Tag Archives: National Security

News

How the British government funds radical Islam

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Story from National Review. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

The East London Mosque is one of the largest and most influential of Islamic institutions in Britain. It has a Muslim Centre, a meeting place which acts a bit like a college, offering lectures and sermons at which like-minded people may meet. One who gave lectures there was Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Islamist imam whose fingerprints have turned up in more than one place. He groomed Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood killer, and we now learn that the Detroit would-be bomber, Umar Abdulmutallab, while a student in London between 2005 and 2008 listened to a number of video-link lectures given by al-Awlaki at this mosque’s Muslim Centre. By then, al-Awlaki was communicating at long distance from Yemen where he had taken refuge, and become affiliated to al-Qaeda. And when Abdul Mutallab himself went to Yemen where he was trained and equipped as a suicide bomber, he had personal contact with al-Awlaki, evidently his mentor.

The authorities ought to have been able to pick this up. Far worse than their laxity, however, is the fact that in the past two years, according to the Sunday Telegraph, the Muslim Centre has received at least 60,000 pounds from a government initiative known as Preventing Violent Extremism. The intention is to fund moderates to oppose extremists, but the very opposite has happened. Violent extremism has been subsidized. In the last two years, al-Awlaki has addressed at least two gatherings at the Centre via video-link, including one last year called “The End of Time,” advertised with a poster showing the destruction of New York.

This is why you don’t elect secular leftists from the British Labour Party to run national security.

News

Are Democrats fixing national security or fixing the blame on others?

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Consider this story from the American Spectator. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

On December 26, two days after Nigerian Omar Abdulmutallab allegedly attempted to use underwear packed with plastic explosives to blow up the Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight he was on, and as it became clear internally that the Administration had suffered perhaps its most embarrassing failure in the area of national security, senior Obama White House aides, including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and new White House counsel Robert Bauer, ordered staff to begin researching similar breakdowns — if any — from the Bush Administration.

“The idea was that we’d show that the Bush Administration had had far worse missteps than we ever could,” says a staffer in the counsel’s office. “We were told that classified material involving anything related to al Qaeda operating in Yemen or Nigeria was fair game and that we’d declassify it if necessary.”

Unbelievable. Our lives are at stake and they’re pointing fingers.

News

Homeland security chair says Swedish grandmothers just as likely to be terrorists

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Story from The Hill. (H/T Weasel Zippers ECM)

Excerpt:

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said today he opposes any efforts to profile passengers in the wake of a failed plane bombing.

“You pat down every person who’s suspicious. I don’t think you have to target people,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), told MSNBC. “This Swedish grandmother could just as well be a part of a terrorist plot as anyone else. So I think we have to be very careful when we try to target people.”

Thompson also said the financial concerns could hold up efforts to get full-body scanners in airports.
“It’s a matter of money. You know, security is an issue, but as we struggle with this economy, there’s only so much money we can dedicate to this particular issue,” he said.

I put a lot of effort into my previous post on Democrats and National Security. Please take a look.