Adam's Apple
Senior Member
- Apr 25, 2004
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The Case for Surveillance
By Mortimer B. Zuckerman, U.S. News & World Report
8/26/07
How does any civilized nation cope with fanatical barbarism? What kind of people will plot to murder thousands--so crazed with hate they will kill their own families for the cause?
Even after 9/11 we have been slow to recognize the nature of the beast we face. It is hard for us to comprehend the mentality of, say, the group of 21 homegrown suicidal jihadists apprehended last year in Britain. We now know not only that they were prepared to blow up 10 civilian airliners flying from London to the United States--which might have killed as many as 3,500 innocent people--but also that they planned to avoid airport scrutiny by traveling with their wives and children and were thus prepared to execute their nearest and dearest.
As a free society, we are remarkably vulnerable. Our open borders permit second-generation terrorists from Europe to infiltrate under the legal visa waiver program. We admit many imams from Egypt and Pakistan trained in Saudi Arabia under the extremist perversion of Islam known as Wahhabism. The consequences of our tolerance are spelled out in a recent report by the New York City Police Counterterrorism Department. It focuses on how difficult it is to follow the "trajectory of radicalization"--the behavior and whereabouts of homegrown radical Islamists. That New York report has to be read with the most recent National Intelligence Estimate that the external threat from al Qaeda has not waned despite expanded worldwide counterterrorism efforts.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/.070826/3edit.htm (scroll down to the last article listed)
By Mortimer B. Zuckerman, U.S. News & World Report
8/26/07
How does any civilized nation cope with fanatical barbarism? What kind of people will plot to murder thousands--so crazed with hate they will kill their own families for the cause?
Even after 9/11 we have been slow to recognize the nature of the beast we face. It is hard for us to comprehend the mentality of, say, the group of 21 homegrown suicidal jihadists apprehended last year in Britain. We now know not only that they were prepared to blow up 10 civilian airliners flying from London to the United States--which might have killed as many as 3,500 innocent people--but also that they planned to avoid airport scrutiny by traveling with their wives and children and were thus prepared to execute their nearest and dearest.
As a free society, we are remarkably vulnerable. Our open borders permit second-generation terrorists from Europe to infiltrate under the legal visa waiver program. We admit many imams from Egypt and Pakistan trained in Saudi Arabia under the extremist perversion of Islam known as Wahhabism. The consequences of our tolerance are spelled out in a recent report by the New York City Police Counterterrorism Department. It focuses on how difficult it is to follow the "trajectory of radicalization"--the behavior and whereabouts of homegrown radical Islamists. That New York report has to be read with the most recent National Intelligence Estimate that the external threat from al Qaeda has not waned despite expanded worldwide counterterrorism efforts.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/.070826/3edit.htm (scroll down to the last article listed)
