FBI: Suicide Bombers a Concern

While we aren't exactly shaking in our boots about it, we must remember that there are certain people who are, apparently, getting pretty desperate.

When people with the motive, means and opportunity start getting more and more desperate, it's time to pay attention to statements like this one.

By PAT MILTON

NEW YORK - Suicide bombers have not hit the United States since the 9/11 terrorist hijacking attacks, but they remain a constant concern because of their prevalence around the globe and determination to die for their causes, according to the FBI's chief of counterterrorism.

He does not believe America is overflowing with homegrown terrorists, but Joseph Billy said "a significant number" of attacks have been thwarted since airliners were crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania farm field on Sept. 11, 2001.

While declining to divulge the nature of the averted plots, Billy credited intelligence that led to either fortified security around potential targets or identification of suspected terrorists. Authorities recently stopped homegrown plots targeting the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey and a jet fuel pipeline at New York's Kennedy International Airport.

Billy, the FBI assistant director in charge of counterterrorism, made his comments during a rare wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, days before the failed car bombing in London and the airport bombing in Glasgow.

He has declined to comment on those British bombings because he did not want to interfere with the British investigations.

Billy stressed the need for diligence, saying people plotting against the U.S. from within are more familiar with potential targets than foreign terrorists and can move around more easily.
The FBI, other law enforcement and intelligence agencies continue to raise the nation's already "vigorous vigilance," hunting individuals who may want to use explosives to make a statement or further a cause, Billy said.

"Martyrdom and suicide bombers are a great challenge because of their commitment, their willingness to die for sheer belief," Billy said. "Any explosive device, particularly suicide bombs, creates a real challenge to learn about it and then interdict or disrupt it."

The FBI continuously scrutinizes intelligence on new devices and tactics tested by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, wary that they could surface in the U.S., according to Billy.
So far no IEDs _ improvised explosive devices _ used with deadly effect as roadside bombs in Iraq have appeared in this country, but officials are following the trends. Police in New York recently put emphasis on screening shipments of chlorine after learning it had become a favored component of homemade bombs in Iraq.

The National Joint Terrorism Task Force provides law enforcement across the country with a high level of awareness on locations or ingredients to monitor _ awareness that is passed along to the public.

"I think it is hard to go into a Home Depot or Lowes to purchase a truckload of fertilizer without someone calling police to report, `This person just bought 2,000 pounds of fertilizer and I don't think he is a farmer,'" Billy said.

Ammonium nitrate fertilizer has been used as an ingredient in bombs, including the one that destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

The public has responded in a big way in the war against terrorism, including a video store employee who told authorities about his suspicions that led to the uncovering of the Fort Dix plot.

"The enemy is very real," Billy said. "We operate every day as if we are the target. ... You can go from neutral to extreme to becoming someone who is committed to terrorism and blowing someone up in a short period of time. You can't leave any of it unchecked."

Al-Qaida remains a very real threat, and is still the backbone of the international terrorist movement, although mergers with other groups have made it less centralized, Billy said. Al-Qaida's leader, Osama bin Laden, remains No. 1 on the FBI terrorism list.

"It is very important to capture him and bring him to justice," Billy said. "It may take awhile but we remain optimistic."

Billy said his biggest concern is preventing terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

"There is no escalated chatter on it but they have made statements that if they had it they would not hesitate to use it," he said.

"They are committed to destroying our country, our way of life," he said. "But we are just as committed to keeping it safe and secure."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

Looming Disaster May Prove Overwhelming For U.S.

The sad part is, we knew 35 years ago that the industrial age had put us at serious risk of damaging the planet.

Now, about all we can hope for, is to land as softly as possible, because we are sure as hell gonna hit bottom and, still, half the country doesn't want to hear it.

Now, we get to add obesity to the list.

Wonder how much of that obesity is stress related.....


Bill Clinton warns of looming disasters

By JESSE HARLAN ALDERMAN,
Associated Press Writer
Fri May 4, 6:27 PM ET

Former President Bill Clinton said Friday that disasters such as worldwide famine and an obesity epidemic could destroy the U.S. health care system unless politicians begin to look ahead and cooperate.

Clinton, speaking at a forum sponsored by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, said governments fail to act even when disasters are anticipated because leaders are distracted by fulfilling campaign promises and scrambling to respond to immediate emergencies. Big-picture planning gets "crowded out," he said.

"This is coming," Clinton said. "And I know there is no great political constituency for it, but we can avert these disasters for not very much money if they can be put into the public debate and people understand clearly what's going to happen."

The Kennedy School is spending $1.5 million over two years to study why governments across the world have failed to act on threats such as heat waves and hurricanes, even when they know they are coming.

From looking back at Hurricane Katrina and forward to the absence of firm plans to cool the planet or stem malaria, some of the school's top researchers will study the roots of government inaction.

The studies will help Congress, presidential candidates and world leaders learn from past mistakes and prepare for future action, said Christopher Stone, a Kennedy School professor and head of the initiative.

The program was born in the botched response to Katrina — the hurricane that experts had warned for years would ravage New Orleans' inadequate levies and poorly sheltered coast.

From looking at the failures, the world can better prepare for future disasters, just as the architects of World War II righted the woeful preparation for World War I, Stone said.
"Each of these are threats that we know are going to happen. This is not like saying, 'What do we do if the president of China is kidnapped tomorrow,'" Stone said. "It's not even that there is really technical disagreement about these things. It's just a matter of figuring how we can get governments to act."

Clinton warned presidential candidates of both parties — a group that includes his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton — that it will be hard, and likely unpopular, to prepare for foreseeable disasters.

He said the next president should solve the "biggest, baddest problems"; take small action when the whole problem cannot be addressed; never appoint incompetent political allies to positions of disaster response; never let political ideology blur scientific evidence; and cooperate nationally and internationally.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

...And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

Bushites Make Nixon Look Like A Choir Boy!

Bernstein: Bush administration's disinformation, misinformation 'something I have never witnessed before on this scale'


Mike Sheehan


Sponsored by: The Agenda with Joe Solmonese


Veteran reporter Carl Bernstein says the lack of truth and candor from the Bush administration is unprecedented in his experience.


Comparing the Nixon administration's press relations to those of Bush, Bernstein says, "Nixon's relationship to the press was consistent with his relationship to many institutions and people. He saw himself as a victim. We now understand the psyche of Richard Nixon, that his was a self-destructive act and presidency.

"The Bush administration," Bernstein continues, "is a far different matter in which disinformation, misinformation and unwillingness to tell the truth -- a willingness to lie both in the Oval Office, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, in the office of the vice president, the vice president himself -- is something that I have never witnessed before on this scale."

Bernstein contrasted Nixon's covering up of illegal activities tied to his re-election campaign with the Bush White House's "unwillingness to be truthful, both contextually and in terms of basic facts that ought to be of great concern to people of all ideologies.


"This president has a record of dishonesty and obfuscation that is Nixonian in character in its willingness to manipulate the press, to manipulate the truth," he adds. "We have gone to war on the basis of misinformation, disinformation and knowing lies from top to bottom."

Bernstein blasts what he describes as "the willingness of the president and the vice president and the people around them to try to undermine people who have effectively opposed them by telling the truth." He cites attacks on Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), former Sen. Max Cleland (D-GA) and even Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).


"That's the real story, and that's the story that [the press] should have been writing," he says.
Bernstein, who gained fame with Bob Woodward for their breakthrough reporting on the Watergate scandal, was interviewed for a PBS Frontline series on the media.

In an earlier interview reported on at RAW STORY, the famed journalist said the Bush administration had done "far greater damage" than Nixon.

Excerpts from an Editor and Publisher article with portions of the PBS interview follow...


It's very difficult, as a reporter, to get across that when you say, "This is a presidency of great dishonesty," that this is not a matter of opinion.

This is demonstrable fact.

If you go back and look at the president's statements, you look at the statements of the vice president, you look at the statements of Condoleezza Rice, you go through the record, you look at what [counterterrorism expert] Richard Clarke has written, you look at what we know -- it's demonstrable.


It's fact.

Now, how do you quantify it?

That's a different question.


But to me, if there is a great failure by the so-called mainstream press in this presidency, it's the unwillingness to look at the lies and disinformation and misinformation and add them up and say clearly, "

Here's what they said; here's what the known facts were," because when that is done, you then see this isn't a partisan matter. This is a matter of the truth, particularly about this war. This is a presidency that is not willing to tell the truth very often if it is contrary to its interests.

It's not about ideology from whence I say this.....

It's about being a reporter and saying:

"That's what the story is. Let's see what they said; let's see what the facts are." ...


....and the truth shall set us free.

These Effing Fools Are Going To Kill Us All

Israel seeks all clear for Iran air strike

By Con Coughlin in Tel Aviv02/24/07 "The Telegraph"


Israel is negotiating with the United States for permission to fly over Iraq as part of a plan to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.To conduct surgical air strikes against Iran's nuclear programme, Israeli war planes would need to fly across Iraq. But to do so the Israeli military authorities in Tel Aviv need permission from the Pentagon.A senior Israeli defence official said negotiations were now underway between the two countries for the US-led coalition in Iraq to provide an "air corridor" in the event of the Israeli government deciding on unilateral military action to prevent Teheran developing nuclear weapons."We are planning for every eventuality, and sorting out issues such as these are crucially important," said the official, who asked not to be named."

The only way to do this is to fly through US-controlled air space. If we don't sort these issues out now we could have a situation where American and Israeli war planes start shooting at each other."As Iran continues to defy UN demands to stop producing material which could be used to build a nuclear bomb, Israel's military establishment is moving on to a war footing, with preparations now well under way for the Jewish state to launch air strikes against Teheran if diplomatic efforts fail to resolve the crisis.

The pace of military planning in Israel has accelerated markedly since the start of this year after Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, provided a stark intelligence assessment that Iran, given the current rate of progress being made on its uranium enrichment programme, could have enough fissile material for a nuclear warhead by 2009.

Last week Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, announced that he had persuaded Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad for the past six years and one of Israel's leading experts on Iran's nuclear programme, to defer his retirement until at least the end of next year.Mr Olmert has also given overall control of the military aspects of the Iran issue to Eliezer Shkedi, the head of the Israeli Air Force and a former F-16 fighter pilot.

The international community will increase the pressure on Iran when senior officials from the five permanent of the United Nations Security Council and Germany meet at an emergency summit to be held in London on Monday.Iran ignored a UN deadline of last Wednesday to halt uranium enrichment.

Officials will discuss arms controls and whether to cut back on the $25 billion-worth of export credits which are used by European companies to trade with Iran.A high-ranking British source said: "There is a debate within the six countries on sanctions and economic measures."British officials insist that this "incremental" approach of tightening the pressure on Iran is starting to turn opinion within Iran. One source said: "We are on the right track. There is time for diplomacy to take effect."

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007.


....and the truth shall set us free.