LM#82--The RAF Fairford Scare And What It Means For US Security

Breaking News At RAF Fairford

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Three vans, five men, two in the morning, and the road leading straight towards one of the most important American bomber bases on Earth. Let's talk about it on this Liberty Minute.

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Welcome to the Theory to Action Podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now, here's your host, David Kaiser.

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Hello, I am David, and welcome back to this Liberty Minute. And we had another show planned for today, but with this breaking news over the weekend and still going on today, we're gonna push that show back a bit. It's gonna be worth the wait because this story is quite important. As we sit here and record in the afternoon on Monday, September 28th, over the weekend, British counter-terrorism police arrested five men near a Royal Air Force base Fairford. It's an Air Force base in the English countryside. And bomb squads rolled in. Eighty-five homes were emptied in the dark. And ironically, just breaking about an hour ago this afternoon, all five men are back on the street. So you might say this is a local police story? Sounds like it. Not really. Not really at all. This one matters to every American. Because as we follow the evidence, uh, we're not gonna claim one inch more than the facts that can be proven, but boy is this not starting to sound like something very nefarious.

What Police Know So Far

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So, what do we know? Early Sunday, September 27th, police stop three vans reportedly headed towards RAF Fairford. Five men were arrested, all British nationals. Not British citizens, all British nationals, all in their twenties on suspicion of explosives and terrorism offenses. Bomb disposal teams came in, and about 85 nearby homes were evacuated. And then just this afternoon, Britain's head of counterterrorism policing, Assistant Commissioner Lawrence Taylor, announced all five men have been released on police bail. Now, bail does not mean the case is closed, at least by my research of the UK legal system, it does not mean that they have been cleared, these five men, it means that they're just out of custody. They're under strict limits, evidently, while the investigation keeps going. And here's what we also don't know. No attack took place. Nobody has shown the men reach the base and could have carried out an attack, or that's that Fairford was even their target. You see, they were arrested on suspicion, and terrorists attacked an American base are two very different sentences. So we're not gonna blue blur them here, but why does Fairford the base matter?

Why This Bomber Base Matters

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Well, Fairford itself isn't a crowded base with thousands of Americans living there. Think of it as a launch pad that's always ready. When America needs heavy air power in Europe or North Africa, this is this is where the big birds land. The B-52s, the B-1s, the B-2 stealth bombers. It puts our bombers closer to Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Arctic. And it certainly lets our airmen train side by side with NATO allies. And it shows that America, it shows the world that America can put serious power on the doorstep in hours. Fairford is where American strength gets its running start. That's why this suspicious ban near the fence line gets the full bomb squad treatment. Now, what was it was this Islamist terrorism?

Iran, Islam, And Evidence Standards

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That's what everybody wants to know. Was this radical Islam? Was this Iran? And the honest answer is we don't know yet. Hopefully, we have some very intrepid reporters because frankly, I don't trust the British government. As of right now, there's no public evidence these men were Islamist, Muslims, or driven by jihadist ideology. Now, I'm not soft on radical Islam. In fact, I'm growing even harder on all of Islam. Anyone who's listened to me for the last five months knows that. But the truth matters more than just a headline. And we made this point in Liberty Minute 9 Liberty Minute 81. That's our 9-11 anniversary episode when we talked about Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations. Culture and faith drive real conflict. We've learned that from Huntington. He saw that coming. Now Al-Qaeda is never spoken for Islam, and most of the victims of jihadism have themselves been Muslims. So precision in our definitions and in our attribution of the problem isn't softness. It's actually how we aim at the real enemy. But two things can be separate. Back in April and Liberty Minute 71, we made the case that Operation Epic Fury against Iran met the test of Catholic just war teaching. I still believe that. So but it but a just strike doesn't stop an enemy from seeking revenge. And revenge rarely knocks on the front door. So let's be plain about this. Iran's record is horrific for decades, for five decades. Tehran has been Hezbollah's chief sponsor, terrorist organization in Lebanon. Money weapons training. Iran has also backed Hamas, the same Hamas that butchered Israeli families on October 7, 2023. Iran, now what does seem strange as you begin to peel the onion is Iran is Shiite. Hamas is Sunni. In book brief 45 that we covered on Substack, Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam, great book. We called that a split of 14th-century-old fault line, wars that have been fought over the centuries. But in the Middle East, a common enemy beats a common creed almost every time. That is the issue. Their common enemies are Israel and the United States. So that's how you get a Shiite regime ending up bankrolling a Sunni militia. It isn't friendship, it's their strategy. And they can lie to any infidel. That's why we should never believe them when we go into these talks that our president seems to think can be the art of the deal. I think that's getting to be rubbish. They can lie to you to your face. Muslims can because you are an infidel if you're a Christian to them. Now, still, Iran backing Hamas doesn't mean every threat to an American base leads to Tehran. But we got to follow the evidence.

How Bases Stay Vulnerable Off Base

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Now, over the last 25 years, there doesn't appear to be a single confirmed completed terrorist attack on an American base in Britain or continental Europe. But the threats have been there. 2007, German police broke up the Saurand plot, targeting Rammstein Air Force Base in Germany and the Frankfurt Airport with car bombs. 2011, an Islamist gunman attacked a U.S. Air Force Base at the Frankfurt Airport, murdering two American airmen. So two young Americans in uniform gunned down on a bus far from home. We should never forget them any more than we should forget, never forget the 13 we honored last month in Mojo Minute 488 at the anniversary of Abbey Gate. Our bases are some of the most best guarded places on earth. But let's be real. No base lives on an island. Each one depends on roads, on contractors, on fuel, on the towns right outside the wire, right outside the gate. A threat doesn't have to crash the front gate to be dangerous. So President Trump is right to say that our NATO allies must carry more of their own defense load monetarily and otherwise. But even if America trims troops in Europe, Britain still remains vital. Lakinh, Mindenhall, Crouton, Fairford. The UK is one of our best allies. So here's the harder question.

Britain’s Internal Strength Question

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How strong is that ally on the inside? In Book Bree 44, we covered Matt Goodwin's Suicide of a Nation. And Goodwin put it starkly. And now in light of these this potential terrorist attack, this one line really brings everything into full clarity. Goodwin wrote in Suicide of a Nation, Britain is not being conquered. It's being abandoned by the very people who were meant to protect it. Again, check that that book out, book brief number 44 on Substack. We'll have a link in the show notes. We don't know what these men believe. We don't know where they came from. Nothing here has been tied to immigration, but the police say they're asking whether the men were working knowingly or unknowingly for a foreign state. We need to really depend on our UK folks to get to the bottom of this, and that's that is going to be a tough task of our administration. Certainly know Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance and Donald Trump, all three are are going to be extremely suspicious of the outcome of the UK investigation. I hope we're doing our own parallel investigation on on the our side. Which all begs the question could a hostile government reach inside Britain and aim five of our young men at an American base? That's Goodwin's question in a different uniform. A nation that stops telling its young men who they are shouldn't be surprised when somebody else offers them an answer. And that's what Islam is telling a lot of the Muslim men in the UK. So our nugget of wisdom

The Front Line Moves Inside Allies

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is this. Here comes the front line. The front line is no longer a place on a map. It's going to run through every base, every road, and every ally that stands with America. That is becoming quite clear in Europe and in the UK and in the Middle East, and frankly, around the world. The RFA Fairford incident is a reminder that US military assets can be targeted far from a battlefield, including bases, ships, embassies, supply networks, communication systems, personnel personnel overseas. Saw this with USS Cole in 2003. The threat may come from a foreign government, or possibly could come from a proxy group. An extremist network, lone attacker, online recruitment radicalized in a matter of twenty-four to forty-eight hours. The right response is vigilance. Can't be panic or complacency. We have to bolster our strong intelligence sharing. We gotta become adaptable on security. Protection has to go beyond the base gates. Gotta have alert citizens reporting suspicious activity, thank God. Sounds like the person who reported this was a UK citizen. Called in these these three vans. They look suspicious. People driving them look suspicious. And that's what stopped. That's how they were able to stop them. But a quiet airfield in Gloucestershire gets tied to a war in the Middle East because our bombers take off from it, and a friendly government said yes. Now that's not an argument against the alliances. It is an argument for honoring the friends who pay the price for standing next to us. I understand UK Prime Minister Starmer did not give us access rights to Diego Garcia in February. I understand that. We'll let Marco Rubio handle that. But here's how the pieces are begin beginning to fit in this puzzle.

Big Picture Lessons And Open Questions

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Samuel Huntington reminds us that Western civilization is an inheritance. Matt Goodwin warns us that that inheritance can be abandoned from the inside. Bernard Lewis shows us that the old fault lines hostile with hostile regimes love to exploit from the outside. And frankly, that's where this base sits right in the middle where all three of these meet. So in today's Liberty Minute, we have five men arrested. They're now out on bail, unbelievably so. The motive is still unknown, and nobody, not the pundits, not me, should claim any more certainty than the evidence supports. But here's the questions we have to watch and get answers for. What was in those vans? Was Fairford the target? Is a foreign government behind it? And will there be charges? The United States cannot rely on military strength alone. It must also shield its people and its assets. Security depends on preparation, sound intelligence, capable allies, and citizens willing to speak up when something appears wrong. Terrorist and hostile actors are always looking for our weak points. They're always probing, looking for our moments of distraction, and the signs that democratic societies have grown tired of defending themselves. We can't afford to not be vigilant.

Vigilance, Resources, And Closing]

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Gotta stay alert. We gotta report what we see. We have to trust our allies. And then frankly, we gotta trust and verify our allies. Whether that be the UK, whether that be Israel, whether that be anybody else. Gotta run our own investigations, and our investigators absolutely have to follow the evidence, not suppress it because they won't, they don't want to offend a particular certain group of people. We gotta remain vigilant. Again, if you want a bigger picture, read book briefs 44 and 45 on Substack. Go back and listen to Liberty Minute 81. Let's pray for our servicemen overseas. Certainly pray for our servicemen members even here at home. Gotta guard the homeland too. So until next time, keep getting your mojo on, and most importantly, keep fighting the good fight.

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Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at TeamMojoAcademy.com, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on.