The Fusion Intelligence Center in Charleston has been on top of classified information coming in daily on ISIS and keeps tabs on how close the terrorist organization’s activities might be to the Mountain State.
While it could not get into specifics about locations or how many people, the Fusion Center said ISIS is training and recruiting members here in the United States; close enough to be concerned. The center has monitored people with terrorist ties passing through here.
“Our role is receiving information,” Director Thomas Kirk said.
Even before it’s made public, the Fusion Center has access to classified information from all over the world.
And if you think Steven Sotloff is the last American to die, brace yourself. Those two brutal killings, James Foley first and then Sotloff, are just the beginning, Kirk said.
When asked if there was anything he could say about the second video, compared to the first one, Kirk smiled and replied, “No,” since all of the information is still classified.
Kirk could not reveal much, but said investigators are comparing the voices on the two ISIS execution videos, the scenery, the hand holding the knife and the eyes of the man wearing the black head covering.
I sure as hell hope they don’t come here and terrorize us, because they could do a lot of damage. They might make large donations to our government officials and even force workers to donate to friendly politicians, basically take over our legislature and weaken or eradicate all our laws protecting us, all while stacking the judiciary with corporate cronies. They then could flatten hills that would lead to deadly flash flooding, poison our water and kill our rivers and streams, pollute the region, drown our citizenry in large amounts of industrial waste, and lead to the premature death of thousands of citizens, all while taking their profits out of state and overseas. We’d probably all suffer from Stockholm Syndrome and do silly things like stick Friends of ISIS stickers on our cars and tell anyone who doesn’t love ISIS that they aren’t a real American and vote against anyone who tries to run for office and help. Wouldn’t want that to happen.
Davis X. Machina
WCHS? It’s South Carolina, right?… too small for a republic, too big for an insane asylum.
Mnemosyne
If this guy is a government official, he needs to be fucking fired. Really, he’s so happy to have another beheading video that’s he’s fucking smiling about it?
Howard Beale IV
OMFG
Howard Beale IV
[email protected]
MikeJake
@Mnemosyne: “I know something you don’t know, nyeah nyeah nyeah nyeah nyeah nyeah.”
jl
My snark-Cole-ometer just blew a fuse. Any advice on a where to get a good cheap new one? Assuming blegs from mere commenters re permitted on this blog.
Punchy
Is this an Onion piece?
raven
Teddy Roosevelt was John McCain.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: I noticed that, too. All the devils are here.
Jay C
Hey, John! You’d better be on the ball: ISIS may be in your backyard!!
SRSLY, who are these clowns? A Google search turns up little hard info on the “Fusion Intelligence Center” (the notion that it’s in Charleston tends to obviate the “intelligence” part!) – mainly a bunch of re-directs from an initial (and apparently unsourced) Internet post.
Foggy F Follansbye
On the train home from work today, there was a woman in a hijab. Should I call 911?
sm*t cl*de
Money-sink authority-abusing pork-barrel
organisationgrift makes with the uncorroborated leaks to try and boost its relevance and hang onto the money teat for a little bit longer? Smut = surprised.Baud
Why, oh why, didn’t we listen to the ISIS national anthem?
beltane
“Fusion Intelligence Center” sounds like it could have been an act put on by Sun-Ra.
jonas
I’m just glad to hear some private enterprise is employing the wide range of fluent Arabic and Pashtu linguists and mathematicians necessary to decode ISIS’s military-grade encryption codes regarding their plans to infiltrate West Virginia. Otherwise I might have thought this was just a couple of rednecks with a subscription to Newsmax sitting around in a dude’s garage stroking their AR-15’s slowly, then faster, then accidentally making eye contact with each other and uncomfortably clearing their throats and setting down their guns and asking if hey, could anyone use another cold tallboy while we wait for an update on them Mooslims.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
JC! You forgot to mention they will demand all our laws be based on their religious teachings & that we require adherence to and homage paid to their religious demands.
Ripley
We have to fight them here so we don’t have to fight them over there. Or something.
scav
Intelligence information on what? I suppose it depends what the definition of ISIS is.
Oh the Fused Intelligence, it is blown . . .
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Baud: When I was living in Germany, we talked about that song being Germany’s unofficial nation anthem. It was played in sthitloads of bars and everyone knew the words and sang along. Well, that and Frank Zappa’s Bobby Brown; I am not sure that everyone actually knew what the words to that song meant – or they did and were being very “disciplined” about it (if you know what I mean).
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@raven:
that is exactly what my wife said! Sadly, I think TR was more nuts & he didn’t hang by his arms for two years in Hanoi.
Suzanne
@Foggy F Follansbye: Only if you see her kissing a white dude.
Tenar Darell
What do you think, was Lindsey Graham Chicken Little in another life? Or is he really playing Blanche at the beginning of Streetcar for his lifetime achievement from the Academy? Is over the top hyperbolic rhetoric a major facet of all South Carolina politicians? (That last is actually a serious question…)
beltane
@scav: Maybe they have gotten their hands on a book of Ancient Egyptian mythology. It’s not just ISIS these people are worried about, but Ptah, Anubis, Osiria, Horus, etc. We are surrounded.
aimai
@jonas: This really made me laugh. Have you considered writing for the Onion?
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
Well, don’t tell John. He’s got his hands full with ISIS without having to also worry about the Germans.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@beltane:
The bastads really should worry about Bastet!
Tenar Darell
@Tenar Darell: eep, won’t let me edit.
Please note that I am aware WV is far from SC, but John’s post reminded me of my question about Graham’s Sunday show performance…
scav
I also want more information on these terrorist ties! I’ve had to pull off shoes, socks, overcoats, hats but not once has any TSAer looked properly at my tie! How many of these ties are being snuck in daily under hijabs and crumpled up in cantaloupe sized thighs! Are they wearing them wide or thin this year?! Striped?! Spotted, Don’t say Spotted!!!! EBOLA TIES!!!
Baud
@Tenar Darell:
When I read Charleston, I first thought of S.C. also.
beth
Gee maybe they’ll get a truck full of explosives and blow up a building in a city like Oklahoma City. Or maybe they’ll go somewhere lots of people congregate like say a movie theater and shoot 50 or 60 people. Or if they’re feeling really bloodthirsty maybe they’ll attack an elementary school or high school and gun down some kids. What are they going to do to us that we haven’t already done, or thought about doing, to ourselves?
beltane
Right after 9/11 a local Vermont whackaloon I spoke to assured me that “they” were about to invade en mass from Canada and we would all have to eat squirrels. He didn’t appreciate it when I asked why squirrels and not venison.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@scav: No, no, no, they are like school or regimental ties. A person in the know will be able to differentiate between suicide bombers, IED makers, assassins, etc., by the patterns, stripes, and colors of the tie.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@beltane: My understanding is that squirrels are very hard to skin – unlike rabbits.
scav
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Oh, well then, whew. I assume the little tie-tack rather works like the pin on a grenade.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Baud:
“Don’t mention the Germans!”, you’re saying?
beltane
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): We don’t even have the nice, fat gray squirrels here, only the red ones that aren’t much bigger than chipmunks.
Eric U.
@beth: no foreign terrorist will mess with West Virginia. No domestic terrorist will mess with West Virginia. Waiting for some West Virginian to blow the place up due to native stupidity is defnitely the way to go. A domestic terrorist might blow up something in Indianapolis, but foreign terrorists are going to go for New York. I think they might also consider Miami, but after a bit of research they would realize there are no targets worth going after in Miami and revert to New York.
eta: domestic terrorists: please re-target to Nashville. I don’t want the NSA to come after me if something goes boom in Indianapolis.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: Similar but not the same. TR was smarter and was President. Grandpa Walnuts will never be President.
Origuy
In other words, this could be some county sheriff thinking he saw a Koran.
beltane
@Origuy: Maybe his local Piggly-Wiggly started carrying hummus.
Bill E Pilgrim
@beltane: When they’re not there I bet there’s a sign on the door that says “Gone Fission”.
moops
Methinks a certain beneficiary of post 9/11 terror spending is looking for some supplemental funding, or is up for a review pretty soon.
Punchy
Fleischmann and Pons want their Fusion Center back.
John Cole +0
@Eric U.: Probably our biggest threat from explosions is meth labs and transformers blowing up during rain and snow storms. And ISIS will have to hurt quite a few natives to catch up with accidental deaths and injuries from ATV’s. We had 96 deaths over a seven year period, which, given our population, is the equivalent of five 9/11 attacks.
moops
I can imagine what a certain number of my actual fusion physicist colleagues think of the center’s name.
sm*t cl*de
I’m pretty sure that the national anthem of Germany is Herbert Grönemeyer singing “Currywurst”.
More on Kirk’s scams
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@moops: The word “fusion” exists and has meaning outside the world of physics.
moops
@John Cole +0: I had thought it was just snark that “self-inflicted wounds” was a serious threat.
Some folk’ll never lose a toe,
but then again some folk’ll
Like Cleetus, the slack-jawed yokel.
Time Travelin'
Apparently Fusion Centers are another Homeland Security farce:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_center
Baud
@Time Travelin’:
From the link:
3.3 2009 Virginia terrorism threat assessment
3.4 2011 Illinois fusion center finds water pump was “hacked”; the FBI disagrees
So, this is an old M.O.
moops
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
I know.
That’s why I qualified the comment to people that might have different cognitive patterns in place. Some people can find humor in this form of mental exercise. Some not I see.
Steeplejack
@Jay C:
They are who we thought they are, i.e., another dumb-ass legacy of the post-9/11 “Homeland Security” state. What could possibly go wrong with state-level intelligence agencies operating with the same machine-like efficiency as, say, the legislature?
moops
To think they are spending millions in this one location pouring over video clips looking at the terrorists eyes and hands… and grinning at all the special knowledge they are gleaning.
or just grinning that they have been pulling this grift for so long and the media just eats it up.
MikeBoyScout
Be vary vary afraid.
drkrick
Reading this thread while watching the Nationals celebrate a division title is enough to make a man downright giddy. God help them if they spot a Hookah bar in Morgantown.
Hal
So a conservative co-worker I’m friend with on Facebook was complaining the other day that Obama uses the term ISIL instead of ISIS. Is this some new wingnut meme I’m not aware of? I thought ISIS/ISIL is the same group, just different regions.
Eric U.
@moops: I’m sure most of them think they are doing something constructive, which is more than a little scary.
drkrick
@Hal:
It’s a different translation choice for an Arabic word that doesn’t have an exact English counterpart. But they need the long form version of the translation table.
Cervantes
@Hal: Worse: it’s the same group, same regions.
Steeplejack
@Hal:
As was explained on our very own front page:
sm*t cl*de
More outcomes of the Great National Pants-wetting; staffed with no-hoper unqualified double-dipping retirees, who’ve been given access to classified reports and personal information (along with a blanket exemption from freedom-of-information laws).
moops
@Eric U.:
I’m leery to think they are completely sincere in their activities. Most likely they maintain a sort of cognitive dissonance about being true soldiers on the wall, and cynical grifters. That is what most of these post-9/11 overreach activities seem staffed with. Some people saw that firehose of terror money and leapt in for their filthy spoils from contacts. The further down the food chain the more earnest your people might be.
All state-level terrorism agencies need to be shuttered immediately, in my opinion.
The Moar You Know
@Jay C: I have dealt with similar state contractor agencies. I find their forecasts wanting.
@Hal: Yes.
Also yes.
boatboy_srq
@beltane: We are, indeed, so FIC’d.
[ducks and runs]
@drkrick: Wingnuts use the KJV translation; POTUS is actually having real Arabic speakers translate. Also, wingnuts know that appealing to the masses with a foe named after one of the Heathen Idols of Yore will naturally incite the Xtians.
The Moar You Know
@sm*t cl*de: That’s the worst part of the whole scam. No such thing happens.
drkrick
It could be worse. They could be involved with an organization capable of doing something useful and getting in the way.
Tommy
@sm*t cl*de: I am a military brat. I am often not scared about this or that. I don’t let pants wetting people influence me.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Tommy: How does your being a military brat have anything to do with being scared of things?
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I wrote that comment and almost wanted to pull it back. I was raised to stand tall. Not to be fearful. I am not scared.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Tommy: Nor are many of us. I just wanted to know how being a military brat comes into play?
Eric U.
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I think most military people are familiar with the professional pants-wetter, and I’m guessing that their offspring get the benifit of that knowlege. I’m afraid I never passed any of that onto my children, they are going to have to learn it for themselves.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Eric U.: I sort of feel that if you want credit for military service, you should have served. Also, the ability to avoid being scared by statistically improbable threats is not related to a connection to the military.
Scamp Dog
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I’m guessing that he’s been around actual brave people, and knows how they respond to things. Unlike so many of our pundits and politicians, who seem to have gleaned their knowledge from action movies and TV drama series.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Scamp Dog: I don’t think that soldiers are necessarily braver than other people. They do a job that is inherently dangerous, but so do firefighters, miners, commercial fishermen, etc.
sm*t cl*de
@The Moar You Know:
I think you’re right (longer comment sent to Moderation Limbo, perhaps because I included the word “sh0es” in a copy-paste).
HeartlandLiberal
John’s post is an awesome demonstration of the rational and logical disconnect that infests the majority of Americans, and I use the term loosely, thinking.
Sadly, even if confronted with this post, they simply will not get it, will not understand.
Irony, as well as the rule of law, is dead in America.
I can only imagine trying to teach Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” to a room full of tea tards. The intellectual challenge of getting them to separate fantasy from reality, satire from truth, simply boggles my mind.
Lurking Canadian
@Hal: others have covered the linguistic issue. The political issue is that the wingnuts have convinced themselves the only reason to translate as ISIL is that you are a dhimmi coward who’s afraid to piss off Syria.
J.D. Rhoades
“…after nine years — and regular praise from officials at the Department of Homeland Security — the 77 fusion centers have become pools of ineptitude, waste and civil liberties intrusions, according to a scathing 141-page report by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs permanent subcommittee on investigations…“In reality, the Subcommittee investigation found that the fusion centers often produced irrelevant, useless or inappropriate intelligence reporting to DHS, and many produced no intelligence reporting whatsoever,” the report said.
The bipartisan report, released by subcommittee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and ranking minority member Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), portrays the fusion center system as ineffective and criticizes the Department of Homeland Security for poor supervision.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/dhs-fusion-centers-portrayed-as-pools-of-ineptitude-and-civil-liberties-intrusions/2012/10/02/10014440-0cb1-11e2-bd1a-b868e65d57eb_story.html
JR in WV
OH, no! The D of Homeland Security, accused of poor supervision!!!
We are doomed! If we can’t even get good management from DHS, how can we ever expect them to protect us from the Wily Muslim Terrorist!?!?!???
WMTs are well known to be bright, but clad in mufti, hard to spot in the urban wild. Whatever will we do?
Whatevers will we do?
Matt
You forgot the part where they show up, start stockpiling weapons, build training camps in the woods, send their members off to the armed forces for training, and generally hope for the day when they can spring forth and impose their fundamentalist dream of theocracy.
OH SHIT WE’VE ALREADY GOT THOSE GUYS
THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE