I disagree. 

Think about it.  If you are a terrorist involved in a plot to blow up an airplane or hijack it for use as a weapon, you are not alone.  You have backers, many backers, who have dedicated their lives to reigning terror on America.  These terrorist cells are located world-wide and are funneling money in on a daily basis.  And with that sophisticated network comes funding and other resources that are virtually unlimited.

Right now, any passenger that is randomly selected to undergo a full body scan can “opt-out” and be passed off to a “police-style” pat down.  If the passenger does not want to undergo the pat down, they can choose to leave the airport, and perhaps pay a hefty fine.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out a way for terrorists to combat the TSA’s strategy.  It’s simple really.  Opt-out of the scanning and pat-down, leave unnoticed, and pass the plot off to the next terrorist until someone gets through.  The fine is a drop in the bucket with millions and possibly billions in the terrorist’s kitty.  This is a no-brainer.

Who does that deter?  Terrorist organizations with millions in the wind, or grandma with a fixed budget?

There is a bright side though.  The full body scanners are not completely useless.  They will still pick up juniors Boy Scout knife that Grandpa gave him for earning his Weblo badge that he “forgot” to tell dad he was taking. Maybe even the diabetic insulin needle that wasn’t put in the tray.  And, if we are lucky, Grandma’s plastic knitting tool tucked safely away in the side pocket of her dress. But plastic explosives and non-metallic weapons with the intent to do harm on the plane will simply walk right out the door unnoticed to be used on another day.

Bravo!  Here’s to government making good use of your tax dollars and loss of rights.

If this plan could guarantee the safety of our airways and show proof that it would save lives, I might just agree with TSA’s strategy.  However, the reality of the situation is that it doesn’t.

Do we need to continue to improve our airport security?  You betcha!  But a plan that costs millions, infringes on people’s rights, and has glaring holes that a child can see through is not the answer.

It does, however, lead to other questions that remind me of ”Pandora’s Box.”  What other forms of mass public gatherings will eventually have to endure full body scanning and/or public pat-downs?  Will the slippery slope stop at airports?  What about high rise buildings, football stadiums or Times Square?  While our government is focusing on airports with highly flawed plans that are wasting your tax-dollars, the terrorists are probably miles ahead of them focusing on areas our government is not focusing on.  That’s how 9/11 happened in the first place.  Right?

In other words, they might just be playing into the terrorists hands. 

Ask yourself this question.  Are you willing to bet your tax-dollars, privacy and other freedoms they aren’t?

_____________________________________________________

Other articles of interest:

Who is Barak Obama

Democrats are losing women

At least six GOP senators on the fence about the DREAM Act

Lawrence O’Donnell: Sarah Palin is ruining the English language

The proposed mosque near to ground zero is not really a religious institution. It would be — as many mosques throughout the nation are — a terrorist recruitment, indoctrination and training center. It is not the worship of Islam that is the problem. It is the efforts to advance Sharia Law with its requirement of Jihad and violence that is the nub of the issue.

There is a global effort to advance Sharia Law and make it the legal system of the world. Most major banks and financial institutions offer Sharia Compliant Funds which have their investments vetted by the most fundamentalist and reactionary of clerics to assure that they advance Sharia Law. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the founder of the proposed Mosque, helps to prepare a Sharia Index which rates countries on their degree of compliance with Sharia Law. In the United Kingdom, many courts have recognized Sharia as the governing law on matters between two Muslims.

Not only is Sharia Law a vicious anti-female code which orders death by stoning, promotes child marriage, decriminalizes abuse of women, and gives wives no rights in divorce, but it also explicitly recognizes the duty of all Muslims to wage Jihad against non-believers and promotes violence to achieve its goals. In this respect, violent Jihad is as inherent in Sharia Law as revolution is in Communist doctrine.

But there are non-Sharia mosques where peaceful and spiritual Muslims worship God in their own way without promoting violence. A soon-to-be published study…

Read More

WASHINGTON — In a case pitting free speech against national security, the Supreme Court on Monday upheld a federal law that makes it a crime to provide “material support” to foreign terrorist organizations, even if the help takes the form of training for peacefully resolving conflicts.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority in the 6-to-3 decision, said the law’s prohibition of providing some types of intangible assistance to groups the State Department says engage in terrorism did not violate the First Amendment.

The decision was the court’s first ruling on the free speech and associations rights of Americans in the context of terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks. The law has been an important tool for prosecutors: Since 2001, the government says, it has charged about 150 defendants for violating the material-support provision, obtaining about 75 convictions.

The court’s majority said deference to the other branches was called for, given the threat posed by terrorism.

“At bottom,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “plaintiffs simply disagree with the considered judgment of Congress and the executive that providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization — even seemingly benign support — bolsters the terrorist activities of that organization.”

Read more here

Photo AP/Haraz N. Ghanbari

Mark Steyn, America’s favorite undocumented worker here in America via Canada, had this awesome article published at The Orange County Register online, and after it was brought to my attention, I knew I needed to put it here for your perusal.  Steyn writes with not too little sarcasm and biting condescension, (this is why I love the guy), but makes his points strongly and without question.  Mark has subbed for Rush Limbaugh time and again on the radio, and is definitely not some Conservative doormat.

Please to enjoy.  It’s a long article, but well worth the time it will take to digest it all.  Eric Holder has no guts, no common-sense, and no integrity.  Mark Steyn shows us why.

——————————————-

What with the Fort Hood mass murderer, the Christmas Pantybomber and now the Times Square Bomber, you may have noticed a little uptick in attempted terrorist attacks on the U.S. mainland in the last few months.

Rep. Lamar Smith did, and, at the House Judiciary Committee, he was interested to see if the attorney general of the United States thought there might be any factor in common between these perplexingly diverse incidents.

“In the case of all three attempts in the last year, the terrorist attempts, one of which was successful, those individuals have had ties to radical Islam,” said Congressman Smith. “Do you feel that these individuals might have been incited to take the actions that they did because of radical Islam?”

“Because of … ?”

“Radical Islam,” repeated Smith.

“There are a variety of reasons why I think people have taken these actions,” replied Eric Holder noncommittally. “I think you have to look at each individual case.”

The congressman tried again. “Yes, but radical Islam could have been one of the reasons?”

“There are a variety of reasons why people … .”

“But was radical Islam one of them?”

“There are a variety of reasons why people do things,” the attorney general said again. “Some of them are potentially religious … .”

Stuff happens. Hard to say why.

“Okay,” said Smith. “But all I’m asking is if you think among those variety of reasons radical Islam might have been one of the reasons that the individuals took the steps that they did.”

“You see, you say ‘radical Islam,’” objected Holder. “I mean, I think those people who espouse a – a version of Islam that is not … .”

“Are you uncomfortable attributing any actions to radical Islam?” asked Smith. “It sounds like it.”

And so on, and so forth. At Fort Hood, Maj. Hasan jumped on a table and gunned down his comrades while screaming, “Allahu Akbar!”, which is Arabic for “Nothing to see here” and an early indicator of pre-Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The Times Square Bomber, we are assured by The Washington Post, CNN and Newsweek, was upset by foreclosure proceedings on his house. Mortgage-related issues. Nothing to do with months of training at a Taliban camp in Waziristan.

Listening to Attorney General Holder, one is tempted to modify Trotsky:

You may not be interested in Islam but Islam is interested in you. Islam smells weakness at the heart of the West. The post-World War II order is dying: The European Union’s decision to toss a trillion dollars to prop up a Greek economic model that guarantees terminal insolvency is merely the latest manifestation of the chronic combination of fiscal profligacy and demographic decline in the West at twilight. Islam is already the biggest supplier of new Europeans and new Canadians, and the fastest-growing demographic in the Western world.

Therefore, it thinks it not unreasonable to shape the character of those societies – not by blowing up buildings and airplanes, but by determining the nature of their relationship to Islam.

See the rest of this brilliant article here, gentle readers, and Long Live the American Republic, indeed.

h/t to Allison H. for this one!  You are an awesome America-loving patriot Allison!  I’m glad we’re friends!

NORFOLK, Va. – A jury has been selected in the court-martial of a Navy SEAL accused of punching a suspected terrorist in Iraq.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe pleaded not guilty Tuesday in military court at Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia. A jury of four Navy officers and three enlisted personnel was seated Tuesday morning.

The 24-year-old SEAL from Perrysburg, Ohio, is accused of assaulting Ahmed Hashim Abed, who is suspected of masterminding the gruesome 2004 killings of four American contractors in Fallujah. Two other SEALS who were accused of covering up the assault were acquitted in trials last month in Iraq.

The SEALs have received an outpouring of support from people on the Internet, as well as more than 20 members of Congress who signed a letter urging Defense Secretary Robert Gates to put a stop to the prosecution.

Our prayers, best wishes, and spirits are with you, Matthew McCabe!

UPDATE: 6 May 2010–

McCabe was acquitted!  Awesome!

As I stated before in a previous post, This is America.  We can be loving.  We can be forgiving.  We can be welcoming.  And on May 20th, we will be challenging.  We will be challenging the Muslim extremists who seek to hold our Nation hostage through their cowardly words of retribution towards Americans, should those Americans draw their prophet, Mohammed.  Fah.

You cannot threaten, coerce, intimidate, or force anything on us.  And you darn sure cannot force us to fear your god, or you, because you’ll blow us up or employ some other cowardly act to show your obedience to a false god.

In a direct response to this whole issue surrounding South Park, Comedy Central, and CC’s wussiness, a new movement has sprung up:

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, slated for 20 May 2010.

Here’s my take on it all: IF your prophet or god is so powerful and angry and looking to force all of the world to obey your twisted and bastardized version of Sharia Law, then bring it.  I, for one, am very unafraid.  Millions of us, as free Americans, as Christian Americans who worship the Judeo-Christian God of the Universe, are unafraid of you.  And millions of us, as agnostic and atheist Americans are unafraid of you.  Do you get what I’m saying here?  (ahem) We are UNAFRAID of you.

You are only as strong as your god.  So, bring it.  And, to any Islamic fascists who may be reading this, don’t you ever, EVER think you can intimidate us again.  911 was nothing but luck for you fanatics.  You won’t be so lucky next time, because we are now watching the whole of Islam to seek out and find the rotten little piglets that you are who hide behind the “religion of peace” banner, and have liberals who will defend and protect you from punishment when caught.

So on May 20th, many of us will be participating in the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day here in America.  God bless America.  (And I don’t mean “Allah”.  I mean THE God of the Universe, the One True God.  The Living God of Israel.)

See also these links:

Big Government, Hot Air, Reason.com

Political Integrity Now

Facebook also has a page devoted to this issue.

For those of you who need a refresher on this story, go to Doctor Bulldog and Ronin, and also see No Feet Required.  Be warned, however, that there are graphic images.

From FOX News: [bold emphasis mine]

BAGHDAD (AP) — An Iraqi prisoner suspected of masterminding an attack that killed four American contractors testified Wednesday he was beaten by U.S. troops while hooded and tied to a chair in the opening day of a court-martial of a Navy SEAL.

The trial stems from an attack on four Blackwater security contractors who were driving through the city of Fallujah west of Baghdad in early 2004. The men were killed and then crowds dragged two of the burnt bodies through the streets and hanged them from a bridge over the Euphrates River — pictures that became iconic of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Images of the burnt bodies of Americans hanging from the bridge drove home to many the rising power of the insurgency and helped spark a bloody U.S. invasion of the city to root out the insurgents.

The courts-martial of three Navy SEALS accused in the Iraqi prisoner’s abuse case have outraged many Americans who see it as a sign that their government is going soft on terrorists. Members of Congress have urged the U.S. defense secretary to drop the charges.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, who is being held by Iraqi authorities pending trial, was brought in to the court wearing his yellow prison jumpsuit. He testified he was sitting in a chair with his hands bound behind him — a hood over his head — when he was hit from behind on the shoulder and back and fell to his knees and was then picked back up and struck in the stomach.

At this point, I myself am thinking, “Oh my.  You killed, mutilated, burned, and hung the bodies of four Americans from a bridge and had your boyfriends jump and dance around like a bunch of women at a yard sale, and you are upset because you may or may not have been handled without kid gloves?”  Why are you terrorists reduced to being cowards and sissies when caught?  I guess it is their way.

“It was very powerful. It was so hard I fell down again on my face because my hands were behind my back,” he said, speaking Arabic through an interpreter. On the ground, he said he was kicked in his side and legs.

“Once I was down they put their foot in my shoulder; I started saying ‘please, please’ — these were the only words that I knew,” he testified.

Abed was arrested last September on charges of orchestrating the killings of the four Blackwater security contractors.

Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas, of Blue Island, Illinois, is the first of three Navy SEALs to go on trial in connection with the alleged assault.

He’s not accused of actually abusing the prisoner but of failing to safeguard him and attempting to influence the testimony of another service member.

The 28-year-old Huertas, wearing his blue Navy uniform, appeared in a military courtroom at Camp Victory on Baghdad’s western outskirts to answer charges of dereliction of duty and impeding an official investigation. He has pleaded not guilty.

During Abed’s hour-long testimony, he said he was taken to a doctor the next day and complained he had been beaten.

One of Huertas’ military attorneys showed the court photographs of Abed after the alleged beating. There was a visible cut inside his lip, but no obvious signs of bruising or injuries anywhere else.

The attorney asked Abed: “You’re the mastermind behind the Blackwater bridge massacre aren’t you?”

“I have nothing to do with this,” the witness replied.

Hmm.  Of course you didn’t.

In earlier testimony, Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Kevin Demartino, who was assigned to process and transport Abed, testified he saw Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe, another SEAL accused in the case, punch the prisoner in the stomach, and blood come from the prisoner’s mouth.

Demartino told the court Huertas and fellow SEAL Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Keefe were also in the narrow holding-room and that he was the closest person to McCabe at the time of the alleged assault.

Huertas’ civilian attorney suggested the assault happened so quickly that if Demartino couldn’t stop it, there was no way Huertas could have.

Demartino also testified that a few hours after the incident Huertas told him: “Get in there and get the story straight.” He admitted initially lying about the incident, but said he changed his mind when it became clear there would be an investigation.

All three SEALs could have received only a disciplinary reprimand, but insisted on a military trial to clear their names and save their careers.

If convicted, Huertas could face up to a year in prison.

A military judge ordered that trials for Huertas and Keefe, of Yorktown, Virginia, be held in Iraq so they could face Abed. The Iraqi government refused to transfer him to the U.S. to testify.

Keefe is also accused of failing to safeguard the prisoner.

McCabe of Perrysburg, Ohio, is charged with assaulting Abed and is scheduled to be court-martialed May 3 in Virginia.

We all have an opinion about this whole event.  That’s what makes us great as a Nation.  We can have opinions.

My opinion?  Well, I won’t sugar-coat this: I have no beef or issue with any combat SEAL who does what he needs to do to safeguard our Nation.  And I know millions of Americans agree.

This terrorist has shown he is an abomination, a defect, a person who has lost all touch with reality.  He should be thanking his false god that he only received a little bloody lip.  Those SEALs showed great control, discipline and restraint.  They should be given medals and left alone to be the best SEALs they can be.  The terrorist?  Oh, he should receive his just punishment.  I think he should be turned over to the families of the men he killed.

But what do I know?  I’m just one of those silly Americans who views this trial as being ridiculous and completely dishonoring our SEALs.

See also: SEALs charged with asssault

Good day, fellow Americans.

Do you remember your history lessons from school?  Do you remember looking at paintings of guys wearing white wigs, gathered around a table in some assembly hall, with pens in their hands and looking quite satisfied?  Do you remember the painting I used as the article image- the three American Patriots that came to symbolize our freedom and victory from King George III?  Lastly, do you remember what you were taught about The US Constitution while in secondary school, before you might have journeyed off to college?  Uh huh.  Indeed.

I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but there is a new President in office who has the unbridled power of a King, given to him by the progressives and supported by an America-hating Democrat-controlled Congress.  Indeed, President Obama is no longer our President.  He is now our King, and he knows what is best for us.

Kelli Krauss, a contributor here at PIN, wrote an article on 22 Jan 2010 named “Obama is our King George“.  I highly recommend that if you have not seen it, to invest the time to read it fully and let it sink in.

Much talk is being circulated about the upcoming November mid-term elections, the TEA Party, American dissension, Conservative Movement, and an armed revolution against our new King, much like the one our ancestors fought to create our great Nation in the late 1700′s.  Wow!  It’s a lot to digest, I know.  The State-run media is doing its best to overwhelm you and me and all of America with rapid-fire articles and stories designed to confuse and disorient us.   Sad to say, for them anyways, that Americans in the know are not so easily discouraged.

There is indeed a New American Revolution forming.  Is this to say that there has been a spike in musket sales and tri-cornered hats?  Hardly.  This New American Revolution will be fought using bullets made from ballots, Conservative Thought, historical Truth, and the strong reality of our Constitutional knowledge.  American dissenters are forming grassroots groups, fellowships via Facebook and Twitter, and a huge number of Rightist Bloggers.  There has never been a time in our history as a Nation quite like this, and we are very ready for it.

Yes, we were discouraged on Sunday evening, as we watched our Constitution take a beating with the passage of the Health Care Bill, written under the corrupted hands and wills of a Democrat-controlled Congress and blessed by the kiss of our King Obama.  I myself slept fitfully that evening.  Yet, come Monday morning, I awoke feeling refreshed, re-focused, and more streamlined than ever before.  With the passage of this America-hating bill, the cards were now displayed out upon the table of American history, and there were no further doubts or questions about what and who the Democrats and Obama really were.

Patriots nationwide rose and joined forces.  We bonded on Facebook, on Twitter, and through emails and blogs.  We are organizing, protesting, writing, and praying.  The Conservative Movement has never been stronger than it is today, and it took the Democrat-controlled Congress and King Obama to bring us together as a solid unit.  For this I would say, Thank You.

This is now The New American Revolution.  Sites like this one, which calls for INTEGRITY, and many other Rightist sites are flourishing right now, and our numbers are swelling daily.  This revolution is not about bloodshed and muskets.  Not yet, anyways.  Please refresh your knowledge of The Second Amendment of our Constitution and use it to measure the modern-day affairs and agendas of our current leadership in DC against.  I think you will be sobered up quickly.

The New American Revolution 2010 has begun.  Thank you, King Obama!  Enjoy your remaining months on the throne, your Highness.  History is indeed about to repeat itself soon enough.

The New York Daily News reports:

A New Jersey man charged in Yemen as an Al Qaeda member worked at nuclear power plants in the U.S., officials said Thursday.

Sharif Mobley, a 26-year-old American native of Somali heritage, was arrested in Yemen this month in a roundup of suspected Al Qaeda members.

He was being treated at a hospital in San’a when he killed one guard and wounded another in an escape attempt, officials said.

Before Mobley moved to Yemen two years ago, ostensibly to learn Arabic and study the Koran, he worked for several contractors at three nuclear power plants in New Jersey from 2002 to 2008, PSE&G Nuclear spokesman Joe Delmar said.

Hot Air says:

But did AQ intend to attack nuclear power plants in the US with Mobley as its point person?  Fox News reports that their sources in “law enforcement” don’t see a link between his work before leaving the country and whatever AQ had in mind when it sent him back.  It could just be coincidental, as a trip toYemen to study Islam and Arabic would almost certainly have raised red flags in a recertification process.  Mobley may have been more valuable in supplying intel on security procedures rather than as a terrorist attacker.

The list of Americans involved or charged with being involved with Al-Qaida are so far:

Gadahn, Al-Awalki, Hammami, Hasan, Zazi, Lindh, Boyd, and LaRose.

Sharif Mobley is the latest example of what anti-terrorism experts fear is a growing trend: the radicalization of American Muslims who join overseas terrorist groups.

Yemeni groups are of special concern, as are Somali-Americans.

The Al Qaeda branch in Yemen was linked to the failed Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner. Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people in the Fort Hood shooting spree, exchanged e-mails with an extremist cleric in Yemen.

From Nov 30, 2009, FOX News:

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy’s elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called a captain’s mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named “Objective Amber,” told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

From CNN, in November 2009:

A civilian lawyer for one of three SEALs said his client and the other SEALs declined a nonjudicial resolution to the case, a step sometimes called a “captain’s mast.” The servicemen say they did not harm the detainee in any way and they want their names cleared in a court-martial so they can continue their careers in the Navy, said the attorney, Neil Puckett.

Because the charges against Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe, Petty Officer Jonathan Keefe and Petty Officer Julio Heurtas are the military equivalent of misdemeanors, they will go before a special court-martial, which is for less serious offenses than those heard in a general court-martial. If found guilty, they could be sentenced to a maximum of a year in a military prison, demotion to the lowest Navy rank, a cut in pay and a bad conduct discharge.

But if found innocent of all charges, they would be able to continue their careers with no record of the case in their personnel files.

This is what essentially happened, in case you had forgotten:

The four contractors, one of whom was a former Navy SEAL, were working for the Blackwater company when they were attacked in Falluja in 2004. After they were killed with hand grenades and rifles, their bodies were set on fire and dragged through the streets. The bodies of two of them were hung from a bridge in Falluja, an image that was broadcast around the world.

Show your support!  Visit the Facebook page designed to show the Truth!  Long Live the Republic, and God bless our armed forces!  The truth will come out!  Show your support and let freedom ring!  These men are heroes, not villains!