Al-Qaeda Recruits in US

I have often advocated for shorter prison sentences with more punch. Drug laws should be abolished or dramatically reformed so that we can afford to spend some time with our prisoners. The reason is that the money does more damage than the banned substance. I don't care if a person gets high as long as he doesn't buy the intoxicant from a drug dealer. The watchword is small prisons with serious intent.

The one thing we should care about for our younger criminals is cultural contamination. All sentences should be solitary confinement. Any companionship must be with family (and I'm not sure about that), rehabilitation engineers and/or carefully screened literature. All prisoners must transition back into society through a halfway house distant from their original home. They need to learn alternate ways of living. And I am not suggesting that religion is necessarily a good solution.

Right now our prisons represent an enormous vulnerability, as do our corrupt drug enforcement methods. Both are currently being exploited by Islamic fundamentalists. The DEA has complained about this in the past.

HAMAS & Hizballah in the Tri-Border Area The two major terrorist organizations that exist in the Tri-Border Area of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil are Hizballah and the Islamic Resistance Movement known as HAMAS. The members of these organizations often assimilate into the local culture and typically become merchants in shopping centers to conceal their illegal activities. Intelligence indicates that Islamic fundamentalist terrorist cells operate out of strongholds in the Tri-Border Area of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. They generate significant income by controlling the sale of various types of contraband in these areas, including drugs, liquor, cigarettes, weapons, and forged documents. Intelligence suggests that a large sum of the earnings from these illegal activities goes in support of the operatives' respective organizations in Lebanon.