Why is this man smiling?
Nearly six years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives expended in the name of the war on terror pose a single, insistent question: Are we safer?
There’s another question that comes to my mind – will those citizens who continue to support the government also accept responsibility for the death and destruction resulting from that support?
In a dark and strikingly candid two pages, the nation’s intelligence agencies offered an implicit answer, and it was not encouraging. In many respects, the National Intelligence Estimate suggests, the threat of terrorist violence against the United States is growing worse, fueled by the Iraq war and spreading Islamic extremism.
After years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq and targeted killings in Yemen, Pakistan and elsewhere, the major threat to the United States has the same name and the same basic look as in 2001: Al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri, plotting attacks from mountain hide-outs near the Afghan-Pakistani border.
There is one bright spot in the few measly pages [.pdf] we, the people, are allowed to see.
Jihadist sentiment has so far turned out to hold little attraction for American Muslims, by contrast with those in Europe generally and the United Kingdom in particular.
Question 1: the corrupt pols in the White House (and their equally upright allies) will answer out of both sides of their mouths. They will claim a growing victory over terror to justify their murder and greed. They will claim the number of terrorists is growing because of someone else’s evil (anyone will do) and they need more money to continue the crusade.
Question 2: we all know Americans aren’t responsible for anything.
Y’notice, in that pic, that Dubya looks like a cross between Steve Martin and Charles Grodin? Let’s see the Trilateral Commission explain that!
2.
Lauren….you are my hero.
Mark my words…
Bush will NEVER find Osama bin Laden, nor will he ‘get rid of’ Al Qaeda.
He needs these boogeymen in order to keep up his tactic of ruling by fear, and fear alone.
On 9/11 four American pilots– by sheer coincidence– crashed their planes by error. THEY WERE JUST ACCIDENTS.
The U.S. used this coincidence to their advantage.
9/11 was just bad luck.
Man of Leisure
Either you intended your comment as irony or you need help.
READ THIS!
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-3.html
Note, in particular, clause ii, and remember how broad these people’s definition of material support. They claimed, after all, that Dean was materially supporting terrorists a few years back when he noted that the war in Iraq likely could not be won. Apparently Bush now plans to arrest and seize the assets of his political opponents, perhaps at the same time as he institutes his COG executive order from a few weeks ago that makes him the dictator if any emergency should occur.
This is very, very bad.
And six, no… fourteen years later, still no improvement to New York City’s First-Responder Radio System.
#4: Agreed. Couldn’t have said it better my own self.
Anytime our fearless leader opens his mouth on TV, I just change the channel. This report, which goes against everything Herr Bush says, is just one more reason to dismiss every single word that comes out of that smirking yap of his as yet another blatant lie.
He knows he’s lying. The vast majority of Americans know he’s lying. The rest of the world knows he’s lying. No wonder everyone hates the US.
Dennis –
Where on earth did you get the ridiculous notion that “al-Qa’idah” and “Saudi” are somehow mutually exclusive?
While 6 years has passed and the threat to the US has the same name. That threat has yet to be able to mount another attack on US soil and that is a good thing. I doubt the same could be said had we sat back in the US and tossed nasty words, and on a day we were feeling tough a few cruise missiles, at them. This is what last President we had did.
Keep in mind that OBL was just as much of a threat to the US 6 year before 9/11 as he is 6 years after.
I do grieve for those US soldiers that have died and been injured in the Iraqi and Afghan combat areas but at least the combat areas are in Iraq and Afghanistan and not NY or LA. The wars have, if nothing else, kept the war out of the US.
From the article… the United States is now seen as a “harder target.”
Surely you jest! The TSA is a joke. They inconvenience everyone while effectively stopping no one. Moreover, a terrorist would have to be truly stupid to try any of the methods these buffoons are motivated to examine. Why hide something in a shoe or water bottle when you can get hired by the airport and be given keys to the runway?
Get real: it’s no secret that ALL our ports are as safe as sieves and our Canadian border is 99.9% unguarded. Why use an aircraft when a train, boat, car, sled, ski mobile, cross country skis or shoe leather will work.
Once here, if the goal is terrorism, don’t bother with big cities when power plants, chemical factories, feed lots and water supplies are so easy to access. You want to scare the shit out of America? Assign ten extremists to take out any 10 of the above. Overnight this nation will scream to a state of panic and paralyzing, gut level fear.
The smirking Chimp and the Dick C chump are so inept and treasonous they exploited 9/11 to do the bidding of Halliburton and their ilk at the expense of real security measures. Let us console ourselves that history will revile these worthless cretins and the imbeciles who voted for them as trading our country for Christ and cash.
What is the basis for your claim that the “TSA effectively stops no one”, BobH?
The old adage, war is the health of the State, is true as ever.
The first and lasting victims are the citizens of the country that is supposedly defending them.
Frank IBC
Explained in the sentence that follows the comment:
“…a terrorist would have to be truly stupid to try any of the methods these buffoons are motivated to examine.”
Believing your enemy is unable to learn and evolve tactics is the mark you have a fool for a commander. Ah yes, ‘a fool for a commander’… how accurate.
“…a terrorist would have to be truly stupid to try any of the methods these buffoons are motivated to examine.”
Believing your enemy is unable to learn and evolve tactics is the mark you have a fool for a commander
So in other words, you have no proof of your claim that “the TSA stops no one”.
#13 “Once here, if the goal is terrorism, don’t bother with big cities when power plants, chemical factories, feed lots and water supplies are so easy to access. You want to scare the shit out of America? Assign ten extremists to take out any 10 of the above. Overnight this nation will scream to a state of panic and paralyzing, gut level fear.”
And yet they haven’t done it. What’s up with that? Do they love us now?
Oh for petesake, make up your mind. Either there is a threat that needs a response or there isn’t one.
You can’t win.
So far during the “smirking chimp”‘s watch, since 9-11, there have been no terrorist attacks on US soil while the same can’t be said elsewhere.
And if there ever was, it would just prove the need for even more security measures.
Second, as politically convenient as it might be, you can’t just blame the situation on Iraq when there have been so many other radical Muslim attacks worldwide along with outright vows of eventual world domination.
RBG
#17 – Frank… Are you claiming that the TSA is effective? On what basis would you make such a claim?
I was wondering about this the other day. Is there anything positive in this at all?
Well first off… Mass casulty plane crashes… There have not been any since that weird one right after 9/11 in brooklyn. Prior to 9/11 there was about one mass casulty plane crash a year. They seem to have stopped… Or have I just missed that news?
So what you’re saying is that if the TSA didn’t exist, we’d all be equally safe?”
#22 – I’m not saying anything. I’m asking. The other guy says the TSA is ineffective, and rightfully you have asked him to back that up.
You are saying they are effective, and I am asking you why you think they are effective.
#19 – RBG,
Please don’t forget that 9/11 happened on the smirking chimp’s watch.
The real questions are:
a) Was there a legitimate basis for the Iraq war? (16 of the 19 terrorists on 9/11 were Saudi, 0 were Iraqi.)
b) Are we safer now than before the war? (not only no, but f___ no!!)
c) Will the Iraq we leave behind be better, worse, or the same with regards to the U.S., Israel, and Iraq itself? (IMNSHO, the Iraq we leave behind will be less secular, and worse for the U.S. and all of its allies. The one near guarantee is that whatever government is in place after the dust settles, if it ever does, will be much worse than the admittedly awful government that was there before.)
d) Just to throw this one in: How much could this country have done to combat global warming, create energy independence based on renewable energy sources, improve our health care situation, improve homeland security, etc., with the half trillion bucks we’ve already spent on Iraq?
Frank, you’re still good for straight lines. You do them better than the usual statement of attainder. (#17).
So, for #22, if we didn’t have the War on Drugs – and didn’t criminalize recreational drugs like marijuana – certainly, we’d not only likely be on a par with the existing situation, we’d be better off – because of removing the profit incentive for (non-corporate) gangsters.
Most knowledgeable folks would agree with that. Room for “moralists” to jump in, of course.
GIven that there have been no incidents since 2001, I remain puzzled as to why he thinks the TSA is ineffective.
#6, BobH, that’s the whole point– I DO NOT NEED HELP– YOU DO. You see, if you believe that terrorists attacked America on 9/11 then you need serious help in reconciling that story. What can reconcile that story BobH? I’ll tell you:
WAR.
My story is that 9/11 was simply an extraordinary coincidence where four airplanes crashed on the same day within minutes of eachother. The American pilots made errors causing their planes to crash. It was nothing more than, nothing less. There is nothing to reconcile in my story. THERE IS PEACE IN MY MIND with this TRUE story. The truth is that 9/11 was simply the worst day in aviation history. It was bad luck bonus day. Haven’t you ever heard of people beating incredible odds to win the lottery 30,000,000 to one? What you saw on 9/11 was a aviation nightmare that beat the odds: 4 planes crashing in 1 day. NO terrorists, NO hate, NO jihad, NO Osama bin Laden.
What you don’t have the ability to do is resist other people’s stories. You are not God yet. I am God. I Create my own stories. IN MY WORLD THERE IS ETERNAL PEACE ON EARTH. You see, you keep fighting for world peace externally. I’ve won world peace internally. AND YOU KNOW WHAT… in my surroundings there is peace. There is no war going on in Manhattan. Just a lot of HOT babes. DAMN, THIS IS HEAVEN! hahahahah….
24. Of course you know that Saudi Arabia is our friend because the alternative is those 14 guys and their copious friends who would desperately like to toss that nation’s present government out on their collective ears in favor of radical Islam.
And you know that Al Qaeda has its roots in strict Wahabbi religion that was born in Saudi Arabia. Coincidence? I think not.
If it is all about desperate, blind control of oil in Iraq, why didn’t the US invade and stay in Iraq during that first Gulf War following Iraq’s attack on Kuwait, the US’s good ally?
RBG
#29, RBG,
The US did stay in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia after GW I. That was the rational behind the1993 WTC bombing, the Saudi barraks attack, the Embassy bombings, and the attack on the USS Cole. OBL wanted the “infidals” out of the Mid-East.
25. How do you think all the present security measures would have been received if they had been put in place before 9-11?
a) As explained, Iraq made an uprovoked attack on Kuwait, and the US has every right to respond to the defence of its ally. In the same way Canada is now in Afghanistan.
b) Would you ask the same question of the US involvement in WWII?
It’s like asking do you feel better just after or before you took a particularly foul tasting medicine, like Buckley’s Mixture.
c) How did things work out for that former center of Islamic power, the Ottoman Empire & Turkey?
d) Better still, how much Islamic terrorism could we combat instead of spending on junk food? Won’t all the expenses be offset by the naked grab for Iraq’s oil? Besides, didn’t all the bankers die in the collapse of the twin towers?
RBG
30. No, I’m talking about doing Iraq as they are presently. Full invasion. Deposing the status quo. Not leaving Saddam with business as usual with the Shiites, their industries, etc. And as though this government would continue to exist. If it so desperately wanted Iraq’s oil, why didn’t the US do that kind of invasion then when it appeared to have a greater moral and obligatory right along with desperate Shiite and Kurd pleas for help?
RBG