Shahzad the Sleeper
As you might imagine, I have been trying to get in touch with the spirit of my old friend James Jesus Angleton, the late, legendary former chief of CIA counterintelligence, ever since the failed bombing attempt in Times Square. At long last I got to the Ouija board to connect, and after the usual throat clearing (I can’t figure out whether smoking in the world to come is a form of punishment or bliss) there he was.
JJA: I know just why you’re calling. What took you so long?
ML: I couldn’t get the effing device to connect…
JJA: What, you too? The usual jihadi technology?
ML.: Ha ha! Nowadays we are all great admirers of their technology. Saves our lives, seems to blow them up as often as not.
JJA: Which gets us to the first question after all: was Mr. Shahzad supposed to blow himself up or what? He seems to have been trained by experts in suicide terrorism, after all, and the jihad doesn’t like to leave witnesses behind. As my old Israeli friends can tell you, once a terrorist decides he doesn’t want to go to paradise, he’s likely to be very cooperative with those who love life.
ML: Yes, he seems to be quite happy to talk to interrogators, doesn’t be? But that’s a good question. I remember that in Iraq, Al Qaeda recruited young men who were told that they were not going to die, that they only had to place the car bomb or truck bomb close to the target and then walk away. It was always a lie, however, and there was some very grisly evidence. One poor chap was blown out of his truck and ended up in the hospital. When he realized what had happened he went on Iraqi television to warn his fellow jihadis that they shouldn’t believe the recruiters. I wonder how Shahzad feels. He’s certainly got away from his truck in a big hurry, didn’t he?
JJA: Of course he did. His handlers may have made a mistake. On the one hand, he was almost certainly a sleeper. He came here legally, he had assimilated, and he became a citizen. Then they brought him over for training and sent him back to the battlefield. It’s standard operating procedure.
ML: Right. He clearly knew his mission in advance, didn’t he? He got his truck and the bomb components.and he rehearsed it. He drove to Times Square, parked, and went home.
JJA: Yes, and you can see from that little episode that he was very nervous and not very well trained. He locked his keys in the truck, at least according to one account that made it up here. So he went home to get a spare key, heh.
ML: What about the escape? That doesn’t seem to have been well planned.
JJA: Why do you say that? He knew where to go and he knew which airline to take.
Probably not that far off the mark. Scary stuff.
Now, could you dial-up Reagan or any of the founding Fathers?!
Sad and effed up times we are living in.
If the goal was to expose the incompetence of
HomeLand Security and the TSA: Mission accomplished.
It will be interesting to see exactly what punishment
the Bomber receives, and how much harm, of one kind or another, he has managed to accomplish; The Trade-Off
may be more acceptable than the one on 9/11.
Would YOU have wanted to be anywhere near Mr. Shazad during the explosives training course at terrorist summer camp?
I suspect Pakistan’s Taliban were less concerned about his political reliability than the danger he would pose to his instructors’ health during explosives training when they refused to teach him much.
Ah, James, what about that ‘Able Danger’ stuff?
I mean did we really identify some of the 9/11 Al Qaeda crew before the towers were attacked?
And if Able Danger worked, why was it shut down and disbanded and denied.
Kinda strange don’t you think?
Yes, there is something off about this guy. He lacks conviction unlike Major Hassan or the underpants bomber. Rose fertilizer? – evidently the wrong formula. No diesel? He clearly wasn’t really concerned with being effective. My first thought was that he was making a show of it and hoped that the propane would go off and burn up the evidence that he wasn’t serious. So perhaps he was being coerced – one of his family held hostage in Pakistan to ensure he make the attempt. His cooperation with authorities sounds positive – well beyond what someone who really hates America with conviction would do. So maybe he is cooperating because he needs to convince authorities he was forced in some way and that they will reciprocate by playing down that he wasn’t trying. Hoping perhaps that the Taliban will spare his relatives. On the other hand I can’t gainsay what the expert James Jesus Angleton says – despite his penchant for pursuing phantom sleepers while on this earthly plane. I admit it – Shahzad does sound like a classic sleeper. How exciting for you to have such an interesting person on the other end of your Ouija board. All I ever get is my great uncle Hulbert who was a boring old Unitarian preacher. He didn’t even smoke.
Yes, very f’d up.
He gets out shortly in a prisoner exchange.
The war is phoney: “nice Long lasting War…C 1991 Duerf, The American people have been sold out, the “draft” is coming (C 1989 Duerf) after the next “can you believe it, can you believe it”.
The “street” cops are good; the administration invites the leaders of the terrorist financers/inspirers to dinner at the White House.
Marktheflake is worse than a sleeper cell…
“#4 Robinsoiana
And if Able Danger worked, why was it shut down and disbanded and denied.
Kinda strange don’t you think?”
Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it’s now deep in the background. If it “no longer exists”, there’s less chance of it showing up on the front page of the NY Times.
As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if all those blown programs are back in a slightly different form.
This is very interesting regarding the boarding of the flight. Your inference that there may be other forces at work does add up in that with the underwear bomber, there also was alot of mystery with how he got on that flight. The story circulated that a couple, (unidentified) escorted him to ticket desk and basically placed him on flight. The story has been hushed. The witnesses where somewhat discredited but insisted on seeing the video tapes. The story just disappeared. It is intriguing to think of a international conspiracy that allows these sleepers, etc, to board flights inspite of security information.
“JJA: We screwed up the follow-up. Counterintelligence isn’t just figuring it out; there’s a lot of very difficult and boring work that goes along with it. Legwork, surveillance, listening to telephone conversations in a foreign language, getting good photographs to the right people, all that sort of thing.”
That’s always the problem these days, isn’t it. Without the boring, difficult work; the best ideas, theories, and hypotheses often come to naught. The same abilities that allow us to come up with the latter lead most to believe we’re too good to do the former.
Where are the Mexicans when we need them??
Robinsolana–You didn’t really think that all those communists/communist agents who infiltrated our government prior to and during WWII (recent documents from the KGB Archives, memoirs, admissions by aged infiltrators, and the VENONA documents have shown that McCarthy was largely right in his charges, and was, in fact, rather conservative in his estimates of the number of traitors there were) were the last set of infiltrators, did you?
Many Muslims have been brought into government service–at the Pentagon and into our Intelligence apparatus and elsewhere–in an effort to show how democratic, PC, and multicultural we are. It does not get a lot of press, but there are now even two Muslim members of Congress, one of whom, Rep. Andre Carson, was part of the crew from the Black Caucus that claimed that Tea Party protesters on Capital Hill had hurled the N-word–fifteen times, count ‘em!–at he and other Black members of Congress–a charge that has, in our era of ubiquitous cell phone cameras and audio and video recorders, produced not a shred of evidence that it happened, and lots of evidence that it didn’t. Then there is pentagon civilian adviser Hesham Islam, and his successful efforts to have the Pentagon’s only expert on Islamic Law and the Jihad, Steve Coughlin, fired from his position.
I note that yesterday, the good Rep. Carson stated that such Tea Party protesters are “one of the largest threats to our national security”
Very very very clever.
In the US, we control explosives so well that it hamstrings these guys. In the middle east their instructor says “Go buy four pounds of C4″ and they go down to the local open marketplace and buy C4! Here, he had to substitute fireworks for the explosive igniter due to the impossibility of getting anything as simple as dynamite, never mind C4.
Also, in the middle east they have support networks to help them; people who can steal explosive components; people who can build reliable ignition circuits; people to coach them in better bomb-making and people to help them select targets. Here, those networks are very limited, if they exist at all. As the Islamic presence builds in the US, those networks will be built as well. Eventually, they will be able to steal the high explosives, build a very deadly bomb and carry out an attack against a soft target here with davastating effect. Why do I believe this will happen, because we are ALLOWING it to happen!
The US will never be serious about countering the terrorists until we get serious about limiting Islam. Until you see Mosques being shut down and foriegn Muslims deported, we are not serious.
so Angleton says to Dudley Clarke “they know you know they know you know”
The old CIA agents, like James Jesus Angleton, William Harvy, William F. Buckley, E. Howard Hunt, David Atlee Phillips, Cord Meyer, Richard Helms, and many others were well-educated, pioneering (within the context of intelligence gathering) and swashbuckling men.
They preceded the current paradigm of Congressional Oversight Committee, of demonizing the intelligence community and of treating CIA agents in harm’s way as if THEY are the enemy.
Quadruple redundancy for failure. Wrong fertilizer (not ammonium nitrate), wrong firecrackers (M88s not M80s), wrong propane tanks (tanks made in the last decade won’t release the propane unless attached to a receptacle), and two clocks whose wires weren’t attached to anything. This guy had to have planned for failure. If so, why do we know this? Why so much info on the bomb? So they kill his wife? Why are we told he’s singing like a canary? So the bad guys will know? Shouldn’t these things be kept secret for at least a little while?
The author’s dead friend is right. I did this type of work for a while and it is a lot of legwork, surveillance, blind alleys, etc. Worse, with the Feds, it is all about the paperwork and following orders from above. They seriously cannot get out of their own way half the time. The NY JTTF has a good reputation, but that mostly comes from the veteran NYPD detectives assigned to the task force.
The difference is the mindset of the detectives vs the agents and the supervisors for both agencies and their mindsets. Simply put the feds need to clear everything before they move. They have DOJ attorneys on speed dial. The NYPD detectives have bosses who will chew their butts out for not getting the job done. On the street it works something like this- The FBI agents get a tip that scumbag might have some information. They call their bosses to see how they want it handled, which starts a chain of calls up the ladder until it reaches D.C. The NYPD detectives get the same tip. They grab their coffee and a couple of lead saps, in case the scumbag is not as forthcoming as he should be. They run the scumbag down, grab him up, using four thick necked cops in plain clothes, shove him into an unmarked car and whisk him away. Back at the ranch the FBI agents are told to shoot a quick memo up the chain just to outline some of the details of the situation for review. The NYPD guys realize the scumbag may not want to talk so they turn down an abandoned alley, get out and yank said scumbag out of the car. Scumbag realizes there is no media, no lawyer, no witnesses and suddenly gets an epiphany and starts puking up all that he knows. The NYPD guy either take him in, or kick him lose depending what they want to do, and then they act on what they learned. They will not, as I have heard, stand around and let NY get bombed again-period.
The FBI gets clearance to have a meeting to discuss what they will talk to the scumbag about, making sure any questions are not considered biased or racist in any way.
If there is any retardation of effort in the JTTF, look to the feds to be the cause. It is about careers and promotions and keeping out of trouble for a lot of them. There are hard charging good cops in the federal system, but their boss’s boss is going to be politically driven. It is what it is.
The possibility of Sha-zaam (!) getting an assist from Emirates Air had occurred to me.
Reportedly, the ticket was through to Islamabad.
Left the keys to the Conn. apt. and getaway Isuzu in the wired up vehicle ? Bought sub par fireworks & fertilizer ?
Isn’t his handler in Waziristan embarrassed ?
Shahzad the sleeper agent, versus the American sleeper security services. I wonder what secret signal our guys are waiting on to finally spring into action.
You should have asked the most important question:
“HOW MANY islamic sleeper agents are there in the USA ?”
How many many psychotic nihilist murderers are ready with their vans and explosives, just waiting for a phone call from hell, and ready to go up in a cloud of blood and body parts yelling their trademark “allahu akboom” ?
Ten ? 100 ? 1,000 ? more ?
So lets see what they could screen to stop this happening again , well the Ft Hood Pakistani extract MOHAMMEDAN TERRORIST Major was a follower of Sheik Al Awaki an American citizen of PAKISTANI extraction., the New Years day TERRORIST bomber was also a MOHAMMEDAN with connections to the SAME guru, and surprise surprise the Times square PAKISTANI MOHAMMEDAN TERRORIST it has just been revealed also has connections to Al Awaki the Pakistani American citizen MOHAMMEDAN cleric who is hiding in Yemen.
So now come on moonbats think there must be something that is a common denominator here.
Whats that you say its all BUSH’S fault and the financial crsis oh OK of course it is and nothing else is possibly linking them at all is it.
And you wonder why we are in the situation we are LOL
Thanks Michael! Great spook app on the board.
On a serious note, I wonder if Shahzad’s bomb wasn’t a dud, but a planned squib. A glitch or a feature? As a squib it has the advantage of causing fear without the consequence of the Administration feeling required to take positive retaliatory action. On it’s face, the op looks like a miracle of incompetence – and saved lives, probably did. Even without the kaboom, its still has real effect. Thing is, our perp had training.
Either way, we now have a citizen terrorist. Gotta ask who the Administration will go after in response.
Right on “bubblehead”!
I am with you. I am an Iranian who like you want Islam out of not only Iran but the entire “world” and of course US. We can keep Islam and Islamists in the closed Arabian desert locked for good if not take them out entirely!
Until then, there will always be “terrorists” always chaos, violence, death and destruction!
And it seems that this administration wants to try Shahzad in a “civil court” and not in a “military court”!
here goes our courage and intelligence dealing with evil!
Angleton knows the answer. Our clue is that one week has passed without an arraignment. That is a lot of talking. I am thinking Witness Protection in Saudi Arabia…but then I think this is more about getting Pakistan to get serious about reforming their education system, and media glorification of ‘Islamist freedom fighters’.
Thanks for “smoking out” your #1 source, Mr. Angleton. How about source #2, General Haig?
Ledeen the notorious rumor monger. I’m still waiting for the imminent death of Khamenei. Any day now, you had the photos after all. Lucky to have a job of any kind is what you are.
The whole story here is summed up in Shahzad being granted citizenship despite clearly justified suspicions that extended over years. Why naturalize security risks? Why tolerate them in the country? Why grant them visas and thus import them in the first place?
Tens of millions of people worldwide want to come to our country. Why not pick and choose among them on the basis of desirability?
I’d like to see the Ouija Board fired up (suitably protected by fire retardant) more often.
Bravo, Michael. JJA never takes my calls anymore.
And to think, the Bush administration tried to hand over security of our ports to Dubai!
I want to get a look at Michael’s oija board.
they have known about sleepers since before 911. Atta was one of them along with others. Thankfully all the many terrorists attempts are being stopped by the good guys or stopped by the grace of God.
Ethical Murder
. . . On a much smaller scale is the ethical issue of killing one man or a group of men who you are reasonably certain are plotting to decimate cities and commit mass murder. Today we have the ability to accomplish such precision acts of war without risking the lives of the guys with boots on the ground or of the pilots in the sky.
Some are calling the use of very successful predator drones in the Afghani war as unethical, others call it a great advancement in the conduct of modern warfare. Pinpointing a high value target certainly seems to beat the destruction of large swaths of real estate tenanted by unknown numbers of innocent non-combatants.
And, yes, there will be drone mistakes, casualties that occur in the fog of war described with the sanitized term ”collateral damage” which happens no matter the military tactics employed but do those mistakes constitute unethical warfare?
A related ethical question has arisen in conjunction with Islamic cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1685)
Dear Michael: I just couldn’t stop reading. You raised some unarticulated suspicions. You are so good at this you should consider writing a novel. Be well
Rog
i think my future is in movies, actually. with my great looks and white beard, i could be the new Sean Connery…somebody should tell spielberg…
The more I think about it the more I wonder if he was working for us. He has certainly been a bonanza of intel that may have burned networks here and in Pakistan.
Michael, thank you for your imaginary analytical insight, as usual is very interesting and deeply meaningful…Michael, What Mr. Angleton’s views about the relationship between Bin Laden and the Mullahs of Iran, where Bin Laden – perhaps with his wife and a few of his children – are living comfortably in Iran under the protection of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, despite the schism between Al Qaeda’s Sunni roots and the Shiite regime in Iran??! We would like to know about the wise and far-reaching views of Mr. Angleton about Mr. Alan Parrot’s story that was supported in the documentary by former CIA agent Mr. Robert Baer!!!
26.oscar le grouche
“I’m still waiting for the imminent death of Khamenei.”
Dear friend, maybe Khamenei is alive!? but does not matter whether if he dead or alive, the GREAT THING nowadays is “that Islamic theocracy in Iran has became DEAD.”
Please just waiting for the hanging dead bodies of the clerics and the despotized leaders or to see their bodies charred.
Jassem Othman, Syrian, Poland.
Timmy McViegh and his buddy couldn’t make a bomb work either. They had to have help from the Iraq Army cell in OKC to pull off the attack. A reporter from NBC channel four documented the whole thing in her book. Somehow not of interest to the Lamestream Media. Timmy was executed asap. No memoir available.