On this day, September the 11th, 2,974 innocent men and women lost their lives in what is arguably the greatest display of evil in the 21st century (and maybe the second half of the 20th as well).

While the image of what happened on that Tuesday may be permanently burned into our minds, the lessons learned have quickly faded; just as the lessons learned from Pearl Harbor, World War II and previous conflicts have faded from our collective memory.  Appeasing an enemy, whether it be Radical Islam, Hitler and the Nazis, or any other, will never succeed in bringing a favorable outcome. By giving into our enemy, we lose our honor and they gain a hunger more of our prized freedoms to fall.

Instead, the free peoples of the world should band together in an effort to protect our own Inalienable Rights and to pass on the great gift to other societies and cultures. When the world is truly free, we will be one step closer a peaceful world.

I can only hope that those 2,974 people who lost their lives on that day, 6 years ago, will have saved the freedoms and the lives of many more by awaking the world. That is the most fitting legacy for our heroes and even just the regular people who died on that day.

God Bless America and God Bless the Free World.

Posted under History, Other, Terrorism by Will Gries on Tuesday, September 11th 2007; 6:13 pm

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The way the terrorist events were handled over the last two weeks (or should I say fortnight) was spectacular; only one terrorist injured and eight or nine arrests. The British seem to be really on top of things. But I don’t really think that this can be attributed to the new PM, it’s credit really goes to the hard work of the British police and the MI5. I think Gordon Brown is really a softy when it comes to the issue.

As one of his first acts as PM, he ordered his government to stop using the term, “the War on Terror”, because he feared it might offend Muslims. According to the British Government, many British Muslims think that the phrase is a euphemism for a ‘War on Islam’. How silly, the war isn’t on Muslims, the war is on terrorists who kill innocent men, women, and children to spread a political or religious message (doesn’t matter if they are Muslim). Furthermore (and this is especially applicable in the UK), who says radical Muslims are the only ones that are terrorists?

Posted under Language Wars, Terrorism, War on Terror by Will Gries on Monday, July 9th 2007; 11:39 am

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As I’ve mentioned, Britain is one an example of a country with socialized health care.  The Health Care system there is so bad that citizens needing immediate help sometimes have to wait in lines for weeks for specialized doctors.  But as I learned this morning the British system has another downfall; the wage system.

I’ve seen Michael Moore brag about how great the wage system was in Britain; the British wage system is great, doctors get payed a ‘fair’ amount of money and then get a bonus on how many people are in better health at the end of the year.  Doesn’t that sound ‘great’ to you?

Well apparently, since the government isn’t paying their doctors a competitive salary (like American doctors get, only not from the government), some doctors are packing up and leaving Britain for better opportunities.  So who then fills the gap of doctors?  Take a guess…. Doctors from foreign countries are bused in to fill the spots.  Do you get what I am pointing at yet?

This last week, several radical doctors have been arrested in connection to the terrorist attacks occuring in the UK.  I do know that one was trained (medically) in Iraq and it is a safe guess that the others are not citizens by birth.

This is a great example of how Socialized Health Care is a threat to National Security, and how it is not good for our doctors (liberals are against outsourcing right?  What about insourcing those same types of people?).

Posted under Health Care, Terrorism by Will Gries on Wednesday, July 4th 2007; 10:33 am

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With attacks in the United Kingdom, Independence Day just two days away and al-Qaeda on record as saying they have spectacular summer attacks coming up, why has the Department of Homeland Security upped the Threat Level? It doesn’t make sense to me that they haven’t.

Instead, we are at ‘Elevated’ threat level and ‘High’ threat level for International and Domestic flights. Although I don’t have the same information as Homeland Security, I think that it is a pretty good guess that terrorists won’t be using airplanes again in an attack. There simply are too many layers of security. I think that if the United States was to experience an attack it would be similar to the attempted United Kingdom attacks. They seem small in comparison to 9.11.01, but car bombs could do a lot of damage to Americans. In fact, I would be even more afraid of a car bomb than airplanes because obtaining control of a car is a lot easier than hijacking a plane.

If I was in charge, I would raise the threat level to ‘High’ for this next week and then move it back to ‘Elevated’ next week. Although in the end, the threat level isn’t going to protect us… it will be the observational skills of law enforcement and private citizens.

Posted under Terrorism by Will Gries on Monday, July 2nd 2007; 11:29 am

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U.K. Crash Seen Linked to London Bombs
By IAN STEWART
The Associated Press
Saturday, June 30, 2007; 5:10 PM

GLASGOW, Scotland — A Jeep Cherokee trailing a cascade of flames rammed into Glasgow airport on Saturday, shattering glass doors just yards from passengers lined up at the check-in counters. Police said they believed the attack was linked to two car bombs found in London the day before.

Britain raised its terror alert to “critical” the highest possible level and the Bush administration announced plans to increase security at airports and on mass transit.

One of the men in the car was in critical condition at a hospital with severe burns, while the other was in police custody, said Scottish Police Chief Constable Willie Rae. He said a “suspect device” was found on the suspect at the hospital and it was taken to a safe location where it was being investigated.

Rae would not comment further on the device or say whether it could have been a planned suicide attack.

“I can confirm that we believe the incident at Glasgow airport is linked to the events in London yesterday,” Rae said. “There are clearly similarities and we can confirm that this is being treated as a terrorist incident.”

Complete Article
Source: Washington Post
More At: New York Times, Fox News, Reuters

Common Sense Analysis: These attacks appear to be coordinated, however they are pretty pitiful in execution. I would guess that the terrorist group that the perpetrators belong to had little, if any control over the attempted (and one partially successful) attacks. Comments from British Security note that the bombs in the two Mercedes were not made by professionals, and comments from Counter-Terrorist professionals note the lack in planning efforts. Clearly this isn’t the work of well trained trained terrorists.

We can only hope and pray that no attacks are in store for America, especially with our 231st Fourth of July approaching.  For a terrorist there may be a certain feeling attached to that date (like how 9/11 uses the same numbers as the emergency number 911).

Posted under News, News Analysis, Terrorism by Will Gries on Saturday, June 30th 2007; 4:39 pm

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Apparently, a second car bomb was discovered by British authorities. The second car was parked just around the corner from the first and also contained explosives. Thank God both bombs were found and hopefully there are no more that they’ve missed.

More at: Washington Post, USA Today, FoxNews

Posted under News, Terrorism by Will Gries on Friday, June 29th 2007; 3:47 pm

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British Police Defuse Car Bomb in London
By Mary Jordan and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, June 29, 2007; 9:18 AM

LONDON, June 29 — A Mercedes packed with canisters of gas and nails and apparently rigged to explode was discovered in London’s bustling nightclub and theater district early Friday morning, British police said, and could have caused “significant injury or loss of life” if it had been detonated.

Police defused the bomb and launched a massive investigation into what security officials said was presumed to be an attempted terror attack. The probe will include reviewing huge amounts of footage from the closed-circuit cameras that ring the Haymarket area, close to Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square.

Peter Clarke, the head of London’s anti-terrorist police, said authorities did not have intelligence ahead of time of an attack specifically targeting the area, which would have been crowded with theater-goers, nightclub patrons and tourists. But he said police have disrupted other attacks aimed at nightclubs and involving vehicles filled with flammable liquids.

“It’s too early to speculate” who may have been responsible for the bomb, Clarke said in a news conference. “I’m keeping an entirely open mind about that.”

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who took office this week, said the incident underscored the need for constant vigilance by both the public and the police. “The first duty of a government is the security of its people,” Brown said. “We face a serious and considerable security threat throughout the country.”

Complete Article
Source: Washington Post
More at: BBC News, USA Today, New York Times

Common Sense Analysis: I think if this shows us anything, it shows that the threat of terrorism is still real to the Western World. I hope we take a lesson from this before they get back over to us.

Posted under News, News Analysis, Terrorism by Will Gries on Friday, June 29th 2007; 10:04 am

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Back in 2003, every bit of intelligence that we had on Iraq told us that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.  Almost everybody thought that every bit of that report was true and we went to war.  What happened?  It is now 2007 and everyone thinks that report was false.  Not too mention that quite a few people think that the Bush administration falsified the contents of that report.

Is it possible that the report was true?  We spent so much time in America talking about the WMDs before we went in, how can we be sure that the weapons weren’t moved from Iraq to Syria or Iran.  How can we be sure that the Iraqis didn’t move bury their weapons in an isolated spot of desert?  What if they just donated them to terrorist groups?

Everyone acts like that report was false, but what if it was true?  Other than the intelligence reports, what proof do we have that Saddam had them?  Hmm, what a conundrum.  Wait, I know: We gave Iraqis weapons during the Cold War to fight the Soviets.  Oh, what about those mass graves that Coalition troops found with the bodies of hundreds of people, gassed to death with chemical neurotoxins?

It just seems so possible and so frightening that these weapons could have actually existed, why are we spending so much time doing other things in Iraq?  Why aren’t we looking harder?  Perhaps, (even the they are terribly corrupted) we should turn over setting up the government to the United Nations.  Wouldn’t that let our troops look for the weapons, our original goal?  Wouldn’t it also limit the amount of troops that we would need to have in the country?  Couldn’t it also lead to more stable Iraq?

As far as I am concerned, we need to stick with our original priorities.  Setting up a government should be a secondary objective, one that we should be prepared to lose, if we can accomplish our main goals.

Posted under Iraq War, Politics, Terrorism, War on Terror by Will Gries on Thursday, May 17th 2007; 4:28 pm

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It is well know that the US intelligence agencies knew about 9/11 long before it happened. The reason that 9/11 was not stopped was the hefty layers of Government that surround the entire operation.

To stop the next attack we need to focus on not giving the government more power, but getting the government to use the power it already has to stop the next terrorist attack. Just adding more money and more people isn’t going to solve the problem. If we had the Department of Homeland Security back in 2001, the attack probably still would have occurred.

I think the best way to solve the problem is to cut the funds going to the Intelligence services. Cutting the funds will force them to layoff the extra people that are on the job. Less people, less problems. We need to have a plan for where we want the intelligence to go. Perhaps Homeland Security can act as a center for the whole operation. Foreign intelligence can go to the CIA, while domestic intelligence would be routed to the FBI. As far as I am concerned, the NSA can be picked apart and the appropriate pieces can be reassigned to the CIA and the FBI (perhaps Homeland Security, if we are using that as a hub).

Overall, there has to be less people involved. Government bureaucrats just make the situation worse. Perhaps the military should play a larger role in Intelligence management.

I realize that much of what I have just described is already happening (layout wise) however, they still have a surplus of people and that is dangerous as far as I am concerned.

Posted under Cultural Battles, Legal, Other, Politics, Terrorism by Will Gries on Sunday, April 29th 2007; 3:44 pm

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Last Saturday, when I was on my way to see John McCain I saw protesters.  Funny huh?  How often do you see protestors in a small town?

As almost every protester these days, these protesters were protesting the Iraq war.  They held signs that read Peace and No War.  Ironically, as I’ve tried to hint at in other posts.  Peace and Anti-War are not the same thing.

Peace is basically the lack of War.  I believe that the truest path towards peace is working to make every country on Earth a Democracy.  Sure, we all have different opinions about things but lets face it…. Everybody wants peace.

Being Anti-War is different.  See ironically, sometimes War is needed to maintain Peace.  That is what US forces in Iraq and Afganistan are after. 

So being Anti-War means that you support no war, no matter what the need for the war is.  Not for defense, not for the spread of freedom, not for the fall of communism.

And that is why I don’t support Anti-War movements but do support Peace movements.  There is a difference and it is a rather large and important difference.

Posted under Cultural Battles, History, Iraq War, Other, Politics, Terrorism, War on Terror by Will Gries on Thursday, February 22nd 2007; 11:11 am

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