.

But unlike the leadership of Al Qaeda, that of the NRA is not simply known, but celebrated.

Its director, Wayne LaPierre, is courted as a rock star by both Democrats and Republicans seeking NRA political endorsements–and campaign contributions.

Wayne LaPierre

He frequently appears as an honored guest at testimonial dinners and political conventions.

The largest of the 13 national pro-gun groups, the NRA has nearly 4 million members, who focus most of their time lobbying Congress for unlimited “gun rights.”

The NRA claims that its mission is to “protect” the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

NRA members conveniently ignore the first half of that sentence: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State….”

For the NRA, the Second Amendment is the Constitution, and the rest of the document is a mere appendage.

At the time Congress ratified the Constitution in 1788, the United States was not a world power.

A mere 26 years later, the British seized and burned Washington, D.C., after repeatedly defeating American armies.  On the frontier, settlers had to defend themselves against hostile Indians and marauding bandits.

Only after World War II did the country maintain a powerful standing army during peacetime.

But World War II ended 69 years ago, and today the United States is a far different country than it was in 1788:

  • It boasts a nuclear arsenal that can turn any country into thermonuclear ash–anytime an American President decides to do so.
  • It boasts an Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps that can target any enemy, anywhere in the world.
  • Its Special Forces–Green Berets, Delta Force and Navy SEALS–are rightly feared by international terrorists.
  • American Intelligence has have come a long way since 9/11. The FBI’s top priority is to prevent another such terrorist attack, not simply investigate it afterward.
  • And waging war on criminals generally are about 836,787 full-time sworn local/state/Federal law enforcement officers.
  • If a criminal flees or conducts business across state lines, powerful Federal law enforcement agencies–such as the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration–can put him out of business.

But apparently the NRA hasn’t gotten the word.

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SAFETY LOSES, TERRARABISM WINS: PART THREE (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 30, 2014 at 12:00 am

Since 1993, New York City–as the financial capital of the nation–has been Target Number Two for Islamic extremists.

Only Washington, D.C.–the nation’s political capital–outranks it as the city Islamic terrorists most want to destroy.

But for large numbers of New York’s Islamic community, this is unimportant.  What is important, to them, is their being viewed with distrust by the NYPD.

“The Demographics Unit created psychological warfare in our community,” said Linda Sarsour, of the Arab American Association of New York.

‘Those documents, they showed where we live. That’s the cafe where I eat. That’s where I pray. That’s where I buy my groceries.

“They were able to see [our] entire lives on those maps. And it completely messed with the psyche of the community.”

But that’s entirely the point of having an effective Intelligence unit: To disrupt “the psyche” of those who plan acts of violence against a community.

In 1964, the FBI launched such a counterintelligence program–in Bureau-speak, a COINTELPRO–against the Ku Klux Klan.

Up to that point, Klansmen had shot, lynched and bombed their way across the Deep South, especially in Alabama and Mississippi.  Many Southern sheriffs and police chiefs were Klan sympathizers, if not outright members and accomplices.

Related image

Ku Klux Klansmen in a meeting

The FBI’s covert action program aimed to “expose, disrupt and otherwise neutralize” Ku Klux Klan groups through a wide range of legal and extra-legal methods.

FBI Special Agents:

  • Planted electronic surveillance devices in Klan meeting places.
  • Carried out “black bag jobs”–burglaries–to steal Klan membership lists.
  • Contacted the news media to publicize arrests and identify Klan leaders.
  • Informed the employers of known Klansmen of their employees’ criminal activity, resulting in the firing of untold numbers of them.
  • Developed informants within Klans and sewed a climate of distrust and fear among Klansmen.
  • Beat and harassed Klansmen who threatened and harassed them.

“They were dirty, rough fellows,” recalled William C. Sullivan, who headed the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division in the 1960s.  “And we went after them with rough, tough methods.

William C. Sullivan

“When the Klan reached 14,000 in the mid-sixties, I asked to take over the investigation of the Klan.  When I left the Bureau in 1971, the Klan was down to a completely disorganized 4,300.  It was broken.”

Click here: The Bureau My Thirty Years in Hoover’s FBI: William C Sullivan, Sam Sloan, Bill Brown: 9784871873383: Amazon.com:

And for more than a decade, the Demographics Unit of the NYPD’s Counterterrorism Division worked diligently to prevent another major terrorist attack on New York City.

Agent at NYPD Counterterrorism Division Center

Then, in 2013, New York City voters elected Democrat Bill de Blazio as Michael Bloomberg’s successor as mayor.

For de Blasio, scoring Politically Correct points with New York’s uber-liberal community was more important than supporting a proven deterrent to terrorism.

Click here: New York Drops Unit That Spied on Muslims – NYTimes.com

De Blazio promised to give new Yorkers “a police force that keeps our city safe, but that is also respectful and fair.

“This reform [disbanding the Demographics Unit] is a critical step forward in easing tensions between the police and the communities they serve, so that our cops and our citizens can help one another go after the real bad guys,” he claimed.

In Washington, 34 members of Congress demanded an FBI investigation into the NYPD’s covert surveillance program.

Attorney General Eric Holder said he found reports about the operations disturbing.  The Department of Justice said it was reviewing complaints received from Muslims and their supporters.

All of this contradicted the warning provided by a Federal judge on February 20, 2014.

U.S. District Judge William Martini in Newark, N.J., threw out a suit brought against the NYPD by eight New Jersey Muslims.

They claimed that the NYPD’s surveillance of mosques, restaurants and schools in the state since 2002 was unconstitutional because Muslims were being targeted solely on the basis of their religion.

In his ruling, however, Martini disagreed:

“The police could not have monitored New Jersey for Muslim terrorist activities without monitoring the Muslim community itself.

“The motive for the program was not solely to discriminate against Muslims, but rather to find Muslim terrorists hiding among ordinary, law-abiding Muslims.”

Both NYPD Cmmissioner Raymond Kelly and Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence David Cohen chose to retire in 2013.

The Demographics Unit of the NYPD’s Counterterrorism Division was officially disbanded on April 15.  Detectives that had been assigned to it were transferred to other duties within the Intelligence Division.

Jawad Rasul, one of the students on the whitewater rafting trip in upstate New York, was enraged when he learned that his name was included in the police report.

“It forces me to look around wherever I am now,” Rasul said.

So now he knows how Americans feel when they spot Muslim women wearing chadors that hide their faces from view, or even burqas that cover their entire bodies (and any explosive devices they might be carrying).

Political Correctness mavens might laugh or sneer at such a warning.  But Al Qaeda has used exactly that tactic repeatedly–and successfully–against Afghan military forces.

Osama bin Laden was forced to spend his last years in a Pakistani house watching movies on TV. But that didn’t stop him from continuing to plot further acts of destruction against “infidel Crusaders.”

Among the plots he sought to unleash was the assassination of President Barack Obama.

It was simply America’s good fortune that the Navy SEALS got him first.

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SAFETY LOSES, TERRARABISM WINS: PART TWO (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 29, 2014 at 12:02 am

In creating the NYPD’s Counterterrorism Division, David Cohen had a secret weapon: The latent resources of the NYPD.  Many of its officers were foreign-born, making them ideal espionage operatives

His Afghan- or Pakistan-born linguists could easily monitor chat rooms in Kabul or Peshawar, looking for Islamics seeking to carry out attacks on New York City.

The FBI, on the other hand, fearing divided loyalties, usually rejected hiring foreign-born applicants: “Oooh, [you] grew up in Pakistan,” mocked Cohen. “We can’t use you.”

Cohen realized that some analysts made better report-writers than streetwise detectives.  And some detectives were better at unearthing criminal secrets than desk-bound analysts.

So Cohen decided to pair Ivy-league-educated analysts with veteran detectives.  Together, they could pool their talents and compensate for each other’s weaknesses.

Perhaps most importantly, Cohen’s unit was not judged by the number of arrests or convictions generated by its activities.

Its purpose was to disrupt terror cells and prevent terrorist acts, not to prosecute individuals after they had unleashed destruction.

Agents of NYPD’s Counterterrorism Unit

Meanwhile, the CIA, FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency watched with growing anger as the NYPD trespassed on their jealously guarded turf.

What right did a mere local police department–even one of 33,000 sworn officers–have to conduct overseas Intelligence operations?

Cohen, in turn, was not shy in answering: We relied on you Feds to protect us in 1993 and 2001–and look at what happened.

And events soon proved the need for such a stepped-up anti-terrorism effort.

Since September 11, 2001, there have been 16 known terrorist plots against New York City.  Among these:

  • In 2002, Iyman Faris, a U.S.-based al-Qaeda operative, planned to cut the Brooklyn Bridge’s support cables.  But due to NYPD anti-terrorism efforts, Faris called off the plot, telling al-Qaeda leaders that “the weather is too hot.”  He was arrested, pled guilty, and sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment.
  • In 2006, Dhiren Barot was sentenced to life in prison by a United Kingdom court for planning to attack  targets both in the UK and the United States.  These included the New York Stock Exchange and, Citigroup’s headquarters in Midtown Manhattan.
  • Shahawar Matin Siraj and James Elshafay plotted in 2004 to place bombs in the Herald Square subway station in Manhattan. Elshafay had already chosen potential targets before he met an NYPD informant in early 2004.  Both men were arrested, convicted and sentenced to prison.
  • In 2006, four men plotted to detonate the jet-fuel storage tanks and supply lines for John F. Kennedy Airport in order to cause wide-scale destruction and economic disruption.   All four were arrested and sentenced to prison–three of them for life.
  • In September 2009, the New York City subway system was targeted by three men who planned to set off bombs in the subway during rush hour shortly after the eighth anniversary of 9/11.  All three were arrested.  Two pled guilty and await sentencing; the third has been sentenced to life imprisonment.
  • Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistan-American residing in Connecticut, tried but failed to set explode a car bomb in Times Square on May 1, 2010.  Cooperation between NYPD and the FBI led to his identification and arrest 53 hours after the attempt, as he tried to flee the country. Shahzad pled guilty to all charges against him and was sentenced to life in prison.

All of these plots were foiled by the NYPD, the FBI, or by a combination of these agencies.

Then, after more than a decade’s successes in foiling a series of Islamic plots against New York City, disaster struck the NYPD’s Counterterrorism Division.

On February 18, 2012, the Associated Press (AP) broke the news that the NYPD had monitored Muslim college students far more broadly than previously known.

According to the AP:

  • The NYPD conducted surveillance at schools far removed from New York.
  • These included Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and the University of Pennsylvania.
  • Detectives daily tracked Muslim student websites and recorded the names of professors and students.

  • The NYPD, with CIA help, monitored Muslims where they ate, shopped and worshiped.
  • The NYPD placed undercover officers at Muslim student associations in colleges within New York City.
  • In one NYPD operation, an undercover officer accompanied 18 Muslim City College students on a whitewater rafting trip in upstate New York. He noted the names of those who were officers of the Muslim Student Association.

To put this act of journalistic treachery into historical context: Imagine the New York Times leaking the exact timetable for the D-Day invasion to agents of Nazi Germany.

New York’s Islamic community had long accused the NYPD of “profiling” its members.  Armed with the AP’s revelations, Islamics rushed to capitalize on them.

“I see a violation of civil rights here,” said Tanweer Haq, chaplain of the Muslim Student Association at Syracuse University, upon learning of the AP’s revelations.

“Nobody wants to be on the list of the FBI or the NYPD or whatever. Muslim students want to have their own lives, their own privacy and enjoy the same freedoms and opportunities that everybody else has.”

That’s true. But no other nationality has so often attacked Americans within the last 35 years–nor continues to pose so great a threat to this country.

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SAFETY LOSES, TERRARABISM WINS: PART ONE (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 28, 2014 at 12:01 am

There is a famous joke about racial profiling that’s long made the rounds of the Internet. It appears in the guise of a “history test,” and offers such multiple-choice questions as: I

n 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by:

  • Olga Corbett
  • Sitting Bull
  • Arnold Schwarzenegger
  • Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by:

  • Lost Norwegians
  • Elvis
  • A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
  • Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

During the 1980s a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:

  • John Dillinger
  • The King of Sweden
  • The Boy Scouts
  • Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:

  • A pizza delivery boy
  • Pee Wee Herman
  • Geraldo Rivera
  • Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1985, the cruise ship Achille Lauro was highjacked and a 70-year-old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by:

  • The Smurfs
  • Davy Jones
  • The Little Mermaid
  • Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:

  • Scooby Doo
  • The Tooth Fairy
  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  • Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

On September 11, 2001, four airliners were hijacked. Two were used as missiles to take out the World Trade Center; one crashed into the Pentagon; and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by:

  • Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
  • The Supreme Court of Florida
  • Mr. Bean
  • Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

Do you see a pattern here to justify profiling? To ensure that we Americans never offend anyone, particularly fanatics intent on killing us, airport security screeners should not profile certain people.

They must conduct random searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, Secret Service agents of the President’s security detail, 85-year-old Congressmen with metal hips, and Medal of Honor winner-winning and former Governor Joe Foss.

But they should leave Muslim males between the ages of 17 and 40 alone because profiling is not Politically Correct. When are we going to wake up to reality?

* * * * *

It’s well to remember the bitter truth behind this joke, especially in light of the April 15 headline on the National Public Radio website:

NYPD SHUTS DOWN

CONTROVERSIAL UNIT

THAT SPIED ON MUSLIMS

Click here: NYPD Shuts Down Controversial Unit That Spied On Muslims : The Two-Way : NPR

Yes, on April 15, the New York Police Department said it would disband a special unit charged with carrying out secret surveillance of Muslim groups.

Formed in 2003, the Demographics Unit had sent plainclothes detectives to secretly listen in on Islamic sermons in mosques, infiltrate Muslim neighborhoods and spy on individuals and groups.

The goal: To unearth terror cells before they could launch deadly attacks against New York City residents.

The unit had been established–as part of a worldwide Intelligence network operated by the NYPD–during the Mayorship of Republican/Independent Michael Bloomberg.

Commanding the NYPD was Raymond Kelly, a veteran of 47 years in the agency.  Kelly had served in 25 different commands and as Police Commissioner from 1992 to 1994.  Reappointed in 2002, he retired from the NYPD in 2013.

A lifelong New Yorker, Kelly had seen his city twice targeted by Islamic extremists in eight years.

The first attack had come in 1993, with the unsuccessful bombing attempt on the World Trade Center.  The second–and this time successful–attack on the Center had come eight years later, on September 11, 2001.

World Trade Center – September 11, 2001

With 2,977 New Yorkers obliterated in less than two hours, Kelly knew his city could no longer rely on the FBI and CIA to safeguard its residents.

He decided to borrow a page from the FBI’s own history.

Decades ago, the Bureau had created legal attaches–“Legats,” in Bureau-speak–in police departments around the world.  These contacts had provided the FBI with invaluable Intelligence on wanted fugitives and imminent acts of criminality.

Now the NYPD would arm itself with the same weapon.

Through these liaisons, the NYPD would tap into the Intelligence resources of police departments and espionage agencies throughout the world.

The NYPD greatly expanded the ranks of its Counterterrorism Division. More than 600 officers and operatives both stateside and worldwide now stood guard over New York City.

Click here: Amazon.com: Securing the City: Inside America’s Best Counterterror Force–The NYPD eBook: Christopher Dickey: Book 

Heading this division was David Cohen as Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence.  He had previously served as Deputy Director for Operations at the CIA, overseeing domestic missions in the 1980s and overseas assignments in the 1990s.

Given the full backing of Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly, Cohen soon had twice as many fluent Arabic speakers on his staff as the entire FBI.

His agents spoke some 50 languages and dialects, which matched the reported linguistic capabilities of the CIA.

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BE YOUR OWN AIR MARSHAL

In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 17, 2014 at 12:05 am

On June 5, 2013, the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) finally came face-to-face with reality.

It announced that it was abandoning its plan to let passengers carry small knives, baseball bats, golf clubs and other sports equipment onto planes, as it had originally intended.

But TSA didn’t drop this plan because it wanted to.  It did so only after fierce opposition from passengers, Congressional leaders and airline industry officials.

TSA Administrator John Pistole unveiled the proposal in March, 2013.

Said Pistole: Increased protective measures–such as hardened cockpit doors and armed off-duty pilots traveling on planes–made it impossible for terrorists to use small folding knives to highjack a plane.

He said that intercepting them takes time that would be better used searching for explosives and other more serious threats.

TSA screeners confiscate over 2,000 small folding knives a day from passengers.

The proposal would have permitted folding knives with blades that are 2.36 inches (6 centimeters) or less in length and are less than 1/2 inch (1 centimeter) wide.

The aim was to allow passengers to carry pen knives, corkscrews with small blades and other knives.

Passengers also would also have been allowed to bring onboard novelty-sized baseball bats less than 24 inches long, toy plastic bats, billiard cues, ski poles, hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks and two golf clubs.

The United States has gradually eased airline security measures that took effect after 9/11.

In 2005, TSA said it would let passengers carry on small scissors, knitting needles, tweezers, nail clippers and up to four books of matches.

The agency began focusing on keeping explosives off planes, because intelligence officials believed that was the greatest threat to commercial aviation.

With regard to the use of edged weapons as terrorist tools:

  • The terrorists who highjacked four jetliners and turned them into flying bombs on September 11, 2001, used only boxcutters to cut the throats of stewards and stewardesses; and
  • They then either forced their way into the cockpits and overpowered and murdered the pilots, or lured the pilots to leave the cabins and murdered them.

And for all the publicity given the TSA’s “Air Marshal” program, it’s been airline passengers who have repeatedly been the ones to subdue unruly fliers.

Consider the following incidents:

  • On August 11, 2000, Jonathan Burton, a passenger aboard a Southwest Airlines flight tried to break into the cockpit was killed by other passengers who restrained him.
  • On May 9, 2011, crew members and passengers wrestled a 28-year-old man to the cabin floor after he began pounding on the cockpit door of a plane approaching San Francisco.
  • On February 21, 2012, passengers aboard a Continental Airlines flight from Portland to Houston rushed to aid a flight attendant subdue a Middle Eastern man who began shouting, “Allah is great!”
  • On March 27, 2012, a JetBlue flight from new York to Las Vegas was forced to land in Texas after the pilot started shouting about bombs and al-Qaeda and had to be subdued by passengers.
  • On January 9, 2013, passengers on board an international flight from Reykjavik to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport subdued an unruly passenger by tying him to his seat with duct tape and zip ties after he began screaming and hitting other passengers.
  • On May 27, 2013, a passenger aboard an Alaska Airlines flight from Anchorage to Portland, Oregon, tried to open an airplane door in-flight and was subdued by passengers and crew members until the plane landed in Portland.

In every one of these incidents, it’s been passengers–not the vaunted Air Marshals–who have been the first and major line of defense against mentally unstable or terroristically inclined passengers.

In opposing TSA’s proposal to loosen security restrictions, skeptical lawmakers, airlines, labor unions and law enforcement groups argued that knives and other items could be used to injure or kill passengers and crew.

Such weapons would have increased the dangers posed by the above-cited passengers (and a pilot) who erupted in frightening behavior.

Prior to 9/11, commercial airline pilots and passengers were warned: If someone tries to highjack the plane, just stay calm and do what he says.

So many airplanes were directed by highjackers to land in Fidel Castro’s Cuba that these incidents became joke fodder for stand-up comedians.

And, up to 9/11, the advice to cooperate fully with highjackers and land the planes where they wanted worked.  No planes and no lives were lost.

But during 9/11, passengers and crew–with one exception–cooperated fully with the highjackers’ demands.

And all of them died horiffically when three of those jetliners were deliberately crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

World Trade Center under airplane attack

Only on United Flight 93 did the passengers and crew fight back. In doing so, they accomplished what security guards, soldiers, military pilots, the CIA and FBI could not.

They thwarted the terrorists, sacrificing their own lives and preventing the fourth plane from destroying the White House or the Capital Building.

Memorial to the passengers and crew of United Flight 93

Since every airline passenger must now become his or her own Air Marshal, it seems only appropriate that the criminals they face be rendered as harmless as possible.