THE BLACKEST OF FRIDAYS

The number of dead in the Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya, is now up to 68, and according to sources in CNN, three of the terrorists responsible are from the United States, linked to the terrorist group al-Shabab.

Is anyone surprised? They shouldn’t be.

Back in 2005 and 2006, I said that it was only a matter of time before we would see things like this in our own country. Not if, but when, and by whom?

The spectacular type of attack such as 9/11 is no longer needed to have a severe and negative impact on our psyche and our economy.

Imagine how black “Black Friday” would be, if on America’s biggest shopping day of the year, the day after Thanksgiving, al-Qaeda affiliated groups, entered three or four malls like Westgate, around the country at the same time, and carried out the same sort of attack?

It could have devastating consequences.

Al-Qaeda’s links and growing influence here in America has grown substantially, and it’s only a matter of time, before something like this happens.

The attack in Nairobi, is an example of their ability, and a reminder as to why we have got to remain pre-emptive and pro-active in doing everything we can to secure our critical infrastructure, and insure our intelligence community is at the top of their game.

According to reports, the group that carried out this operation is estimated to have several thousand fighters, including a few hundred foreign fighters - some from the Middle East with experience in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, and others are from Somali communities in the United States and Europe.

Let’s hope that we find them, before they find us.

Today it’s a mall in Nairobi, Kenya… but as the say in the major motion picture industry, “Coming to a theater near you.”

Let’s hope not.

We Just Don't Get It!

Two vehicles loaded with fuel, propane tanks and nails, much like the vehicle-born IEDs in Iraq today, are found in London’s Piccadilly Circus, our equivalent to Times Square. Then two Islamic radicals slam a car loaded with the same into the Glasgow Airport in Scotland, while the US Department of Homeland Security is reporting that the Al-Qaeda chatter indicates their desire to commit an act of terror against the west that is a “spectacular event”, much like the September 11th attacks. The investigation in the UK has moved quickly and has resulted so far in eight arrests, most of who appear to be Muslim medical doctors.

In the last several days, the press and media, but more so the general public appears to be shocked by the recent events and the “spectacular” chatter. Many political leaders have expressed shock that most of the participants arrested in the UK terror plot were educated doctors.

What I don’t understand and what concerns me is, why the shock and disbelief?

The fact that the alleged participants in the UK plot are educated men shouldn’t surprise anyone at all. Don’t forget…Osama bin Laden was highly educated with an engineering degree, as is Ayman al Zawahiri his chief deputy in Al-Qaeda who studied behavior, psychology, and pharmacology at Cairo University graduating in 1974 and earning a Masters degree in surgery in 1978. Mohamed Atta and the other 18 men that banded together for the attacks on 9/11 were all studious, educated and well traveled, much like the suspects recently arrested and being detained by the British authorities.

Six years after 9/11, and after many attacks against the west and the many attempts that have been prevented since that day, we still have people in this country, including many political leaders, who refuse to acknowledge the continuing threat that we face from radical Islamists.  Where have these people been?

Perhaps they missed Osama bin Laden’s threats prior to 9/11 or even his statements in its immediate aftermath. But surely they’ve heard at least one of Zawahiri’s twenty or so messages over the past five years, or Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s in Iraq before he was killed by the coalition, or Adam Yehiye Gadahn who recently threatened an attack that would make us forget all about 9/11.

So, is it that we are not listening or is it that we just don’t get it? My fear is the latter… and here’s why. Spectacular these days, do not mean jumbo jets flying into skyscrapers or oil refineries or the White House. It no longer has to be a nuclear device or dirty bomb. The FBI, the U. S. Department of Justice and Homeland Security have foiled some major events in the past five years and are getting better everyday. But what if one of these groups took another approach as they attempted to do in the UK? Coordinated attacks designed to create carnage and mayhem, but done so in four or five different cities around the country, like New York, Los Angles, Orlando, Chicago and maybe Miami. In a tourist site or God forbid a school like they’ve done in Beslan? Maybe they kill fifty to three hundred innocents’… men, women and children. Would that be spectacular? More than you can imagine. The economic impact on tourism, the airline industry, the stock market and every other financial indicator in this country would mirror, if not surpass, the impact of the attacks of September 11.

We as a people need to wake up and realize that we are truly at war with an enemy that is on the attack. It’s not a poverty stricken enemy as some would have you believe and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that they could be living amongst us already as we’ve just witnessed at Fort Dix, New Jersey and in the United Kingdom.

Muslims are not our enemy… radical Islamic fundamentalists are. If we don’t understand it, then learn more about it. The western world needs to help promote the real Muslim clerics that teach true Islam and hold those clerics accountable that promote jihad and the killing of innocent people, Muslims, Christians and Jews alike.

We are at war with an enemy that wants us dead because our religious, economic or moral beliefs differ from theirs and they want to martyr or kill themselves in this battle to prove their point. They have no rules, laws, guidelines or Geneva Convention, making everything including children fair game. If our will to fight this enemy is the problem, then our political leaders need to stop fighting each other long enough to fix it. If they do not and they’re more concerned about their political positions than they are fighting this war, then show them the door.

Beirut, 9/11, the USS Cole, our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Amman, Madrid, London, Glasgow, Ft. Dix, JFK and even Saudi Arabia. There is a war against us. When exactly are we going to get it?