Tag Archives: ISLAMIC TERRORISM

Mark Caserta: The U.S. is the most powerful nation on earth…aren’t we?

3 Jan

So, how safe should our citizens really feel? It will surprise some.

The United States of America is considered by most to be the most powerful nation on earth.

So, how safe should we currently feel as her citizens? 

In October 2024, the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security released their 2025 Homeland Threat Assessment which indicates the “threat of domestic and foreign terrorism” in our country.

This is, of course, tantamount to the IRS reporting on how your tax dollars are being squandered every day in Washington.

Frankly, the report may as well have instructed U.S. citizens to build bomb shelters, stockpile food and water and purchase ammunition.

The threat to our citizens’ safety is as high as it’s ever been.  Yet, the secretary of Homeland Security assured the nation, we are in good hands.

“It is because of the remarkable DHS workforce, and our close collaboration with our federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, and private sector partners, that we are able to meet the challenges and keep the American people safe and secure,” said Alejandro N. Mayorkas. 

So, given the state of the union, how would you grade the Biden administration for its role in keeping Americans safe?  In my opinion, there is no mark low enough to score this administration’s lackadaisical approach to homeland security.

The report captures the highlights of several security topics.  This is a Reader’s Digest version:

  • Public Safety and Security:  The terrorism threat environment in the Homeland is expected to remain high over the coming year… foreign terrorist organizations, including ISIS and al Qa’ida maintain their enduring intent to conduct or inspire attacks in the Homeland.
  • Illegal Drugs: Illegal drugs smuggled into and sold in the United States by transnational and domestic criminal actors continue to pose a lethal threat to communities in the United States.
  • Influence Operations and Transnational Repression: We expect the Homeland will face threats to public safety from state actors using subversive tactics in an effort to stroke discord and undermine confidence in U.S. domestic institutions.
  • Border and Immigration Security: Migrant encounters at our border have steadily declined since the beginning of 2024…  (Note: The report ignores the previous 3.75 years when the administration allowed millions of illegal migrants to cross our border and “paid for the cost of the move and lodging” with your tax dollars!)
  • Critical Infrastructure Security: Domestic and foreign adversaries are expected to continue to target our critical infrastructure via prepositioning, cyber, and physical attacks.
  • Economic Security: Our adversaries – including the PRC (China) – will continue non-market policies and practices, economic espionage and coercive economic tools, and illicit acquisition of technologies and intellectual property to undercut U.S. and partner competitiveness.

What a glowing report of success!  Isn’t it simply unfathomable that given this level of threats to our nation, the Biden administration refuses to secure our borders?

It’s equally disturbing that we still have liberal leaders in Democrat (stop saying “democratic, please) pockets of our nation who continue to harbor illegals using your tax dollars and refuse to work with the incoming Trump administration to make America safe again?

 It won’t be long until illegals already in our country make a mass exodus to the nearest sanctuary city or state – PERFECT!!

Folks, we must not forget there are nations and entities that despise America and our allies. And the Biden administration has emboldened these people to take action on their hatred.

It is a religious war for some rogue nations.  The goal is to destroy “the great Satan” as they describe the U.S.  Israel, of course, is described as “the little Satan”. 

It is a power struggle for other nations.  Their goal is to bring the U.S. to her knees economically and militarily.

Leadership with the resolute desire to put Americans first and gain the respect and yes, even fear, from other nations is critical.  We must have a president who will build on American exceptionalism rather than diminish it.

And even then, it will take more than a man.  It will take the favor of God.

We are in the process of righting this ship, but the real task lays ahead.  Do not fall into the pre-911 mentality!  Continue to diligently pray for our nation and DO NOT BE WEARY IN YOUR WELL-DOING!

Our work has only begun.

Donald Trump will not make America great again – you will.

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Mark Caserta: Stand down and let the president do his job

17 Feb

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Mark Caserta:  Free State Patriot editor

February 17, 2017

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I’ve very concerned our nation is rapidly returning to a “pre” Sept. 11, 2001, mentality.

Every day, I see an increasing number of people lackadaisically living their lives with seemingly little knowledge of or concern over the threats our nation faces.

Some are even fighting against protecting our country.

Have we truly become so desensitized to terror and death that we’re willing to suppress the lessons of the past and expose ourselves to another attack, possibly even larger than we experienced on 9/11?

Granted, 15 years is a long time. Some millennials were simply too young to remember the frightening view of the planes flying into New York’s World Trade Center.

Some have been spared the horrific memory of innocent people leaping from windows, choosing to die from the fall rather than be consumed by the flames. They’ve no memory of the people screaming, scrambling in terror, on the streets below.

But, I’ll never forget. And neither will many of you. It changed us – forever.

Unfortunately, I believe that confirmation of U.S. vulnerability, combined with eight years of emboldening our enemies, has positioned us dangerously close to an attack unlike anything we’ve ever seen.

Now, progressives are sure to default to their conservative “the sky is falling” rhetoric regarding my statement. But that sort of irresponsible thinking will cost lives.

A February 2016 column in the National Review, co-written by R. James Woolsey, national security and energy specialist and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, addresses our “nave reliance” on other country’s “transparent disavowals” potentially costing millions of American lives.

The column, entitled, “Underestimating Nuclear Missile Threats from North Korea and Iran,” revealed the White House had not recognized that North Korea already had demonstrated the ability to kill millions of Americans with an electromagnetic-pulse (EMP) attack.

The attack would involve detonating a small nuclear warhead, a hundred miles or so, over the United States creating an EMP leading to a nationwide blackout. The resulting societal chaos (especially in today’s environment) could lead to overwhelming death and destruction.

Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, as President Trump has described it, is a disaster waiting to happen. Since signing the agreement in mid-2015, Iran has test-launched at least two ballistic missiles, despite a U.N. resolution prohibiting such tests. Every indicator suggests Iran is working diligently to become a formidable nuclear power.

We must remember the threat of nuclear attack from leaders who aren’t afraid to die is very real and very different.

A military standoff resulting from opposing nations being unwilling to be destroyed because they initiated a nuclear attack will not apply. These leaders do not subscribe to the “no-win” scenario.

Yet, liberals are fighting more for the rights of people who could potentially harm our nation than for protecting their own families here at home.

Sadly, we know all it will take is another devastating attack to quickly bring things back into perspective.

But, by then, it may be too late.

Stand down liberals.  You had your chance.

Let President Trump do his job and protect the U.S.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

 

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Mark Caserta: We must accept Trump’s challenge on radical Islam

27 Aug

It’s truly this election…or never

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  • Aug 26, 2016

GOP presidential nominee Donald John Trump is laying down the gauntlet against radical Islamic terrorism and asking Americans to accept his challenge.

Last week, in Youngstown, Ohio, Trump likened the fight against terrorism to the Cold War and the battle against Nazism and laid out his plan advocating a “new screening test for the threats we face today,” calling it “extreme vetting extreme, extreme vetting.”

Trump’s plan calls for all immigrants to be subjected to tests for a commitment to U.S. values, including religious freedom and tolerance. He added we would assess our allies based on their commitment to defeat “radical Islam.”

“All actions should be oriented around this goal, and any country which shares this goal will be our ally,” Trump declared. “Very important – some don’t share this goal. We cannot always choose our friends but we can never fail to recognize our enemies.”

Trump was most likely imputing our commander-in-chief, who is so apologetic for the Muslim faith he won’t even utter words insinuating radical Islam. And incredibly, we have a Democrat presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, willing to perpetuate protecting Islam over the lives of Americans.

Given the president has no greater responsibility than to ensure the safety and security of the American people, how can either one of these individuals be qualified to lead our country? Despite the obvious, neither seems to believe our nation’s borders are at risk!

Both Obama and Hillary are determined to bring thousands of Syrian refugees into the United States without properly vetting them.

Top U.S. officials have already admitted concern that a potential terrorist could be hiding among refugees looking for asylum in the U.S. as reported in a February 2015 column by Justin Fishel and Mike Levine on ABC.com.

And FBI Director James Comey and the nation’s top intelligence officials already have admitted we simply don’t have the information in our nation’s data base to properly vet these individuals.

“We can only query against that which we have collected,” Comey said before the House Homeland Security Committee in 2015. “We can query our database till the cows come home, but there’ll be nothing show up, because we have no record on that person.”

But even then, it’s a red herring. As reported in a November 2015 column by Kerry Picket of “The Daily Caller,” the Obama administration is limiting the scope of query to focus on “behavior,” rather than religion or ideology.

Incredibly, Obama’s counter-terrorism officials have trained domestic Homeland Security law enforcement officers to focus on the behaviors of people entering the U.S. rather than their political, ideological or religious background.

At what point do we ostensibly label this administration’s efforts to protect Americans either a “lack of skill” or a “lack of will” – and possibly both.

It’s time America accepts Trump’s challenge. If we don’t use this election to get serious about keeping radical Islam out of our country, it will be too late.

They will have an open range under Hillary Clinton.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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Mark Caserta: Gitmo not symbolic of U.S. malfeasance

8 Apr

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  • 4.8.16  

Frankly, I’m tired of liberals maintaining that the Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) detention camp in southeastern Cuba is a recruitment tool for radical Islamic terrorists and must be closed.

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News flash for progressives: Gitmo was constructed to house war criminals captured by U.S forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and other theaters of the war. The intelligence acquired from detainees has, in fact, saved American lives.

And Americans are weary of our president apologizing for it.

According to “The Religion of Peace” website, “the Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers” for the sake of the Islamic Caliphate. It further states that Muslims who don’t join the fight are called “hypocrites” and warned that Allah will “send them to hell” if they don’t join the slaughter.

It’s very naive to believe groups like ISIS would attempt to leverage Gitmo interrogation techniques as a recruitment tool, while they’re busy chopping off heads, burning people alive and drowning them in cages.

The truth is the expansion of Islamic terrorism on behalf of Allah began decades ago.

In November 1979, Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Iran and took 52 American diplomats as hostages. For 444 days, Americans were held hostage while a feckless Carter administration attempted to negotiate with Iran’s revolutionary leaders. The event captivated our nation and helped give birth to an era of terrorism and regional instability in the Middle East.

In October 1983, 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers were killed as Islamic terrorists drove a truck carrying explosives into the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. Shortly afterward, 58 French paratroopers were killed in a similar attack. It was reportedly the deadliest attack on the U.S. Marine Corps since the battle of Iwo Jima during World War II.

In February 1993, New York experienced the first attack on the World Trade Center when Islamic terrorists parked a rental van in a garage below the twin towers packed with explosives. Six people died and more than 1,000 people were injured in what was, at the time, one of the worst terrorist attacks ever to occur on U.S. soil.

And the list goes on.

Incidentally, after closing Gitmo, President Obama plans to relocate these Islamic extremists to prison facilities in the United States.

Now, prisons are filled with individuals potentially dismayed with their lives in the U.S. What successes would these Islamic leaders have within the confines of their prison walls in the recruitment and training of domestic terrorists?

Terrorists are far more empowered by Obama’s tepid response in curtailing their activity than they are by Gitmo. Obama and his liberal followers want Gitmo closed because they’re desperate for accomplishments in his fruitless legacy – period.

Gitmo is not symbolic of U.S. malfeasance as liberals maintain, but rather our resoluteness against terrorism.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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Mark Caserta: America is primary target for jihadists

1 Apr

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Mark Caserta: Free State Patriot Editor

4.1.16

More than once last week, I heard the analogy “Nero played while Rome burned” to describe the antics of President Obama in the wake of the brutal Islamic terrorist attack in Brussels, Belgium.

Following the attack, despite promptings to return from Cuba to the United States in a presidential display of leadership and support for the Belgium people, Obama chose to stay and attend an exhibition baseball game hours after the attack. The following evening he chose to dance the tango and sip champagne at a state dinner with his wife, Michelle.

Reportedly, at least 31 people were killed and hundreds injured in the attack.

In January 2014, Obama likened ISIS to the “J.V.” team.

“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a J.V. team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Obama told David Remnick of The New Yorker.

In a February 2015 interview with Vox’s Exra Klein and Matthew Yglesias, Obama charged the media with “absolutely” overstating the threat of “terrorism” compared to the threat of “climate change.”

During the exchange, Obama was asked “if the media sometimes overstates the level of alarm people should have about terrorism” as opposed to the problem of climate change.

“What’s the famous saying about local newscasts, right? If it bleeds, it leads, right?” Obama said. “You show crime stories and you show fires, because that’s what folks watch, and it’s all about ratings.”

Obama said stories relative to climate change just aren’t “sexy” enough for the media.

Nearly a year-and-a-half after the United States and its allies began confronting the Islamic State, Obama still didn’t have a strategy to defeat them. A June 2015 New York Times column written by Julie Davis and Michael Shear reported Obama acknowledging the fact at a news conference following the G7 Summit in Germany.

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“We don’t have, yet, a complete strategy, because it requires commitments on the part of Iraqis as well,” Mr. Obama said. “The details are not worked out.”

In February 2015, FBI Director James Comey warned that his agency was investigating suspected supporters of ISIS “in various stages of radicalizing” in every state across the U.S.

Failed leadership and an anemic response to the threat are enabling the return of the Islamic Caliphate and the rise of ISIS. Innocent people around the world are paying the price with their lives.

We know America is a primary target for radical jihadists. One has to wonder when a coordinated array of ISIS attacks will begin in the U.S.

And what our president is doing to prevent it.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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