For months we’ve heard reactionaries call for sealing off the Mexican border, alleging that armed terrorists are, or could be, swarming across the border and putting Americans in danger. We’ve been among the many who have insisted that it just isn’t happening; in fact, some of the safest cities in the country are on or […]
High Court delivers another blow to liberties
June 30, 2010
Freedom Communications Americans must be ever-vigilant that, in the name of combating terrorism, we don’t also undermine our vital liberties. That’s why we’re troubled by the U.S. Supreme Court decision last week that upheld banning even clearly nonmaterial support to groups the government considers terrorist organizations. In Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, Chief Justice John […]
Fighting terrorism should be focus
January 14, 2010
By Tibor Machan: Freedom New Mexico columnist Fareed Zakaria, on his Sunday CNN program “GPS” (Global Public Square), chided American officials and commentators for responding to the failed terrorist attack in Detroit with panic. He based his assessment on the fact that there have been numerous calls for greater vigilance in defense of the realm […]
Anti-terrorism program involves community
August 29, 2008
By 27th Special Operations Security Forces Squadron “What does the Anti-terrorism and Force Protection program have to do with me?” and “How can anything I do really affect the safety of neighbors, the installation, or my unit’s mission?” These are questions not always answered in a manner that raises an individuals’ level of awareness to […]
New homeland security strategy lacks focus
October 24, 2007
By Freedom New Mexico In a world of common sense, there would be little reason for the administration to announce an update of its homeland security “strategy,” in a document that reads more like hope and aspiration than actual strategy, just 15 months before the current president leaves office. In the world of Washington bureaucracy, […]
Other countries show U.S. freedoms not so bad
August 4, 2007
Freedom Newspapers Civil libertarians, including us, routinely assail the administration for its restrictions on our liberties in the war on terrorism. We sometimes overstate our complaints, charging that Bush & Co. have taken so many of our freedoms that we might as well be living in the old Soviet Union. Then we see a story […]
Military action not always best terror defense
July 26, 2007
By Freedom Newspapers Any discussion of a threat estimate from the vaunted U.S. intelligence community must begin with an acknowledgment that U.S. intelligence often, perhaps more often than not, has gotten things wrong. Even before the failure to “connect the dots” prior to 9/11 and the “slam dunk” on Saddam’s supposed WMDs, U.S. intelligence missed […]
Anti-terrorism budget excludes border security
July 26, 2007
By Freedom Newspapers If lawmakers are worried about border security, they sure aren’t putting their money where their mouths are. Congress recently allocated $747 million to some 50 U.S. cities in its latest round of anti-terrorism funding, and just like previous allocations the money isn’t addressing what many say is their primary concern — keeping […]
Iraq invasion motivating factor for terrorists
July 13, 2007
By Freedom Newspapers A summary of a draft of a new National Intelligence Assessment on Iraq reportedly concludes “that al-Qaida has reconstituted its core structure along the Pakistani border and may now be a stronger and more resilient organization than it appeared a year ago,” as Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball put it. Homeland […]
Ex-terrorist tells story at First Baptist Church
May 12, 2007
By Allison Tahmoush: CNJ Correspondent An ex-terrorist abandons Islam for Christianity after meeting his current wife, a Catholic from Mexico. It sounds like the tagline to a bad movie. Walid Shoebat knows this all too well. He is the main character, and it’s not a movie. Born in Bethlehem, Shoebat was brought up in a […]
Warrior Week keeps Cannon mission ready
April 7, 2006
Col. Scott West Get ready Cannon—next week is Warrior Week! Readiness is our top priority and we’ll focus on training exclusively. Everyone needs to be ready, not just those currently projected to deploy in an upcoming AEF bucket — our nation may need more of us to serve abroad in combating terrorism. So, next week […]
Blair’s plan sacrifices too much freedom
August 13, 2005
By Steve Chapman: Syndicated Columnist No one really wants to fault Tony Blair as he strives to address the threat of homegrown Islamic terrorism. After one round of deadly bombings and a second round of attempted ones just two weeks apart, everyone knows that his fears are not exactly a hallucination. In this case, most […]
Jose Padilla case not good model for liberty lovers
July 23, 2005
Freedom Newspapers T he Bush administration continues to defend, in the case of Jose Padilla, a legal theory more suited to an absolute monarchy or dictatorship than to a society operating under the rule of law. Continuing to maintain such a stance materially weakens the case that the current struggle with terrorists is one between […]
U.S. should take second look at foreign policy
July 9, 2005
Freedom Newspapers Beyond the shock, the anger and the mourning, beyond the sadness and sorrow over the dead and wounded is the anguish over the still unanswered questions. But first the shock. Laguna Niguel resident Sir Eldon Griffiths, a former member of the British parliament and former chairman of the World Affairs Councils of America, […]
Terrorism hits home for some residents
July 8, 2005
By Marlena Hartz: CNJ staff writer A young Londoner in the 1980s, Claire Burroughes remembers the subway system of the famous city vividly. The underground transportation system, known as the “tube,” is the fastest and most convenient way to travel from the suburbs to the city, and within the city itself, said Burroughes. “It is […]
Patriot Act needs toning down, revision
March 29, 2005
Freedom Newspapers The debate in Congress over the USA Patriot Act, portions of which are scheduled to “sunset” at the end of this year, will not take place for months. But it’s heartening to see that a coalition of liberals and conservatives that has raised concerns about portions of the law is still together and […]
Consider capacity for action, not intent
January 19, 2005
By Walter E. Williams: CNJ columnist “On Sept. 11, one in 3,000 New Yorkers perished, but in the same year, over one in 1,000 urbanites were murdered in three major cities in the Western Hemisphere alone,” according to Russell Seitz in his article “Weaker Than We Think” in The American Conservative. He adds that the […]
Suicide bomber proof of terrorism in Iraq
November 24, 2004
By Thomas Sowell Cats are supposed to have nine lives but fallacies must have at least 90. Some notions will be believed, no matter how many times they have been refuted by facts. One of these seemingly immortal fallacies is the implicit assumption that our enemies have unlimited resources, so that our efforts at strengthening […]
Muslim message falling on deaf ears
September 29, 2004
By Leonard Pitts Jr. You could tell he’d had enough. I’m talking about Ibrahim Hooper. If the name is familiar, it’s because Hooper, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, has become the news media’s go-to guy on issues related to Islam and terrorism. This particular morning, he was being interviewed on an […]
U.S. wrongfully distracted by Iraq
July 24, 2004
By Steve Chapman: Guest Columnist In its final report, the 9/11 commission reached an obvious conclusion that explains how terrorists were able to kill nearly 3,000 Americans: “Terrorism was not the overriding national security concern for the U.S. government under either the Clinton or the pre-9/11 Bush administration.” And guess what: it still isn’t. In […]
