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.
#27 – GIven that there have been no incidents since 2001, I remain puzzled as to why he thinks the TSA is ineffective.
Comment by Frank IBC — 7/19/2007 @ 9:58 am
That’s pretty dubious logic. There is a guard at the warehouse near my apartment. If no one ever tried to break into the warehouse, how effective is he?
George Tennet claimed at least 20 plots against the US since 9/11. I don’t know how many were Scooby Doo plots and how many were credible, nor do I have any idea if the TSA was instrumental. But lack of incidents doesn’t tell me anything other than what didn’t happen.
When a sleeper cell in Kansas City builds a dirty bomb in a garage and takes it to Chicago, how are we gonna react. Will we shut down state borders? Ban mini-vans? Ban garages? Attack Kansas? Attack Syria?
When a moderately sized pleasure boat carrying a nuclear device sails into the harbor in Seattle and detonates, how will we assess the fine work of the TSA?
My point… all this security is nothing more than the illusion of safety. If a dedicated and motivated team of terrorists decide to attack a target on American soil, they will attack a target on American soil. Then we can be reactionary a strip away more liberty and suffer greater economic upheaval, and attack more sovereign nations, and eventually settle into a smug self of false comfort as we wait for the truck bomb in Dallas or the poisoned water supply in LA or whatever is next…
It was 15 of 19, and the leader of AlQ is (or was, if he’s actually dead by now from kidney failure) a Saudi royal family member.
So…the fact that they were Saudis has no bearing on if they were AlQ or not.
Frank IBC
I’ll take this really slowly so you follow.
The TSA seeks to thwart outdated terrorist tactics. An astute enemy evolves tactics to continue to surprise. To be effective, the TSA must employ sufficient intelligence to stay ahead of terrorists. That kind of insight is not readily purchased at minimum wage. Perhaps you have not been through an airport of late. Here’s a tip: not all TSA personnel are mouth breathers but a disconcerting number probably have similar security qualifications as the cashiers at McDonalds
The TSA is focused on show boat searches for water bottles, faux soled shoes, pocket knives and carry-on luggage while failing virtually every test scenario run against them with real items of havoc and mayhem such as a maintenance employee of the airport with unfettered access to place a bomb on an aircraft. That staggering inability to protect tells us that the Transportation Security Administration is useless at their most fundamental task — providing secure transportation to travelers in America.
The TSA serves two functions: window dressing and as proof of how naively the current administration perceives the very real crisis .
Gig
Does the word “luck” ring a bell?
“We’re making great progress!”
“They’re still a major threat”
Pick one or the other please.
Nothing will be as good as last years slogan though
“They’re in their last throws”
Incoming troop surge number two, look for the announcement september
If the TSA were as incompetent as you claim they are, don’t you think that the terrorists would have been aware of this and taken advantage of this opportunity?
Define Tyranny
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-3.html
Don’t protest the war or the President can seize your property.
Show me the section where “protest” is prohibited, S&BS.
It’s worth noting that B&S’s hero Jefferson Davis suspended habeas corpus, instituted the draft and martial law, and ruthlessly suppressed secession movements within the Confederacy.
35. Bin Laden is not a member of the Saudi Royal family. He’s one child of a huge herd of children from a fellow who originated in the mountains near the Northern border of Yemen and who went on to create the largest construction company in KSA. However the Bin Laden family has always been closely associated wih the Royal Family even as they supposedly banished Osama from their own family.
RBG
Maybe the TSA’s job is to make us dopes think we’re safe so the airline, tourism, and related industries don’t crash. At least, that would explain why they take bottles from babies and make blue-haired wasp grannies remove their shoes.
#41 So far there is no prohibition against protest but if caught protesting the government can seize your property. Please read comments carefully.
The first attack occurred in 1993 then eight years later another attack. I am thinking that it would be wise to wait a couple of more years before claiming something is working. There is not a 100 percent effective security solution. Anything security policy will have a weakness or open up a weakness. Terrorist just have to take advantage of a weakness once but security personal will have to be on guard 24/7.
If terrorist use a train instead of a jet, does that mean the security policy for jets is wrong? No, it just means the overall security policies have weaknesses. How much money are you willing to pay for security?
The $400 billion dollars spent on Iraq could have been spent on security personal for planes, trains and infrastructure. But it seems people are satisfied with low wage personal. You get what you pay for sometimes.
The fact that some of the 19 were Saudis sure as hell matters because, newsflash, the us attacked IRAQ, Einstein.
#42 Irritable Bowel Syndrome Frank or Frank IBS
Please do your own comparison between Dishonest Abe and the Honorable Jefferson Davis. Lincoln was by any standards a terrorist. Davis was abiding by the united States Constitution.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/adams3.html
Without the sanction of law the federal government arrested men by the thousands and confined them in military prisons. The number of such executive arrests was certainly over 13,000, and it has been estimated to have been as high as 38,000 (Columbia Law Review, XXI, 527–28, 1921).
Lincoln stated, “As commander in chief of the army and navy, in time of war, I suppose I have a right to take any measure which may best subdue the enemy.”
Haha… you just get more and more ridiculous.
#48 Frank IBS
Your perception of ridiculous is merely a display of ignorance.
I guess someone who supports the slavery of the Confederacy and at the same time claims to be for freedom shouldn’t be expected to know “ridiculous” when it’s staring him in the face.
IBS: Another display ignorance, slavery was a side issue and would have been eliminated without the war. How did other countries eliminated slavery? The primary issue of the Civil War was about State vs Federal power. The Federal Government was overstepping it’s bounds.
actually, if some future group of terrorist tried the exact same type of attack that they committed on 9/11, they would likely have a tougher time of it, because of the locks on cockpit doors. And maybe the TSA would spot their (now ceramic) knives.
hundreds of billions spent, thousands dead, core American values betrayed, the Constitution’s protections of civil liberties weakened, America’s image in the world irreparably damaged, and the barn door is firmly closed on one specific type of attack.
anything else? politics as usual has kept the harbors, rail yards, and chemical plants vulnerable. Homeland Security money is still largely doled out like every other kind of Federal pork, although there is some marginal progress in that.
maybe the choke-hold on visas to Middle Easterners has made it somewhat more difficult for AQ to slip people in, but it also exposed us to the shame of not allowing more than a handful of Iraqi refugees shelter here from the catastrophe we made of their country.
but it would be a bit more tough for guys to hijack civilian airliners into buildings again.
I do not find that particularly comforting.
IBS: If the south was not justified in breaking away from the North in 1861, because slavery was legal, then the same is true for the colonies in 1776 seceding from England since the latter also engaged in forced labor of human beings. If the Confederate states must be kept from seceding from the north on the basis that they would be making off with captives, then the same can be said of the united States leaving the British reigns.
#52 doug
9-11 was an inside job.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dYWP9AOGBo
Frank IBC
“If the TSA were as incompetent as you claim they are…”
Not merely my observation that the TSA is incompetent, they repeatedly fail government run tests. That aside and to your bigger inquiry: “…don’t you think that the terrorists would have been aware of this and taken advantage of this opportunity?”
I guess going slowly doesn’t help. Maybe repetition and painstaking clarification will work so here we go: A wise enemy understands that after attacking the left flank, it is only logical the opposition will be aware they were attacked on the left flank and take counter measures to protect the left flank. Ipso facto, a subsequently attack on the left flank will not be a surprise. In fact, it’s likely to be greeted with a robust response. However, in war, there are vast alternatives for attack that have nothing to do with either the left flank, right flank, or even a frontal assault. And that is the key insight: Arrogance may fold the enemy is incapable of evolving tactics. Reality is, losers refuse to learn while winners understand the war they are in and constantly devise new ways to defeat their foe.
We waste money with a useless show of “force” trying to stop the enemy at airports when hundreds of other targets of opportunity exist that have ZERO security.
If you want to see the TSA as a form of employment for unskilled workers, that’s fine but don’t confuse the TSA with a credible deterrent against a determined enemy when the next devastation may well be in a subway system.
There is an important difference between the two. At the time of the American Revolution, there was no fear that the British were on the verge of banning slavery. However by 1861 there was an active abolitionist movement throughout the USA. In spite of the best efforts of the states that later formed the Confederacy to defend slavery, and to extend it to new states and territories, it was clear that the institution of slavery was in jeopardy if those states remained in the Union.
BobH –
A wise enemy understands that after attacking the left flank, it is only logical the opposition will be aware they were attacked on the left flank and take counter measures to protect the left flank.
Sorry, but they DO strike more than once in the same place.
Do you remember what happened on February 26, 1993, or not?
IBS: Lincoln wrote to Horace Greeley on Aug. 22, 1862: “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it”
Congress announced to the world on July 22, 1861, that the purpose of the war was not “interfering with the rights or established institutions of those states” (i.e., slavery), but to preserve the Union “with the rights of the several states unimpaired.” At the time of Fort Sumter (April 12, 1861) only the seven states of the deep South had seceded. There were more slaves in the Union than out of it, and Lincoln had no plans to free any of them.
The North invaded to regain lost federal tax revenue by keeping the Union intact by force of arms. In his First Inaugural Lincoln promised to invade any state that failed to collect “the duties and imposts,” and he kept his promise. On April 19, 1861, the reason Lincoln gave for his naval blockade of the Southern ports was that “the collection of the revenue cannot be effectually executed” in the states that had seceded.
Read the rest of Thomas Dilorenzo’s article here: http://tinyurl.com/ypzf6p
The safeguarding of states’ rights, often mentioned as a motive for protecting the Confederacy, was for the most part merely an accompanying rationale. Historically, whatever faction has been out of power in America has pushed for states’ rights. Slaveowners were delighted when Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney decided in 1857 that throughout the nation, irrespective of the wishes of state or territorial governments, blacks had no rights that whites must respect. Slaveowners pushed President Buchanan to use federal power to legitimize slaveholding in Kansas the next year. Only after they lost control of the executive branch in the 1860 election did they advocate limiting federal power.
-from “Lies My Teacher Told Me”, by James W. Lowen
“Our new government’s foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition.”
-Alexander Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy
As early as December 1862, Pres. Jefferson Davis denounced states’ rights as destructive to the Confederacy. The mountainous counties in western Virginia bolted to the Union. Confederate troops had to occupy east Tennessee to keep it from emulating West Virginia. Winn Parish, Lousiana, refused to secede from the Union. Winston County, Alabama, declared itself the Republic of Winston. Unionist farmers and woodsmen in Jones County, Mississippi, declared the Free State of Jones. Every Confederate state except South Carolina supplied a regiment or at least a company of white soldiers to the Union Army, as well as many black recruits. Armed guerilla actions plagued every Confederate state. It became dangerous for Confederates to travel in parts of Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. The war was fought not just between North and South but between Unionists and Confederates within the Confederacy. By February 1864 President Davis despaired: “Public meetings of treasonable character, in the name of state sovereignty, are being held.”
-Ibid.
We should never have invaded Iraq, we should not be there, and we should load the wagons today, right now, and bring our people, money and equipment home. The American people elected a new group of leaders last November to do just that and they have failed miserably.
And there is a slight suspicion that the terror threat is, like computer viruses, an over blown mass of rhetoric out gassed at high pressures by the vested interests and their compliant media whores to ensure a continuing critical mass of soft headed Americans who just want to be “safe”, coddled cradle to grave by television, really bad food and video game consoles.
“If all earthly power were given me,” said Lincoln in a speech delivered in Peoria, Illinois, on October 16, 1854, “I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution [of slavery]. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land.” After acknowledging that this plan’s “sudden execution is impossible,” he asked whether freed blacks should be made “politically and socially our equals?” “My own feelings will not admit of this,” he said, “and [even] if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not … We can not, then, make them equals.”
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v13/v13n5p-4_Morgan.html