From what we know, they try to blend with the locals.  Yes the REAL Al Qaeda guys are probably pretty low profile, but not ALL of them are.
Shoe-Bomber.
Blind Cleric.
Mr. "I just blew up the WTC and now I want my U-Haul Deposit".

What about the Man From Abroad, who has a little too much cash, and seems a little shifty?
Why no concerned citizens' calls from the Arab Community?
Not even false alarms?

I can go with that. They have the right to free speech, but I have the right to punch their filthy mouths (J/K, mostly)



I see your point, to a point. But I assure you, the gun grabbers beleive us Constitutionalists  are indeed waging a war against teh US gov't - evidenced by OK City, Waco, Ruby Ridge, etc


BTW - I'm a buck private in the Tin Foil Brigade  [BD]

 


That RIGHT THERE is the rub for me. AS a citizen, I'll cut you some slack. IMO non-citizens who speak against the gov't should be DEPORTED - post haste.

Buh-bye, leechy non-citizens.

I don't know that this is or is not happening.

The FBI usually handles these investigations, and they have not been revealing much, if any, details about the sources of their leads.  The FBI may well have their own reasons for secrecy; they don't want the sleeper cells tipped off either.  If I was running this investigation, I would have all my sources and informants keep quiet until I had all the bad guys locked up.  Good-will PR is well and good but it should take a back seat to preventing future crimes.

...encouraging others within the community to turn in terrorist sypathizers would not be a hinderance.

Don't you think we'd have heard of at least one instance?
One?

I have a friend in the FBI who is working in the NY/NJ/PA area.  He says that the cooperation is just not there.
He says that the biggest aid to their investigation has been the Anthrax threats...

They follow false leads about suspect Arabs, and guess what?
-The suspect Arabs tend to be illegals, or worse.

(The leads have NOT come from other arabs, just paranoid, racist profilers)

All it would take is for some mullah of national fame and dignity to declare a [i][b]fatwa[/b][/i] against anyone taking any action against innocent men, women, and children, of any particular belief, or even nonbelief.

The way that a [i][b]fatwa[/b][/i] is considered by devout Muslims, is that it has the force of religious law and is binding in this world and in the next!

It's such a powerful concept that it is seldom used. Here is the one pronounced against Salman Rushdie:

[b]"I inform the proud Muslim people of the world that the author of the Satanic Verses book which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran, and all involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to  death."[/b]
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, FATWA issued February, 1989, against Salman Rushdie

Here's one that you should remember:

[b]"Jihad Is an Individual Duty"[/b]
The following is excerpted from the fatwa, or edict, of February 1998, issued by Osama bin Laden:

[b]For more than seven years, the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors and turning its bases in the peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people, using the peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless.

...These crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger and Muslims. And ulema [Muslim scholars] have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad [Holy War] is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries.

On that basis, and in compliance with God's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:

The ruling is to kill the Americans and their allies is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it, in order to liberate the Al Aqsa mosque [Jerusalem] and the Holy Mosque [Mecca]... This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God...

We call on every Muslim who believes in God and wished to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it.[/b]

Notice that OBL orders the killing of [u]Americans[/u], not US servicemen and Coalition forces.

Where is the Muslim world's response??????

Eric The(ThereWasNone)Hun[>]:)]

Not only have we not heard of at least one instance, we have only heard, after all these months, that the government has "some suspected Al-Qaeda members" in detention.  With the exception of Zacarias Moussaoui (who was arrested a month [b]before[/b]Sept. 11, we haven't heard:
How many they are
Who they are
What they were planning to do
Where they were apprehended
When they were apprehended
[b]How[/b] they were apprehended
How they were organized and concealed

Only yesterday have we had the first concrete warnings about future terrorist actions with some names and faces.

While the government undoubtedly has its own reasons (which I respect) for operating in the way that it has, this just means that we are speculating in the fog.

See:
http://[url]www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2001/agcrisisremarks11_27.htm[/url]

A quote from the above:
[i]
Q You said some of this group of about 650 you believe are al Qaeda members. Can you give a general estimate for how many, and how many are suspected terrorists within that 650?

ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: I don't want to try and be more specific in terms of al Qaeda membership. A number of the individuals that are being detained in that group of both INS and criminal-related individuals are suspected terrorists.[/i]

I agree with this.  This would have been the right thing to do, and in fact, is still the right thing to do.

Of course, then there would be some who would denounce such a fatwa as a meaningless symbol...