The Pentagon Shooting...And Healthcare...

By now you've heard the name John Patrick Bedell, the now-dead man accused of shooting two Pentagon Police Officers (who knew the Pentagon had it's own police force, and why?). who was himself killed in the ensuing gunfight.

Naturally, the Homeland Security morons were right there to assure us all that an attack at the Pentagon wasn't related to terrorism, that there was no terrorist plot, and that these were the actions of a lone psychotic.

These were the same words they used to describe the Fort Hood Shooter and the Pantybomber, you'll recall.

Only this time, Homeland Security just happened to get lucky (hey, it happens from time to time), and someone actually came along who managed to fit their pre-generated profile of the White Male Weekend-Warrior Terrorist. But, this post isn't about bashing Homeland Security any more than it needs to be. It's about the shooter.

It turns out that John Patrick Bedell was bi-polar. Mentally ill. It also turns out that his doctor and his parents were quite concerned for his safety, and worried about what he might do. They informed the authorities that their son was out there, somewhere, and possibly dangerous. He was known to have a drug problem (He was smoking pot. Yeah, that always works -- anti-depressants and marijuana. Just what you need to defeat depression; another depressant) on top of his disorder, and was known to law enforcement in his hometown.

Well, now we know what he was capable of doing. How many people have to say "this guy is fucked up..." before someone decides that the current regime of outpatient treatment just isn't enough for some people?

In hindsight, people are now taking his internet pronouncements seriously. They didn't when he was alive, because that would have meant recognizing a problem, and they might have been expected to do something about it. Let's face it; whatever he wrote on the Web was probably the same stuff he repeated, ad nauseum, to his family, doctor and whatever friends he had, it was probably all he ever talked about. No one took him seriously then, and they probably dismissed him as some harmless kook spouting conspiracy theories on everything from 9/11 to the manipulation of the stock market.

Apparently, Mr. Bedell had been under a regime of "treatment" for a very long time. I put that term in quotes for a reason; most psycho-therapeutic treatment nowadays consists of "take this pill..." and endless $400-45-minute-hours of "tell me what your mother was like..." in which the patient gets to ramble on about whatever is on their mind that day, and the therapist simply nods her head and asks often-irrelevant questions. This form of therapy takes it as axiomatic that the patient has his own answers, and that if you let them talk enough, they'll eventually stumble upon them.

For some people, usually the smart ones, this works. They eventually come to some understanding of what their problems are, and they figure out some strategy for straightening their lives out. Then there is the especially dense crowd, for whom all the talking does nothing, and they require direct instructions or advice from a therapist or psychiatrist...and then they don't get it (that violates the underlying premise of talk therapy, you see!), and wind up in therapy forever.

For other people, this routine simply never works. For people like John Patrick Bedell, the combination of feel-good-self-esteem-and-talk-based psychiatry and prescription drugs often doesn't begin to examine, or even identify, the underlying causes of their particular issues. They don't get much benefit from therapy, and the drugs usually just serve the purpose of taking the edge off just enough...something that keeps these folks from slitting their wrists or from driving a semi-trailer into an Arby's, or something. They are either unable to describe what they're feeling, or worse, they can easily recognize what's wrong with them, but they have no ambition whatsoever to change it. The worst of all are the people who consider their "issues" to be virtues: they are in possession of some great truth, or hold some greater distinction which causes the rest of the world to have a problem with them; not the other way around.

Bedell's internet ranting about a certain Colonel James Sabow -- considered a key player in many 9/11 Troofer conspiracy theories -- probably explains why he tried to shoot his way into the Pentagon; he was probably convinced that it was the only way to get at some version of truth. Maybe, he even sought fame and fortune in the attempt -- I don't know. But, I can promise you, that people who think this way don't just wake up one morning and decide to do the deed; it's usually all they can talk about for weeks, maybe months, before they actually do it. The obsession literally consumes their lives. Where was his doctor? Where was law enforcement after his parents reported him? This is a critical stage in the story, and in his treatment.

A doctor who knows that his bi-polar patient -- probably with some form of severe obsessive compulsive disorder on top of it -- is smoking marijuana while under the influence of anti-depressants, and who is probably telling anyone who will listen about his insane conspiracy theories and determination to get to the bottom of it all, if that doctor does not turn his patient into the police for his illegal activity, or better yet, have his patient committed for his own safety, he or she is derelict in his duty as a physician.

Who knows just how long this "physician" was "treating" Mr. Bedell. It perhaps it was too good a cash cow to endanger with something stupid....like helping his patient get better, or getting him off the street.

John Bedell went to the Pentagon to do one, or probably both, of the following:

a. find out the 'truth' about 9/11, and

b. failing that, becoming a martyr to the 'cause' (9/11 Troofer-ism), while simultaneously ending his own, internal conflict.

Then again, maybe there was no help for John Bedell if he had gone that far. The sad fact is that for many folks with mental illnesses there never is any, despite the highest caliber of care and professionalism from his physicians. So, what does a crackpot shooting up the Pentagon have to do with healthcare?

Having been treated for a mental illness or two in my lifetime, I'm far more likely to sympathize with John Bedell. I don't condone anything he's done; Shooting at police officers, or attempting "suicide by cop" is a stupid thing to do. It solves nothing, and is far more likely to inflict pain on innocents, needlessly. That's selfish. I also don't go for the "Rambo" mentality that believes you can shoot your way into a heavily-defended objective just because you saw Bruce Willis or Sly do it a few times; if you think this way, you're delusional and a danger to yourself and everyone else.

The question I'm asking is this: at what point -- after how many John Patrick Bedells and Joseph Andrew Stacks (the I.R.S. Kamikaze in Texas) -- do we begin to realize that there are legions of people out there who are suffering from largely-controllable mental disorders that are ticking time bombs? The care they get is often inadequate, spends too much time on pap sociology and political correctness, instead of on real medicine, and it isn't always geared towards doing much more than putting money in someone else's pocket.

Since everyones all up in the air about Health Care Reform, how about we start somewhere where a difference can be made almost immediately? Most people suffering from depression, bi-polar disorders, stress-and-trauma-related disorders can be treated effectively, and cheaply, and way before they reach a critical mass to play hide-and-seek-with-bullets with a bunch of cops. They also make up a large percentage of people who are typically treated for a range of associated physical problems; heart problems, overeating, alcoholism, drug abuse, child-and-spousal abuse, and those just start the list off. Fix those problems by changing the way the medical profession, and society, views the mentally ill, and you'd go a long way towards fixing many of the underlying issues of our "Health Care Crisis".

Many fewer people would be shot at, or have small airplanes launched at them if you did.

Just don't let Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid do it.

The reason we probably won't overhaul the mental health care business is because it isn't "sexy". It's not a cause du jour like AIDS, Childhood Obesity and Breast Cancer. You'll never see Scarlett Johansson or something wear a ribbon for Mental Health on a red carpet. But, it probably does just as much, if not more, damage to people and society than all three of those other maladies put together. Until someone decides that mental health issues warrant as much ink, publicity and attention than these other things, we'll see a steady stream of John Patrick Bedells on the evening news.

Shame on us.

Envoy To The Muslim World?

Chalk up another douchebag move by the Obama Administration: naming an "Envoy to The Muslim World". The only "Envoy" the United States should send to the "Muslim World" should have a nuclear warhead attached.

Why are we still trying to talk these people into liking us? What makes some dickhead politician believe that an enemy who states his primary goals as the destruction of your culture and the enslavement of your population will be won over by charm and polite dialogue? What makes the same politician think that getting someone with his own alleged ties to terrorist-supporting scum is some sort of coup?

Doesn't anyone in the White House read the papers (oh, right; they're too busy telling the papers what to print,and how to print it)? THERE'S A WAR ON. A War started by Muslims who don't play by the same set of rules that more civilized societies do. Do you expect that by simply naming an envoy that you somehow send some sort of secret signal to the more extreme elements of Islamic society that you're serious about defending yourself from their lunatics, or is it symbolically a White Flag?

I'm sure the Saudi and Pakistani governments (which are propped up and defended by American aid and military power) will applaud such a move, calling it a major step on the way to peace and understanding, but it does absolutely nothing to solve the problem; there are mentally-constipated douchebags squatting in mud huts, right this very second, trying to figure out clever and sneaky ways to kill as many Americans as possible. Do you think that because Obambi names an "Envoy" that the hearts and minds of such men will be won over? Do you think that naming an "Envoy" will cause the Saudis and Pakistanis to do the right thing and kill these slugs before they strike? Do you think that naming an "Envoy" will cause those (few) Muslims who don't want us all dead or enslaved do the right thing and turn their insane brethren into the authorities before they embark on terrorist attacks?

I've said it before, and I will reiterate: the only way there will be "Peace" is when those elements of what passes for Islamic Culture, the ones that incubate and succor the kind of stupidity that breeds suicide bombers and snipers is made to see the error of their ways. That can only be done by inflicting massive casualties and unspeakable suffering upon the populations that raise, indoctrinate, support and hide these scumbags.

When the Islamic World that gave birth to these degenerates is reduced to picking the undigested thistles out of camel dung for sustenance, drinking out of mud puddles, and otherwise too busy trying to avoid cholera and bubonic plague will they begin to see that, perhaps, antagonizing and attacking a country and a culture which can destroy their own and ensure that it never recovers for centuries, if ever, is a very bad idea. When the Majority of Muslims are made to suffer horribly for the sins of the Few, the Majority will do it's level-best to keep the Few from building explosive jock straps, blowing up public transport, shooting up shopping malls and hijacking airliners.

Stop with the crazy and impractical ideas about diplomacy being the way to Peace; it only lends credence to the idea that the "Muslim World" does, indeed, have legitimate goals that can be negotiated for. To these people, "diplomacy" only means an opportunity to change the terms of the argument and a "time out" in which to rearm and then renew hostilities.

P.S. whichever asshole-career-civil-servant-or-political-operative did such a wonderful job of vetting this guy for the job should be taken out and shot; if you simply MUST have an Envoy to the Followers of an Insane Pedophile (Peace be Upon Him), you could at least choose one who is not associated with convicted terrorists.

Update: Here's an example of just who you're sending an Envoy to. (Hat-tip to FiveFeetofFury).

Barrel Bombs?

The "militants" who are a constant threat to the security of Israel have been reduced to this:

Filling barrels with explosives and floating them off Israeli beaches, hoping the will float ashore to be detonated... by cell phone. Doesn't that mean someone has to watch the barrel? What kind of a job is that for any self-respecting child-murdering, terrorist scumbag? What is this world coming to?

Some see it as a desperation move; the old methods of explosive vests, blowing up public transport, sending the mentally-ill into crowded markets with bombs attached, indiscriminately launching unguided rockets into schoolyards and public parks, no longer work. The Israelis haven't packed up and left, the West still exists. All that's been accomplished is that the Israelis simply respond by maintaining an ever-tighter blockade of the Palestinian 'Authority' that makes it difficult for the sand-niggers to smuggle weapons and explosives into the country for use against Jews.

Others see it as a means of distraction and misinforming the Israelis and Western nations, making it look as if the Palestinians are reduced to such pitiful attempts to kill Jews and Christians, which will be taken as a sign that Hamas and Hezbollah are on their last legs. Straightway, certain self-destructive segments of Western society will leap headlong to their defense on "humanitarian grounds" and give it a shitoad of money. If the embargo and blockade are severe enough to deprive the terrorists of explosives, it must, certainly, be depriving them of milk and bread, too. This is the regular modus operandi of the Palestinian Authority; it takes desperate action against Israel, highlights the self-inflicted "suffering of the Palestinian People", and Europeans who hope Hamas finishes the job Hitler started, shower them with cash.

Let them starve, I say. That's fewer we'll have to waste bullets on later.

There's another school of thought that paints such laughable (I'm not laughing; it's an explosive barrel, you moron!) attempts as a sign that maybe The Terrorists aren't exactly the brightest people on the planet, and that perhaps the tone of those who espouse the War on Terror is a bit too shrill, designed mainly to frighten people into the voting booths, or that terrorism is used as an excuse to denude our citizens of their Civil Rights unjustly for sinister ends. After all, the people who invented the barrel bomb are the same folks who invented the shoe bomb, and the great technical leap forward in that design was the Underwear Bomb; we're not dealing with the smartest, most-insidious people here, you see?

The point, in case you've missed it, is not to refine the technical sophistication of either their bombs or their plans. Their aim is to destroy airliners full of innocent people. The idea that a bomb went from someone's shoe to someone's jockstrap may seem ridiculously simplistic in a 6th-grade-giggling sort of way, but the idea that someone is out to kill hundreds simultaneously with as little effort or expense as possible is still a frightening one. The continual march towards that ultimate goal is what is important, not the technical means.

We're not fighting people who are out to razzle-dazzle us with their expertise and skill; they just want us dead, and in that battle, any weapon they manage to cobble together, no matter how seemingly laughable, is still a deadly threat.

Don't You Know There's a War On?

Apparently, the Obama Administration does not.

Today, another bunch of Congresscritters will hold yet another hearing on the problem of terrorism. I'm wondering when they'll get around to demanding that Attorney General Holder answer the question he left hanging at the last round of Congressional Hearings: How many lawyers at the Justice Department once represented terrorists? And when will they be fired? Oh yeah, and how many more of these ultimately-pointless hearings will we have to endure? These Congresscritters yack and question, the witnesses dodge questions and provide a lot of hot air, and then nothing ever gets done. But I digress...

The purpose of this hearing, we're told, is to question the response and activities of the Obama Administration in the wake of the attempted Underwear Bomber attack on Christmas Day. Some Congressional republicans are worried that the Obamatards are so concerned with providing terrorists with rights and attorneys that they may be missing the bigger picture; terrorism isn't a law-enforcement problem. That attitude, the presumption that terrorists should be brought to public trial under civilian rules of evidence, is what brought us 9/11 in the first place!

It appears that this President and his National Security apparatus intend to continue to fight Terrorism with the Cops-and-Robbers approach which manages to throw ever-more layers of law-enforcement at the issue until they all begin to trip over each other's feet. Eventually, you get enough law-enforcers with different aims, jurisdictions, missions and concerns, and the whole thing gets FUBAR'ed in a mass of legal red tape which ensures that even if you get these terrorists before a judge, it has taken years and cost millions and some (if not much) of the evidence against them is subject to continual legal challenge. It's better to just ship these guys right off to Gitmo and let them have a good-old-fashioned military tribunal, like the sort Congress has already approved...twice.

But that might mean that Mr. Holder's buddies in the legal profession might not get federal funds for defending terrorists, and it would also mean that he'd (probably) have to fire half the lawyers in the Justice Department who once defended terrorists on the federal dime.

I still say a carefully-planned program that kills enough Muslims in the most gruesome and painful ways we can devise until they're either all dead or give up the hope that terrorism will achieve their goals is the way to go, but what the hell do I know? I'm just some dope with a website, not the Attorney General or President of the United States.

UPDATE: Some word on a new terror threat, this time by a lone gunman in New Jersey. The man was armed with a grenade launcher (where the fuck do you get one of those?), some high-powered weapons, a ton of ammo and a map of a military base. I just love the way CNN waited until the very last paragraph to include this gem:

"...Officers searched Woodson's hotel room and found another assault rifle, a grenade launcher, a police scanner, another bulletproof vest, a map of a U.S. military base, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a Middle Eastern-style headdress, the statement said.."

Middle Eastern-style? You be the judge.

Also, Newzweak is reporting that nine years after 9/11, the government has still done next to nothing to defend this country against terrorists armed with WMD's. Probably because 90% of the democrats that have been in office since 9/11 still believe that WMD's are some figment of Dick Cheney's fevered imagination, dreamed up to give Shrubby McBushHitler an excuse to invade the peaceful country of Iraq, so he could kill brown people. Considering they haven't done much to stop terrorists with bombs in their jock straps, and put another through Medical School and then onto the Army's payroll, I'm not surprised. The mid-terms cannot come soon enough.

The System Worked, Part VI...

Some dipshit tried to open the door of plane --at altitude -- requiring a flight to be diverted. The passengers managed to gather together and eventually subdue the idiot, but this is beginning to become a recurring scenario. There are far too many people in the air these days who seem to have a death wish or no self-control.

Besides terrorists, you now have to worry about drunks. People who have just had a bad day. People with no control over their temper or faculties. The really telling thing is, that usually, there's little or no warning that there's going to be trouble. You can profile a terrorist, and you can predict their behaviors and actions, to a certain extent, but how do you defend an aircraft against the passenger in coach who's pissed because he didn't get his complimentary half-can of Coke, and who decides to express his out-of-proportion anger by opening the cabin door at 35,000 feet?

At first, I thought this might be a terrorist attack or something along those lines, because the first report I read (The Washington Post) carefully took pains not to identify the attacker by name, nationality, race, religion or ethnicity. Knowing, to a certain extent how the media typically covers these things, I thought "must be a Muslim" right away, because experience tells that if he was a Heterosexual- Middle-Class-White-Christian-Male, the Post would have quickly published a photo, his name and address, talked to half his neighbors and employer,identified his wife and kids, and then implied some sort of ties to a bizarre White-Supremacist-Pat Robertson-Branch Davidian-Klan-inspired-Doomsday-Cult terror plot, all within 10 minutes.

Because only white, Bible-Thumpin' rednecks can be terrorists, you know...

But credit to the Post, they did no such thing. You know others would have.

Anyways, it turns out the guy apparently is white, and there's even a photo. You can see it here, along with another report on the incident.

But, this brings us back, once again, to the issue of security in airports and airliners. Once again, it is the passengers who have to risk life and limb to prevent a tragedy. I'm not saying that anyone is supposed to be psychic and somehow "know" when some lone lunatic is going to pull a stunt like this, but sheesh, I wonder if there wasn't some sort of warning sign when this guy was still on the ground that someone just didn't pick up on?

The airline industry is slowly being destroyed, one incident (terror-related or not) at at time.

In the meantime, The Post also begins to ask if the Obama Administration's obsession with civilian criminal trials for terrorists means they're missing the forest for the trees.

But, perhaps that's just the obvious result of having a Justice Department stocked with lawyers who used to defend terrorists for a living...?

The System Worked, Part V...

Unless, you're called before Congress to explain why it didn't.

You know, I'm so glad we have these idiots in control of the TSA, the FBI and CIA. I'm glad that we have things like the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (that doesn't get used), and crappy software designed by those who bid the lowest but had the best political connections. I'm so happy I could drop a log at the fact that after 9 years we're not only forgetting the lessons of 9/11, but we're ignoring the ones we've learned since, while pouring billions of increasingly-scarce taxpayer dollars into a federal sinkhole that doesn't do what it's designed to do: catch terrorists.

But then again, it's representative of what has been done in much of this so-called War on Terror.

The DHS and it's affiliates don't capture terrorists, and the soldiers we sent overseas don't capture them either. No one is actually fighting a war "over there". If they were, millions of Muslims (may of them potential terrorists) would be dead, and those that survived would be sufficiently cowed so as to never even think of taking up arms against the United States ever again. Instead, we're spending billions to rebuild Iraq (a country we largely destroyed in the first place), and billions more to nudge Afghanistan forward... into the Mud Age, probably so that IBM, Mary Kay and Dodge can sell them laptops, lipstick and overpriced pick-ups when the conflict is over. These are people who don't understand the basic concepts of personal hygiene, yet someone has decided they'll make a wonderful consumer class one day. A few Muslims terrorists get a drone-fired missile up the Nether regions, but many more roam the landscape freely planting IED's which kill and cripple our troops...who aren't allowed to fight back except under increasingly stringent and legalistic rules of engagement.

And when it's all said and done, what do we have to show for it?

Democracy in the Middle East? Don't be stupid. An end to terrorism? It only ends when terrorists and the people who support them are dead, and not enough people are dead yet to make terrorism an unattractive option. Right now, terrorism pays -- just ask Hamas. Myriad opportunities for Congress to engage in graft with taxpayer money in the name of 'defending' the American people?

BINGO!

Because if there wasn't graft or politics involved in the process of both war and airport security, a) the war would have been won, with the Middle Eastern nations bowing before America, falling all over themselves to pay us tribute, and keeping their violent retards under wraps, b) you'd be able to take a flight from Birmingham to Albuquerque without having to spend an extra four hours at the airport getting undressed, x-rayed, interrogated, herded like cattle, drinking your own breast milk, while having to pack even less luggage in see-through bags for your little adventure than Bear Grylls or Les Stroud does.

It wouldn't cost twice as much, be such a headache, and you'd even be able to get a meal and use the toilet on the flight. It might actually even be a reasonably-bearable experience without all the extra-normal bullshit demanded by a security system furnished at the expense in time, money and sanity of the law-abiding, but which gives those with ill intent with a distinct advantage: no one wishes to offend the would-be murderers amongst us. The System is full of built-in loopholes, and administrated by mouth-breathing government types with little-to-no motivation to actually succeed at anything, let alone their primary mission.

We could be dead, but they'll still have their jobs in the aftermath.

This kind of thing ought to scare the fertilizer out of you.

This Is Why Newsweek is Going Out of Business..

Because it employs dickheads like Fareed Zakaria, and pays him a buttload of money to write absolute shyte, like this:

Don't Panic - How our frenzied response to terrorism only feeds it.

Zakaria's argument runs something like this:

1) Muslim fanatics like to yank our chains; it's why they hide bombs in their underwear, behead folks on the internet, and take intercontinental flights in an attempt to commit murder-suicide over an American city. It's all a big joke to them; they get off on making people believe they're crazy. It gives them a hard-on.

2) Every time we react to one of these attempts in the typical fashion, i.e. we expect the government to do...something...usually some measure so totally asinine, intrusive and expensive -- and which avoids inconveniencing Muslims, the most-likely source of terrorism -- we look foolish. The Muzzies then get bigger boners and giggle ever-more girlishly.

3) As we advance to the extremely foolish stage, like when we search 90-year olds in wheelchairs, take bathroom privileges away from paying customers, make breast-feeding mothers drink their own milk, or put nose-picking, knuckle-dragging union slobs in charge of full-body scanners and chemical sniffers, Al Qaeda sits around in their their guano-filled caves laughing until they wet themselves. Then they stroke each other's massive erections. It's all great fun for them, you see.

Their only aim, according to Zakaria, is to throw the "American system into turmoil". This is their sole aim, he says.

Nah, these guys aren't out to kill us...no,no,no. They don't wish to destroy our civilization and the system of freedoms which we enjoy. Oh, hell no! They're just practical jokers... like a bunch of drunken frat boys, except that they sometimes go a little too far (you know, like when the blew up the USS Cole, or knocked down the World Trade Center). The solution, according to this fucking moron is to relax...don't sweat the psycho bombers so much. Pay no heed to that guy screaming his head off about jihad, enslaving the West, and beheading innocent contractors who came to his country simply to bring him indoor plumbing...they're just fucking with us. It's all a joke!

Sorry, but I can't put Osama Bin Laden on the same level as "Bluto" Blutarski. For one thing, Bluto had better table manners.

I will agree with Mr. Zakaria to this extent: he's absolutely correct in his assessment that the current system of responding to Islamofascist terrorism is not working, and is perhaps, counterproductive.

Which is why we should be killing these goat-fucking cocksuckers by the millions! Unleash the U.S. Military! Drop a few Big Ones, and let these practical jokers know it ain't fucking funny anymore! That'll wipe the smiles off their faces, for sure.

Then we can send Fareed Zakaria back to whatever sandy shithole it was that he crawled out of.

Problem solved.

The System Worked, Part IV...

This bunch at Homeland Security couldn't catch a cold, let alone a terrorist. And no wonder; they're looking for for the wrong people.

Now, I understand that Homeland Security is a huge, multi-departmental mega-behemoth, and that administrative errors are abound to occur in great quantities. You just hope that when they do, your personnel are smart enough to be able to improvise adequately. But this takes the cake.

It points out two glaring failures of the government when it comes to security; the first is the (often) lack of good information. This causes people to make guesses, and worse, these are often guesses which bear no relation to the information the government does have. In this case, having no good information on OBL, the government makes a guess at what he might look like. Being lazy and unaccustomed to actual work, the government employee who created those portraits then does what every 10 year old with a book report due does...and gets his picture off the Internet, probably with a Google search. This smells of "make-work" project, and the result shows.

The only thing that makes this half-way funny is that the dude who's picture finally gets lifted happens to be a dyed-in-the-wool communist. I'll bet he's working on the lucrative lawsuit as we speak -- to strike a blow against the bourgeois, fascist Amerikkka, of course, never for his personal enrichment. Thought never crossed his mind...

The second failure is the reliance upon technology. The government is depending upon the power of the Internet and media to alert people that we're looking for a terrorist who may now be disguised as a Spanish Communist. All well-and-fine; that approach often works in many a criminal case. But is there anyone on the ground actually looking for OBL? Naturally, no one will tell us if there is or isn't (for obvious reasons), but I would hazard to guess that there isn't a solitary soul tasked to scouring the Tribal Regions of Pakistan looking for OBL, because that would violate Pakistani sovereignty.

And if we're about anything in this Public-Relations-Campaign-With-Guns-Against-Terror, it's all about the legal niceties.

Nothing beats a standard-issue pair of Mark I Eyeballs, attached to a properly-calibrated M1 Braincase. You can have all the drones, full-body-scanners, and Google in the world, and it still doesn't stop anyone from boarding an aircraft with TNT Boxer shorts. The technology is merely a tool; the solution is people smart enough not to fight terrorists with Google searches and Photoshop, but with their faculties.

But then there's no opportunity for graft; government contracts can't be given out in return for campaign contributions, there's no federal unions to squeeze for money and votes. Congress would have no say and be made irrelevant to the process. No...it's much better to have the current system, which doesn't work and puts lives at risk, but which provides the opportunity for Congress to put it's grubby fingers into many pies and pinch a few plums for itself and it's friends, right?

Somebody had better be walking the unemployment line today if this is the kind of work billions of taxpayer dollars buys. If he were working in the private sector, he would be; because he belongs to a protected class (civil servant) that's umbillically attached to Congress by a thread of easily-stolen and mismanaged taxpayer funds, he's probably due for a promotion instead.

Get the government out of the "security" business and put it in the hands of private contractors who know what the fuck they're doing...

The Butt Bomb...

Brought to you by the Makers of PantyBomb and BriefBomb. You don't think these people are serious? You have to be deadly serious to carry a pound of TNT in your asshole (no, they didn't pack John Edwards with a pound of TNT -- I meant the rectal cavity, you ninny!), knowing it's going to go off.

What's even more surprising, is that this was published on the New Republic website. But then again, pulling things out their collective ass is old hat over at TNR. Inserting and removing all sorts of objects from the Hershey Highway is a popular sport over there, I'm told.

Be that as it may...

Seriously. Full-body x-ray scans didn't find it, and the universal convention that one dude doesn't look up another's jacksey without being a) gay, or b) a prison guard, apparently holds true in Saudi Arabia, too. Civil libertarians will have a field day the first time Homeland Security mentions the words "cavity search", but we're apparently headed that way, slowly, inexorably.

The words "Butt Bomb" evoke all sorts of concepts, some funny, some not so much, but if you extended the logic that began with suitcase bombs, morphed into shoe bombs, and then evolved into underwear bombs, we're headed for something that no one has yet mentioned: the demise of commercial air travel.

Eventually, the terrorists will have honed the craft of bombmaking to include Fingernail Bomber, Back Filling Bomber, False-Teeth bomber, Breast Implant Bomber, and the reaction of Homeland Security will be to demand ever-more intrusive searches and ever-more time-consuming procedures, that will make travel by air an absolute hell (as if it weren't already?). The September 11 attacks further weakened an-already overloaded, overworked, under-capitalized airline industry, technology is cutting into the business traveler market, the lack of service and amenities aboard the plane itself turns customers off. And now this: you'll have to have a pre-flight proctological exam before you board, Because TSA won't limit that sort of intrusive process to those who truly warrant it (Muslims, people who fit a particular profile) because no one wants to be accused of racism or sued for a violation of Civil Rights, you'll need to be at the airport 12-16 hours before your flight actually boards, and pay three times as much for your ticket.

That's the death knell of commercial air travel. Soon, any air travel at all will only be available to the very rich, the very stupid, or people who are able to take advantage of private means of flight...and then the terrorists will figure out how to interfere with that, too. Give them time, and they'll destroy travel by rail, road and horseback, if they see any advantage in it.

When you think of it that way, the words "Butt Bomb" aren't so funny, after all.

But then again, that's why the response to "Butt Bomb" has to be more than "let's get some more x-ray scanners", and has to be more focused on the who rather that the what.

Terrorist Whack-A-Mole...

You know that carnival game, Whack-A-Mole, where mechanical furry creatures poke their heads out of a few cutouts in a tabletop and you try to whack them with a plush mallet? Listening to all the talk about terrorism nowadays, I get the impression that our so-called leaders are playing that game right now...and they don't realize it.

First, Bill Clinton bombed some aspirin factories in Sudan, in an attempt to get Osama Bin Hidin'. All he accomplished was to chase Osama to Afghanistan, where Al'Qeada hit us again with the September 11th attacks. G.W.B sent troops to Afghanistan to get OBL, and chased him into Pakistan, and now Obambi is using drones to pop terrorist scum in Pakistan and chasing them to Yemen.

And now all the talk in terrorism is about Yemen being the new front in the Overseas-Contingency-Operations-on-Man-Caused-Disasters. But it shouldn't be; if you chase Al'Qeada into Yemen, it'll fight for a while, then melt away to reform someplace else with a weak government and enough head-cases to adopt Islam, like Somalia or Algeria or something. We'll spend forever chasing them from country to country, and we won't be getting any closer to the source of the problem.

The problem is Radical Islam. It's an ideology that has grafted the political to the religious. The problem began in Iran with Khomeini, it has spread across the world -- thanks to the Saudis and their link with Wahabbism -- and it is firmly established in Europe... and American Prisons.

The Undibomber and Richard Reid were not radicalized in Yemen; they were recruited in London. Most of the 9/11 bombers were not radicalized in the Middle East, but in the capitols of Europe. Jose Padilla was not converted in Mecca, he was converted in an American prison. They learned the ideology of jihad outside of their native lands, for the most part. This is what we're fighting; an idea, and when you are fighting ideas, you have to fight twice as hard so as to make that idea mighty unattractive to future generations.

Fuck Yemen. It's an insignificant shitstain on the world map. The only good things to come from Yemen are syphilis and flies. Hardly worth the time or energy to 'save', let alone conquer. "Defeating" Al'Qaeda in Yemen will not bring us one step closer to destroying Islamofacism, it will not bring 'stability' to the Middle East, and it won't shut down a 'recruiting ground' for Al'Qaeda; it'll just waste a lot of bullets.

Concentrate on where the real problem is; there are millions of disaffected, young Muslim men walking the streets of the U.S. and Europe. They become disaffected (and angry) because they are encouraged a not to assimilate, and b) because they don't assimilate they never feel a part of their host society....and begin to resent it. They begin to become easy targets for the Imams. In Europe, outright racism is often to blame -- the French don't mind Algerians when they're out of sight, paying the taxes that let a Frenchie retire at 40 with free medical insurance, driving taxis and cleaning sewers, but they don't want to rub elbows with them in the local cafe. In the U.S. the association of Islam with the Civil Rights movement (a battle that is already won, but is continually re-fought nonetheless by the Poverty Pimps, because they get rich in the process) continues to foster an "Us vs. Them" mentality that is attractive to those who believe they haven't gotten a fair shake from America.

They find Islam an attractive ideology because it appeals to their sense of deprivation. They believe it offers the answer to their feelings of isolation and persecution. That it very often fosters those feelings in order to recruit disciples in the first place is another argument altogether.

Fix those problems (either by encouraging assimilation, or a program of massive deportation)before you decide invading another worthless country is the answer. Don't just hunt-and-annoy terrorists -- fucking kill them and make sure the world sees what it means to screw with Uncle Sam. Don't negotiate with Iran -- fucking flatten it, and do it in Prime Time so the world sees that we're serious about the security of Israel and our Allies. Don't let the Saudi's off scott-free because we want to buy their oil -- make them clean up their own mess, and then let's drill for our own oil right here and put them out of business. Don't let the same conditions that allowed the rise of radical Islam in Europe to establish themselves here; we should be out in the streets protesting Islam, we should be making life very uncomfortable for Muslims, we should be encouraging a program of "Assimilation or Deportation", and telling the truth about what Islamofascism really stands for.

Islam has never solved any one's problems, it has merely made them worse. If the West is not determined to fight for it's very survival by the same tactics that it used to defeat the Nazis, then we will be doomed to a continuous future that resembles the present: there will be more Undibombers, or future-Colonbombers, or Minature Toy Chihuahua Bombers, we'll still be sending soldiers around the world to be shot at and maimed in gun battles with no tangible results, and we'll spend enormous amounts of treasure while we're at at it. Islamofascism will still stand, and it'll still be drawing people to it's banner.

Make the effort to destroy the ideology by showing that it is, ultimately, a hopeless path; it must be shown to be bankrupt -- morally, spiritually, materially, politically, militarily -- before people begin to loose faith in it. Once they've lost that faith, they will no longer support it. The only way to encourage that loss of faith is to do some very mean and disgusting things that send a message that cannot be misread -- this is what we are willing to do in our defense, and to bring about your your defeat. You dare not screw with us.

Stop playing games. Start whacking people. In very large numbers.

More: The BBC agrees. Also, Islam one step closer to classification as Mental Disorder.

(H/T JammieWearingFool)

This is Why You Should NEVER Give Crappy Gifts...

The Brits just shoved one up Obama's pooper.

Of course, the President's defenders will take a look at that 2008 date and claim that the Undi-bomber was still George Bush's fault.

Obama has gone out of his way to poison the once-special relationship between Great Britain and the United States, to the point of humiliating Gordon Brown on several occasions, and even bowing to Saudi Princes -- but not to Queen Elizabeth. It's almost as if he doesn't want the British around, and if it wasn't for the fact that Britain is carrying the majority of the "European" load in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think Obama would like very much to cut them loose.

Why is a mystery.

He's done the same, to a lesser extent to Sarkozy and Merkel. He does so at his own peril because it will lead to some unhappy consequences:

Europe (despite everyone's recent emphasis on Yemen), and especially Britain, is really Ground-Zero for terrorism these days. Not only should the President be paying more attention to the Trans-Atlantic alliances, he should be mending fences with Brown, Merkel and Sarkozy, even if it means holding his nose. It will be Europeans who will help us win the War on Terror, not a bunch of illiterate, unwashed camel-fuckers in San'a or Kandahar.

No Smoking Gun...

That's what John Brennan, Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler of Something Having to do With the CIA and Homeland Security had to say about the inability to identify and stop the Pantybomber.

According to Brennan, speaking on Fox News Sunday, the Homeland Security folks had "snippets"of information about the Briefbomber, but not enough to put together into a coherent picture that would have allowed security employees to prevent him from getting on that flight to Detroit. According to Brennan, "there was no smoking gun..."

Except that, well, that there was a clear picture...for those of us who aren't government employees. And usually, when you have a smoking gun -- it's already too late.

I guess for someone to be considered a danger to the security of an aircraft, he has to walk through the airport with a flashing neon sign stapled to his forehead that says "I'm a TERRORIST!".

Let's give Mr. Brennan the benefit of the doubt for a moment, and let's say that the Security Apparatus did, in fact, have all the information that it's been reported to have had. According to those reports, Abdulmutallab was denied a visa by the British government, information they pass on to the U.S. Government, he was known to have been in Yemen, a hotbed of international jihad ---and information they got from Abdulmuttalab's own father -- who also told the CIA officer at the American Embassy in Lagos, "Hey, I think my kid might a jihadi."

That information was in the system, and someone took enough notice of it to put Abdulmuttalab on some sort of watch list.

Did they not know about this in Nigeria or Amsterdam? Because the kid got on planes despite being on a watch list. He has a Muslim name. He's travelling internationally without a passport or visa. He's buying a one-way ticket...with $3000 in cash. He has no luggage. None of these actions raised any eyebrows in either Amsterdam or Nigeria, and in addition, conventional airport security screenings missed his bomb entirely. What are the problems there, and why are such things still happening nine years after 9/11?

And then, finally, we have an aircraft damaged by fire, several hundred passengers saved by one of their fellows, and Janet Napolitano proclaiming a false victory.

No, no smoking guns here at all.

You begin to see a pattern emerge when it comes to the problem of catching terrorists before they get on aircraft.

These guys all follow the same modus operandi (I'll say it: the same profile), and yet, no one seems able to stop them. They all engage in the same kinds of behavior which are supposed to be red flags, but which get ignored or overlooked. There is a distinct and identifiable procedure that can be observed which often identifies them; shrewd (or merely just conscious) security people will be able to recognize them in a heartbeat, and thus, we hope, stop a would-be Peni-bomber. The same people who brought you 9/11; the high-school dropout, the obsessive cell-phone-user, the compulsive texter, the brain dead, the lazy, the unobservant, are still on the job. If you need proof of this, a man shut down Newark International last night because he went through 'security' ...backwards....and then promptly disappeared.

The next pattern: they happen to be Muslim. They have Muslim names. They often look Middle Eastern (and yes, I know Jose Padilla and Richard Reid don't look Muslim, we'll get to that in a minute). And somehow, less attention is paid to them and more to the grandmother in the wheelchair. Why? Because no one wants to insult Muslims. Fuck 'em; we wouldn't have to go through all this bullshit if it wasn't for them. If they don't want to be hassled and insulted, tell them to turn in their crazy uncles, brothers and fathers before they kill again. They know who these people are. I'm not concerned about inconveniencing Muslims and making them feel bad about themselves. When they stand up against their own for my right not to get blown up in coach, I'll start giving a shit about their self-esteem. The point is to discourage the Would-Be Muslim Bomber from even attempting to get near the airport by letting him know "We're waiting for you..."

As for Reid and Padilla, they probably (I don't say definitely) would have been caught with the application of some common criminal profiling techniques. Trained police officers are often able to spot the criminals and troublemakers before they do anything, because experience has given them a keen eye for certain details, and allows them to interpret subtle behaviors the rest of us would miss. But here's the thing: if we were profiling Arabs and obvious Muslims, we'd discourage them from flying almost entirely --- and we'd have the resources to better catch the Reids and Padillas with good ol' fashioned police work instead of a multi-billion dollar government boondoggle who's response to a bomb is to restrict rest room use..

Okay, so getting back to Mr. Brennan's assertion that there was No Smoking Gun, given what we know now, it seems that:

a) Homeland Security would never have been on the lookout for Pantybomber in the first place. The information on hand did not point to an "imminent" threat -- just a possible one. TSA and Homeland Security don't work int he realm of the possible, only that which is actually happening, and even then, it's bureaucratic process probably prevents any meaningful action from taking place. I guess to Homeland Security a threat of jihad is simply that. Political Correctness prevents this bureaucracy from paying close attention to the people it probably should be paying attention to (i.e. Muslims and criminals), and even when it is on the ball, the 'system;' is inflexible and reactive, rather than dynamic and proactive.

b) The system which is supposed to share and disseminate this security information and intelligence absolutely creaks and is grossly inefficient. The great clue here is that even when the security regime is in full possession of an awful lot of dots, there is no one to connect them. And certainly not on a Holiday weekend. It's apparent that when the security apparatus is in possession of information that could save lives, that information often falls into a bureaucratic black hole which ensures it's rarely acted upon, or even reacted upon smartly, but which always figures large in the inevitable over-reaction in the aftermath of a (near-)tragedy.

c) Airport security is too-obviously focused on finding conventional weapons (knives, guns, and so forth) and not in catching terrorists. That is a focus that needs to be shifted if we're to actually start catching some of these guys before they do harm. We're about to spend billions on full-body scanners in major airports, and I wonder if the money wouldn't be better spent teaching the slugs at TSA how to spot and stop criminals. The focus is put almost entirely upon technology which, unfortunately, tends to take the responsibility away from a human being. Human beings who begin to realize they aren't responsible for anything soon rely too much on the technology, and failures proliferate. Put the human beings back in charge, train 'em up, and then hold them responsible.

It appears from the tale of the Underwear Bomber that, yeah, there was a smoking gun. Many of them. The line goes all the way back to the American Embassy in Lagos, it runs through the State Department, the CIA, Homeland Security and the TSA. None of these mega-agencies seem capable of putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with 4, not without bureaucratic lag, and certainly not in a timely fashion which might save someone's life, and certainly not with the would-be killer's father ratting him out.

Mr. Brennan should be ashamed of himself for having the gall to appear on television yesterday to defend the indefensible (see here). Nine years after the World Trade Center became a smoking crater, this country is still unprepared to defend itself against terrorists, and it's because of incompetence at the highest level, political correctness run amok, and a failure to apply common sense.

No Smoking Gun, indeed...

Update: More on your government's stupidity here and here.

And Still More: Terrorism is a Low Priority for Obamabi Administration, says GOP. Also, Brennan should have resisted the urge to open his big, pie hole and not spill the beans.

New and Improved More: Ralph Peters says the Terrorists are outsmarting us.

They Just Don't Get IT...

According to Barack Obama, Dick Cheney loves terrorists. This is the response of an Administration stung by Cheney's repeated attempts to get Obama more active, involved and truthful about the War on Terror. That Cheney criticizes the President and his Administration in the wake of another attempted bombing of an airliner somehow equates to Cheney giving aid and comfort to the enemy in Obama's eyes.

That's the same Obama that wants to close Gitmo, read terrorists their rights, give them the full panoply of rights afforded an American citizen, a government-provided lawyer, try them in civilian courts rather than by military tribunals, who holds out an "open hand" to Iran, and dithers for months over a "surge" in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban.

An idiot who can't get laid (the Pantybomber) decides the answer to his dilemma is to strap a bomb to his John Thomas and take 300 people with him, and when his plot is foiled, he's not a terrorist at all according to the Obama Administration, he's an "alleged" terrorist and an "isolated extremist". He is treated not as a war criminal, but as a criminal defendant, no different than your common car thief or shoplifter by the Obama National Security apparatus.

First off: the people on that plane saw him ignite his underwear, subdued him, and put the flames out. I'm not a lawyer, but if 50 people spot someone do something, then "alleged" is not the adjective I would apply to the wrong-doer, neither is the guy a "suspect" under those conditions. Fifty people can identify him as a) a bomber, and b) the asshole who tried to set it off.
Good luck to any defense attorney who can magically call the eyewitness testimony of 50 people into question. This guy isn't entitled to a trial by jury; he's entitled to a trial by waterboarding.

He's a goddamned terrorist, not a jaywalker.

Secondly: Dick Cheney is one of the guys who Obama says "tortured" the very guys he wants to give Miranda warnings to with waterboarding, rendition, sleep-deprivation, cold cells and loud noises (and Lord knows what else). Cheney has defended his support for such policies on a near-daily basis for nearly a decade. In fact, he's quite unashamed to admit that his only regret was that more of the same wasn't done, all to keep the country safer. He makes no bones about what was done, why it was done, and how it was done. The only thing he won't talk about is what the interrogators actually discovered and what was done with the information (except that one time about KSM, and the time he defended himself by daring Obama to release the files) .

Obama and his cohorts have attacked Cheney and former-President GW Bush for their actions in the War on Terrorism, vehemently, and in some of the most disgusting language you can think of, accusing them of being this-close to the Gestapo. Suddenly the men who Barack Hussein Obama claimed are the worst examples of human degeneracy, so totally out-of-touch with "our values", are now clasping terrorists to their bosom and babying them?

Get real. You can't have it both ways, Mr. President.

President Obama and his crowd of morons, like Napolitano, are going to get people killed. And no amount of spin is going to change or prevent that, and no attack on a prescient-Dick Cheney is going to save them from the legitimate criticism they deserve in the wake of this disaster.
I can only wonder how they'll blame Bush and Cheney when the body bags start filling up?

For a guy who is supposed to be so sharp, one wonders how Barack Hussein Obama misses the obvious. And then you remember that he's a politician and his whole world revolves around ignoring the obvious for that which is politically expedient.

Barack Obama doesn't get it because his politics don't account for a world full of evil men who want to kill Americans in large numbers. He compounds this error by surrounding himself with like-minded people who simply parrot whatever he wants to hear. Unfortunately, this self-constructed bubble won't get popped until there's a mushroom cloud over an American city. It usually takes something that difficult to miss to get a liberal's attention.

Dumbass.

Mark Steyn in National Review talks on this very subject.

This New York Post Editorial sums it up nicely.

According to Rassmussen, a majority of Americans now believes we are losing the War on Terror....for the first time ever... Nice going, Mr. President.

CIA Outpost Bombed, 7 Killed...

The bomber was apparently not searched...at all. This is in Afghanistan, no less. The CIA let a complete stranger walk into a 'secret base' and blow himself up. As JammieWearingFool points out in his post, though, at least one Administration official finally used the word terrorism. I guess that's some kind of progress.

But where have we heard of this sort of thing before? Starting to see a pattern develop vis-a-vis Muslim bombers and the Government's security mindset? If someone had searched Pantybomber, he would have been caught. If someone had searched this guy, he would have been caught.

Lesson: search Muslims, find bombs. But apparently our government hasn't figured this out yet. It probably needs another 18-month-long-and-horrednously-expensive "study" to confirm this.

Undi-bomber Flotsam and Jetsom...

Just some odds and ends:

Maureen Dowd reaches for a cigarette, her Obama Orgasm has ended.

Obama finds out what I could have told him: The 9/10 mentality is alive and well in the Fed'ral Bureaucracy. This quick-and-dirty evaluation probably cost millions of (borrowed) dollars, when they could have gotten that evaluation here for a fraction of the cost. And they want ot Unionize these people?

But They'll get Health Care Right. Government can always be trusted to get the really important things right, can't they?

The REAL War...And Why No One Will Fight it...

It's not being waged on the battlefields of Ashcanistan or I-wreck. It is being fought in the minds of the political elite, and both parties being slightly smarter than a slime mold (but better dressed!), they have arrived at this fight completely unarmed.

The central point in the War on Terror is the mindset of the people who will formulate and enact The Policy by which that war will be fought. In order to make the proper decisions that will become The Policy, and ultimately The Strategy, the people making them will have to recognize certain facts:

a. The Enemy is unrelenting.
b. The Enemy is part of an identifiable group.
c. The Enemy operates on a different wavelength and by different rules than we do.
d. The Enemy is not interested in making a deal, he's not interested in anything we can offer him.
e. The Enemy considers negotiation and conciliation as forms of weakness, unless it helps him to achieve his goal, then the good-feeling this engenders in his opponent is simply another weapon at his disposal.
f. The Enemy's Goal is World Domination, defined as the ultimate ascendancy of his religion and culture, culminating in the reduction to all those outside this scope to a position of semi-slavery with few, if any, legal or natural rights.
g. The Enemy is willing to do almost anything to achieve these goals, his philosophy having elevated those goals from mere political aims to the route towards personal salvation.
h. The Enemy has been in a state of Undeclared War with the United States since 1979.
i. The Enemy believes it's victory is pre-ordained and inevitable.
j. The Enemy is merciless and pitiless, and has no regard for the humanity of his opponents.

That is the reality of Militant Islam, and the Islamonazi political regime that comes with it. That is the kind of foe we're supposed to be fighting; implacable, pitiless, single-minded, undistracted by abstract thoughts of justice, fairness or decency. He is armed to the teeth, and has a billion potential soldiers at his command. He lives by a strict code of religious discipline, and routinely clears his ranks of shirkers and traitors by means of murder. He holds his host culture hostage with a climate of fear, religious orthodoxy and systematic violence, which he claims is his ancestral right either handed down from God, or magically bestowed upon his as a legacy of (pick one or more) racism, religious discrimination, colonialism, economic exploitation, etc, etc, etc.

The response and policies of both major political opponents, viewed against these realities, leave much to be desired, and in fact, seem woefully inadequate to meet the challenge of people willing to ran airliners into office buildings, tape high explosives to their groin, or indiscriminately launch unguided rockets into residential neighborhoods.

And the reason is because the political leadership of this country, Repub or Dem, is too frightened or stupid, to tell itself the Truth about The Enemy. Because they fail to see what's so obviously plain, their policies and pronouncements, their actions and rhetoric, are divorced from reality. In the meantime, American troops pay the price with their limbs and lives. Americans pay more for their energy, more in taxes, and make ever-more personal sacrifices in order to support the War/NotWar, and have to deal with a government who's response to terrorism is to prevent blankets from being handed out, keep nail clippers off aircraft, and restrict the use of rest rooms.

Liberals (and I'm using the term loosely, because they really aren't) see the problem of terrorism in terms of law enforcement and social welfare. They do not see The Enemy as some sort of robotic, inhuman force driven by a rabid ideology, it views him through the same lens it applies to all problems. All problems, in the liberal world, can be solved by talking and symbolism, because ultimately, all issues arise from a lack of tolerance and a dearth of 'resources' -- it would rather perform 'social outreach' (Obama's "Open hand/Clenched fist"), and get to the "root causes" of the problem (Obama's Apologies to Islam for Western Civilizations very existence and intolerance), then open a "dialogue" with them (Negotiate with Admini-doo-dad without pre-conditions), and then negotiate "terms" (Discuss the size of the bribe required for "peace"). Liberalism would rather talk, and then attach a symbolic value to that talk which is of no real value, presuming that if Obama (for example) met face-to-face with Ama-dada-doo-dad that somehow gives the Iranians a feeling that we respect them as equals, and that having been satisfied with the illusion of equality, they'll be ready to cave to our other demands, they being reasonable chaps and all that. It absolves them of the Guilt they feel when they recognize that other people are making sacrifices they don't have the courage or intelligence to make themselves.

It's an extension of the "There are no truly Bad Boys..." argument; if you talk to the Islamic Radicals, show them some respect, get down on their level, and perhaps provide them with Midnight Basketball, they won't turn into cold-blooded killers. It's like watching your middle-aged dad try to relate to your teenaged friends; he starts calling everyone "Dog", pretends an interest in rap music, tries to fit in and "be hip", high-fives everyone, and he doesn't realize how ridiculous he looks, or how embarrassing it is for you.

When that strategy fails, they always fall back on the police. Liberals, despite their protests to the contrary, actually love the power of the police...when it's used in ways they want it to be. The greatest danger to American Society in the last 20 years was not, as Libs would have you believe, John Ashcroft armed with the Patriot Act --it would have been Hillary Clinton similarly equipped.

So, when talk fails, law enforcement suddenly becomes the only answer. To everything; Can't control handguns because of the pesky Second Amendment? Law enforcement is the answer! Can't fix the social problems created by bastardy, drug abuse and rampant street crime that were a result of Liberal policies in the first place? Law enforcement is the answer! Even when law enforcement isn't the answer, it's the answer -- as when Obama went to Columbus (I think) to pose in front of 25 new police officers whose jobs were "saved" by the Stimulus Bill...But I digress.

Law Enforcement must now protect us after the magical powers of talk and symbolism have failed. However, law enforcement must do it's job handcuffed by conditions the Liberal insist upon; you can't profile (that's racist), you can't treat terrorists like terrorists and prosecute them as such (lawyers solve all problems), you can't make mention of a certain religion or ethnicity (because that might make them feel persecuted), you aren't allowed to kill the enemy on the battlefield until you can prove with (incontrovertible evidence) that he is about to kill you.

This is why Obama (and before him Clinton and Carter, to be fair) cannot come to grips with the problem of terrorism. It's why the Liberal Elite have railed against the War on Terror since it's inception (even while cynically voting for the money to prosecute the War, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, voting for the Patriot Act and all the rest -- they were all symbolic, and politically-necessary, votes). Libs would rather talk than fight, and then when talking fails, pass the buck. They ultimately end up punishing the innocent while putting up yet one obstacle to bringing the guilty to heel.

On the other side, Republicans are laboring under the mistaken impression that "everyone is basically the same, underneath it all" which is kinda strange, since it's Liberals who insist on the truthfulness of that statement -- while they accuse Republicans of being racists, elitists and exclusionary.

In this case, they don't actually believe everyone is "the same" in terms of people having equal talents, capacities, needs, etc. Instead, they believe that all people have a fundamental yearning that makes them "the same", and that yearning is for "Freedom"(always defined in strictly-American terms) and that all one must to do is to "give people Freedom" and there is some human instinct that automatically 'knows' what that means -- and then it automatically follows that people unversed in the 4,000 year-old philosophies of democracy, free-market economics and political/religious pluralism will quickly accept them, and adapt their culture to accommodate them.

That this "bringing Freedom to those who yearn for it" must be accomplished at gunpoint, under the conditions and mentality of War, doesn't seem to occur to those who believe that "Inside every Afghan/Iraqi/Iranian/Radical Muslim is an American just dying to get out..." is telling. It means that they don't fundamentally understand the historical, philosophical and social conditions and processes which have resulted in their own "Freedom", and almost reduces the whole concept to the process to that by which you install software on your PC -- you simply put the disk in and the host system (in this case, culture) simply "knows" what to do with it once it's introduced. It allows them to frame the whole War on Terror as some Noble Crusade that is, ultimately, for everyone's benefit. It makes them feel better about risking (other people's) lives and cash.

Both, in their own ways, see Man as some sort of reasonable creature who knows where his bread is buttered, and which actually believes in concepts such as equality and peace.

It's why one side will insist on open-ended commitments of American blood and treasure trying to redeem the seemingly irredeemable, and the other will seek to delay the inevitable bloodshed by the process of holistic politics. Because the alternatives, being wrong (for Conservatives) and all-out War (for Liberals) are unthinkable to either, and so are the consequences.

If anyone in power today actually knew anything about history (something which is hardly studied honestly anymore) they would recognize that the Radical Islamists are no better, and in some cases infinitely worse, than the Nazis, the Soviet Communists or the Japanese Militarists.
Defeating those enemies required realism, it required great violence, and the expenditure of much blood, iron and treasure with the goal of laying them utterly low. This Islamic Enemy will only be defeated by the same means. They cannot be "reformed" until they have been defeated in unmistakable terms, which means the destruction of their culture by overwhelming force and great suffering, wherein it will become apparent to The Enemy that whatever he hopes to achieve is impossible, and that whatever he believes is a false system that cannot achieve his goals.

Nazi Germany had to be bombed flat and defeated militarily on two continents before Germans finally lost faith in National Socialism and surrendered. Japan had to be starved, terrorized and threatened with nuclear holocaust before the Japanese began to see that they weren't a divine people imbued with a natural right to conquest and Empire. Soviet Communism had to be bankrupted before it was seen as being unable to provide the standard of living that it promised to it's people, and which Capitalism did. The same needs to be done to Islamonazis.

They need to be reduced to the level of drinking out of mud puddles and picking the undigested thistles from camel dung before they begin to realize that, perhaps, all this stuff they're busily committing suicide for is not exactly the best way of life. It is only through abject misery that people begin to question their fundamental beliefs. One side won't inflict that misery, and the other will only inflict it up to a certain point, beyond that, neither is willing to go.

And that's why any War on Terror, any regime of Airport Security, no number of Patriot Acts and Guantanamo Bays, no negotiations, bribes or concessions, will ever solve the problem of Islamic Terrorism. Doing so requires great violence of the "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" type that both find barbaric. In the meantime, one will fight a public-relations campaign with guns to no definite end, and the other will be talking it's ass off and offering your virgin daughters up to the barbarians in order to avoid violence, and achieving even less.

Discuss.

Day-Late, Meet Dollar-Short...

Continued fallout from the Undi-bomber: Barack Obama emerges from seclusion to, finally, admit what everyone with the same sense God gave a retarded Irish Setter already knew.

The System Failed -- despite Janet Napolitano's insistence to the contrary, and it needs to be fixed.

The man who famously attacked George W. Bush as being too stubborn to admit mistakes, and too slow to do the right thing has, four days after a near-major disaster, decided to admit a mistake and, indeed, pledge that he will take corrective action. But only because he had to; Apparent inaction and a seemingly-lackadaisical attitude on terrorism made him look bad on TV.

Now, in this instance, I can't (completely) kick the crap out of Barack Obama for anything except poor leadership. He didn't create the Department of Homeland (In-)Security, and he doesn't personally maintain the Watch Lists, nor does he screen luggage and passengers. Be fair. His sin was to not interrupt his vacation to let the public know he was on the job with this thing, and that he was going to get to the bottom of it all, while the Keystone Kops (Gibbs and Napolitano) made the whole Administration look more stupid and rudderless than it usually is. He delivered a terse press-release-disguised-as-a-serious-Presidential-moment, and then left...only to have to correct himself, his people, and his position, all within three days, and then he had to try to spin this cluster-fuck as a victory for the good guys, somehow, with a straight face. All without making reference to terror, terrorism, terrorists, War on Terrorism, Islam, Radical Islam or them Al'Qeada people, because that would undermine his whole rationale for the non-War on non-Terror.

That's a really hard juggling act, and he couldn't do it -- and it showed. If Barack Obama deserves a swift kick for anything, it's for his stubborn refusal to face reality. In the meantime, we find out that TSA and another Border agency don't have people in charge. The TSA top job is open because the person nominated has not been voted on by the Senate. The Democrats claim that Sen. DeMint (R) is holding the nomination process up, all by himself, despite the fact there's 60 democratic senators who could vote for this guy in a heartbeat, because DeMint is concerned the guy would unionize all TSA employees. Must look to the safety of the unions before the safety of the citizenry, right?

In light of what we've just seen, that would be a singularly bad idea. We need efficiency, professionalism and dedication from the TSA... not more coffee breaks and shorter working hours. So, even after the security of an airliner has been compromised, the democrats are still playing politics with the security of other airliners, and blaming a republican for it. Go figure.

The truth is that passing a National Eyedrops and Band aids plan was considered such a priority that it has apparently brought all other business before the Senate to a screeching halt. Not that having a head at TSA would have stopped this particular douchebag, but it's kind of stupid that a year after Obama takes office, he can't fill cabinet posts with a democrat-controlled Congress because of Healthcare.

Now, the truth about Homeland Security.

I've said it before, and I must say it again; this is an amalgamation of several government agencies under one roof. If you thought the mayhem and stupidity of a single government organization could be bad, wait until you see what happens when you merge several into a Super Agency -- and make it a cabinet-level post.

The DHS was never designed to do the things we expect it to do. It's not designed to protect the homeland (what is this, Soviet Russia?), it's not designed to deliver disaster relief, it's not designed to screen luggage, it's not designed to share information. It is the creation of bureaucrats and politicians in panic mode, and as such, it's main purpose is to give people the impression that someone is doing something.

This is why FEMA failed during Katrina. It's why TSA failed to catch Undibomber. It's why the State Department and CIA each had a file on the dude that one else ever saw. DHS is very good at taking knitting needles, nail clippers, shampoo and cigarette lighters from people who offer grudging co-operation. It absolutely sucks at finding terrorists. It has, instead, decided that American servicemen returning from overseas are more of a threat than Islamic Fundamentalsts. Identifying and catching terrorists is like... hard... and like any good organization drawn up the Senate Men's Room and lavishly-funded, it does so badly -- when it even bothers to. Doing that might mean an application of common sense, which would lead to profiling, which pisses Je$$e Jackass off.

DHS's response in the aftermath of Pantybomber was classic Washington nonsense: first it claimed a victory that it had not earned ("The System Worked...an Alert and Courageous Citizenry..."), and then it overreacted after the metaphorical horse had defecated and bolted the barn (No Blankets, No Bathrooms, No Breathing for the last hour of a flight). That's how politicians and bureaucrats behave -- and DHS is the brainchild of politicians and bureaucrats, so no surprise there.

Which means that, ultimately, the safety of the American Public rests with...the American Public. As always. You have been ill-served by your government, and will continue to be, until there is a hue and cry and heads roll, starting with Janet Napolitano, and then with Obama -- if his nominee for TSA has been held up for 11 months, then nominate another. If 60 democrats in the Senate can't find the time to vote for him (basically just going through the motions), then you don't have the time to go to Hawaii. I guess Barack is finding out, the hard way, that this President thing is a 24/7 job.

Make sure you take out travel insurance every time you fly so long as the government is in charge of airline and airport security. I wish you luck.

You Voted for this, You Hopenchange Morons...

So, I hope y'all get killed first. This is what you have wrought:

Administration's non-response response to an attempted terrorist attack.

Dems cut Airport Security funds last summer. (The twelve people who will eventually receive Obamacare Eyedrops and Band-Aids, and the 300 government employees who will make sure they get them, are extremely grateful).

Jonah Goldberg pretty much sums it all up.

(H/T to PajamasMedia, HotAir and National Review Online)

Report: Pantybomber One F****d Up Dude...

Gee, do you think? I mean, I know so many normal people who tape bombs to their tallywhackers, smuggle them through airport security on two continents, and then inject them with some sort of liquid detonator just before landing. Don't you?

(P)MSNBC has already begun the "poor, mixed up kid" defense. Yeah, that'll work.

Then again, it might, since this Administration and it's law enforcement and security arms are simply unable to come to grips with the fact that terrorism exists, that the majority of terrorists are Muslims, and that the Muslim world has been at War with us since 1979. This 'kid' is just the latest in a long line of Islamic Terrorists sent out to kill Westerners.

But no, this is "an isolated extremist" according to the President, and the circumstances of how he got a bomb and then on a flight require a "thorough investigation", but "the system worked" when an "alert citizen" averted a "man-caused disaster". That's the line from the Obama Administration. Seventy-two hours after the incident (Sorry, Mr. President, but you're supposed to cut your vacation short and make at least one (good) speech during this sort of thing, The man who consumes airtime couldn't be bothered to show himself on TV... when it was actually necessary for him to do so).

Until it isn't, and they have to backtrack on even that mealy-mouthed response a day later. After they blame George Bush (again). But there it is: nothing to see here: " No, no, no, that wasn't a Muslim with a bomb, no, no, no that wasn't the failure of the security apparatus, no, no, no, the Department of Homeland Security didn't fail spectacularly. No, No, NO! We''re not at War with anyone..."

Standard (Liberal) Washington boilerplate. A lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

This was an act of war, but the libs refuse to see it that way. Now Pantybomber has lawyered up, and he doesn't have to say a damned thing to anyone. So we'll probably never know who sent him, how they got him here, who recruited him and who put him up to this. Hell, even the information the government does have, it didn't seem to put to any good use. This does not inspire confidence.

And another idiot will try a similar stunt in a few weeks or months, and maybe even succeed.

It's time to stop with the lofty rhetoric about open hands and clenched fists. It's time to stop hiding from the obvious with "man-caused disasters" and the holistic approach to fighting terrorism. It's time to forget about the niceties of the legal system when you're dealing with people who a) don't give a crap about your vaunted courts, and b) will only use them, if possible, to embarrass and denounce the country. It's time to start holding the federal bureaucracy responsible...for something. Homeland Security and the State Department knew about this guy, and did absolutely jack shit. The British had him on a watch list, and they apparently shared that information with us, but someone decided not to investigate even after his own father turned him in!

Of course not... We have bigger fish to fry like Healthcare and figuring out how to spend more money than actually exists. No time for fighting terrorism, so we'll just pretend it doesn't exist. Until it does, and then it's not really what it appears to be.

This is War. The Obama Administration doesn't think so, it acts as if it's never heard of terrorists and a War on Terrorism. It believes it can just talk unicorns and rainbow bunnies into existence and the world will be a better place. It won't, because of people like Pantybomber; this article gives you a small glimpse into who the Other Side is recruiting: lunatics who hold incessant, and inane, internal debates over what "the Prophet said". People who are unable to make simple day-to-day decisions without having to check them against the teachings of a child-molesting murderer are simply too far gone to care about legalism and morality. They don't share your vision for World Peace -- they want to rule the World and every aspect of daily life. The unicorns and rainbow bunnies need to die in order for that to happen. They only say so every goddamned day. Open those elephantine ears, Mr. President.

The article makes the kid look somewhat sympathetic, certainly (I think I know, to a certain extent, how he must have felt when he posted that stuff having suffered from depression myself), but then he loses all rights to sympathy when you stop to consider the solution that he chose: to strap an explosive to himself in an attempted suicide -- with the added "benefit" that several hundred "Infidels" would go with him. Those "infidels" didn't know him, they didn't care about his phony-baloney religion, and a sizable proportion of them might have actually helped that young man with his difficulties, had circumstances been different.

But when you reach the point of taping PETN to your pecker, you're no longer looking for help.
Sorry, but there ain't enough sympathy in the world after that.

Now, if Barack Obama thinks he can reason with people who are capable of making that formulation -- and they usually do so with great glee and confidence, to judge from the videos they typically leave behind -- with legal systems and empty rhetoric, then he's the one who really needs the psychiatrist.

And Mr. President? Get the hell back in your office.

Update: Let's see how the Administration spins this. They now have one man linked to two attacks, and if that doesn't blow the 'isolated extremist' meme out the window, then it's time to start seriously thinking about impeaching a President.