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"Thousands of foreign students are in U.S. flight schools illegally. Annie Jacobsen exclusively reveals an internal memo on the Transportation Security Administration’s failure to enforce the law."
From Pajamas Media:
Most remember the shocking revelation.Six months after Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi piloted hijacked planes into the World Trade Center, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) notified a Venice, Florida flight school that the men had been approved for visas.
The two terrorists were already dead, and so were the nearly 3,000 people they’d killed. The INS was caught with its pants down. There was no way for the unpopular agency to explain itself out of its horrific and embarrassing failure. Yet INS spokesman Russ Bergeron certainly tried when he said, “It does serve to illustrate what we have been saying since 1995 — that the current system for collecting information and tracking foreign students is antiquated, outdated, inaccurate and untimely.”
The INS unit was disbanded and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) took its place in regard to monitoring foreign nationals for flight school eligibility. In September 2004 the Alien Flight Student Program went into effect, with TSA in charge.
Last week, in one of the most damaging reports on the TSA to date, ABC News revealed that in the program’s first year under TSA control, there were “some 8,000 foreign students in the FAA database who got their pilot licenses without ever being approved by the TSA.”
“Thousands of aliens, some of whom may very well pose a threat to this country, are taking flight lessons, being granted FAA certifications and are flying planes,” wrote TSA official Richard A. Horn in 2005, according to ABC. He was complaining that the students did not have the proper visas.
ABC also cited a former FAA inspector who tried to blow the whistle on the disaster waiting to happen, as documented on its website.
In addition, Pajamas Media has obtained an internal TSA memo — dated and stamped nine months after the FAA inspectors initially blew the whistle — which reveals that the current level of ineptitude inside the TSA is hauntingly similar to that of the INS on 9/11. [See the memo at PJM]
TSA officials are wholly aware of major inaccuracies in the foreign flight school program and are promoting a do-nothing policy behind the scenes....
Read it all.
Posted by Robert at March 6, 2008 6:53 AM
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Slightly OT,
Flight Club: Rules of the flying imams
They must have taken the Islamic Chutzpah class at their respective madrassas.
Posted by: Lex![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 6, 2008 7:33 AM
If this is the level of political correctness and ineptitude of an administration hand-picked by the Republicans and placed on warning of the dangers on 9-11-2001, what should we expect for the future?
Part of the problem is just plain poor oversight which goes all the way to the top of the administration. But part of the problem is a legal system in which the government simply cannot make a difference between students based on religion, or ethnicity, or national origin.
The civil rights laws need to be changed in regard to, among other things, flight schools. When flight instructors and FBI agents noticed the disturbing pattern of Middle-Eastern people with Moslem-sounding names attending flight school in an era where such persons were already known to be interested in flying jets into buildings, they would have been legally unable to do anything about this even if someone in the FBI or elsewhere had been listening, as long as no crime had yet been committed and no probable cause existed to investigate for some sort of conspiracy to commit one. That legal predicament still exists today.
Posted by: Karl at March 6, 2008 7:39 AM
And just so it's clear: This, among other fiascos, is found entirely at Bush's doorstep. This is his doing, not Clinton's, not Obamas, not the NY Times. It may feel great to rail about how horrible these are, but they have not failed utterly in protecting us (and don't forget: there was an 8 year gap between the 1993 and 2001 attacks, so if Bush was doing something great, then so was Pres. Clinton for the same reason).
Posted by: Seymour Paine at March 6, 2008 7:42 AM
And just so it's clear: This, among other fiascos, is found entirely at Bush's doorstep. This is his doing, not Clinton's, not Obamas, not the NY Times. It may feel great to rail about how horrible these are, but they have not failed utterly in protecting us (and don't forget: there was an 8 year gap between the 1993 and 2001 attacks, so if Bush was doing something great, then so was Pres. Clinton for the same reason).
Posted by: Seymour Paine at March 6, 2008 7:42 AM
Americans are ignorant of the authority and responsibility the powerful position of presient/commander-in-chief, carries, in our system of government. If they knew, they would not have elected a rich spoilt, AWOL, failure to this position. But, Americans elected this corrupt and timif man to the powerful position TWICE!
Further proof of American ignorance is that Americans do not question Bush, much less impeach him. Enemies of USA have gone from strength to strength, in this wannabbi-puppet's administration, for which Americans will pay a heavy price.
at March 6, 2008 8:14 AM
Our tax dollars at work.
I don't think the situation will be better after the next election.
Posted by: tanstaafl at March 6, 2008 9:23 AM
No plan survives initial contact ~ a rule of war, even the war on terrorist thugs. Get it?
In war, incompetent commanders are discovered and eventually put in places where they can do little if any harm, or they are relieved. When DHS/TSA was formed, lots and lots of federal law enforcement types moved from whatever agency they were with, over to the new agency. And they took all their bad habits and bias with them. This goes for field operatives, whatever their mission, and supervisors as well.
So, the SNAFU at DHS/TSA is about federal law enforcement agency culture, a lot like some State Department and DoD career employees who have their own political bias and agenda, with attitudes and actions that deliberately run counter to their Boss, the POTUS.
Bush is a good but imperfect man. Our understandable frustration with DHS/TSA shouldn't flow from an exaggerated demand that his administration is both incompetent and corrupt. Nor should people be so arrogant as to accuse him of personal corruption, requiring that he be, in their little world, "a bad, bad man."
A man is known by the company he keeps. I never spent time with George Bush, don't know him at all. But I had the honor of being on Cheney's protective detail when he was SECDEF, and I know personally and certainly that he is a good, incorruptible man.
Posted by: undaunted at March 6, 2008 9:54 AM
Karl wrote: "But part of the problem is a legal system in which the government simply cannot make a difference between students based on religion, or ethnicity, or national origin."
That is not part of the problem; that is the central crux of the problem and its overwhelmingly dominant substance.
Because of PC MC, it is simply unthinkable for any institution in the West (let alone flight schools) to survey their constituent membership as well as prospective applicants in the terms of any degree of discrimination -- from the slightest level of mere extra suspicion all the way up to the logical and rational conclusion of exclusion on the basis of the sole criterion that matters: are they Muslim?
Indeed, the resistance to even contemplating such a criterion is so strong in our dominant PC MC culture throughout the West, that there are effectively in place psychological and institutional triggers to over-compensate in the opposite direction -- a kind of affirmative action, so to speak, in favor of Muslims, bending over backwards just to make sure we don't even have the taint of the appearance of the hint of "bigotry", "racism", "Islamophobia", etc.
This, far more than mere bureaucratic inertia, is the real problem.
at March 6, 2008 10:19 AM
Exactly, Cantor. Thank you.
If some flight school owner/staff wants to ignore what may be reasonable suspicions about his students or potential students, whether he's motivated by avarice or fear (AKA: being PC), then the blame goes to him when the training he gave leads to the death of innocents.
We are each responsible for being fearless in the face of this enemy ... we all must answer for the blood on our own hands.
Posted by: undaunted at March 6, 2008 10:40 AM
It appears that hundreds of career bureaucrats may have found their way into cushy do nothing TSA positions which is something that occurs in many federal jobs.
The flight schools have a responsibility here as well. I don't know what their security application looks like when someone wishes to train at a flight school.
They should be demanding that these applications be fully evaluated (vented)and approved after a multi agency complete evaluation and no training should occur until that has been done and fully certified by the FBI,HSA,TSA,Etc. even if it is for the little old lady from Pasadena and it takes 6 weeks.
Our US Security is to important to allow the chance of another 9-11.
Posted by: Mackie at March 6, 2008 10:50 AM
Undaunted -
I am so sick of disappointment with President Bush that I could hurl. After seven years' observation, I must conclude that, among his shortcomings, he is an utterly incompetent executive. Virtually everything he touches turns to crap. Firing anyone for poor performance is practically unheard of in his administration ... and poor performance is rampant.
At this point, I do not trust President Bush or anyone who has served him.
Posted by: HotSpur at March 6, 2008 11:13 AM
HotSpur;
I guess we all gotta be disaappointed with something.
Posted by: undaunted at March 6, 2008 11:22 AM
undaunted -
I am not disappointed with things; I am disappointed with people: President Bush and those serving him (Brown, Rice, Cheney, Chertoff, etc). President Bush is a weak man who has surrounded himself with weaklings.
In my experience, weak executives surround themselves with female lieutenants (Rice, Myers, etc) because they are not capable, intellectually, of leading alpha males.
Posted by: HotSpur at March 6, 2008 11:40 AM
I guess we all gotta be disappointed with ... someone.
Warrior-wiring is not gender specific. If your experience informs you there are no women with the intellect, and the spirit, to lead "alpha males", then I question your experience and your martial judgement ... at least.
And, from personal experience with one of them, which I'll bet is deeper than your experience with any of them, I disagree with your specious assertion that Bush and his troop are weaklings.
I don't want to argue. You disappoint me.
Posted by: undaunted at March 6, 2008 12:03 PM
undaunted -
It appears to me that you have served in the bureaucracy too long. It's affected your spelling in addition to your judgement.
However, I do agree with you that warrior-wiring is not gender-specific. It's only that way about 99.9% of the time. (It's tough for a warrior to maintain his self-respect when he must report to an alpha-female.)
Oh, yeah, and if you want to convince me that the man who traded Sammy Sosa is not some kind of dimwit, you will need to get out of bed before 10:00AM.
Posted by: HotSpur at March 6, 2008 12:30 PM
undaunted -
It appears to me that you have served in the bureaucracy too long. It's affected your spelling in addition to your judgement.
However, I do agree with you that warrior-wiring is not gender-specific. It's only that way about 99.9% of the time. (It's tough for a warrior to maintain his self-respect when he must report to an alpha-female.)
Oh, yeah, and if you want to convince me that the man who traded Sammy Sosa is not some kind of dimwit, you will need to get out of bed before 10:00AM.
Posted by: HotSpur at March 6, 2008 12:30 PM
I don't know what to say.
Posted by: undaunted at March 6, 2008 12:54 PM
which reveals that the current level of ineptitude inside the TSA is hauntingly similar to that of the INS on 9/11
"I don't get it. We renamed it from INS to TSA. We moved these two blocks of the org chart from here to there. That should have fixed it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go meet with our Good Friends and Strong Allies from the Noble Religion of Peace to get instructions on how we can fight the Global War On Terror without offending the Vast Majority of Moderates. And I've got a 2 o'clock with Hesham Islam and Hamas after that."
Posted by: special_guest at March 6, 2008 12:57 PM
" ... so if Bush was doing something great, then so was Pres. Clinton for the same reason ..."
Posted by: Seymour Paine at March 6, 2008 7:42 AM
Hey Seymour Paine,
I have seen much nore cogent stuff from you than the above insipid analysis. The great things I remember Clinton doing after the 1993 WTC attack were 1)processing the terror issue as a criminal matter instead of a war, and 2) turning down the Sudanese offer to hand over bin Laden on a silver platter:
http://www.infowars.com/saved%20pages/Prior_Knowledge/Clinton_let_bin_laden.htm
December 5, 2001 Talk about it E-mail story Print
Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize
Sudan offered up the terrorist and data on his network. The then-president and his advisors didn't respond.
By MANSOOR IJAZ
President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates, including one as late as last year.
I know because I negotiated more than one of the opportunities.
From 1996 to 1998, I opened unofficial channels between Sudan and the Clinton administration. I met with officials in both countries, including Clinton, U.S. National Security Advisor Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger and Sudan's president and intelligence chief. President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, who wanted terrorism sanctions against Sudan lifted, offered the arrest and extradition of Bin Laden and detailed intelligence data about the global networks constructed by Egypt's Islamic Jihad, Iran's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas.
Among those in the networks were the two hijackers who piloted commercial airliners into the World Trade Center.
The silence of the Clinton administration in responding to these offers was deafening.
As an American Muslim and a political supporter of Clinton, I feel now, as I argued with Clinton and Berger then, that their counter-terrorism policies fueled the rise of Bin Laden from an ordinary man to a Hydra-like monster.
Realizing the growing problem with Bin Laden, Bashir sent key intelligence officials to the U.S. in February 1996.
The Sudanese offered to arrest Bin Laden and extradite him to Saudi Arabia or, barring that, to "baby-sit" him--monitoring all his activities and associates.
But Saudi officials didn't want their home-grown terrorist back where he might plot to overthrow them.
In May 1996, the Sudanese capitulated to U.S. pressure and asked Bin Laden to leave, despite their feeling that he could be monitored better in Sudan than elsewhere.
Bin Laden left for Afghanistan, taking with him Ayman Zawahiri, considered by the U.S. to be the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks; Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, who traveled frequently to Germany to obtain electronic equipment for Al Qaeda; Wadih El-Hage, Bin Laden's personal secretary and roving emissary, now serving a life sentence in the U.S. for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya; and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saif Adel, also accused of carrying out the embassy attacks.
Some of these men are now among the FBI's 22 most-wanted terrorists.
The two men who allegedly piloted the planes into the twin towers, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, prayed in the same Hamburg mosque as did Salim and Mamoun Darkazanli, a Syrian trader who managed Salim's bank accounts and whose assets are frozen.
Important data on each had been compiled by the Sudanese.
But U.S. authorities repeatedly turned the data away, first in February 1996; then again that August, when at my suggestion Sudan's religious ideologue, Hassan Turabi, wrote directly to Clinton; then again in April 1997, when I persuaded Bashir to invite the FBI to come to Sudan and view the data; and finally in February 1998, when Sudan's intelligence chief, Gutbi al-Mahdi, wrote directly to the FBI.
Gutbi had shown me some of Sudan's data during a three-hour meeting in Khartoum in October 1996. When I returned to Washington, I told Berger and his specialist for East Africa, Susan Rice, about the data available. They said they'd get back to me. They never did. Neither did they respond when Bashir made the offer directly. I believe they never had any intention to engage Muslim countries--ally or not. Radical Islam, for the administration, was a convenient national security threat.
And that was not the end of it. In July 2000--three months before the deadly attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen--I brought the White House another plausible offer to deal with Bin Laden, by then known to be involved in the embassy bombings. A senior counter-terrorism official from one of the United States' closest Arab allies--an ally whose name I am not free to divulge--approached me with the proposal after telling me he was fed up with the antics and arrogance of U.S. counter-terrorism officials.
The offer, which would have brought Bin Laden to the Arab country as the first step of an extradition process that would eventually deliver him to the U.S., required only that Clinton make a state visit there to personally request Bin Laden's extradition. But senior Clinton officials sabotaged the offer, letting it get caught up in internal politics within the ruling family--Clintonian diplomacy at its best.
Clinton's failure to grasp the opportunity to unravel increasingly organized extremists, coupled with Berger's assessments of their potential to directly threaten the U.S., represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures in American history.
*
Mansoor Ijaz, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is chairman of a New York-based investment company.
********************************
This story never got the appropriate attention from the MSM. Can you imagine what the publicity might have been, had this happened on a Republican president's watch?
I see NO evidence Cliton did anything great on terror ... show me were I am wrong.
at March 6, 2008 2:01 PM
"there was an 8 year gap between the 1993 and 2001 attacks, so if Bush was doing something great, then so was Pres. Clinton for the same reason"
Seymour Paine,
Those eight years weren't filled with peace and tranquility. There was an attack on our soldiers in Saudi Arabia, the blowing up of African embassies and the bombing of the USS Cole. In addition, there was a fatwa declaring war on the US.
What was Clinton's response to several acts of war? He brought people into a courtroom and he prevented intelligence and law enforcement from sharing information.
Bush is no genius but Clinton didn't do a whole lot to fight al Qaeda, either. 9/11 might have been prevented had Clinton been more proactive and less politically correct. We'll never know.
at March 6, 2008 4:06 PM
Stand back, everyone. 'undaunted' needs to catch his wind (so to speak).
He's not accustomed to a strenuous workout. Years in gov't, you know ...
Posted by: HotSpur at March 6, 2008 4:23 PM
Wrong again. Your amusement value dropped off radar hours ago, HotSpud.
Give it a rest.
at March 6, 2008 5:37 PM
"The flight schools have a responsibility here as well. I don't know what their security application looks like when someone wishes to train at a flight school."
I don't know what the flight school application looks like either, but I know this much. If it asks applicants for their religion, or their ethnicity or national origin, they will be slapped with a civil rights lawsuit quicker than you can say "Osama's your uncle."
Which is exactly why it makes no sense to argue that: "If some flight school owner/staff wants to ignore what may be reasonable suspicions about his students or potential students, whether he's motivated by avarice or fear (AKA: being PC), then the blame goes to him when the training he gave leads to the death of innocents."
The flight school operator has no choice but to train these people once the government has let them into the country!!
at March 6, 2008 7:56 PM
Call me a crazy, mixed-up kid - but, maybe, we should not allow these terrorists to run loose in our country.
(Let's give 'undaunted' a break. His panties are chafing.)
Posted by: HotSpur at March 6, 2008 8:44 PM
This is Robert's domain and I respect that. Let the record above show that I didn't start this tussle HotSpur wants to continue. But since he started it and has been discourteous in doing so, in front of witnesses, I feel it's proper to write one more response here to his nonsense.
With apologies, Robert;
HotSpur; I offered support for President Bush and his crew. I'll stand by that. You didn't offer any evidence to refute my assertion but chided me for spelling errors that don't exist and then somehow seem to have wrongly inferred that I toiled as a government lackey for quite some time ~ as if, were it true, that makes me wrong for being on W's side. Then, after I try to politely deflect your foolishness, you resort to mockery as you try to suggest you know, wrongly again, what I wear as undergarments and exactly how your awesome power is making them fit me today.
Sir; my CV is available for your review at my blog. I wasn't a government stooge. Further, my blog posts, if you read all of them carefully, which I'm pretty sure you won't, will show that you and I agree about not letting terrorists run loose in our country. In fact, I'm pretty sure my blog is the only one of its kind on the Internet.
I'm done.
Posted by: undaunted at March 6, 2008 10:58 PM
Dang. You got me. There was an extra 'a' in disappointed.
I'll spend the rest of the evening looking for a sword upon which to fall.
Posted by: undaunted at March 6, 2008 11:43 PM
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