News: October 2007 Archives
Commenters who poo-pooed my suggestion that the Southern California fires might be terror-related should remember than al Qaeda has expressed interest in using fires as weapons of terror.
PHOENIX (AP) — The FBI alerted law enforcement agencies last month that an al-Qaeda terrorist now in detention had talked of masterminding a plot to set a series of devastating forest fires around the western United States.Rose Davis, a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, told The Associated Press that officials there took note of the warning but didn't see a need to act further on it. ...
The Republic reported that the detainee, who was not identified, said the plan involved three or four people setting wildfires using timed devices in Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming that would detonate in forests and grasslands after the operatives had left the country.
If the SoCal fires turn out to have a terror connection (for which there is no evidence now that I'm aware of) perhaps the leftists in that region of the country will be more motivated to support the Global War on Terror.
Update:
At least one fire was caused by arson. Who are the most likely suspects?
ExtremePumpkins.com is a hit every Halloween. Enjoy!
Here are some satellite pictures of the various ongoing fires in Southern California, including the Malibu fire. These were taken on October 21, 2007, and you can see how quickly the fires are spreading.
I wouldn't be surprised if there were a terrorist connection to these fires... if they weren't set by terrorists on purpose, the fires could still be a deadly distraction from a terrorist operation.
(HT: NASA.)
I've driven through the tunnel of the I-5 with the truck inferno dozens of times, and it's really sad to see such a major accident there. The highways around Los Angeles are stretched to the breaking point, and unfortunately the transport truck drivers aren't always very careful in their hurry to make deliveries.
I hope there aren't any more fatalities, and that California quits wasting money on nonsense and gets busy upgrading its infrastructure.
I'm stunned that Sandy-Pants Berger is working for Hillary Clinton... here's some advice he might give her: don't steal secret documents from the National Archives, stuff them in your pants, walk out with them, hide them in a construction site, come back later to recover the documents, take them home, and shred them.
Counterpoint: Actually, why not do that? You'll get at most a slap on the wrist and a couple-year vacation before being right back on Capitol Hill, potentially advising yet another President Clinton! It's win-win-win! The only real issue is whether or not Hillary will have to modify the technique to hide secret documents up her skirt.
Seriously though, can anyone -- even supporters of Clinton -- really justify hiring Sandy-Pants Berger back into a position where he will have access to national security information?
Bill Sammon's summary is concise and damning:
[Sandy-Pants] Berger has admitted stealing documents from the National Archives in advance of the 9/11 Commission hearings in 2003. The documents, written by White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, were a “tough review†of the Clinton administration’s shortcomings in dealing with terrorism, Clarke’s lawyer told the Washington Post.On several occasions, [Sandy-Pants] Berger stuffed highly classified documents into his pants and socks before spiriting them out of the Archives building in Washington, according to investigators. On one occasion, upon reaching the street, he hid documents under a construction trailer after checking the windows of the Archives and Justice Department buildings to make sure he was not being watched.
[Sandy-Pants] Berger came back later and retrieved the documents, taking them home and cutting them up with scissors. Two days later, he was informed by Archive employees that his removal of documents had been detected.
“[Sandy-Pants] Berger panicked because he realized he was caught,†said a report by the National Archives inspector general, which also recounted his initial reaction. “[Sandy-Pants] Berger lied.â€
[Sandy-Pants] Berger also lied to the public, telling reporters he made an “honest mistake†by “inadvertently†taking the documents, which he blamed on his own “sloppiness.†Bill Clinton vouched for the explanation for [Sandy-Pants] Berger, who served as his national security adviser.
[Sandy-Pants] Berger later conceded: “I was giving a benign explanation for what was not benign.â€
The Justice Department initially said [Sandy-Pants] Berger stole only copies of classified documents and not originals. But the House Government Reform Committee later revealed that an unsupervised [Sandy-Pants] Berger had been given access to classified files of original, uncopied, uninventoried documents on terrorism. Several Archives officials acknowledged that [Sandy-Pants] Berger could have stolen any number of items and they “would never know what, if any, original documents were missing.â€
At his sentencing in September 2005, [Sandy-Pants] Berger was fined $50,000, placed on probation for two years and stripped of his security clearance for three years.
Sandy-Pants Berger is a national disgrace, and both the Justice Department and the media are shameful for not pressing him on the contents of the original uncopied documents that he stole. He has never been called on to testify as to the contents of those documents, and no media organization has spent a dime investigating his behavior. Sandy-Pants Berger should be cast out of public life and shunned as a traitorous pariah.
Columbus Day: Welcome to America
