Should counter-terrorism be manipulated by politicians and by the political sensitivities of security agencies?

Both Hillary and Trump are attempting to exploit the return of terrorist bombings to New York (and elsewhere in US) over the last 24 hours. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/us/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton.html .

The officially, only, suspect, Ahmad Khan Rahami, born in Afghanistan, seems, at a minimum, to be inspired by radical Islam and Islamic website bomb recipes.

However, Obama's federal security agency, the FBI, seem to have made snap judgements - that the situation isn't that bad because Ahmad Khan Rahami just seems to be an unbalanced criminal with no Islamic connections. The message is that Rahami's terrorist bombings are unrelated to his Muslim name or that he immigrated from Afghanistan.

"William Sweeney...of the FBI's New York field office, said they were not looking for any more suspects in the case and that they had "no indication" that a terror cell was operating in New York City." http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/19/494550583/new-york-names-person-of-interest-in-chelsea-bombing-ahmad-khan-rahami

So again - Should counter-terrorism be manipulated by politicians and by the political sensitivities of security agencies?

Pete

yes?

Obama cannot link Islam and terrorism and bureaucrats are required to do the same. For instance, Orlando,

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/orlando-nightclub-massacre/why-won-t-obama-say-radical-islam-n591196

There is no way in hell that Obama is going to admit the flaws and folly of his and others 'Progressive' (regressive) social experimentation.

At the same time, there is an immediate outflowing of fulsome praise where any good can be attached to 'Islam'. Usually, that is because some individual Muslim has done well for him- herself, which many would observe required that individual to step aside from the medieval limitations of Islam.

It is quite deliberate censorship that goes far beyond spin. Standard operating procedure for politicians and leftists like Obama excel at it. Favoured of course by the political correctness to which they owe so much of their personal success.

It is the antithesis of the freedom of speech that they enjoy and others fought for and is highly corrosive to democracy. As if they care, as long as their self-entitlement and greed are being well served.

In Oz there are copy cats and here is one,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFELLK8htKM

Of course it will help Trump.

After the bomb went off in NY Trump mentioned the bomb going off and Clinton chastised him for referring to it as a bomb, just before having to admit it was one herself.

That it was yet another act of Islamic terrorism at the hands of a muslim immigrant played right to his message.

The alternative media is saying the attacks were a diversion to change the media narrative away from events in Syria.

Seems US security bureaucracies (eg. FBI) are high profile political entities. The NY bombing and other non-exploders Rahami set seem a major FBI failure.

This is given the bomber, Rahami, http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/19/us/ahmad-khan-rahami/index.html made several extended trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2011-2013.

And most significantly he was on a FBI list and passed security interviews with the FBI once or twice.

Biggest FBI stuffup since the Boston Marathon Bombings in 2013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Marathon_bombing#Backgrounds .

Unwelcome in Hillary's Obama sponsored Election timetable.

Pete

Further to me saying last week's New York bombing was the FBI's biggest stuffup since the Boston Marathon Bombing - it has now been revealed the New York bomber's father told the FBI, in 2014, that Ahmad Khan Rahami was a terrorist. But the FBI said Ahmad Khan Rahami was "clean" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/20/ahmad-khan-rahamis-father-told-fbi-that-his-son-was-a-terrorist/

The article continues. The father "contacted the FBI two years ago claiming his son was a terrorist, but the agency determined that he was "clean" and did not place him on a watchlist.

...“Two years ago I go to the FBI because my son was doing really bad, OK?” he said. “But they check almost two months, they say, ‘He’s OK, he’s clean, he’s not a terrorist.’ I say OK.

“Now they say he is a terrorist. I say OK," he added, speaking to reporters outside of the fried chicken restaurant he owns in Elizabeth, New Jersey."

This is as bad as the father of the Underwear Bomber warning the CIA some years ago about his son http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Farouk_Abdulmutallab#Awareness_by_U.S._intelligence but that is another story about US agencies too large and bureaucratic to use their oversize databases.

Pete

The FBI have another stuff up to perplex them:
Rahani also left a second bomb – but that one, police believe, was accidentally disabled by would-be thieves.

Police sources said a pair of well-dressed men spotted a suitcase lying on West 27th street, five blocks from the successful bomb.

They took the bomb out of the bag and then placed it in a rubbish bin before stealing the suitcase. By removing it, officials say the unidentified thief accidentally disabled the device. “Who in this world finds a pressure cooker with a phone and just takes the bag?” a police source asked.

Police may charge the pair or recommend the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Ya bringing out the cynic in me nick

Previous winners of the Medal of Freedom include:

- Head of the CIA, George Tenet, for his success in Not predicting 9/11

- General Tommy Franks for "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq

- US "Governor" of Iraq, Paul Bremer, for sacking the entire Iraqi Army in 2003 thereby starting the Iraqi Civil War. As the Gift That Keeps On Giving, sacked officers of the Iraqi Army now basically head ISIS, BTW.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tenet#Later_life

Cheers

Pete

Plant,

Are you suggesting that the correct US police response should be to lock up any Muslim that someone thinks is a terrorist?

A tough question Shadow.

If the guy's father reckoned sonny had terrorist tendencies then retrospectively it doesn't look good in electoral politics or security.

It's in the finest traditions of Stuff Ups.
Mitchell ... was court-martialed for insubordination after accusing Army and Navy leaders of an "almost treasonable administration of the national defense" for investing in battleships instead of aircraft carriers.
Oz rejected the Owen gun and the aircraft black-box inventions then later had to use them.

My part in advising General Billy Mitchell how to bomb battleships remains tightly held to this day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell#Project_B:_Anti-ship_bombing_demonstration .

Also Off Topic. It was a Brit, General Fuller, who was the inspiration for German Blitzkrieg tactics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._F._C._Fuller

Pete

Hi Shadow Minister

(returning to topic) On suggestions that "the correct US police response should be to lock up any Muslim that someone thinks is a terrorist?"

Trump's Temporary Solution:

"The only option for authorities would have been some kind of internment on suspicion – and this is the context in which Trump has not ruled out a contemporary version of Washington's internment of Japanese living in the US during World War II.

In a December 2015 interview with Time magazine, Trump confessed that he might have supported such drastic action in the 1940s. He conceded resurrecting the policy was undesirable, but added that in confronting terrorism "war is tough."
see http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-election/stubbornly-uninformed-donald-trump-confuses-domestic-terrorism-with-migration-20160921-grlr72.html

Naturally I don't agree.

Plant,

Interning > 3 million people because some are bad is not only wildly disproportionate, and violate most parts of the USA constitution, but would be vastly expensive too.

US vehicle deaths are 30,000 - 40,000 year.
Firearms about 30, 000 year ( yeah check it out).
600,000 died in Vietnam because ..um..
Muslim 9/11 was 2300 deaths. This comes under vehicle deaths , about 42,000 in year 2001. 5% was terror , 95% terrible driving.

The official number of illegals in the US is 12 million, but some say its as high as 30 million, and Donald Trump is going to make every single one of them leave.

First he will build the wall and cut off any welfare benefits illegals were enjoying, at which point most will start to leave of their own accord and any that don't will get rounded up and sent back to their country of origin.

Hi S&M

Naturally I agree with your good self.

If Trump funded the National Rifle Association to distribute semi-automatics to US Muslims and raised the car speed limit then freedom reigns . Bombs in suitcases would be a thing of the past and Islam goes mainstream.

Re my criticisms about FBI efficiency. That friendly, though spooky, rag, The Washington Free Beacon, also asks questions about FBI counter-terrorism efficiency http://freebeacon.com/national-security/fbi-training-questioned-recent-terror-attacks/ :

"The FBI acknowledged dismissing concerns that Rahami posed a terrorism threat."

"Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, plans to question FBI Director James Comey about its counterterrorism work at a hearing Wednesday.

[said Goodlatte] “From San Bernardino to Orlando to the most recent terrorist attacks in New York, New Jersey, and Minnesota, the United States has experienced a rise in radical Islamic terrorism and we must ensure that the FBI has the resources needed for its counterterrorism efforts in order to thwart these heinous plots and protect Americans from harm,” Goodlatte said in a statement.

Former FBI Special Agent John Guandolo said the FBI does not lack resources but has failed to understand the nature of the Islamist terror threat and thus has prevented proper training of counterterrorism agents over misplaced concerns of discrimination against Muslims."