""How many terrorist attacks do you think we will suffer in the United States in the next year?" journalist and author Steven Brill asked the former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and current Secretary Jeh Johnson on Thursday.
Ridge refused to "speculate" on a number, but he said terror attacks are inevitable: "Let's reflect of our past 15 years. We're safer now than we've ever been. There's still gaps, let's close the gaps and let's accept it. And don't ever, ever change what we do because were fearful of another attack. Because another attack is going to happen."
Ridge said the U.S. must "accept the reality" that the nature of the threat has changed: "The number of actors has increased. The profile of those actors is significantly different than it was on September 10, 2001," he said.
"There's an inevitability to the attacks. There's no way, if you take a look at what's happened in France over the past six months, there's a variety of means by which they can inflict their damage and, you know, affect the psyche of a country and bring pain and suffering to families and communities.
"They had a stabbing in Paris, they had a truck running over dozens of people in Nice, the mass shooting on November 13th and yesterday (Wednesday), they found gas cylinders in an automobile outside of Notre Dame (in Paris). So...I think we should just accept the inevitability. But after 15 years in reflection, what I really think the country needs to do is accept the reality that it is a global scourge. Accept a reality that it will probably happen again, here."
Ridge also said terrorism has to be put in context: He noted that hundreds of people died in vehicle crashes over the Labor Day weekend, and nearly 40,000 people are expected to die in automobile accidents every year.
"I'm not trying to say that the pain or the suffering of a terrorist attack isn't significant, isn't real -- it is. But I want America to dial down some of the hyperbole and the hyperventilation. I don't want us to be breathless about this."
Current DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said a terrorist attack today may look very different from the 9/11 attacks.
"[A]nd if you're asking how many San Bernardino or Orlando-type attacks will we have in the year 2017, no national security, homeland security or law-enforcement expert is going to -- is in a position to quantify it. We have not ended the scourge, the threat of homegrown violent extremism.
"People ask me, what keeps you up at night? That is thing-number-one, the prospect of another homegrown -- or home-born -- violent extremist acquiring a weapon or a tool of mass violence and carrying out an attack someplace here, in the homeland. It cannot be quantified, it is difficult to detect given the nature of it."
Johnson said the Homeland Security Department needs to "continually remind the American people of all the things we are doing, the 10 or 12 things we're doing constantly to secure the homeland. But to also say to them, there's a role for the public through awareness, through vigilance.
"I think that the public understands, in a free and open Democratic society, you cannot eliminate all risk, whether it's a terrorist attack or a mass shooting or gang violence.
We cannot end it tomorrow. We can and we should reduce it as much as possible, consistent with our values and consistent with our laws. But the prospect of an HVE attack is still there and we need to address it.""
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Comment: Exactly which of "our values" is Jeh Johnson referencing?
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FR comments
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3467745/posts
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"To: Olog-hai
Meanwhile...open borders, 8,000 Syrians unpack, and Hilda wants more.....Yeah let’s close those “gaps”
Meanwhile...open borders, 8,000 Syrians unpack, and Hilda wants more.....Yeah let’s close those “gaps”
3 posted on 9/9/2016, 11:02:27 PM by Doogle (( USAF.68-73..8th TFW Ubon Thailand..never store a threat you should have eliminated))
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To: Olog-hai
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Control the borders you numb-nutz.
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4
posted on 9/9/2016, 11:03:30 PM
by Paladin2
(auto spelchk? BWAhaha2haaa.....I aint't likely fixin' nuttin'. Blame it on the Bossa Nova...)
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To: Olog-hai
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Brilliant. DHS warns while we continue to load America with
terrorists, unknown Muslims, illegals of all flavors, and normal
leftist, anti-American thugs.
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To: Olog-hai
Home grown terrorists? More like home-imported Muslim terrorists.
8 posted on 9/9/2016, 11:12:28 PM by plain talk
To: plain talk
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More like government-manufactured terrorists.
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9 posted on 9/9/2016, 11:19:37 PM by thoughtomator (This message has been encrypted in ROT13 twice for maximum security)
9 posted on 9/9/2016, 11:19:37 PM by thoughtomator (This message has been encrypted in ROT13 twice for maximum security)
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To: thoughtomator
Government didn’t manufacture them. They imported them.
11 posted on 9/9/2016, 11:23:43 PM by plain talk
“Let’s close the gaps’
Um, beggin’ the pardon of all concerned. But, um...ain’t the borders still porous?
And didn’t POTUS stop enforcement?
And didn’t the interviewing reporter just sort of shuck that pretzel logic a pass?
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Um, beggin’ the pardon of all concerned. But, um...ain’t the borders still porous?
And didn’t POTUS stop enforcement?
And didn’t the interviewing reporter just sort of shuck that pretzel logic a pass?
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12
posted on 9/9/2016, 11:24:00 PM
by Clutch Martin
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To: Olog-hai
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A Homeland Security director who says “we can’t stop it, we can’t help it” is unfit for the job.
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To: plain talk
There are a surprising number of Somali immigrants living in Minnesota, whether arrived here as children or born here to first generation immigrants, going to join ISIS and Al Shabab.
There are a surprising number of Somali immigrants living in Minnesota, whether arrived here as children or born here to first generation immigrants, going to join ISIS and Al Shabab.
The men, the fathers, are fundamentalists, the ones demanding foot baths
in airports and the right to refuse dogs and alcohol while working as
taxi drivers.
14 posted on 9/9/2016, 11:25:53 PM by tbw2
14 posted on 9/9/2016, 11:25:53 PM by tbw2
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To: Clutch Martin
We aren’t closing the gaps when the President wants to bring in more “Syrian” refugees and hasn’t improved the screening process that brought in the San Bernadino shooters.
15 posted on 9/9/2016, 11:26:40 PM by tbw2
To: Clutch Martin
We aren’t closing the gaps when the President wants to bring in more “Syrian” refugees and hasn’t improved the screening process that brought in the San Bernadino shooters.
15 posted on 9/9/2016, 11:26:40 PM by tbw2
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To: plain talk
They do in fact manufacture them. Both Osama bin Laden and the new ISIS leader were both trained by the US State Department.
They weren’t the only ones. State/CIA has poured billions into Syrian
jihadis in recent years, at least in part due to Saudi patronage of one
Hillary Rodham Clinton.
16 posted on 9/9/2016, 11:29:24 PM by thoughtomator (This message has been encrypted in ROT13 twice for maximum security)
16 posted on 9/9/2016, 11:29:24 PM by thoughtomator (This message has been encrypted in ROT13 twice for maximum security)
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To: FlingWingFlyer
Seeing “13 Hours” will change you. If you didn’t hate Hillary before, you will after watching that film.
20 posted on 9/9/2016, 11:48:26 PM by jazminerose"
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To: FlingWingFlyer
Seeing “13 Hours” will change you. If you didn’t hate Hillary before, you will after watching that film.
20 posted on 9/9/2016, 11:48:26 PM by jazminerose"
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