Lame Terror Threat Rates Minimal Response
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
(SNN Los Angeles) An 11 minute tape featuring an American accented member of the Taliban has promised terror attacks on Los Angeles and Melbourne. This had led authorities in Los Angeles and Australia to do practically nothing.
Tomorrow, Los Angeles and Melbourne, Allah willing
The tape was given to ABC news in Pakistan on the Eve of the Anniversary of September 11th, which coincidentally is also September 11th. A man dressed in a black turban with most of his face covered made threats of attacks. "Yesterday, London and Madrid. Tomorrow, Los Angeles and Melbourne, Allah willing," the tape said. While the Associated Press claimed that the man spoke unaccented English, he was probably just speaking in the same accent as the reporter, thus sounding like he had no accent.
Despite the tape, or perhaps because of it, Australia has chosen not to raise their terror alert level, which consists of four levels – Low, Medium, High, and Wear Your Brown Trousers. Some Australians criticize the Australian terror alert system, which has been on Medium since September 11th, 2001. They are jealous of the American system, which shot up and down like a quick thing that goes up and down in the lead up to the November 2004 elections. Proponents of change wish to make the system simpler by adding more levels, which would allow the threat level to change even when nothing was happening.
Some Australians criticize the Australian terror alert system
Meanwhile, the police chief of Los Angeles, William Bratton, is also seriously ignoring the tape. "At this juncture, we feel it's just rhetoric," Bratton said Monday. Bratton went on to say that Gadahn was a "low-level operative". Bratton believes the best course of action is to maintain a more general lookout for terrorists. The LAPD does this general lookout by randomly searching coffee shops, strip clubs and other known terrorist haunts.
ABC said the man on the tape is believed to be Adam Yahiye Gadahn, the world's lamest member of Al Qaeda. Gadahn was born Adam Pearlman and was home schooled on a kosher goat farm in Riverside County, CA. Gadahn listened to heavy metal and fundamentalist Christian rock before converting to Islam. Adam Gadahn's father, Philip Gadahn, says that he still can't imagine his son would be involved in a terrorist network.
