Category: News and Views
Leo I think this is in your neck of the woods. Anyone hear of the Somali college student who plotted to blow up a Christmas tree during a lighting ceremony in Corvallis, Oregon?
Just when I thought things couldn't get any crazier, on comes this story courtesy of CNN. WHAT KIND OF NUT PLOTS TO BLOW UP A CHRISTMAS TREE?! Is it time to reevaluate immigration policy? Now the imam of this 40 year old mosque, which has seen no trouble with neighbors until now, was in tears on hearing of this. Mosques have been in existence since the 19th Century in New York, they're nothing new, but not too many associate plots like this with angry Amish or militant Hindus. Somalia is a country which openly executes Christians and there was trouble with the cab commission in Minnesota over their wanting to refuse to serve everyone from those transporting liquor from the duty free stores to blind with guide dogs. Possibly time to look at whose more likely to adapt? Or not issue as many student visas, as the 9/11 hijackers were educated in Hamburg and the U S, and American universities may have a highly anti-American content? I went to one myself, and the only professor who wasn't mired in '60's liberalism actually experienced & fled life under communism. I'm not sure I want to know what's next.
It was a Christmas tree lighting, in Downtown Portland, a very traditional affair. Ironically some Christian undamentalists also find it offensive because they consider it too watered down.
But the rest of us enjoy it: The trees our here are something to be proud of and Portland is one of those places where you have a lot of different groups of folk, a sort of "little big city" people are nicer than they are in New York, but we still have most of the amenities.
Anyway what's interesting about this story is the detective from the FBI who infiltrated and provided the dummy bomb to prevent real disaster on numerous occasions provided an easy out for this guy to just stop, think about what he was doing, and back off. This FBI guy, in my mind, was behaving a true hero. He infiltrated, prevented a calamity by switching the real bomb for a fake, and on numerous occasions advised the "friend" this Samali, that there would be many innocent people including children, that there was no shame in not going through with this.
Apparently this guy had been contacting Al Qaeda sources when the FBI began intercepting.
This event where he intended to terrorize literally sports thousands of people often singing, standing shoulder to shoulder in and around Pioneer Courthouse Square. It's an awesome event, though if you have trouble with large crowds you definitely want to be on the edges.
But anyway add to this: Most terrorist threats in this country are thwarted by detective work done by people like this FBI guy. Yunno what else? If more Americans would realize this and not be so "frightened" on TV, gain a little confidence here in our security personnel who are doing this, you'd all deflate the terrorists like a used birthday balloon. What good is a potential terror threat, if you yourself simply weren't terrified? I really didn't like the news painting a panic picture: The amazing piece to me is how on top of this guy they were. I solve puzzles for l living so maybe that's part of the attraction for me here, but seriously, many many more threats are thwarted than ever go through. Notice how often you hear about this stuff *after* the threat isn't anymore. But the cameras would rather show a young girl, probably in college, saying just how scary it was.
It wasn't scary: the tree lighting went off without a hitch, because this FBI guy thwarted what was supposed to happen. That's the message I'd rather see the terrorists get: Let pictures of everyone carrying on, singing, having a good time, let them see that. What they intended as lots of destruction, and lots of attention for them, was nothing more than whitenoise.
Now, on the other hand, if the fire in the local mosque out here was caused by a fundamentalist group that's American as a reaction, all I gotta say for them is: equally, careful in the shower boys ... the big house has got room for you as well as them ...
As far as I know the FBI is investigating that as well.
That's one person that didn't get mentioned at all by CNN: The FBI investigator. Kudos to him. I have mixed feelings about Islam and Muslims, but I am not for eliminating their first amendment rights to worship, nor do I support desecration of their mosques. The tree lighting event sounds like fun! I wondered if ours here got postponed or cancelled because of the events in Oregon, but they went as scheduled in a part of town different than the one I thought it was.