Thursday, October 20, 2011

A Wind of Change in the Desert

 

August 22nd 2011 – the winds of change blew across the Sinai desert and encompassed the Egyptian presidential palace and left in its sandy wake the Mubarak regime a memory and an opening for radical Islamic extremists to take over this prime location on the steps of the Middle East. Two months later, this wind blew again across the African sands. In the wind came NATO airstrikes and as the wind began to subside, on October 20, 2011 Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi lay dead in the dirt streets, surrounded by the poverty he forced upon the Libyan population. The vacuum left in the violent end of Gaddafi’s regime leaves a vacuum that will be quickly targeted by the extremist radical Muslims eager to cement their position on the African continent.

Their goals are twofold… first, to sweep Islamic law into nations and, with Sharia, bring the worldwide caliphate dreamed of by the extremists, and, second, to build the treasuries of Al Qaeda and its counterparts to encourage the on-going jihad against Israel, the U.S. and all non-Muslims around the world. What does that mean for local LEO’s in the U.S.? I think the answer also comes in two parts.

Very often in police work, officers are used to pursuing the leads, tracking the offenders, building the case and marking it ‘closed’ upon the prosecution of those responsible. Perhaps one of the biggest reasons that cops hate calls like domestic disputes is that there is never a resolution, a final ‘case closed’ but it is often a no-win situation that seems to go on and on. Officers are ‘fixers’. They come into a situation that is in havoc, take control, find a solution and move on. They find they cannot ‘fix’ domestics. How does that apply to ‘jihad’?

Eliot Ness - Never stop 'til the fight is done.
Never stop 'til the fight is done.
Jihad by definition is an on-going struggle. It never ends for the true believer until he leaves this world. So, for the local LEO’s that are working now, perhaps mid-way through their career; this jihad war will be one that they hand off to the generation of cops that come after them. If you are one of today’s officers, you will learn, educating yourself on all of the risks and tactics of domestic terrorism and the extremists that bring the war into your neighborhoods. And, when it comes to the end of your watch, the next generation will have to pick up where you left off. The level of risk will wane and then intensify based on the geo-political atmosphere of the day. Fusion centers, as a methodology, may come and go, or they may increase in their effectiveness. Information gathering will become even more vital to how the new cops handle the situations they face.

So, do we throw up our hands in disgust, giving in to the notion that we cannot stop it? That can never be our response. For the families living in your communities, raising their children in what they hope is a safe place; there is only one response. In the movie, The Untouchables, law enforcement legend Elliot Ness got into Al Capone’s face in the courtroom upon his conviction and threw Capone’s words back at him… “Never stop, never stop fighting till the fight is done… never stop fighting till the fight is done… here endeth the lesson.” No lesson is more on target in fighting against jihad extremists. None.

Here endeth the lesson.

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