WHITE
FLAGS ON THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE
SERIOUS
SECURITY FLAWS RECENTLY EXPOSED
NYPD ESU
OFFICERS REMOVE WHITE FLAGS FROM ATOP
THE BROOKLYN
BRIDGE EARLIER TODAY AS THE INVESTIGATION
BEGINS. WHO DID THIS AND WHY?
TAGS:
WHITE FLAGS ON BROOKLYN BRIDGE, SECURITY BREACHES
IN
NYC METRO AREA, NYPD, NYPD ESU,
NYPD
INTELLIGENCE & ANTI TERRORIST UNITS
FREEDOM
TOWER, GWB, TERRORIST THREATS,
TIME,
ASYMMETRICAL ENGAGEMENTS
(WITH UPDATED LINKS)
(Tuesday July 22, 2014, NY,
NY) New Yorkers awoke this morning to
see two
white flags flapping in the gentle breeze across the towers of the Brooklyn
Bridge. As one of New York City’s most iconic structures the questions being
asked today are more than alarming.
Considering other recent apparent security breaches at the George
Washington Bridge and site of the Freedom
Tower, these questions not only demand answers they require immediate
action. It is difficult to believe that
anyone in NYC or any of the local and federal Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA)
tasked with providing safety and security could have already become
complacent. There does seem to be an
undeniable pattern of less than acceptable security at various
important sites throughout the NYC Metro Area. This is a difficult fact to
face but face it we must. Other locations across our country including other
large cities, much of the vital infrastructure, electrical grids, pipelines and
cyber threats remain increasingly vulnerable.
Earlier today the 9/11
Commission Chair Tom Kean and Vice Chair Lee Hamilton issued
a blistering follow-up report 10 years after the July 22, 2004 release of
the detailed summary of their original investigation titled: “Final Report Of
The National Commission On Terrorist Attacks Upon The United States”. Kean and Hamilton both express a measure of
anger barely concealed by their obvious dismay and frustration. They conclude here in July of 2014 that may
of the most significant and glaringly exploitable of security flaws are still
in evidence today. They were especially
harsh on the complete inability of the Congress to do anything worthwhile let
alone actual oversight. They bemoaned
the lumbering, top heavy, inefficient, often ineffective Department of Homeland
Security as a failed bureaucratic boondoggle ill-conceived and hastily
constructed by the Bush Administration barely two months after September 11,
2001. The report released today titled "Today's Rising Terrorist Threat
and the Danger to the United States: Reflections on the Tenth Anniversary of
The 9/11 Commission Report” pulls the drapes off the windows of the federal
intelligence apparatus and bluntly states just how vulnerable we remain ten
years to the day after their first report.
They comment on the disjointed mutations of terrorist groups spawned
from al Qeada, their proliferation around the world and the furtherance of the
technological sophistication of some of these groups. While we may have grown somewhat complacent
in the last 10 years the terrorists have certainly not retreated from their
efforts to attack our country in another dramatically lethal manner.
THE GLOBAL STAGE
The caldron of geopolitical
strife simmers across the globe and in some places today it has reached the
boiling point. Some of the usual
suspects are involved as Israelis pound a beleaguered Palestinian people with
disproportional measures, Sunnis and Shi’ites wage their age old war in the
Iraq we fractured, France sends troops into former colonial Africa, and the
Russian / Ukraine crisis hit a new low with the downing of a commercial
Malaysian Air flight over Ukraine territory held by Russian-supported
separatists last week. The guerrilla
fighting continues in Syria and the aftershocks of the “Arab Spring”
reverberate angrily from Egypt to Libya. Cross border wars continue in North
Africa while African nations such as Somalia and Yemen remain safe havens for
the jihadis training camps from which
inevitably a significant terrorist event will be launched against the United
States or a proxy location that is of vital interest to our national
security. Yes, the daily discordant rhythm
of the world never takes a break; the beats go on and on.
And as our tumultuous world
spins on its axis we in America can never forget that we are a part of it;
actually, we are the lone remaining “Super Power” and, as such we are endowed
with a measure of respect and sometimes fear equal to and sometimes surpassed
by the hatred of those who wish to do us harm.
We can afford to be military isolationists with our military presence in
Afghanistan at a 12 year low and our complete exodus from the disaster Dick
Cheney, George W. Bush and their neo-con puppet masters created out of deceit,
deception and lies in Iraq; a torn and splintered failing state thanks to our
ill-fated foray based on false pretenses for our “preemptive” invasion. But the
world today is smaller than it has been at any time in the past. We live in an interconnected network of
economics, finance, commerce, trade and treaties that binds us globally in a
weave of symbiotic and parasitic relationships that demand our constant
attention. As the world turns so do we,
for better or worse isolationism is fraught with peril.
We should resist the knee-jerk
reactions of Congressional buffoons such as John McCain, Lindsay Graham and all
the other chicken hawks, to act as a “global police force”. Where we need to focus our resources is not in
flaming arenas around the world but rather right here at home. We have an enormous problem with our own
unsecured southern border, as floods of Central American immigrants and Lord
knows who else try to sneak into the United States 24/7.
DRY RUNS, DECEPTION AND DIVERSION
Amid all this global chaos it
is difficult for our intelligence agencies to discern credible threats from terrorist’s
bluster. Contrary to the time prior to
September 11, 2001, all of our redundant intelligence gathering and analyzing
agencies are specifically tasked with the heavy responsibility of preventing
another 9/11/01 scale attack. Sadly it
took the events of 9/11/01 to rattle the cages of the inept, hapless, lazy,
pension-padding bureaucrats into cooperative action and to assume an offensive
footing as we launched our “Global War on Terror”. While that particular term has fallen out of
fashion, the mission remains the same. Though
they have not perpetrated another successful terrorist strike on American soil
since September 11, 2001, let there be no doubt that there are those working
just off the radar towards that end.
Large regions around the globe
are shrouded in the fog of various wars and it is this fog that the terrorists
exploit; they have some “cover” while they train and prepare for their next
attack. Below the obscuring blankets of
fog the battle against global terror has lost some of the sense of urgency and
vigilance it requires. We in the West do
not tell time as our adversaries do. We
view the world through a narrow slit behind us while they still seek vengeance
from wrongs committed centuries ago. This
is no abstract, archaic concept; it is a painful reality as we witness two
Peoples engaged in a bloody 60 years of bitter bloodshed fighting over land
each of believe was ceded to them directly by God as told in the Bible.
TIME
We really need to reset our clocks
and lock in for the long haul. We must
make a more concerted effort to acquire a more nuanced understanding of our
enemies instead of labeling all, all of “them” in one deep nest of vipers. Back to the Chinese days of antiquity we can
read the words of their famous military leader Sun Tzu. In his book “The Art of War” he
makes many important points not the least of which is to understand, to “know”
your enemy; his strengths and weaknesses, his tactics and strategies. Only armed with knowledge can a military or
other force rapidly dispatch an enemy.
Yes, our current struggle with terrorists will be long, protracted and
complex. We do not have one singular
enemy such as we did for the length of the Cold War when the “Red Menace” of
the USSR stood as our ever-present foe.
We have yet to adjust to the “nature” of our enemy; the asymmetry of the
conflict and how in such a lopsided equation the terrorists have a distinct
advantage.
This rash of recent security breaches
powerfully illustrates what a small handful of determined individuals are
capable of. They have been able to scale
the freedom Tower and parachute off in the still of the night just as a New
Jersey high school student had similarly made that clandestine ascent just a
few weeks before. The weaknesses in the
perimeter of the three Metropolitan Area airports have been exposed and two men
from Inwood flew a radio controlled aircraft into the airspace above the GWB as
an NYPD Aviation Unit helicopter hovered nearby. Now several unknown individuals manage to
scale the imposing towers of the Brooklyn Bridge and replace the stars and
stripes with the white flags of surrender.
Imagine the damage they could have done, the havoc they would have wreaked
had they planted a bomb or other explosive device instead of flags?
Individually each of these
events is confounding perhaps perpetrated by harmless pranksters or dare
devils. Collectively they are deeply
troubling and represent systemic failures in the security of New York
City. The turmoil around the world has
given rise to the newest generation of terrorists and just like their al Qaeda
forefathers they have their eyes set squarely on NYC. There is no time to waste.
Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2014 © All Rights
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