Despite some $40 billion dollars spent by the American people on airline security since 2001, allegedly to thwart attacks on the Heimat, the botched attempt by Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas Day was foiled, not by a bloated counterterrorist bureaucracy, but by the passengers themselves.
Talk about validating that old Wobbly slogan: Direct action gets the goods!
And yet, the closer one looks at the available evidence surrounding the strange case of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the more sinister alleged “intelligence failures” become. As this story unfolds it is becoming abundantly clear that U.S. security officials had far more information on the would-be lap bomber than we've been told.
Michael Scheuer, Former CIA Bin Laden Unit Chief (1996-99)
Today on C-SPAN: Michael Scheuer, Former CIA Bin Laden Unit Chief (1996-99), discussed the latest on the alleged terrorist attack on Northwest flight 253, new security procedures, the recent killings of CIA employees in Afghanistan and the Obama administration's response to foreign terrorists.
Washington, DC
Phi Beta Iota: U.S. Foreign Policy is a complete mess, despite the best efforts of our professional diplomats (who are outnumbered by military musicians) for three reasons:
1. The excessive and totally inappropriate power of Israel and its US-citizen sayonim
2. The immoral and often outrageously ridiculous antics of CIA in support of dictators and regime changes–made worse by CIA's refusal to comply with the law in declassying old information to the point that we cannot write an accurate history of U.S. foreign relations
3. The idiocy of our partisan ideologies that give excessive attention to the Jewish voting bloc in the USA
Summary of key points from the Scheuer appearance:
+ Watchlist is not a silver bullet
+ We're at drawing board, have not progressed beyond 9/11
+ US labeling of Al Qaeda as hating our philosphy of liberty is false–they hate our policies and especially our support for tyrants including Yemen dictatorship, Saudi dictatorship
+ Our unquestioned support to Israel is part of the problem
+ Al Qaeda achieved 80% of its goals despite non-explosion–grid lock, fear, US incompetence
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Cindy Sheehan said Facebook deleted an invitation to the CIA Drone Protest in Langley, Virginia, scheduled for 1 pm to 4 pm Jan. 16, 2010. Sheehan said “the CIA is becoming overly involved in terrorizing populations.” Sheehan joins a powerhouse of women activists to lead the CIA Drone Protest, including Cynthia McKinney, Ann Wright, Kathy Kelly and Debra Sweet.
“We had an event with over 250 confirmed guests and it was deleted by Facebook,” Sheehan said. “We are going to the source of one of the big problems in the US Empire — the CIA — to protest its extra-judicial killings of people in Pakistan. We are against the use of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) and manned aerial vehicles, but we believe that it is very dangerous that the CIA is becoming overly involved in terrorizing populations,” Sheehan said.
