MS-13 update from AP, with thanks to Judy:
Midwestern farmlands seem an unlikely hideout for Osama bin Laden's hired hands, but an ongoing federal crackdown reveals the increased presence here of a notoriously violent gang with suspected links to al-Qaida.Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, a gang founded in El Salvador and known for smuggling drugs and immigrants across the U.S.-Mexico border, could be bringing terrorists with them.
"The al-Qaida, from what we understand, has been meeting with them in Central America," said Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Texas, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, which oversees national security.
Ortiz testified in March that al-Qaida has offered MS-13 about $250,000 to smuggle "high value al-Qaida operatives across the border."
"Only God knows who or what they've been able to bring in" to the United States, Ortiz told The Associated Press.
The FBI estimates up to 30,000 MS-13s are in the United States.
"The FBI estimates up to 30,000 MS-13s are in the United States."
By not sealing the borders immediately after 9-11, President Bush made one of the biggest blunders of his Presidency. Everybody in America knows what needs to be done, but no politician is willing to risk the ultimate career killer, the label of "racist," cowards that they are.
The first move in all conflict must be to make your position impregnable, or at least as secure as possible. Then, and only then, should you seek ways to inflict damage on the enemy.
We have no real war planning. Light-Unto-The-Muslim-Nations is NOT war planning. They seem to be making it up as they go along (I say this as a conservative) and this is absolutely unacceptable.
This is war, not an occasion for misguided social engineering in Iraq.
Prediction: The New Orleans disaster will create much, much more pressure on the Administration to bring the troops home. $100-200 billion in disaster relief, $300 billion in Iraq. This can't go on.
Bringing the troops home is the right move, even if done for the wrong reasons, as Hugh would say. It simply must be done.
Slowly but surely;we should withdraw,but we must absolutely not give the insurgents a timeline in Iraq.
Bringing the troops home is the right move, even if done for the wrong reasons, as Hugh would say. It simply must be done.
Posted by: Rebecca JW at September 3, 2005 09:23 AM
You and Hugh are right, Iraq is a lost cause. I hate to say this but the stability that Saddam maintained, despite his horrible methods and his diabolical aspirations, was preferable to the chaos and carnage of the last two years. Many tyrants have been overthrown without outside intervention, and all evidence indicates that muslims want tyrannical rulers.
The best we can hope for in Iraq is a brutal theocracy or Sharia enforced by fanatical thugs, which will be no less repressive and cruel than Saddam was. The most likely scenario is total anarchy and civil war. The nation builders in Washington should have learned from history that this part of the world is impermeable to outside influence and control. The few secular Iraqis who yearn for democracy are far outnumbered by the religious zealots.
The Islamic world (and most of the civilized world) considered Saddam's savage government entirely acceptable, (certainly preferable to a war to remove him) and it sees America as a conquering, occupying force. Our efforts, expenditures, and terrible loss of precious American lives have been for nothing, at least nothing permanent.
I supported the war in the beginning and I am a life-long conservative, but it's time to stop squandering American lives and assets; to protect our borders from Islamic terrorists; stop Islamic immigration to the U.S.; and concentrate on the many crucial issues we have right here at home. We won't have to "fight the jihadists at home" (Bush's favorite justification for the war) if we keep them out, and that can be done if we protect our borders and limit the influx of muslims. Of course, we will eventually have to deal with the thousands that are already here and the thousands that are being inculcated in mosques and Islamic schools in the U.S. That should be our first priority after we clean up behind Katrina.
IF we're not going to destroy the poppy fields in Afghanistan, we should get out of there too. We will never succeed in establishing true, free democracies in muslim nations that do not want them. Bush is sadly mistaken when he says that "all people want to be free", unless his idea of freedom is Sharia. Let them have their Sharia and let them fight each other as they have done for 1200 years.
Some noble causes are simply not achievable. If the Iraqis want democracy, let them establish it themselves.
I believed that the threat of WMD was real. It was as real as Saddams's desire to be the new 'Nebuchanezzar' in leading a united arabia minus the state of Israel.
It was sensible therfore to eliminate Saddam. It was not sensible to enter a crackpot country without evaluating the possibility that the residents were mainly ignorant tribalists brainwashed by a bloody religion.
Do the same in Sudan and you open another wound for the maggots to fester in.
Islam needs to be fought by the attrition of its financial oxygen.
A Boycot of all aid to muslim countries.
A Ban on all muslim immigration to the West.
Repatriation/Banishment of any persons aligned with radical Islam whether born in the West or not.
It is not worth a single drop of any Western service man or woman to engage in a war in any Muslim land.
As for their oil... let them drink it.
It is surely time to revoke the posse commitatus act, to lobby the Congress for doubling or trippling the border patrol, to develop a paid Civilian Defense Corps with teeth specially for anti-terrorism and disaster assistance, and outside the current bureaucratic chain.
New Orleans was a wake-up call. A WMD attack on any large city would creat 10 or 100 times the havoc in New Orleans. We need to face up to the fact that defense against Islam is going to require major national committments that will impose hardship on everyone, much like it was in WWII. And we are going to have to trim back the PC laws so than Islamic groups cannot parade as a "religion" when their real objective is military/political to overthrow our government, klll us and our children off , and impose their barbaric 7th century laws.
We need an anti-terrorist unit outside the dhimmi FBI reporting direct to the president. We need to duplicate these defense-mission bureaucracies and stimulate some competiton between them in protecting the nation. Those that continue to screw up do not get funded. Competition has willy-nilly worked with other agencies, like those in the water business.
We need a larger military force for quick deployment in or out of the country.
Putting FEMA in the DHS was a mistake; it just imposed another layer of bureaucracy that hemmed and hawed in decision making that we previously did not have - a wasted layer of bureaucracy. It should go back to being independent.
It would probably also help to get the lawyers out of these defense-mission bureaucracies. They have little or no training or background for national defense.
Bush, Condi, Cheney, Rumsfield, they all seem lost. Their 'plan' is not working out and no matter the spin, Islam wins. We need an intelligent leader who can understand the danger of Islam, none of these do. I thought Rumsfield would understand, I always considered him bookish and would study works critical of Islam. For Christ sake, Winston Churchhill said of Islam and the Muhammadans:
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men."
"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."
But it looks like Rumsfield didn't read anything about Churchill and Islam. And that is sad.