While right now Al Qaeda linked terrorist group Al-Shabaab seems more intent on taking over Somalia than on attacking us, a real possibility now that they control parts of the capital, the administration needs to get serious about cracking down on the group before they decide to turn their sights on us. For years I have worried that Al Qaeda sleeper cells and recruiters were infiltrated in the United States waiting for the right moment to strike, a moment of weakness when we would put our guard down. While I think that the administration is trying to create that sense of false security, Al Qaeda still has not recovered from the undeniable punishment it received in Afghanistan… but for terrorism to succeed, only a few fanatics are required. Little would I expect that Al Qaeda and its affiliates were actually recruiting in America in order to ship their terrorists to other countries, it makes sense though: knowing that they could not attack America without risking massive retaliation, they instead decided to use American citizens, the least likely to be terrorists, to conduct their missions all over the world. The ease with which Americans can get visas and travel to countries that Al Qaeda hates also makes this strategy very effective.

The two men in Minnesota who have been indicted for recruiting and assisting Al-Shabaab are a clear sign that Al Qaeda has not left our country, and since they have not left, we can only attribute the fact that we have not been attacked on the actions America has been taking since 911, the majority of that time with President Bush at the helm. While the mainstream media has thoroughly attacked the concept that Bush “kept us safe” because it did not fit with their liberal bias, the actual terrorists have kept to themselves fearing what we might do to the remains of the once robust Al Qaeda organization, a strength that only now they are recovering under the new administration’s talk-first-act-never foreign policy.

Honestly, I did not expect Al Qaeda to turn up in Minnesota, though I did hear rumors that the terrorist group had infiltrated another Midwestern state and was planning to carry out an attack on our financial institutions that would bankrupt us and then cause us to surrender to their demands: withdrawal and negotiation. But when I heard that their operative’s name sounded almost exactly like the name of their leader I thought “no way that we can’t stop this guy.” I guess I was wrong.

-AG