https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/world/middleeast/hamas-israel-protests-national-security.html#:~:text=Top%20American%20counterterrorism%20officials%20on,Israel%20or%20the%20ensuing%20war.
The key message in this story is as follows:
Top American counterterrorism officials on Thursday said there was no credible or specific intelligence pointing to a current threat to the United States related to the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel or the ensuing war.
Not a lot nor facts to call any questions into this story/reports…unless you recall that in the post 9/11 declarations by the Intelligence Community consensus, the same was said about the time leading up to the attacks on the U.S. homeland. In other chosen words, we had info, but no one decided that the info gave them sufficient knowledge to develop operations and or actions to prevent the eventual attack.
While a fair statement that I certainly am in no position to question or offer another analysis opinion, it has to be considered that we need to open our thinking to more of a healthy awareness need.
We know, that we do not know, who the heck is coming across our various, but particularly our souther borders of the U.S. We know, though our countries leaders tell us otherwise, our borders are virtually if not literally open, with large expanses that have nothing to prevent entry by unknown persons. That is not opinion, that is fact!
Should we presume that bad persons with bad intent are in already, or coming in as we drink our morning coffee? Yes! As a Situational Awareness professional it is my responsibility to declare that we must presume the worse, prepare for the worse, while welcoming the trust that our officials were accomplishing their task of protecting us all.
My mantra is and always has been, “you are your own First Responder.” The good guys, though they want to, will not be there when you need them. They will come, but far too often, too late to save the day…this is not a movie, where the good guys do, this is reality where they don’t know better, and are not propositioned and prepared, and have active knowledge, to come and prevent or save.
When you consider that the Israelis live in what has long been considered a war zone, surrounded by many adversaries, and home to a contested population of Palestinians and Israelis, one might think that they have a handle on intelligence related to the threats they face. Was the recent successful attack a failure of intelligence, or representative of the vast limitations of verifiable and complete knowledge on what can never be absolute, accurate and comprehensive? You tell me!
So what of our U.S. situation. Some want you to believe we have no “situation.” We don’t have a valid threat or danger of attack in particular to our open borders or elsewhere. And some think we are already under attack, though vailed in the lack of active and visible actions that would cause our destruction or injury. Well, perhaps we face the same threats from people that are already here, people who are Americans and live and work amongst us.
We don’t want to see a repeat of those images from Israel of dead or dying people. Women and children be injured, take hostage or killed. Likewise we don’t want to see images of people jumping from the the World Trade Center towers repeated anywhere here in the U.S. or frankly anywhere in the world. It serves no value to humanity. No one is served, no one is saved, no one wins, nothing is made better.
You are your own First Responder!
You must be prepared to protect and save yourself and your family. You need to do your best at encouraging, no, demanding that our leaders and officials to do their jobs at protecting us all.