"Report Suspicious Activity to 1-800-BE-ALERT"

If you mosey by the US Customs and Border Patrol website, you'll see that phrase "Report Suspicious Activity to 1-800-BE-ALERT", which should be familiar to anyone who's ever ridden I-95 down the Atlantic Corridor. When you're in your car buzzing by the Chesapeake Welcome Center, using your cruise control like a restrictor plate, thinking how right Jean Shepard was when he uttered the immortal ". . .God, I love I-95!", well then that admonishing phrase, in a whole continuing series of "South-of-the-Borderesque" signage, is a little out of place. Who can spot suspicious activity at 75-plus? And given the wastes that line the roadway, what would constitute suspicious activity? Someone harvesting Christmas trees from the decretory splendor that is I-95's landscaping?

But "Report Suspicious Activity to 1-800-BE-ALERT" definitely belongs on US Customs and Border Patrol websites and materials. It's not overdone, just persistently there on the left hand margin, floating over to each page you surf to.

Turning the ports over to UAE is, of course, a fantastically, almost an impossibly bad idea. Without the UAE's critical assistance, travel and lodging amenities, general facilitating and magnanimous financial support, there could not have been a 9/11.

If the Saudis rightfully claimed top billing for 9/11, UAE would have been up for Best Supporting. They provided OBL and the Taliban with an unfettered travel point of departure, virtually un-reviewed passporting and visa services, and was pretty much the ATM for the entire 9/11 operation. The 9/11 Commission Report is lousy with references to the UAE. One of those haunting missed opportunities to take OBL out before 9/11 prominently featured the UAE, and it's important to note that during this period the UAE was trying not to tick the US off, and that while it was still a few years before 9/11, we were then trying to take OBL out:

The Desert Camp, February 1999

During the winter of 1998-99, intelligence eported that Bin Ladin frequently visited a camp in the desert adjacent to a larger hunting camp in Helmand province of Afghanistan, used by visitors from a Gulf state. Public sources have stated that these visitors were from the United Arab Emirates. . . . National technical intelligence confirmed the description of the larger camp and showed the nearby presence of an official aircraft of the UAE. The CIA received reports that Bin Ladin regularly went from his adjacent camp to the larger camp where he visited with Emiratis. The location of this larger camp was confirmed by February 9, but the location of Bin Ladin’s quarters could not be pinned down so precisely. Preparations were made for a possible strike at least against the larger camp, perhaps to target Bin Ladin during one of his visits. No strike was launched.

According to CIA officials, policymakers were concerned about the danger that a strike might kill an Emirati prince or other senior officials who might be with Bin Ladin or close by. The lead CIA official in the field felt the intelligence reporting in this case was very reliable; the UBL unit chief at the time agrees. The field official believes today that this was a lost opportunity to kill Bin Ladin before 9/11.

On February 10, Clarke reported that a top UAE official had vehemently denied that high-level UAE officials were in Afghanistan. Evidence subsequently confirmed that high-level UAE officials had been hunting there. By February 12 Bin Ladin had apparently moved on and the immediate strike plans became moot. In March the entire camp complex was hurriedly disassembled.