There has been talk lately on some blogs, right wing of course. This is because frankly the left wing blogs like Daily Kos don't see it as a big deal and I'm not really surprised at that.
The issue is two (2) Saudi Arabian youths boarding a school bus in Florida. They had been attending Central Florida University for 6 months studying English. By the way, I hear they teach English quite well in the Saudi Kingdom so why they were here is obviously for other reasons as well. When they boarded this school bus, one of the men had on a long trench coat with shorts and a t-shirt underneath. They were speaking in their native tongue, laughing, and acting smug toward the students on the bus by witness accounts. One man was sweating profusely probably because of the needless black trenchcoat he was wearing in the hot Florida spring weather.
Now, this alarmed the student on the bus enough for them to alert the substitute bus driver that these men weren't supposed to be on the bus. The authorities were waiting for them at the school when the bus arrived and they were charged with misdemeanors trespassing. Now people are speculating that this was a dry run for an attack on school buses and children. They just wanted to see how authorities and the potential victims would respond. I can subscribe to that theory very easily. For one, how can you not know this was a school bus and not public transportation? From taking classes for foreign languages for other industrialized countries, one of the 1st things you learn is words describing public transportation. This is because it would be valuable to a tourist or visiting student and they would be the among the typical people using these services. Now having been enrolled in English for 6 months at CFU(Central Florida University), I would think they would know the difference. Besides the fact that the bus is clearly bright yellow with big black letters on it. If they haven't learned to read those letters yet, their English prof should be fired.
But now on to the issue of possible terrorist surveillance.... If this was the case (which I think is more likely than not given the past history of investigations into matters like these), this is alarming. But I can only say this to the people that would perportrate this kind of act. The backlash against the Arab/Muslim community would be so great, it would be like nothing they have ever seen. The American public seems to let the liberal left tie them down and shame them into not speaking out about a lot of things under the excuse of political correctness. But attacking our children would be something that the terrorists wish they hadn't done.
The reason why this hasn't been done already I think is simple. The fact is that the terrorist raise far too much money here. Granted Al Qaida gets most of it's money from it's oil interests and jacked up oil prices. This is why they have attacked us already. But groups like Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah, get most of their money from like-minded small businesses owners from the middle east and masquerading "non-profit" NGOs and "relief organizations" here in the U.S. I'll give you an example.
Talal Chahine, owner of a chain of popular Lebanese restaurants,has been charged with concealing over $20 million in earnings, some of which they accuse him of sending to Hezbollah in Lebanon. It was under the cover of an organization to help orphaned children. But not just any orphaned children. These were children that were orphaned because their parents decided to be suicide bombers. I'd like to call them intentionally abandoned. Anyway, Chahine has met with and posed for pictures with the leader of Hezbollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. I hope he goes to Club Gitmo for senitivity training and some book keeping lessons.