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“it Can’t Happen Here”

May 21st, 2009 at 4:08 am David Frum | 10 Comments |

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A US version of the Halimi plot is intercepted. This time. 

Recent Posts by David Frum



10 Comments so far ↓

  • Bulldoglover100 // May 21, 2009 at 5:53 am

    Unlike 9/11 that occurred 9 months into the Bush Presidency…….. One, as an American, would hope that we as a Nation learned our lesson of not paying attention to intel. When we do? We avert an attack and when we don’t? we were attacked. Your attempt to show where we are less safe under Obama will never hold water David because you cannot go back and change the history of 9/11. Bush did NOT keep us safe. We were attacked 9 months into his watch. This is why we continue to flounder. You want us to take responsibility for the things that bother YOU such as Rumsfield but the things that don’t? You continue to ignore but this is one that the American people will never forget nor allow stupid excuses for. Bush keeping us safe afterwords? it a joke. Afterwards he lied to us and killed over 4000 more Americans.

  • gibberish // May 21, 2009 at 6:34 am

    I’m sure David posted this in order to emphasize that sensible conservatives should give credit to the effectiveness of Obama’s continuing anti-terrorist effort.

  • sinz54 // May 21, 2009 at 7:31 am

    gibberish: The article Frum cited, states that:”The arrests capped what officials described as a ‘painstaking investigation’ that began in June 2008″Who was President of the United States in June 2008?

  • sinz54 // May 21, 2009 at 7:34 am

    The New York Times article actually acknowledged that these four men were MUSLIMS. Buried way down in the article, of course.The Associated Press article on this story didn’t mention that inconvenient fact at all.But some facts don’t go away.These terrorists weren’t Klansmen.They weren’t neo-nazis.They were MUSLIMS.And they were undoubtedly radicalized in prison, by other radical Muslim prisoner.This is the part that both Bush and Obama never discussed publicly: How do we turn off the conveyor belt by which young Muslim men are being radicalized–and then recruited for terrorism?

  • barker13 // May 21, 2009 at 7:41 am

    “…charged them with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction within the United States…”(*HEADACHE*)OK. A conventional bomb is NOT a “weapon of mass destruction.”Hell. For that matter… flying planes into building doesn’t strike me as “weapons of mass destruction.”(Though of course you could write a law that would kick in at a certain number of deaths and injuries and/or at a certain dollar amount of damage.)Nuclear weapons. Dirty bombs. Chemical and biological weapons that is used kill/injure or have the capacity if used to kill/injure tens of thousands of people… hundreds of thousands of people… THESE are “weapons of mass destruction.”Folks. I’m not trying to be “cutesy” here with defining “mass,” but for God’s sake… think of the ABUSE – overcharging – inherent in “upping the ante” this way.Hell… I’m not a lawyer but I imagine this is a topic of discussion at the highest levels. Just as this overly broad charge opens up the opportunity for government abuse… I’m guessing from a defense attorney’s point of view such “overcharging” presents opportunity for many a technical/semantic argument along the lines past precedent prior to “the war on terror.”I mean… even the stinger missiles. What’s the definition of “mass” with regard to their use? Is a stinger “just a stinger” if used to take out a small government jet carrying a sports star, actor, or corporate type? How’bout if the small plane is a government plane carrying a cabinet secretary or department head? Hey… how’bout if it’s a helicopter ferrying the President from the White House to Andrews? Now compare this to taking out a fully loaded commercial 747. Would each stinger attack be an attack using a “weapon of mass destruction” or would the charge depend upon how many people were on the plane… or would it matter WHO those people (or that person) was?Anyway… just points to ponder.BILL

  • barker13 // May 21, 2009 at 8:00 am

    Re: Bulldoglover100; 5:53 AM –Huh…?!?! How’s David supposedly using this post to “show where we are less safe under Obama?”You’ve lost me, BDL100.Re: Gibberish; 6:34 AM –Again… maybe I’m missing something… but it seems to me that the “motive” for posting this contribution is simply to post regarding a “big” story in the news.(*SHRUG*)(BTW… Newburgh, NY is one exit up the NYS Thruway from me – 16 miles. The “city” of Newburgh is basically a ghetto with a couple blocks of “civilization” down on the riverfront where the restaurants are while the “township” is diverse including “old money” neighborhoods.)Re: Sinz54; wrote 7 minutes ago –Well, based on the photo we know David Williams is black. I don’t know if they’re all black, but if they’re City of Newburgh born and bred chances are they are.Again… just reading between the lines of the NYT story and comparing the blanks to what I know from being from here… (*SHRUG*)… I’m guessing your usual story… dysfunctional families… poverty… drugs… gangs… prison records… prison conversion…(*SHRUG*)If so I’m not going to blame “Islam” for went went wrong with these four – not in the sense of “it’s part of their religion,” because I don’t believe that. Would these four have become would-be “terrorists” absent “conversion”… no… I don’t think so. But by “conversion” we’re talking POLITICAL far more than religious in the true sense of religion. The cape of religion is being misused to shield the radical political agenda – not the other way around.BILL

  • balconesfault // May 21, 2009 at 8:10 am

    “How do we turn off the conveyor belt by which young Muslim men are being radicalized–and then recruited for terrorism?”Well, to a certain extent, I suspect that this will be a big part of Obama’s Cairo speech that David was decrying elsewhere. And I have no doubt Obama will be criticized immediately afterwards for the futility of his gesture, no matter what his words.”The arrests capped what officials described as a ‘painstaking investigation’ that began in June 2008″One of the reasons that I don’t believe Obama to be the radical ideologue that many try to paint him as is that he has made it very clear from the onset that he would keep in place structures and programs that were functioning. This has been a marked contrast to the first months of the Bush Presidency, where there was a rush to scrub away all things Clinton, and rebuild programs – even ones which were working well – from the ground up. Competent people were pushed out so that Heritage Foundation vetted appointees, many with woeful qualifications (Brownie, anyone?) could be put into place.I’ve also long wondered what Bush did after his election to make good on this promise from the 2000 debates when the question of racial profiling was posed: “there is other forms of racial profiling that goes on in America. Arab-Americans are racially profiled in what is called secret evidence. People are stopped, and we have to do something about that.”

  • sinz54 // May 21, 2009 at 9:57 am

    balconesfault: I think we should ALL reserve judgment until we hear what Obama has to say.If Obama doesn’t address this question, I hope some reporter will put it to him in an interview: How do we keep young Muslim men from being sucked into this culture of violence?We’ve been there before. Police and schools and parents are working hard to keep youngsters from being sucked into gang violence and into the drug culture.So perhaps there are some lessons to be learned there about what works and what doesn’t.

  • balconesfault // May 21, 2009 at 11:32 am

    “So perhaps there are some lessons to be learned there about what works and what doesn’t.”I think that one thing history makes clear – you’re not going to win over the most radical ideologues through talk … but as long as there is a dialogue going on, it’s easier for moderates to keep from being drawn in to working with the radicals.Sometime there is a frustration expressed from all sides of the political spectrum that something “just represents talk”. But open communication and dialogue is like a lubricant that allows positions to move without the need for a cataclysmic force.

  • sinz54 // May 22, 2009 at 9:43 am

    balconesfault: Another thing is to make sure that *all* our prisons are staffed with *moderate* Muslim imams to act as counselors and preachers, advocating a peaceful spiritual way of Muslim life. Right now, only a fraction of our prisons have those. That leaves the way open for radical imams and radical literature to find their way into our prisons and radicalize the black and Muslim prisoners there.Many terrorists were recruited from prison this way, including Richard Reid (shoe bomber).

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