I am concerned this morning about the safety of American athletes in Russia. The Olympics is a great symbolic gathering for sport and international dialog. I feel that there is risk of it becoming a venue for assault on Americans at the last part of these games. It seems the games are poorly attended despite great expense by Russia in providing them. There are two reasons fro this which Russians are likely to be aware of in every hour. One is Islamic terrorism and militancy and the other is the US led denunciation of their domestic policies about sex.
Today is a special day for symbols of a happy kind. Happy Valentine’s Day! I cheer and salute the love, romance, betrothals, special friendships and marriage in the world. I want that to stand alone and so I have made it my thought in a status update below. However, It is also the case that on this Valentine’s Day besides sexy gifts, flowers and for a few the memory of a Bishop and martyr who helped poor girls find dowries to be able to marry — the world is spinning around. We have our customs related to these things and we have a lot of problems of our own with sex in America. Right now there is a lawsuit in my hometown by a student expelled for sexual misconduct. He is suing the school and alleging racial discrimination and the whole thing is a microcosm of all the the tensions and many of the absurdities of our society. Even I can find fault with myself here as I once wrote along list of complaints about schools in which I listed condoms at schools as one sign of too loose of a view of sex for adolescents. I never have opposed kids receiving information about condoms nor having access to them but simply putting them out like a kind of textbook when kids ought to be encouraged to wait. But in the absurdity of our society (others are absurd in other ways) it is easy to say the young man who impregnated two girls (allegedly) should never have been allowed anywhere without condoms. He should also have been expelled from the school earlier but that does not deal with the school’s faults in all of this. The truth is thousands of American instances of sexual dysfunction occur every day. In the Olympic charter and elsewhere it is pretty clear that this is not the venue for attacking the domestic policy of host countries.
So the question emerges whether some part of the security framework in Russia will allow Islamists to penetrate the ring of steel to kill Americans? I think it is not impossible. I think Obama has not made American security and success here his top priority. The next question is what is the threat?
The threat is that in Pakistan we see sophisticated drilling with large numbers of suicide bombers with fake ID cards and models for planning, In Afghanistan experienced fighters have been released from prison, in Iraq masses of suicide bombers are being trained in a way which strains their trainers capacities. That is all the current applicable risk. The conditions are that Islamic secessionist forces in Dagestan and Chechnya are eager to provide a conduit of support and avenue of attack for Islamist assailants against the Olympics. The overall climate is that European and Russian intelligence are more resentful and less eager to cooperate with America than usual. I am not sure President Obama is on our side and does not want to provoke an incident with Russia but whatever he wants this may still happen in a really horrible way. I will breathe easier after the closing ceremonies end peacefully than I ever have for any other Olympics. This is not a small risk.
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