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.
IBS: Times change, people don’t
http://tinyurl.com/288nnq
62. Study the picture above and read the headline very carefully. Unless DU is part of the conspiracy you speak of.
RBG
I’m not the least bit surprised that you link to The Institute for Historical Review, one of the more notorious Holocaust-denial organizations.
Frank IBS
“Do you remember what happened on February 26, 1993, or not?”
Yes, thank you for proving my point. One was a bomb in the basement the other was a Boeing 767 piloted into the super structure of the North Tower. You are confusing the target with the tactic.
I did not say the enemy wouldn’t continue to inflict terror. I’m trying to get you to understand strategy evolves. In an ever changing scenario of war, the TSA is reduced to little more than a grandstand ploy.
Just how many TSA type security personnel on the entrance ramp to the underground garage would be required to alter the trajectory of American Flight 11? What does it take before you get it that tactics change?
#66 IBS
That is an opinion, BTW we’re not discussing the Holocaust. The information is factual and valid.
#59 IBS please see #47 or can you read?
You seem to be under the impression that I think that the TSA is all that is necessary to protect us from terror attacks. If so, you have misunderstood me. However, if you think that it is no longer necessary to protect our air transportation system, you couldn’t be more wrong.
It’s pretty obvious that the topic, or rather the current off-topic, is not the Holocaust per se. But any article appearing on the website of a notorious Holocaust-denial organization instantly looses credibility with me, regardless of the topic.
#68 –
You claim that your reason for supporting the Confederacy is that they support “states rights”, However, as my quotes have made perfectly clear, the Confederacy was in favor of states rights only for the sake of expediency – when it conflicted with their desire to preserve slavery, or achieving domination over the South, this supposedly key principle was ditched like yesterday’s underwear.
So what you’re saying is that it’s OK to secede from the USA, but not from the Confederacy.
rights had to take a constitutional backseat because it was a time of war
Don’t protest the war or Jefferson Davis can seize your property.
Frank IBC
I tried fella. You are apparently not able to get the message. I will close by saying our entire way of life is under attack. When in harm’s way, deploying pillows around the parlor may – in a childlike mind – seem sufficient. But those those puffed up paladins merely provide a false sense of security for the truly stupid. We are going to get hit again. The TSA, like all W’s empty platitudes meant solely to placate the ignorant while doing nothing to protect America, will fail. As surely as New Orleans went under water and washed away any illusion of ‘compassionate conservatism’, the TSA will prove inadequate to the task except to serve as a symbol of how appallingly incapable the current administration is at understanding the enemy.
#52. So was Pearl Harbor. Everyone knows the Japanese cannot fly fighter planes.
Confederate Traitor,
Get over it. The South LOST the war. They are losers. Their supporters are losers. Those who promote the “cause” are losers.
You are wrong about the whole reason behind the Civil War. Quote whomever you like, it won’t change the fact that the Civil War was caused by the North wanting to ban slavery. Couching it is terms like “States Rights” won’t alter that fact.
Loser.
*
Frank IBC
Very good defense of your arguments and points. We don’t always agree, but this is one time we are in complete agreement.
It’s funny how someone who defends the Confederacy’s slavery – the ultimate form of collectivism – and links to websites that deny the existance of the Holocaust – tries to convince people that he is somehow a defender of liberty and individual rights.
#79 IBS: The ultimate form of collectivism more ignorance from IBS. Frank, ole boy, you are a slave and apparently happy to be one. Let me ask, when you work is it for yourself or your masters?
A: Your master, the great corporation. They always take a percentage of every paycheck and the more income you generate the greater the percentage that goes into their coffers. The plantation has merely expanded. As a UNITED STATES CITIZEN, no matter where you live on this planet you pay the corporation. Welcome to the collective cotton field.
My wake-up call: Watch for another 9/11-WMD experience
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2214.shtml
This is a wake-up call that we are about to experience another 9/11-WMD experience.
The wake-up call is unlikely to be effective, because the American attitude toward government changed fundamentally 70-odd years ago. Prior to the 1930s, Americans were suspicious of government, but with the arrival of the Great Depression, Tojo, and Hitler, President Franklin D. Roosevelt convinced Americans that government existed to protect them from rapacious private interests and foreign threats. Today, Americans are more likely to give the benefit of the doubt to government than they are to family members, friends, and those who would warn them about the government’s protection.
The article continues
It is possible that Bush is now too weak, that suspicion is too great, and that there is too much internal resistance in the federal bureaucracy and military for any such scenario. If so, then my prediction prior to the invasion that the US invasion of Iraq will destroy Bush, the Republican Party, and the conservative movement will be proven true. The Democrats’ strategy of doing nothing except making sure Bush gets his way will produce the landslide that they expect.
However, this assumes that Cheney, Rove, and their neoconservative allies have lost their cunning and their manipulative skills. It is difficult to imagine a more dangerous assumption for Democrats and the American people to make.
Once the US experiences new attacks, Bush will be vindicated. His voice will be confident as he speaks to the nation:
“My administration knew that there would be more attacks from these terrorists who hate us and our way of life and are determined to destroy every one of us. If only more of you had believed me and supported my war on terror these new attacks would not have happened. Our security efforts were impaired by the Democrats’ determined attempts to surrender to the terrorists by forcing our withdrawal from Iraq and by civil libertarian assaults on our necessary security measures. If only more Americans had trusted their government, this would not have happened.”
So, by your non-sequitor, you’re saying that you are perfectly OK with slavery as it was practiced in the South prior to 1865.
Stars and Bars
You were an idiot when you first started posting here and you haven’t improved. Quit quoting long sections from others and use your own words. Cite your sources if needed when relying upon facts other wise it is just your opinion. Don’t be quoting others opinion, WRITE YOUR OWN OPINIONS.
Of course, if you don’t have anything opinions you can claim as your own, then just shut the eff up.
The great corporation… always takes a percentage of every paycheck
There are several very good reasons for that.
They do the hard work of bringing in business so that you can work for 40 hours a week without having to go out and look for each individual task on your own.
They buy and maintain the office equipment (i.e. the means of production).
Through the “shared services” – accounting, finance, payroll, benefits, repro, mail, etc. – they save you from doing a lot of work that is not directly related to your specialty, and for which you might earn substantially less per hour otherwise.
And most important of all, they protect you from being individually liable for any major f##k-ups you make on the job.
This thread has been hijacked by trolls, which are proceeding to fly it into the ivory tower of reason.
84 IBS: None of your federal income tax goes for the things you listed.
83 Mr. Fizzle: Glad I annoy you so much.
Watch this, it will make you happy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgfzqulvhlQ