Chertoff Pushes Back Against CAIR

Not directly, but the subtext is obvious, even in this one story and it's good to see Michael Chertoff getting out ahead on this.

COLUMBIA, S.C. --Homeland Security Department Director Michael Chertoff praised South Carolina authorities on Tuesday for arresting two Middle Eastern men accused of having an explosive device.

"Whatever turns out to be the case with these two individuals, it underscores the importance of people being alert," Chertoff said at the University of South Carolina, where he demonstrated a program employers can use to check the legal status of workers. "Even if it turns out this is benign, if it turns out not to be a big deal, this is the kind of alertness and response that creates real homeland security for this state as well as the country."

Ahmed Abda Sherf Mohamed, 24, and Yousef Samir Megahed, 21, both students at the University of South Florida in Tampa, where charged Monday, two days after officers pulled them over for speeding near a Navy base. Several pipe bombs were found in their car, authorities said.

Mohamed is a native of Kuwait and Megahed is Egyptian. Both are in the country legally. The men said the devices were fireworks. They were driving through Goose Creek to vacation at a North Carolina beach, their attorney has said.

An investigation was under way, but no link to terrorism had been found, according to the FBI.

Chertoff said his agency was working with the FBI. He thanked police for "acting promptly and seeing something that was suspicious" and immediately calling federal and state authorities.

Ahmed Bedier, Tampa executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, has criticized the arrest as racial profiling, an accusation South Carolina police denied.

"I have no reason to believe this is anything other than good police work," Chertoff said.

Note the Grahmesty quote - think this has anything to do with it? Heh!

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., was with Chertoff to emphasize the need to curb illegal immigration, also thanked the officers.

Comments

[nowingker]

The 'subtext' being that when it is proven that these two guys were minding their own business and the 'pipe bombs' were firecracker tubes and the whole thing was 'no big deal' that the police still did the right thing?

This is Homeland Security doing pre-emptive damage control to protect the fools down in South Caroline who thought they bagged themselves some A-rab terrorists red handed with the bombs right there in the trunk.

One can only hope that no one in the South Carolina sheriff's department shares your views and those of your fellow wingnuts on how to treat suspected terrorists...

[Dan Riehl]

No worries, NW - if any end up in jail, I will fully support your right to conjugal visits.

[nowingker]

Dan, you are really a pig.

Can't come up with an intelligent remark or comeback, leave it to a wingnut to try and sexually demean his adversary.

Have you solved the Natalee Holloway case yet?

Oh yeah, that's right you did, after you trashed the dead girl, you determined she died of a super duper orgasm that caused her heart to stop.

You want to know why hundreds of thousands go to Daily Kos and a scant dozen come to your blog...this is why.

No facts, no intelligence, just a creepy bully with a computer and a blog program.

[bloodrage bob]

...said the paid CAIR mouthpiece.

[nowingker]

Bob you are one of the most ignorant xxxx I've ever come across.

I thought I was paid by the DNC?! Can't you keep your conspiracy stories straight?

Oh, no, of course not, that would be really intellectually taxing, wouldn't it.

Why do you think ANYONE would pay ANYONE to come to this pissant blog that has a total of maybe 12 regulars? Are you under the impression that anyone in the universe cares what Dan Riehl thinks of them? Or that any organization with more than 3 members has even heard of Riehl World?

Dan had his heydey during Natalee Holloway, when probably a few dozen posted her regularly and probably dozens others read.

Those days are gone.

I feel sorry for you, your bloodrage must be hard to live with, I assume one day you will probably harm someone.

[bloodrage bob]

...said the foulmouth halfwit CAIR tool. what is it with these peabrains, anyway? do they truly believe that since they have no argument, they can carry the day by cussing?

can they really be *that* stupid?? (stops, rereads nowinkie's scintillating & highly intellectual diatribes) hmmmm. guess so.

[Dan Riehl]

NW, get a grip. I cleaned up your comments, don't do that, again. Make your points, rant, I don't care. But keep the language from going over the top.

[Purple Avenger]

"I thought I was paid by the DNC?!"

Had me fooled. I would have guessed you were on OBL's payroll.

[Rich Casebolt]

I notice that YOU keep coming back to this allegedly "pissant" blog, and flinging your gnat-strainings, nowingker.

Methinks it is for the same reason Al Quada made Iraq their central front.

Fear.

Fear that lettting what Dan and others say go unchallenged, will allow it all to take root and push away your ideal of a libertarian-hippie Utopia.

Otherwise, you'd just hang out with all the cool kids at Kos and DUh ... basking in the glow of DNC attention, and feeling the rush of "speaking truth to power" when in fact what they (and you) deliver is still more gnat-strainings, devoid of the wisdom essential for the health of a Republic.

I can understand that fear ... that is why I keep engaging you, rather than letting your words stand unchallenged and gain a measure of undeserved credibility.

But, instead of a hypothetical theocracy, I have 2996 reasons to be fearful of what you say ... for what you say, if taken to heart by enough people who mistake rhetoric for wisdom, could lead to additions to that total.

[nowingker]

I would have guessed you were on OBL's payroll.
----------------------------------------------

Is that so? Is that because I constantly remind you that Bush quit looking for him? Or that I constantly remind you that Al Quaeda is the real enemy? Or that while Bush fiddled in Iraq AL Quaeda rebuilt?

Or, is that because you are an ignorant little coward who thinks calling anyone who disagrees with him a terrorist or a member of Al Quaeda is the right way to debate?

[Fred Beloit]

"Why do you think ANYONE would pay ANYONE to come to this pissant blog that has a total of maybe 12 regulars?" asks winkedout. But I asked you this under another post, and ask you again: Why do you spend so much time here to rant and rerant and rerant the same old Lefty propaganda? Why, yyy?

[Fred Beloit]

Hi, my name is Barack Obama. I believe in hope. How about you? I also believe that if we find out where that poor crippled sod bin-Ladin is we go in there and get him. I don't care if he is in the Vatican or Mecca or wherever. Now my party USED TO believe we had to work closely with our many allies in France and all those other highly nuanced countries, but since I proposed getting OBL our left wing of pacifists, led by nowingker, have backed me up 100%. Hey, OBL, it is UNILATERAL TIME. We're gonna get ya, baby, YYYYYYYEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW. (I borrowed that from my esteemed friend Howard Dean.)

[Rich Casebolt]

"Or that I constantly remind you that Al Quaeda is the real enemy?"

You imply that "real enemy" equates to "only significant enemy"? If that is what you mean, your judgment is appalling.

Al Quada is the focus of your myopic vision, only because it they are the most obvious enemy ... the only one you feel uncomfortable dismissing, because everyone saw the bodies on our soil.

They are not the only enemy of significance out there ... unless one is still stuck in the mindset of 10 September 2001.

I ask again, nowingker ...

... if a few dozen guys, with $1M or so and some goat-herding/poppy-growing friends giving them a place to stay in Afghanistan, could perpetrate the events of the next day ...

... then why does it make ANY sense to trust anyone who has demonstrated the same mindset as those few dozen, regarding the imposition of their repressive will over top of others' life and liberty ...

... men like Saddam Huessein and his sons ...
... men like Mahmood Ahmedinijad and the mullahs who enable him
... men like Bashar Assad, enabled by Mahmood and the Mullahs ...

with the ABSOLUTE control of resource-rich, technically-modernized nations placed among others in a highly-interconected global civilization ...

... a civilization that is so dependent upon free movement and open communication between nations, that traditional passive/reactive defenses will either seriously impair the operation of that civilization -- or are unable to stop threats from such men as those above, before they kill thousands upon thousands?

Only those who lack the understanding to provide ... or possess a selfishness that inhibits their ability to provide ... a reasonable answer to that question, oppose what we have done in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As for the rest of us ...

... we won't be fooled again.

[Philip McDaniel]

"...said the foulmouth halfwit CAIR tool"
LOL!
BB, After reading some of winky's comments I began to have a suspicion that winky does not exist...maybe Dan has just made her/him up to entertain us. No one can be that off the wall, can they?? What do you think?