Category Archives: Terrorism

UPDATED: Treason: When DHS Adopts Policies That Give Islam A Pass

Business, Constitution, Free Markets, Government, Homeland Security, Islam, Jihad, Terrorism, The State

To shut down an investigation into an Islamic sect suspected of infiltrating US mosques is not “political correctness run amok,” as Fox News neocon Marc Thiessen finesses it, but treason.

Consider: You hire a private firm to protect you, only to discover that, as part of the scheme to “protect” you, your guards undergo sensitivity training which would desensitize them to potential evildoers, thus giving the latter easier access to you and yours. Given that this strategy, if it can be so called, would undermine your life, and considering this company would be violating its contractual responsibilities by reneging on the obligation to defend you—you’d first fire the firm. If the negligence came at a cost; you’d sue. You’d put this “business” and its “business plan” out of business.

Government has no meaningful contract with its citizen (other than a dead-letter Constitution). Thus you can’t fire leadership at Homeland Security for intentionally adopting policies that have likely already imperiled citizens. But you can, at least, call a spade a spade. It’s good to frame matters with precision.

What was exposed by Philip Haney—a heroic, soft-spoken, demure, retired employee of the Department of Homeland Security—is treason by any other name.

Via The American Thinker:

Philip Haney, a former employee at the Department of Homeland Security, has revealed that his superiors shut down an investigation that might have raised a red flag and averted the recent Islamic terror attack in San Bernardino. On Thursday, Megyn Kelly interviewed Haney, with backstory provided by Trace Gallagher.

Per Gallagher, Haney was one of the founding members of DHS. He was later assigned to the Intelligence Review Unit, where he investigated individuals with potential links to terrorism. While in this position he began to observe trends, including links between global terror networks and radicalized Muslims who were coming to America.

A year into the investigation, the State Department and the DHS Civil Rights Division told Haney that tracking these groups and individuals was problematic because they were Islamic groups. Haney reports that internal memos forbade him from developing any cases based on this profile.

His investigation was shut down, and many of his records were deleted, including evidence about a suspicious group as well as specific individuals tied to the mosque in Riverside, California, that Farook attended.

Haney notified Congress and the DHS inspector general about the termination of his investigation into Islamic groups. Instead of reinstating the investigation, he asserts they retaliated, relieving him of his duties and revoking his security clearance. Fox News reached out to the DHS for comment. They claimed that there are “many holes” in Haney’s story but could not comment further due to privacy laws.

During the interview with Kelly, Haney went into some detail about connections among various terror groups. He also spoke about the thousands of individuals his unit was tracking who were traveling in and out of the United States on the visa waiver program. As the investigation continued, more and more pieces fell into place. Among them, and as noted, Haney identified individuals connected to Farook’s mosque who would have been flagged. Haney did not say that Farook, in particular, was one of those people, but he appeared confident that if his investigation had been allowed to go forward, it is likely that Farook would have been identified. Once identified and flagged, Farook would have been put on the no-fly list because of his association with that mosque, and/or the K-1 visa his wife received might have been denied because of Farook’s affiliation with a known terror organization via the mosque (or perhaps directly, as well).

In sum, Haney believes that if he had been allowed to continue his investigation, he may have uncovered enough information to have thwarted the recent terror attack in San Bernardino.

Haney appears to have had a distinguished career, stating he has a commendation letter for finding 300 terrorists.

UPDATE (1/2): From the just-cited TAT, second-hand report, it must be concluded that neither did Congress heed Mr. Haney’s pleas. Haney’s own words, in The Hill, are more powerful:

Administration nixed probe into Southern California jihadists

By Philip Haney

There are terrorists in our midst and they arrived here using legal means right under the noses of the federal law enforcement agencies whose mission is to stop them. That is not due to malfeasance or lack of effort on the part of these officers; it is due to the restrictions placed on them by the Obama administration.

I was a firsthand witness to how these policies deliberately prevented scrutiny of Islamist groups. The two San Bernardino jihadists, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, may have benefited from the administration’s closure of an investigation I initiated on numerous groups infiltrating radicalized individuals into this country.

While working for the Department of Homeland Security for 13 years, I identified individuals affiliated with large, but less well-known groups such as Tablighi Jamaat and the larger Deobandi movement freely transiting the United States. At the National Targeting Center, one of the premier organizations formed to “connect the dots,” I played a major role in an investigation into this trans-national Islamist network. We created records of individuals, mosques, Islamic Centers and schools across the United States that were involved in this radicalization effort. The Dar Al Uloom Al Islamiyah Mosque in San Bernardino was affiliated with this network and we had identified a member of it in our investigation. Farook frequented that mosque and was well-known to the congregation and mosque leadership.

Another focus of my investigation was the Pakistani women’s Islamist group al-Huda, which counted Farook’s wife, Tashfeen Malik, as a student. While the al-Huda International Welfare Foundation distanced themselves from the actions of their former pupil, Malik’s classmates told the Daily Mail she changed significantly while studying at al-Huda, gradually becoming “more serious and strict.” More ominously, the group’s presence in the U.S. and Canada is not without its other ties to ISIS and terrorism. In 2014, three recent former students at al-Huda’s affiliate school in Canada, aged 15 to 18, left their homes to join the Islamic State in Syria.

We had these two groups in our sights; if the investigation had continued and additional links been identified and dots connected, we might have given advance warning of the terrorist attack in San Bernardino. The combination of Farook’s involvement with the Dar Al Uloom Al Islamiyah Mosque and Malik’s attendance at al-Huda would have indicated, at minimum, an urgent need for comprehensive screening. It could also have led to denial of Malik’s K-1 visa or possibly gotten Farook placed on the No Fly list.

But after more than six months of research and tracking; over 1,200 law enforcement actions and more than 300 terrorists identified; and a commendation for our efforts; DHS shut down the investigation at the request of the Department of State and DHS’ own Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Division. They claimed that since the Islamist groups in question were not Specially Designated Terrorist Organizations (SDTOs) tracking individuals related to these groups was a violation of the travelers’ civil liberties. These were almost exclusively foreign nationals: When were they granted the civil rights and liberties of American citizens?

Worse still, the administration then went back and erased the dots we were diligently connecting. Even as DHS closed my investigation, I knew that data I was looking at could prove significant to future counterterror efforts and tried to prevent the information from being lost to law enforcement. In 2013, I met with the DHS Inspector General in coordination with several members of Congress to attempt to warn the American people’s elected representatives about the threat.

In retaliation, DHS and the Department of Justice subjected me to a series of investigations and adverse actions, including one by that same Inspector General. None of them showed any wrongdoing; they seemed aimed at stopping me from blowing the whistle on this problem. Earlier this year, I was finally able to honorably retire from government and I’m now taking my story to the American people as a warning.

My law enforcement colleagues and I must conduct our work while respecting the rights of those we monitor. But what I witnessed suggests the Obama administration is more concerned with the rights of non-citizens in known Islamist groups than with the safety and security of the American people.

That must change.

Haney is a recently retired DHS employee.

Tulsi Gabbard: Young, Unique, Reagan Democrat

Democrats, Military, Terrorism, War

JIM WEBB and Tulsi Gabbard are, I’m almost sure, the only decent Democrats in public life. By “decent” I mean individuals whose value system and loyalties are not inverted and perverse. Democratic Congresswoman Gabbard of Hawaii is a member of the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, also an Iraq War veteran. Gabbard is often interviewed at length on CNN, but, tellingly, never for the Faux News Channel, for she opposes the nutty No Fly Zones and the deposing of Bashar al-Assad. Nor is Gabbard prone to silly sentimentality.

Here she is talking to Wolf Blitzer who wisely frequently seeks Gabbard’s counsel:

I want to talk about what Evan just reported in a moment, but, first, U.S. Army Colonel Steve Warren, he is the spokesman for the anti-ISIS coalition’s operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq. He says there is still a long way to go, in his words, before we can declare Ramadi completely clear.

You served in Iraq. Realistically, what are we talking about in terms of the Iraqi military getting the job done and liberating Ramadi?

REP. TULSI GABBARD (D), HAWAII: Oh, there’s a few things that I think are happening there right now, as you have got the Iraqi counterterrorism forces, which are the Iraqi army’s most talented and most sophisticated fighters, and they’re saying that they have pulled in some of the Sunni tribes to be a part of this offensive effort, as well as using the United States Air Force for air cover as they conduct these attacks.

But I think one of the challenges they are having — and this is something, a tactic that we’re seeing in Iraq being used by ISIS, al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists groups, as well as in Syria, is planting these IEDs or threat mines that are making it difficult both for these — this offensive attack to continue at a high rate of speed, but also it makes it difficult for the civilians who, you know, may try to go back into this town after this battle is won. I think the key thing here, as we have seen in other battles

Previously in Iraq [it] is, what’s the plan next? What’s the governing plan? What’s the security plan for Ramadi? Who will be in charge of that? How will the people there be treated?

We have seen previously how in the Sunni territories, how critical it is that you have a plan for Sunni tribes to be a part of this or actually take the lead on this security and governing plan.

Otherwise, we will end up in a situation like we saw in Tikrit, where the people who lived there were persecuted, their homes were burned down by the Iraqi army and Shia militia who came through there. That’s going to be the key to being able to sustain this battle and this victory once it’s won.

BLITZER: Yes. And let’s see how long that takes and even if the Iraqis do retake Ramadi, if they can hold it for an extended period of time without ISIS coming right back in.

Congresswoman, stand by. We have much more to discuss. Let’s take a quick break. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: We’re back with Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Do you have any idea why this family was turned away at the airport? See that little girl’s drawing of Mickey Mouse. Pretty heartbreaking when you see that.

GABBARD: Yes, Wolf, I don’t have any further information on this and really am not in a position to second-guess the decisions that were made by our security folks on the ground.

I think this does raise a few issues though that we have got to take a look at, the first one being, as you know, I have called for a temporary visa waiver suspension in particular from these countries that have thousands and thousands of foreign fighters who have gone or traveled into Syria and are fighting alongside ISIS.

If that were in place, then people who want to travel to the United States from these countries would just apply for a visa, and if there were issues, they would have been raised long before they are in a situation where they are at the airport and about to board a plane, as this family was.

Secondly, I think we have got to be concerned about any potential blowback that may occur for our homeland security folks, those who are doing this job and saying, hey, if there is a red flag, will they be afraid to speak up and say something about it? Will they be afraid to do their job?

And that’s what we want to make sure that we prevent, because it’s something that we saw that happened in California in San Bernardino with the neighbors of those shooters who knew that there were some things going on, but didn’t speak up about it soon enough to prevent that attack.

Did The Tripoli Pirates Pirate The Authentic Islam, Mr. Kilmeade?

History, Islam, Neoconservatism, Political Correctness, Terrorism

Brian Kilmeade, a Fox News Channel personality—with all the non-cerebral baggage that phrase carries—has written a book, Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates: The Forgotten War That Changed American History. In it, to judge by a recent Factor interview he gave this last week, Kilmeade pretty much co-opts Jefferson as a neocon fighting 21st century America’s War On Terror.

Yes, Kilmeade gave an in-house interview recently to a Bill O’Reilly replacement. (Good luck finding transcripts or even a video clip in the age of the no-information, no-organization, big-picture, icon-oriented website.)

Kilmeade’s silliest utterance during that Factor interview was to say that the Muslim Tripoli Pirates had been practicing Islam in the way IT WAS NOT MEANT TO BE PRACTICED.

My question is this: Did the Tripoli Pirates pirate The Authentic Islam, Mr. Kilmeade? If so, when in the course of its bloody history and borders does The Authentic Islam kick in?

The Fiorina Anti-Terrorism Algorithm

Hillary Clinton, Homeland Security, Intelligence, Republicans, Technology, Terrorism

Barely A Blog’s grumpy resident rocket scientist, Myron Robert Pauli, PhD, complains about the foolishness of the false choices set up by politicians.

The Fiorina Anti-Terrorism Algorithm
By Myron Pauli

Given a choice between “doing something stupid” and “doing nothing,” our messianic politicians and their voters will opt for stupid like passing another ‘Patriot Act.’ Where is the more benign Gerald Ford when you need him?

So after the traditional TSA nudie-scan, grope, and mass spectrometer scan at Denver Airport, on my way to another aircraft survivability meeting, I settled in my hotel room to watch a rerun of CNN’s “Republican debate” on how to survive San Bernardino. The politicians were angry about the immigrants Tsarnaevs granted asylum in America (despite warnings by Big Bad Vlad Putin that they were Chechen terrorists) under the “Brother of Jeb!” Bush administration. They were angry about Major Malik Nidal Hasan who was publicly ranting Jihad for years – e-mails from him to Anwar al-Awlaki under both the Bush and Obama administrations were read by the FBI, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, Army, and Joint Terrorist Task Force did not even result in taking away his ID badge!

The shoe-bomber happened under Bush and the underwear bomber (who traveled from Nigeria to the US via Yemen and whose father warned the CIA he was a terrorist) was allowed to fly to the US under both the Bush and Obama administrations. Perhaps under Clinton or Cruz, we’ll get the necktie bomber. At least Gerald Ford would just have us wear a KAT (Kill All Terrorists) button to go with the WIN (Whip Inflation Now) button instead of eviscerating the Bill of Rights.

How to respond? “Moderates” like John Kasich want to punch Putin in the nose while Christie wants to shoot down Russian planes. World War III – oh goodie! “Moderate” Rubio attacks Cruz for being “soft on terrorism” by not wanting to monitor billions of e-mails and calls every year. Carly “high-tech” Fiorina, who got $100,000,000 for wrecking HP, calls for an “algorithm” from the “high-tech” community to spot terrorism!

So let’s “read” this “decrypted and translated” e-mail from “Abdul” to “Ishmael,” shall we?

My mother wants me to wear this hideous yellow sweater … I ate falafel, ful medames, and lamb shisk-kebab at Suleiman’s café last Wednesday … My cousin Fatima is marrying Yussef, who I know from 8th grade, in Hoboken on July 15th at 8 pm

As opposed to:

“My grandmother insists I wear this grotesque blue vest … I enjoyed beef shish-kebab, lentils, and tehina at Achmed’s bistro last Tuesday … My niece Jazmine is marrying Farouk, whom I went to school with in 6th grade, in Dearborn on June 11th at 4 pm”.

Do you honestly think that the people who can’t spot Hasan and Tsarnaevs and Underpantsabomber can understand how pre-arranged terrorist instructions can be translated by perfectly innocuous e-mails? Carly, you are a complete fraud!

Naturally, I trust President Hillary Clinton with reading my e-mails! She would NEVER NEVER NEVER turn this on her political enemies! (Sure!) Just as the government rounded up grave threats like Clement Vallandigham (Lincoln), Eugene Debs (Wilson), and Fred Korematsu (FDR), Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio can spot the terrorists with the Fiorina algorithm.

Perhaps Fiorina’s “algorithm” can connect Muslim sounding names with lethal things like “gunfire” or poisonous chemicals like arsenic. Aha, I can envisage the peer-reviewed journal article soon to be workable technology (NOT):

“Infrared Detection and Geolocation of Gunfire and Ordnance Events from Ground and Air Platforms” By the Turkish-born Mehmet Ertem and Myron Pauli. Further investigation may discover Iranian-born Manijeh Razeghi working with Myron Pauli on InAsSb photodetectors. Find the common name and we can spot the terrorist mastermind – me!

******
Barely a Blog (BAB) contributor Myron Pauli grew up in Sunnyside Queens, went off to college in Cleveland and then spent time in a mental institution in Cambridge MA (MIT) with Benjamin Netanyahu (did not know him), and others until he was released with the “hostages” and Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1981, having defended his dissertation in nuclear physics. Most of the time since, he has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He was NOT named after Ron Paul but is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli; unfortunately, only the “good looks” were handed down and not the brains. He writes assorted song lyrics and essays reflecting his cynicism and classical liberalism. Click on the “BAB’s A List” category to access the Pauli archive.