9/11 proved that enough crazy hell bent terrorists can succeed. Building great fences protecting our borders is not the way to protect against them.

I thought they were freedom fighters?

Anyway, no, it will help, but more must be done. As in taking the fight to the terrorists backyard in the Land of Mohammed.

The only explanation I can think of is that bin Laden doesn’t want to attack us. Trying to see it from his point of view, the unanticipated collapse of the twin towers of the WTC was a PR coup, but resulted in the Crusaders taking over two Moslem countries–a terrible loss for Islam. Why repeat that mistake, especially since he is on his way to bankrupting the U.S. by merely saying ‘boo’ now and then? Every time he says ‘boo,’ Bush and Cheney brown their pants and call for spending another trillion dollars.

Again the more likely involvement is in areas where jihadists and mexican smuggling gangs have overlapping interest… . The smugglers may not even know or care in this circumstance of the true alliegence of the provider of the services.

Honor among thieves, right? :/

It boils down that we’re not _really_ all that serious about shutting this kind of crap down and rooting the scum out. The sense of a clear and present danger isn’t foremost in a pol’s head, not really. Then when the ultimate horror occurs they’re crying like a bunch of wounded virgins. It’d be humorous if they weren’t playing footsie with lives of my family.

James Greenidge
Queens NY

Bravo Zulu U.S.C.G. !!!

On May 3rd, 2008 at 6:14 pm, see-dubya said:

You make some valid points.

Besides that there’s the bigger problem of the shadow-world the Mexican cartels/smugglers create–where fake ID’s are cheap and enforcement is politically discouraged. When someone like Farida Ahmed comes across the border, what is the extra incentive to get involved?

This is so in Mexico. All sorts of criminal activity related to smuggling is tolerated officially. It is quite possible for individual jihadist terrorists to make some use of the smuggling pipeline into the US. I think the people pipeline is more likely then moving contraband though.

It is also quite possible for some element of a jihadist network to develop a working relationship with a mexican smuggling gang without their true allegences be known. Say a jihad sympathetic businesmman willing to allow his services to be periodicly used by terrorits.

This is the exemplified by, though not proven by facts, in the first case you link about the Chinese immigrants. The illegal immigrabts while being cleared of terrorist links were flown by a mexican national in a plane rented from a naturailized middle eastern Texas Flight school owner who caters to Saudi Arabians.

Some of your other examples have broken links and I will have to look up sources later.

And then there’s the point that the drugs the cartels run, and the money-laundering schemes they use, may support jihadist groups in South America or elsewhere.

But here again the interests of the Mexican smuggling cartels and the possible Jihadist mixed up with supplying drugs for funding diverge. The Mexican cartels have long been willing to do business with SA drug suppliers that use the leftist guerrilas. So you could broadly define them as enabelers but that is not quite accurate. The US border smuggling catrtels political interests are quite narrow though and revolve solely around continuing their criminal enterprise. In the past, previous incarnations of US bound transhippers in Latin American have refused to provide open refuge to Columbian drug organisations when they suffered crackdowns for their local terrorism. However they did not stop doing regular business with the columbian cartels.

Again the more likely involvement is in areas where jihadists and mexican smuggling gangs have overlapping interest. Money laundering would be an example. Both the smugglers and the terrorists may make use of the same system. The smugglers may not even know or care in this circumstance of the true alliegence of the provider of the services.

It’s actually not that new, given that small submarines were used back in the Revolutionary War, but this new batch is stealthy and barely detectable.

Forget the micro subs,
we have already had threats from homebuilt subs right here in our harbors.

Here are more pics.

I think your judge is mostly right. The cartels’ and the terrorists’ incentives are mostly not compatible.

However, they have been involved in smuggling Chinese immigrants before. And as that case suggests, sometimes they miscalculate.

Then there are people like Farida Goolam Ahmed, who parallel the cartel’s operation and specialize in South Asian immigrants.

And there are Hispanic jihadists. AQ top operative Shukrijuma is supposed to be passing himself off as Mexican. And then there were the dudes from Guyana. They could slip through the immigrant pipeline without a lot of scrutiny.

Besides that there’s the bigger problem of the shadow-world the Mexican cartels/smugglers create–where fake ID’s are cheap and enforcement is politically discouraged. When someone like Farida Ahmed comes across the border, what is the extra incentive to get involved? The best example of that is the Falls Church, Virginia 7-11 where some of the 9-11 hijackers got their fake IDs.

And then there’s the point that the drugs the cartels run, and the money-laundering schemes they use, may support jihadist groups in South America or elsewhere.

So while I’d agree that the specific case of, say, the Tijuana cartel knowingly taking an Al-Qaeda jihadist and his dirty bomb across the border is remote, I do believe the problems are closely connected.

On May 3rd, 2008 at 10:57 am, BrianNY said:
P.S. Nice catch by the Coasties!
I’ve read on another site that the USCG, working together with the Colombian military and satellite technology for a while now, are remarkably accurate at hunting down these FARC puppies the moment they leave the coastline. FARC has to scuttle them with millions of dollars in powder aboard as soon as the military arrives.

While it is true that they have become much better at tracking even small fast boats, the net result of the current effort does not put a dent into the movement of drugs up into Mexico or elsewhere for smuggling to the US. They still catch a very minor percentage of what gets through. And as in the past, once one route or method is clamped down upon another one is developed.

Realizing some efficacy in our interdiction efforts is going to remain very difficult even if it is neccesary and worthwhile.

There is not now nor is there likely to be direct coopereation between radical muslim terrorists and the organisations within the Mexican cartels that run the US smuggling routes.

The cross US border smuggling is handled by semi autonomous suborganisations and sometimes geographicly local gangs within the mostly Northern Mexican drug cartels

While it is true these smuggling gangs are beholden to and under the lure of monetary gains for bieng contacted by a number of organized criminal cartels in Mexico, It is not in their self interests to expand into alliance with radical muslim terrorists.

They guard and defend their operations very closely to maintain control. Their cross US border smuggling activity is very lucrative, but is extremely risky. Once they get a working method they want to keep it up for as long as possible, which in this climate is often of a limited time.

The profits are so great that the smugglers are reluctant to do anything that impedes their core business. Assisting radical muslim terrorists is not in their interests. They are not stupid businessmen. They have seen a negatve impact on their operations since 9/11 as the US has stepped up homeland security and pursued terrorist organisations internationally.

The judge explained to me that in the intial year or so following 9/11 the diversion of resources to focus on Al queda and Iraq created an enforcement vacume that the smugglers exploited. But the steppped up international enforcement on terrorists and beefed up homeland security ultimately had a costly impact on their smuggling. At the most basic self interest level the smugglers know they gain nothing from supporting US bound terrorists. We are the their great cash cow and they have long term business plans. The chaos and backlash from terrorists attacks does not serve them.

It is his opinion that the Mexican cartels linked with US smuggling have been and probably will remain resistant to any direct cooperation with radical terrorists.

I even asked if the terrorists somehow could get a contacted load of weapon materials or people passed into US surreptitiously along the smuggling chain through Mexico. And he said maybe, but it is highly doubtful they could do it without knowledge by the participnats and therefor the leaders of the gangs that control the cross US border smuggling.

I think the Mexican cartels are our enemies and commit acts of heinous terroism within their own country. But they are very different animals with very different motives then al qaida and other radical muslim terrorists. They have no ideological alignment and little common business interests.

I too served in our nations submarine force but no incentive or perk could lead me to even consider or kid about supporting these murdering crooks and cronies.

You attempt at humor is hereby labeled as FAIL.

At least once a month a sub is caught and put on public display. Some are quite crude and probably would not make it more than 10 miles in open seas but others are much more sophisticated than the exaMples shown in this post.

I see this as threat #1 to our country from not only the terrorist exploit perspective but also the tons of poison that reach our shores to feed the drug use and associated crimes which are a tragedy on the scale of 9/11 (death from drug crimes, accidents by those under the influence, overdoses and from complications of drug use) on a weekly basis

thanx for the tip on the PVHO code on building subs.

for those who to check it out…. here it is.
http://catalog.asme.org/home.cfm?SEARCH=pvho&SEARCHWITHIN=1&CATEGORY=CS&IMAGE.X=5&IMAGE.Y=4