AIRPORT ATTACK ISLAMIST MOTIVATED

SUSPECT IN DEADLY GERMANY ATTACK CONFESSED TO TARGETING AMERICANS

Stars and Stripes staff and wire reports
March 3, 2011

Flags fly at half staff on RAF Lakenheath, England, on Thursday as the 48th Fighter Wing community mourned the deaths from the Frankfurt Airport shootings.

FRANKFURT, GERMANY — The suspect in a deadly attack on U.S. airmen at the Frankfurt airport has confessed to targeting members of the American military, a top security official said Thursday.

Two airmen were killed and two others seriously wounded in the Wednesday shooting, which German officials are investigating as an act of Islamic terrorism.

Hesse state Interior Minister Boris Rhein told reporters that the suspect, identified as a 21-year-old ethnic Albanian from Kosovo, acted alone, the DAPD news agency reported. According to German newspapers, the suspect Arid Uka portrayed himself as an Islamist on the Internet, the BBC reported.

He saw “himself engaged in Holy War with infidels,” according to Die Welt, while Frankfurter Allgemeine reports that there were rumors he had planned to embark on a “killing spree.”

The suspect, who is being transported to the federal supreme court in Karlsruhe, Germany, is scheduled to be brought before a German judge later Thursday, said Juergen Linker, a German police spokesman. His uncle, Rexhep Uka, told the AP that the young man worked at the Frankfurt airport and was a devout Muslim. The suspect’s grandfather was a religious leader at a mosque in a village near Mitrovica, Kosovo, Rexhep Uka said.

A cousin, Behxhet Uka, said he spoke to the suspect’s father, Murat Uka, several times by telephone from Frankfurt on Wednesday after the family was contacted by Kosovo police. The father said that all he knew was that his son did not come home from his job at the airport Wednesday.

At least three of the airmen killed or injured are from a security forces team based at RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom. The airmen were heading to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, en route to Afghanistan.

“It is with heavy heart that I confirm that airmen from this Wing were involved in the shooting incident,” said Col. John Quintas, commander of the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath.



When I heard about the attacks at Frankfurt, it hit home. I've been in and out of that airport on business so many times; both in and out of uniform.


To our brothers in the Big Blue:

"RESPECT"

- S.L.





Friday Bird HERE


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35 TERRORIST TRAINING CAMPS IN THE US

Incredible . . .

35 Terrorist training camps here in the United States - owned and operated by the Pakistani who lured Daniel Pearl of the Wall Street Journal to his kidnapping and subsequent beheading by al Qaeda.

This is not news - this Hannity report dates back to February 2009 - if anybody has an update on this situation since that time regarding any U.S. government actions against these compounds; please let us know.

All of you need to view this video.

"Keep your hatchet scoured, musket clean, sixty rounds of cap and ball and be ready to march at a minute's notice." Roger's Rangers Rules or Plan of Discipline, Major Robert Rogers - 1757

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.50 CALIBER AT WORK

Dear STORMBRINGER:
I have a question about the .50 bmg as used in special-purpose military sniper rifles. I read a work of fiction recently that repeatedly asserts that the .50 caliber "destroys people" "blows men apart", and so on. Is this realistic (at a few hundred meters)? I would have thought ball ammunition would put a .50 caliber hole straight through them without slowing down much or expanding much, the way a .458 caliber bullet does when shooting a human-sized animal. Am I wrong?
Sincerely,
Michael


Michael -
Trust me . . . a .50 bullet explodes a head at any range:


Garbage in, Garbage Out is a good way to understand the damage done by any non-exploding (cannon) projectile. Take the energy in foot-pounds striking the victim, subtract the energy of the projectile exiting the victem the result is a very accurate measure of the damage inflicted. A .50 BMG ball round with 10,000 ft lbs of energy exiting a torso with 8500 ft lbs of energy does no more damage than an old 50 cal muzzle loader.

"Destroys people" sounds pretty close, "blows men apart" could be a stretch, it will do considerable damage but stops short of actually cutting you in half like some claim. at any rate, 12,000+ FT/LBS of energy could ruin your day.

Hope this helps - S.L.







"Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair." - Winston Churchill


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WHAT TANGLED WEBS WE WEAVE

The BP logo used to crack me up; I'd point it out to my wife: "Look! How stupid do they think we are? Their whole corporate image is wrapped up in how good they are for the environment; they make it look like when you put their stuff in your car you're putting a little bit of green sunshine in there . . . but they're an oil company for crying out loud!"

I drive a VW Passat turbo-diesel; I love my fahrvergnügen, especially on hills, but the "clean diesel, bio-diesel" themes they're always pushing - especially over there in Europe - crack me up even more. It's diesel for crying out loud, let's call it for what it is - especially when you're passing on a hill, the fahrvergnügen's signature move; nice little black cloud of "bio-diesel" coming out the backside there.

Of course, since the Deepwater Horizon was attacked I mean blown-up-by-accident I've been dutifully going out of my way to patronize BP filling stations - we capitalist pigs have to support one another, right? That is, until the latest angle on the Lockerbie Bomber story broke . . .


BP Admits to Libya Oil-for-Terrorist-Swap Meddling

BP admitted on Thursday that it lobbied the British government to carry out a prisoner-transfer with the Libyan government because it feared a delay would damage its business in the country.


Just to keep this thing in perspective, we're talking about the guy behind THIS outrage:




It was almost nine months from the release of the Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi:



. . . to the development of THIS mess:




Normally I'm all for laissez-faire capitalism, but there has to be a moral aspect to your actions . . . talk about your evil profit motive . . . talk about your BAD KHARMA!!!


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HOMELAND SECURITY IN ACTION

Who says Racial Profiling doesn't work?



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THE ETHOS OF CITIZENSHIP

Times Square Bomber Faisal Shahzad


“Why on earth did we allow Faisal Shahzad to become a U.S. citizen in the first place?”

Shahzad apparently obtained his citizenship through marriage, after several years of uncertain legality in this country. Authorities did not discern his radicalism; it is next to impossible to determine membership to a designated terrorist organization.

Background checks on immigrants are spotty and unreliable. How could it be otherwise? The U.S. citizenship system is overwhelmed by a flood of applicants and evaders.

When I became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1986, I had to sign a lot of papers. One of them asked if I was involved on an official level within the Nazi government of Germany from 1933-1945. Other questions involved if I had ever uttered statements advocating the violent overthrow of the United States government, or had membership of any groups that shared such sentiments. A check in the Yes block of any of those questions was grounds for rejection of my petition for U.S. citizenship.

I was an active-duty member of the U.S. military at that time. As I explored post-military career options, I became aware that certain activities could jeopardize my status as a U.S. citizen. That’s right – my citizenship is conditional. It was explained to me that this does not apply to native-born citizens, but if the U.S. government is ever not happy with my activities, as an immigrant I can have my citizenship pulled and be sent back to my native country.

Mind you, I’d probably have to be selling planeloads of explosives to Gaddafi, or committing treason, for something like this to occur – one would think training with the Taliban to set off a car bomb in Times Square would put a guy into this zone, but that’s just me thinking . . .

I think this Faisal Shahzad guy qualifies for the Sean Linnane treatment. Here’s what we do with this wasted piece of human flesh: A) we interrogate the hell out of him, tell him he’ll get lenient treatment for cooperating with us to get all the actionable intell out of him we can get, and then we use the intell his gives us to send a hundred drones into a hundred compounds, mud huts and caves to kill a hundred+ Taliban scum, then B) once that’s accomplished we say “APRIL FOOL!!!”, pull his citizenship and drop him in the middle of Durga-Durga-stan, AFTER we inform all his Taliban buddies exactly HOW MUCH he sang like a canary.

Of course Eric Holder’s office will be too busy busting the law books to find ways to ensure this worthless sack of excrement has every kind of civil right and legal defense imaginable; the thought of standing him in front of a firing squad is the last thing on their minds. I can see our enemies now; rolling around on the cave floor laughing at us every night . . .

THE SYSTEM DIDN'T FAIL . . .

. . . IT FELL FLAT ON ITs ASS ! ! !

Let's go over what we now know, from open sources:

A man previously identified to the United States State Department as a radical Muslim Fundamentalist with sentiments sympathetic to al Qaeda and intentions to travel to Yemen to MEET with al Qaeda some how FAILS to make in on any "NO FLY" lists.


Terror on Flight 253: Wealthy, Quiet, Unassuming: the Christmas Day Bomb Suspect



The SAME man, with a Muslim name - Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab - of Nigeria:

A) bought a one-way ticket to the United States,

B) paid for it in cash,

C) checked no luggage on an international flight from Europe to the United States,

and

D) FAILED TO PRODUCE A PASSPORT -

. . . and they STILL let him on the flight!








Better let this guy on the plane - whatever we do, we don't want to be accused of racial profiling now, do we?









The nicest thing we can say about this entire affair is that it is a case of Political Correctness run amuck. In an incredible attempt to defend this mess, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano establishes herself as a blithering idiot:





If this incident falls within your success criteria, Janet, then Heaven help us.


OOOPS - it looks like that story about no passport has turned out to be something of a red herring.







New evidence surfaces that this whole thing was possibly a probe or diversion, to examine our responses.




S.L.

ETERNAL VIGILENCE DOWN UNDER

. . . paid off this time, thankfully:



Australian police thwarted a suicide terrorist plot in which extremists with ties to an Al Qaeda-linked Somali Islamist group planned to conduct an armed assault on a military base and open fire with automatic weapons until they were shot dead themselves.

Some 400 officers from state and national security services took part in 19 raids on properties in Melbourne, Australia's second largest city, before dawn Tuesday, arresting four men and detaining several others for questioning.

"Details of the planning indicated the alleged offenders were prepared to inflict a sustained attack on military personnel until they themselves were killed," police said.

Australia Foils Terrorist Plot to Attack Army Base

ON AMERICAN SOIL

Deadly homegrown Fundamentalist Moslem terrorist strike against uniformed American soldiers ON AMERICAN SOIL. Suspect captured alive; an American prison convert to Islam, went over to Yemen to get his jihad on, they sent him home so he guns down 2 American soldiers in Little Rock . . . not too much coverage in the mainstream left-wing media outlets about the two young soldiers he gunned down; apparently Pvt. William Long, 23, and wounded Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, were just back from Basic, visiting their recruiters & doing the hometown recruiting gig before going on to their eventual assignments.

MEANWHILE, the late-term abortion doctor gets gunned down by a crazy and it’s the fault of right-wing conservative media (just like the Oklahoma City bombing, remember?)

The first place I detected this theme was here . . . a milblog called Ace of Spades HQ picked up the ball and ran with it . . . by yesterday afternoon it still wasn't a talking point at the Whitehouse Press Room . . . as I left the team room late last night I saw it all over Bill O'Riley on the flatscreens . . .

Of course, we wish a speedy recovery for Private Quinton Ezeagwula.

Rest in Peace, Private William Long.