The following Op-Ed was submitted by Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, USAF (ret.), Michael Chertoff, and Steven C. McCraw:
Within the span of one month, 14 Americans — nine parishioners at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church and five servicemen in Chattanooga, Tennessee — died at the hands of murderers who seemed to have followed the modus operandi of modern-day terrorists, an M.O. increasingly characterized by self-inspiration and often fueled by social media.
These two attacks illustrate in lurid detail that the terrorist threat confronting our nation is dynamic and is not an aberration of just one entity or ideology. Terrorism has many faces; searching in dark alleys for a single face has tragic consequences.
The events in Charleston, South Carolina, meanwhile highlighted another face of the terrorist threat; no one ideology has a monopoly on extremism or hate. Indeed, the New American Foundation recently released a study that found nearly twice as many Americans since 9/11 have died in attacks by far right or racist groups rather than Islamic extremists: 48 to 26.
The increased coverage of the many faces of terrorism should bring an increased focus on today’s threat and greater collaboration between federal, state, and local authorities to address them. The two most recent attacks, compounded with the New American Foundation study and others with similar findings, highlight the need for a domestic security apparatus that is more comprehensive and agile — in short, an enterprise approach to domestic counterterrorism.
These characteristics portray an increased complexity and breadth of combating today’s threat. The threat is a hydra that is not subordinated to a single organization or figurehead that we can target and destroy. Rather, to defend against this hydra, we need an increasingly effective flow of threat information.
Creating a domestic security enterprise that keeps pace with the evolving threat requires additional tools, improved skills and superb awareness. Terrorism has many faces. And we need a domestic counterterrorism enterprise that can see and address them all effectively.”
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isis doesn't need to do anything but wait. We are killing ourselves off every day.
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PermalinkOK folks, changing the subject here - all about our new trash services, I happened to be home today when my trash was picked up, this is the 2nd week I was able to see things first hand. First, the "recycle" truck comes through with the "automatic" truck and things are fine with that, secondly, the "trash" truck comes through still has the folks on the back of the truck picking up our trash and throwing the bags into the truck, SO why can't we keep this in the ALLEY's where it belongs? After they had left my street which is a cul-de-sac there was bags, beer cans, wrappers blowing around in the street! THIS SHOULD BE IN THE ALLEY not OUT IN FRONT OF OUR HOMES!! Put the dang trash cans back in the alley WHERE THEY BELONG! C'mon folks stand up to this, we have stains in our street from trash that were never there, this is ridiculous!! We need the city council to fix this, PUT THE TRASH CANS back in the ALLEY, OH if it's a bit of an inconvenience to the trash company FINE - they didn't pay for our houses and neighborhoods that we want to keep neat and clean, yes I know trash may blow in the alley but it's better than our front yards!! Am I the only one who just doesn't like this? Really?
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PermalinkOur trash and recycle bins are located in the alley and are emptied there. No complaints so far. Your alley must be too narrow for the trucks to be effective.
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PermalinkThe alleyways have to be free for the buses that are going to take everyone to the FEMA camps! The Americans have invaded us! And I welcome them! I welcome our new Yankee masters, and their benevolent General Schwartz, and promise to aid you, oh mighty ones, in the subjugation of these backward people! Hail the Commander in Chief! Praise Be Unto Him!!
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PermalinkJoe, i really don't think throwing more orwellian bureaucracy at this problem will solve it. It's an open society--so we should be careful about how we formulate and implement foreign, as well as domestic policies. I'm not refeering to remedying the problem--I mean what we are doing as a nation to stir such sources of hate--both internationally and domestically. For the former--we should take a hard look at our hypocritical policies throughout the ME over the last 30 or more years. At home--education, values, access to weaponry, yellow journalism if various media allowed to run rampant, etc.--all too long to list here. We're basically reaping what we sow........Time to treat causes, not symptoms............and wait about a generation to see progress............
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