RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/new-national-security-adviser-robert-obrien-makes-promising-progress/

The Trump administration’s national security policy has, on the whole and especially at a strategic level, been quite good, and now Robert O’Brien, the new national security adviser, is implementing a promising reorganization of the NSC staff.

In its first two and a half years, the administration has:

Made great power competition, and especially the competition with China, the top priority of American foreign policy. The process of shifting attention to Asia began in the Obama administration, but President Trump catalyzed it in the National Security Strategy, which was completed within a year after he took office;
Energized the various agencies of the Executive Branch to inventory, adapt, and vigorously use the tools at their command to prosecute the administration’s policy towards China and build a national security architecture structured for that purpose. In particular Trump has recognized and realized the potential of American economic power to put adversaries off balance and on the defensive.
Refocused our Middle East policy on the greatest threat — Iran — and reassembled the formal and informal partnerships with Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and the Gulf States that for forty years had been the foundation of American policy in the Middle East.
Succeeded in lifting the defense sequester and injecting more money into the defense budget. That hasn’t accomplished as much, in practical terms, as the White House claims, but it’s a step in the right direction.

I also like the administration’s top national security personnel going forward. Mike Pompeo has been a consistent force and effective messenger for good policy and Gina Haspel is a top professional at the CIA, where professionalism is essential. It took too long for the Administration to settle on Mark Esper as Defense Secretary to replace Jim Mattis, but it was an outstanding choice that will continue to pay dividends as the DOD realigns its priorities to deal with China.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/

Take a look at the photo above.  I managed to overcome my usual ineptitude with technology the other day to snap that picture as I was walking into a barbershop in the Californian city of Coronado.  Actually, although Coronado is classified as its own city (of barely 25,000) it is in reality part of San Diego. Across a large curving bridge that was opened by Ronald Reagan back in the late 1960s sits the home of US naval aviation, the huge airbase of Coronado, on a peninsula that forms the magnificent San Diego harbor.

This harbor is the home of the third- or fourth-biggest US naval base in the world (depending on how and what you count), the biggest being in Norfolk, Virginia.  And even though this peninsula – which is so long you can’t help thinking it’s an island – is dominated by the naval airbase, by a separate Navy Seals base, and by other parts of the US Navy, there is also a chunk of the peninsula that constitutes the civilian town of Coronado.  Given how many people either live in, commute to or work for the US Navy, you won’t be surprised to hear that it is the safest city in the United States.  Any police officers who want only to investigate bicycle thefts should immediately put in their applications to the Coronado Police Department. There are basically no parking fines handed out because the metres in Coronado charge 25 cents per hour – yes, a quarter is all it takes to park for an hour – so you’d have to be brain dead not to pay up.

My wife and I stumbled on Coronado purely by chance back in 2013 when we were here for an earlier sabbatical of mine.  Purely by luck we ended up renting a house on the beach in this amazing place, and we loved it.  So when the offer came to return to the University of San Diego School of Law – the most conservative law school in the US, let me note, which means maybe one-third of the law professors would be right of centre, and why I can find a spot here – both my wife and I knew we’d be renting again in Coronado.  It is magnificent, and quite a contrast to London, where we spent the first half year of my sabbatical.

Don’t get me wrong.  For both us, London is our favourite city on earth.  But Coronado is right up there.  Furthermore, if you ever find yourself in San Diego let me strongly recommend that the first touristy thing you must do is to take the two-hour boat tour of the harbour.  You’ll see a stunning array of top-of-the-line US Navy vessels – destroyers, battleships, weird looking stealth ships, helicopter carriers, two or three of the big Nimitz class aircraft carriers, and at the far outlet end of the harbour the docking zone for  nuclear submarines.  San Diego is home to the killer attack subs, but once in a while you will see the “big banger” missile-launching Tridents come in for a visit.  They are magnificent.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/09/alleged-hezbollah-sleeper-arrested-nyc-joint-michael-cutler/

A “sleeper” is an alien who, in one way or another, manages to enter the United States, either legally or illegally, and then maintains a low profile, hiding in plain sight until he/she is called into action to carry out terror attacks or support terror attacks in the United States.

Often sleeper agents may also conduct surveillance, amass supplies or otherwise engage in preparatory functions for future deadly terror attacks.

On September 19, 2019 the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York issued a press release that announced, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces Indictment Of New Jersey Man For Terrorist Activities On Behalf Of Hizballah’s Islamic Jihad Organization. The subtitle of that press release provides more disturbing information, Alexei Saab Allegedly Was Trained by Hizballah’s External Terrorist Operations Component in Bomb-Making and Conducted Intelligence-Gathering in New York City and Washington, D.C., and Elsewhere in Support of Hizballah’s Attack-Planning Efforts.

The Department of Justice also issued a press release on September 19, 2019 about this case.

It is note-worthy that Saab’s nine-count indictment includes felonies under the Immigration and Nationality Act, for engaging in immigration fraud, including naturalization fraud in that he is alleged to have lied about his involvement with Hezbollah when he applied for naturalization and subsequently became a United States citizen.  Saab is also alleged to have entered into a fraud marriage for the purpose of providing another alien terrorist co-conspirator with U.S. citizenship in furtherance of their terrorist goals.  U.S. citizenship provides the “keys to the kingdom.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2019/09/hezbollah-terrorist-who-scouted-new-york-landmarks-daniel-greenfield/

Jihad Interrupted.

The US Justice Department (DoJ) announced Thursday that a New Jersey man, Alexei Saab, is charged with a nine-count indictment for offenses related to his support for Hezbollah and separate marriage-fraud offenses.

Islamic terrorism and marriage fraud. They go together like a horse and exploding carriage.

“While living in the United States, Saab remained an IJO [Islamic Jihad Organization] operative, continued to receive military training in Lebanon and conducted numerous operations for the IJO,” the indictment says. “For example, Saab surveyed dozens of locations in New York City – including the United Nations headquarters, the Statue of Liberty, Rockefeller Center, Times Square, the Empire State Building and local airports, tunnels and bridges – and provided detailed information on these locations, including photographs, to the IJO. In particular, Saab focused on the structural weaknesses of locations he surveyed in order to determine how a future attack could cause the most destruction.”

Saab’s reporting to the IJO included the materials used to construct a particular target, how close in proximity one could get to a target, and site weaknesses or “soft spots” that the IJO could exploit if it attacked a target in the future.  Saab conducted similar intelligence gathering in a variety of American cities.  The FBI recovered photographs from Saab’s electronic devices reflecting his surveillance activities, including photographs of New York City landmarks.

But, as we all know, Islamic Jihad has nothing to do with Islam.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/09/18/mechanic-accused-of-sabotaging-american-airlines-jetliner-has-ties-to-isis/

The mechanic accused of sabotaging an American Airlines jetliner back in July was found to have had violent Islamic State videos on his cellphone, as well as desire for Allah to hurt non-Muslims, new evidence unveiled at his bail hearing revealed on Wednesday.

Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani, according to prosecutors, has ties to ISIS through his brother in Iraq.

The 60-year-old Alani was charged earlier this month with willfully damaging or disabling a plane. The Boeing 737, which had 150 passengers and crew aboard, did not take off and no one was injured.

The sabotage involved gluing a piece of Styrofoam inside the nose of the aircraft that effectively disabled a component pilots depend on to gauge such things as airspeed, the pitch of the plane, and so forth. Authorities say the problem was detected just before takeoff, when an error message appeared on a screen in the cockpit and the jet returned to a gate. It had been bound for Nassau, Bahamas.

Airport surveillance video showed Alani working on the aircraft’s nose compartment for seven minutes, even though there was no repair issue with the plane. He was later identified by co-workers from that video.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/09/video-post-911-helping-saud

In this new Glazov Gang episode, Jamie speaks with Clare M. Lopez, the Vice President for Research & Analysis at the Center for Security Policy.

Clare discusses: Post-9/11 – Helping Saudis Slip Away, unveiling the highly disturbing facts about an eerie evacuation.

Don’t miss it!

And make sure to watch our 2-Part-Series with Clare below:

Part I: 9/11 Came From Riyadh & Tehran:

Part 2: Osama Found Safe Haven in Iran Post 9-11:

Follow us on Twitter: @JamieGlazov

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https://www.city-journal.org/islamist-terror-threat

Eighteen years after the attacks on the World Trade Center, many Americans believe that the threat of Islamist terror is played out—but that’s only because our counterterrorism efforts have been so successful. Attempted terror attacks no longer make front-page headlines, but the list of foiled plots to kill American citizens is long and chilling. This past summer saw arrests of potential terrorists who would have killed dozens or hundreds of people if successful. On September 3, for example, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged Ruslan Maratovich Asainov, also known as Suleiman Al-Amriki, with providing material support to ISIS. Asainov is accused of having been an ISIS sniper and weapons instructor. A naturalized U.S. citizen (he was born in Kazakhstan) who lived in Brooklyn for nearly 15 years, Asainov traveled in late 2013 to Istanbul, a common entry point to Syria. There, he joined ISIS and rose through the ranks to become an “emir” in charge of weapons training. He tried to recruit other Americans to fight for ISIS in Syria. Asainov messaged a government informant, exclaiming in reference to ISIS, “We are the worst terrorist organization in the world that has ever existed!” He still yearned to die on the battlefield for jihad, Asainov told the informant.

Last month, Awais Chudhary was charged with plotting to stab New Yorkers in Queens. A 19-year-old American citizen born in Pakistan and raised in a middle-class neighborhood, Chudhary planned to attack pedestrians on a bridge over the Grand Central Parkway to the Flushing Bay Promenade or at the World’s Fair Marina, both of which he had visited repeatedly to scout where he could kill the most people. He planned to record his attack to inspire others. He intended to use a knife, he told an agent, unless the agent could show him how to bomb a “mini-bridge over a busy road with many cars.” He was arrested en route to retrieve items he had ordered online for the assault—a tactical knife, a mask, gloves, and a cellphone with a chest and head strap to enable him to record his slaughter hands-free. 

Also last month, prosecutors charged two women from Queens with planning to build bombs similar to those used in earlier terrorist attacks. Asia Siddiqui and Noelle Velentzas, both U.S. citizens and Queens residents, pleaded guilty to distributing information about how to make and use explosive devices and weapons of mass destruction. Between 2013 and 2015, the complaint states, they planned to build a bomb themselves, teaching each other chemistry and the electrical skills needed to create and detonate a deadly device. They also explored how to make plastic explosives and assemble a car bomb, bought and stored in their homes materials required for an explosive device—including  propane gas tanks, soldering tools, car-bomb instructions, machetes, and several knives—and discussed similar devices used in past terrorist incidents, including the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and the 1993 World Trade Center attack. They researched potential targets, focusing on law enforcement and military installations. Velentzas favored attacks on government targets. In terrorist attacks, she said, “You go for the head.”