Bhutto convoy bombs kill dozens

Via BBC News:

At least 58 people have been killed and 100 wounded after two bombs hit crowds greeting returning Pakistani ex-PM Benazir Bhutto.

Ms Bhutto was being driven in a convoy through crowded streets from Karachi airport to a rally to mark her homecoming after eight years in exile.

Ms Bhutto was not among the casualties and has been driven to safety.

Hundreds of thousands of people had turned out to greet the former PM, amid a huge security presence.

Several Islamist groups including pro-Taleban militants have made threats against Ms Bhutto.

theteach

Will NYPD terrorism report lead to profiling?

Via WNYC.org

NYPD Report Looks at Domestic Terror Threat

by Bob Hennelly

NEW YORK, NY August 16, 2007 —A new intelligence assessment from the NYPD finds the threat from "homegrown" terrorists is growing rapidly. WNYC's Bob Hennelly has more.

REPORTER: The NYPD analysis is based in a detailed review of several high profile terrorist attacks and plots that originated from self styled jihadist cells in places like the US, Canada, Australia and Europe. While the US conspiracies did not actualize, in London and Madrid they had catastrophic consequences.

The report says unifying factors in people drawn to the movement are young male Muslims, most likely middle class and alienated from their parents and looking for a purpose in life. The NYPD says the Internet is a virtual terrorist support network and is providing the same kind of affirmation would be terrorists might get in the middle east.

The report is being roundly criticized by Civil Liberties and Arab American Rights groups as a potential tool for profiling.
___________________________________________________________

On NPR today one of the guests on the Brian Lehrer show--Jack Riley, Associate Director of RAND Infrastructure, Safety, and Environment, and Acting Director of RAND Center on Quality Policing, and Richard Falkenrath, the NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Counter Terrorism--helped explain the details. And denied that the report as such would lead law enforcement to profiling individuals as terrorists.

The 90-page document in online for you to read at NYPD report: Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat

The Brian Lehrer show on the topic can be listened to here.

theteach

E-mail to John Gambling (NEWS TALK RADIO 77 WABC-AM)

Here's an e-mail I sent John Gambling radio talk show host on NEWS TALK RADIO 77 WABC-AM:

Mr. Gambling you surprised and saddened me this morning when you advocated national driver's licenses, national identity cards in a conversation about terrorism and national security with a caller. You said these documents would be able to keep tabs on people and find out what they are doing here.

Mr. Gambling we have social security cards, state driver's licenses, and passports - all of which represent each of us in the U.S. not for the purposes of keeping tabs on us but for other purposes. These are quite enough. This is after all a DEMOCRACY.

Don't you realize national ID cards, for example, was the way the Nazis could identify the Jews in 1930s Germany?

We (the FBI) were able to thwart the plot to shoot soldiers with AK47s at Ft. Dix. The FBI had the men under investigation for 15 months. There is no need to go nuts and think we need ID cards to keep such things from happening. We have law enforcement agencies to do the job.

Advocating ID cards and such for the purpose of locating people and finding out what their doing is the beginning of a fascist state and in case you forget the definition of fascism, here it is: Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests inferior to the needs of the state.

Be careful what you say over the airwaves, Mr. Gambling.

I signed my real name to the e-mail but here I'll just sign

theteach

International terrorism and the U.S.

From Chris Suellentrop "The Opinionator:"

April 27, 2007, 9:54 am
Minor Threat

Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks advances an argument that is usually verboten among mainstream opinion-slingers:

International terrorism does not represent an existential threat to the United States.

“The 9/11 attacks were appalling and tragic, but they did not threaten the survival of the nation,” Brooks writes. “The year 2001 aside, total deaths (not just of Americans) caused by international terrorism worldwide have never exceeded — or even approached — 2,000 a year. Sept. 11 was an outlier: On 9/11, a group of brutal, extremist Islamic thugs got very lucky.”

She continues:

Of course, 3,000 dead is 3,000 too many. But keep it in perspective. As a nation, we have survived far worse. We lost more than 100,000 Americans in World War I, more than 400,000 in World War II, 37,000 in Korea, 58,000 in Vietnam — all without allowing our national character to turn into quivering jelly.

Every year, we also lose millions of Americans to preventable accidents and disease. We’re more likely to die on the road than as a result of Al Qaeda’s machinations. Annually, we lose some 43,000 people to auto accidents. For the grieving families, that’s 43,000 deaths too many. But, although we surely could reduce auto fatalities if we chose to make it our top national priority, the Bush administration has yet to announce a “War on Highway Deaths.”

There are 19 comments on this article, read them.

Dolphins Fight Terrorism

K-Dog, a bottle nose dolphin, trains with a tracking device attached to his pectoral fin.

Dozens of dolphins and sea lions [are being] trained to detect and apprehend waterborne attackers could be sent to patrol a military base in Washington state, the Navy said Monday.

Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, on the Puget Sound close to Seattle is home to submarines, ships and laboratories and is potentially vulnerable to attack by terrorist swimmers and scuba divers, the notice states. (FoxNews.com)

"These animals have the capabilities for what needs to be done for this particular mission," said Tom LaPuzza, a spokesman for the Marine Mammal Program.

LaPuzza said that because of their astonishing sonar abilities, dolphins are excellent at patrolling for swimmers and divers. When a Navy dolphin detects a person in the water, it drops a beacon. This tells a human interception team where to find the suspicious swimmer.

theteach ;)