Terrorist Attacks on a Global Scale
By Steve Boggess (08/30/06)
Do they get it yet? You know, the anti-war blame America first crowd who love to do nothing more than to just sit in front of the television and, along with most Democrats and several Republicans, second guess the Bush doctrine on the Iraq war.
How many times have we heard senators like Hillary Clinton (D-NY) go on national television and disrespect the president by saying that his foreign policies on Iraq are a dismal failure? Or, how many times have we also heard the Republican senator from Arizona, John McCain also go into the publica arena and repeat this same ideology, when instead, as a Republican, he should be throwing his full weight beind this president? Now though, he, like anti-war advocate Cindy Sheehan, is being hailed as a hero because he is falling lockstep behind the Democrats' cause of bringing the troops home way too early.
In an article published on the Washington Times, on August 22 in London, England, the police charged eleven British Muslims in plot to destroy the United States bound jetliners with liquid explosives smuggled aboard in carry on luggage. Eight of those were charged with conspiracy to commit murder and the other three with terrorism related offenses. The police also disclosed the discovery of bomb making chemicals and equipment, suicide notes and "martyrdom videos" of the would be bombers. There are some of you out there who think that making all liquids illegal to now be carried onto any transatlantic flights between Britain and the United States as something stupid, remember, on April 19, 1995, shortly after nine am, Timothy McViegh parked a Ryder truck in front of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building. The ensuing explosion blew off the front side of the nine story building. That truck bomb was made out of fertilizer and fuel oil, ingredients anyone can get from almost any hardware store.
So, try to be nice to the airline people when they ask you to throw away your bottles of shampoo, water, or any other liquid you might be packing in your carry on.
British police commissioner Peter Clarke warned that the investigation into the would be bombings is "far from complete; the scale is immense" and that the probe will "span the globe." Isn't the commissioner echoing the same thing President Bush said about the war on terror? Its global. This war on terror, unlike the Democrats' favorite war, Vietnam, is not being just fought in the streets and deserts of Iraq, it is being fought on a much more global scale in that there are civilians who are coming into Iraq by the hundreds to strap a vest on, walk into the nearest crowded shopping place, push a button and blow not only themselves up, but also every innocent civilian around them.
If it were just the Iraqis doing this, the war would be winding down now as there are just so many Iraqis who live in Iraq. No, there are people from Jordan, Syria, Iran, Egypt and Lebanon, to name just a few, who come across the Iraq border to join the jihad against the United States and Britain.
Mr. Clarke also said that the danger is far from over and that Britain remains on "severe terrorist alert." After weeks of surveillance, British police struck August 10 at homes and offices in London, Birmingham and the Thames River Valley, arresting twenty four suspects in a plot that, had it succeeded, could have been deadlier than the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States. Up to ten airliners bound from Britain to Washington, New York and California were to have been blown up in the air, the London police said.
Police intelligence officers and the Crown Prosecution Service, which is a non-ministerial part of the Government of the United Kingdom, decided they had enough evidence to charge eight of the suspects with conspiracy to murder and with a new crime; preparing acts of terrorism. Those identified were Ahmed Abdullah Ali, who is twenty five years old; Tanvir Hussain, also twenty five; Umar Islam, who is also known as Brian Young, is twenty eight; Arafat Waheed Khan, who is twenty five; Assad Ali Sarwar, who is twenty six; Adam Khatib, who is nineteen; Ibrahim Savant, who is twenty five; and lastly Waheed Zaman, who is twenty two.
One would think that the young man, formerly known as Brian Young, who would take the name of Umar Islam, would not be such a violent young man. After all, isn't Islam supposed to be the religion of peace?
A ninth suspect who is identified as a seventeen year old juvenile was charged with "possession of articles useful to a person preparing an act of terrorism." His name was not released. One report said he possessed a book about improvised explosive devices, suicide notes and wills of co-conspirators, as well as an annotated map of Afghanistan.
The August 10 sweep that cracked the plot threw Britain's aviation industry into chaos, with draconian new security measures that forced hundreds of flight cancellations and hundreds of delays, turmoil that rolled across much of the rest of Europe and across the the Atlantic to the United States.
Commissioner Clarke also said, "First, there is evidence from surviellance carried out before August 10, which set the stage for raids." Mr. Clarke also heads the Metropolitan Police's anti-terrorist branch. Since those raids and the original twenty four arrests, we have found bomb making equipment and there are chemicals, including hydrogen peroxide, electrical components, documents and other items. We have also found a number of video recordings, also referred to as 'martydom videos." Mr. Clarke described those videos as "important, indeed highly significant."
The anti-terror chief also said that the police had conducted sixty nine raids on houses, apartments, offices and vehicles. They dug up open fields and confisticated more than four hundred computers, two hundred cell phones and eight thousand computer media devices such as memory sticks, compact discs, and digital video disks.
The purpose of all of this, British authorities said, was to promote an elaborate scheme to smuggle ingredients and suicide bombers in three waves of three or four planes at a time.
Susan Hemming, who is head of the Crown Prosecution Service's Counterterrorism Division, said, "We have been carefully examining and assessing the evidence against each individual with the assistance of anti-terrorist officers in order to come to charging decisions at the earliest practicable opportunity. The threat from terrorism is real. It is here, it is deadly, and it is enduring."
I would hope that the reality of terrorism kicks in to the thought process of every Republican and Democrat who now views November as a chance to gain seats, instead of how they are looking at it now; something that they hope will soon pass.
Sgt. Steve Boggess
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