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Mosab Hassan Yousef was purportedly an Israeli spy who provided information on Hamas, and several bombing operations targeting Israel. He is a marked man, disowned by his father, despised by his friends and family, and wanted by Hamas. Yousef attended Hamas meetings with his father, a respected member of the organization, then secretly reported what he heard to his Israeli handlers. Because of the never-ending tension between the Israelis and the Palestinians over independence and land, this is more about war than terror, since both sides utilize tactics that fall under the ‘terror’ threshold.
Yousef is now awaiting a decision from INS on whether he’ll be granted asylum in California. He has written a tell-all book about his experiences, in an effort to obtain his 15 minutes of fame (and fortune) like Balloon Boy, Yacht-Girl, and that Baby Factory lady. The question is, is he a mole or an asset? Will he commit terror in the US?
In my view, there is no definitive way to determine what is in a man's heart or deep within his mind. I'm uncomfortable with his admission regarding driving terrorists to safe houses after a bombing operation, but I am also uncomfortable with what our law enforcement people do to entice criminal behavior from poor, under-educated citizens, right here at home. I'm thinking of the TV show Bait Car, and some of the FBI operations to create terrorist actions from people who may have otherwise not considered terror.
For example, the FBI has supplied funding, an operations base, equipment, uniforms, contacts, and even potential targets, to a loose group in Florida, more of an inept gang actually, rather than a cell. After coercing the group into formulating some sort of plan, the FBI arrested them with much fanfare as terrorists. These guys had never been out of the state of Florida, knew no real terrorists, and had no terror training, no travel abroad, no internet savvy, and precious little good sense. These guys couldn't make a soda fizzle by shaking it up, yet they supposedly plotted to make explosive devices capable of rivaling Oklahoma City. Some FBI lifer must have needed a promotion really badly.
The nature of clandestine operations is subterfuge, misdirection, and lying. We often don't know that an agent was a sleeper until after lives have been lost. The question of if/ when Yousef will be part of future terror operations are truly a conundrum. But I believe that we must do everything we can to encourage operatives like Yousef to come to our side. We monitor him closely by assigning a few agents to him instead of a desk in Nebraska, layer on all of our wireless bugging capabilities intensely at first, then less so as time goes by. If there is reason to suspect him his involvement in anything at all, we can always deport him at that time.
tnasiti speaks, all rights reserved, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
On Piracy
Many say that we should execute Somali Pirates on site, set them asail without oars, take their food and water then set them adrift, or shoot their skiffs from under them, thus turning them into Somali-shark snacks.
Then we too would become barbarians. Piracy is an issue born of poverty, and the stronger nation's fishing fleets illegally encroaching onto Somali waters, without payment or consequence.
To be clear, I want it stopped. I also have little empathy for some criminal with an AK forcing his will, because of his self-serving needs onto someone else. But I cannot condone summary execution without due process, or murder by circumstance-that is to say, setting them afloat without oars or water as some have suggested.
I would choose arrest and long sentences that remove the pirate/opportunist from the mix. Perhaps 20 years from now, Somalia might have managed to grow some form of government.
It is an instinct ingrained in our DNA, to survive and see that our children can eat. Example; if you have a group of poor and hungry people congregated near an area where food is transported daily, someone will eventually organize a raiding party and knock off a truck or two. Heck, the Mafia does it every day, and one cannot argue that they are poor or hungry (just look at the guts on those guys). Yet I hear no clamor to shoot them on sight, or to force them to run across 8 lane highways.
The French Revolution was incited by people that were hungry, and an entire government fell. Governments have fought over food and other resources since, forever, and will continue to do so. We will soon see wars over water.
My point is that people, states, and countries, will attempt to take what they must have, if negotiation isn't an option. It is incumbent upon civilized society to not respond in-kind to barbarous behavior, but rather to act in a firm, but morally justifiable manner.
Then we too would become barbarians. Piracy is an issue born of poverty, and the stronger nation's fishing fleets illegally encroaching onto Somali waters, without payment or consequence.
To be clear, I want it stopped. I also have little empathy for some criminal with an AK forcing his will, because of his self-serving needs onto someone else. But I cannot condone summary execution without due process, or murder by circumstance-that is to say, setting them afloat without oars or water as some have suggested.
I would choose arrest and long sentences that remove the pirate/opportunist from the mix. Perhaps 20 years from now, Somalia might have managed to grow some form of government.
It is an instinct ingrained in our DNA, to survive and see that our children can eat. Example; if you have a group of poor and hungry people congregated near an area where food is transported daily, someone will eventually organize a raiding party and knock off a truck or two. Heck, the Mafia does it every day, and one cannot argue that they are poor or hungry (just look at the guts on those guys). Yet I hear no clamor to shoot them on sight, or to force them to run across 8 lane highways.
The French Revolution was incited by people that were hungry, and an entire government fell. Governments have fought over food and other resources since, forever, and will continue to do so. We will soon see wars over water.
My point is that people, states, and countries, will attempt to take what they must have, if negotiation isn't an option. It is incumbent upon civilized society to not respond in-kind to barbarous behavior, but rather to act in a firm, but morally justifiable manner.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Women and Their Derrieres
Somebody ‘Splain to Me…
Why is it that some women become trapped in a time warp, back when their rear ends were attractive, and something to flaunt? The Jay-lo butt loses its appeal with age, unless constantly firmed up or suctioned off. Many women today do not understand that it isn’t so much the size of the butt, as it is it’s composition, that make it attractive or not.
I ask this question because of the number of Black, and now other women well past forty (and should therefore know better) on dating and networking sites, contorting themselves into poses designed to expose their bottoms in all their former glory. It’s like a body dysmorphic syndrome, but for the buttox.
When such women were 17, boys and men would take a first and second approving look. When these ladies hit 25, men and boys were subject to injure a vertebrae, in an effort to extend the length of their view. But by 45, the boys don't even notice, most men avoid looking, and the only ones gawking now are corner hangers, and that newly homeless 'catch' camping out in the bus enclosure.
So when these women pose themselves to display a rear end that’s now rumpled, dimpled, heart-shaped, or as wide as Kansas, one must ask-'what do they see when they look at their photos?' Do they have a purloined carnival mirror at home that distorts and refects a more attractive shape? Perhaps they have a bizarro-gene that reverses the image reference of their stomach and derriere. Some women actually have a behind flat enough to look good as a stomach, and a stomach so round that it would make a really nice Jay-lo.
Someone needs to send these ladies an email, fax, or smoke signal, explaining that life has different phases. What was fun, exciting, and attractive at 25, is likely to be less so at 45. Try riding every roller coaster at an amusement park at age 45 they way you did at 15, and you will understand my point. If you don’t get it right away, wait until the next day when your neck and head feel like the tumble cycle of an electric dryer.
Men are guilty of similar bizarro body-crimes. The muscle-shirt guys, who had nice muscular arms and tight abs twenty years ago, somehow manage to still see those old arms. Yet they don’t see the huge eruption of a gut over-hanging their ever expanding waist-line. And another pet peeve of mine are these grown-azz men wearing their hats backwards on a regular basis. Switching it back at a cook out or ball game for attitude is one thing, but at the market, to work, or on a date is something else. Even my boy Al Bundy had the sense to pack his high school jersey away, along with his disco era gold plated rope chain.
While I ponder this curious phenomenon, maybe one of you out there will supply the answer. If I were to venture a guess, I’d say that the culprit is President Obama....they blame him for everything else, why not this too?
Tnasiti speaks, all rights reserved 2010
Why is it that some women become trapped in a time warp, back when their rear ends were attractive, and something to flaunt? The Jay-lo butt loses its appeal with age, unless constantly firmed up or suctioned off. Many women today do not understand that it isn’t so much the size of the butt, as it is it’s composition, that make it attractive or not.
I ask this question because of the number of Black, and now other women well past forty (and should therefore know better) on dating and networking sites, contorting themselves into poses designed to expose their bottoms in all their former glory. It’s like a body dysmorphic syndrome, but for the buttox.
When such women were 17, boys and men would take a first and second approving look. When these ladies hit 25, men and boys were subject to injure a vertebrae, in an effort to extend the length of their view. But by 45, the boys don't even notice, most men avoid looking, and the only ones gawking now are corner hangers, and that newly homeless 'catch' camping out in the bus enclosure.
So when these women pose themselves to display a rear end that’s now rumpled, dimpled, heart-shaped, or as wide as Kansas, one must ask-'what do they see when they look at their photos?' Do they have a purloined carnival mirror at home that distorts and refects a more attractive shape? Perhaps they have a bizarro-gene that reverses the image reference of their stomach and derriere. Some women actually have a behind flat enough to look good as a stomach, and a stomach so round that it would make a really nice Jay-lo.
Someone needs to send these ladies an email, fax, or smoke signal, explaining that life has different phases. What was fun, exciting, and attractive at 25, is likely to be less so at 45. Try riding every roller coaster at an amusement park at age 45 they way you did at 15, and you will understand my point. If you don’t get it right away, wait until the next day when your neck and head feel like the tumble cycle of an electric dryer.
Men are guilty of similar bizarro body-crimes. The muscle-shirt guys, who had nice muscular arms and tight abs twenty years ago, somehow manage to still see those old arms. Yet they don’t see the huge eruption of a gut over-hanging their ever expanding waist-line. And another pet peeve of mine are these grown-azz men wearing their hats backwards on a regular basis. Switching it back at a cook out or ball game for attitude is one thing, but at the market, to work, or on a date is something else. Even my boy Al Bundy had the sense to pack his high school jersey away, along with his disco era gold plated rope chain.
While I ponder this curious phenomenon, maybe one of you out there will supply the answer. If I were to venture a guess, I’d say that the culprit is President Obama....they blame him for everything else, why not this too?
Tnasiti speaks, all rights reserved 2010
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