That's a decent way of putting it. The tactic of using airliners as weapons didn't even survive the entire 9/11 attack period. That tactic only worked for 3/4 of the attack.

Historically, you gave hijackers what they wanted and everybody got to go home. But after 9/11, it is an undisputed fact that that tactic can never again be used. It stopped at Flight 93. Disruptive people have been tackled and held by passengers regardless of their intentions since then. Air Marshals exist on most (if not all) flights. Richard "The shoe bomber" Reid was stopped by passengers before his dumb butt could do any damage. When I get on a plane, I see who all the passengers are, know where the exits are, and now get aisle seats every time I fly. If somebody so much as farts the wrong way, I will be all over him/her without delay.

"Never Again" is the correct statement. We won't allow it anymore and there is substantial evidence to back that up.

Yes that particular tactic is dead and actually should not have even worked on 9/11 if only out intel agencies actually spoke to each other (and the FAA). But remember airlines are still not “safe” as long as there are ways to take them down. One surefire way is missile attack. We actually have the technology to defeat this but the Congress has not decided to move forward for some unknown reason – perhaps they are waiting for a few planes to fall from the sky , who knows.

Other threats are still very real. For example the air circulation systems for large buildings is, in most cases, still not secure. Introduction of chemical or biological agents into same could kill thousands of people.

AQ has stated their objective is not just massive death but economic impact. To think they have abandoned their plan do hurt us would be unwise.

True but AQ is less of a threat to us financially than we are to ourselves. A greater danger to us than AQ will come from examples like the sub prime garbage where the greed to profit put our whole economy in danger after loans were given enmasse to people who shouldn't have even been trusted with fast food coupons let alone home loans. 9/11 just nudged an already shaky economy due to corporate misdeeds. Time to return Darwinism to the marketplace where it belongs and stop bailing out both weak companies and ones who are seriously mismanaged to almost criminal levels.
Chem and Bio weapons are almost impossible to prevent as the materials get easier to acquire each year thanks to technology.
To not recognize the threat would be a mistake but to overreact would also.

Please we have seen the longest expansion in US history and “sub prime” mess is but a blip on the radar. The economy is and has been strong – particularly under Bush. Too bad we have so much pork barrel spending from both parties.
The 9/11 attack by contrast will eventually cost us trillions in defense spending, war and lost economic activity. The damage to the airline industry alone after 9/11 was worse than the sub prime ever will be.

AQ looks constantly for ways to attack us and out interests abroad with $$$ damage the top priority. The 9/11 attack were a brilliant example of this and we can be sure they have and will continue to try to duplicate this.

Chris- it has been shown that bio or chem weapons are EXTREMELY hard to deliver, even with sophisticated delivery systems that only large states have. Even a "dirty bomb" is exceedingly hard to gather the materials and then deliver them. I posted on this on the "terrorists get WMDs" thread, so I won't elaborate more on that here, but you can read it here for yourself:

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/realdeal.htm

Here is the problem with using industrial radioactive material- the most commonly available is Iridium 192, and obtaining that in large enough quantities to harm a whole city is near impossible, even for an insider. The irradiated material I use for industrial radiography is about the size of the end of a pencil erasor and only a couple thousands thick. You need to buy it from a source, and you need to be licensed to get it from the source. There aren't al that many companies that have a license in the first place, and I can count on one hand the companies that could order a large amount of that substance to keep from setting off alarm bells immediately- for instance, one small company I am helping with (I got my license, but have to work for 6 months under a welding inspectors license at this time, before I can do it by myself) has 8 cameras. Iridium 192 has a half life of 100 days, and is usually 100cu (curies) in intensity when it comes to you in the "camera". So you can order 8 cameras and you will get them in the mail. But you need about 10,000 cameras to make a "dirty bomb"

The other option is Cobalt 60, but that comes in a 500 pound shielding device, and is very rarely used, and there is only one of those "cameras" here in Alaska- for the whole pipeline. You can imagine, well, most of the industrial inspection is going on right now, on the "slope" here in Alaska- part of BP getting in some big trouble here lately.

You would need 500 or so "cameras" of cobalt 60 to make an effective "dirty bomb".

Also- you need experts to deliver and handle it- you will have arms and legs falling off in less than a week if you don't. You will be disabled by the second day if you don't leave it in the camera. Each camera wieghs over 50 pounds.

Getting ahold of fissable materials, such as Uranium and Plutonium and other industrial or commercial radioactive wastes is even harder, very hard in fact. And, you have to transport them as well, which, again, takes shielding to keep from killing everyone around it, and disabling them in less than a day, or slightly over a day.

Depleted Uranium is the best shielding next to tungsten, and you can get niether in any large quantity to shield your radioactive material without serious scrutiny.

If anyone knows the intesity of weapons grade fissable material, I can do the math for you to find out how much shielding you would need to keep the crew delivering the material from dying and/or being disabled before they can complete the delivery.

There is a monument in Germany to the scientists who died developing the X=ray, something like 162 poeple- and that is just from X-ray machines. (there is no practical difference between Gamma and X-rays except for origin, Gamma rays come from an irradiated source, X-rays from a electric source through a vacuum tube)

All the accidents in America and the western hemisphere regarding industrial nuclear materials come from mishandling Ir-192. One person picked up the "pill" from a "camera" after a hiway wreck, and the camera broke and the "pigtail" was outside the camera. She picked it up, as a good samaritan, and took it back to the company. By the next day, her had was already dead, took another month or so to be amputated. That was one pill of Iridium 192.

Yes, it is powerful, but yes, it is hard to get a hold of and use for nefarious purposes.

The most likely source in the US of a "dirty bomb" attack would be a disgruntled and possibly mentally ill welding inspector, and even then, the impact will be small, but terrifying.

I disagree. I heard the head of Russian Bio chemical Div. (now working for the US) speak on PBS 2 years ago. He said it was hard to deliver chemical and bio agents a couple of decades ago but not anymore. He said that the introduction of commercial fine mist sprayers, the ones used in the department store perfume departments, for example, changed all that. If one of these devices could be smuggled into a large buildings air system or even put in a public place, lots of people could be infected quickly with a bio agent or killed with a nerve agent.

“SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- An anthrax attack on a city the size of New York could leave more than 100,000 dead within days, experts said Monday in a report calling for stronger government preparations against the threat.
A team headed by Lawrence Wein of Stanford University's Graduate School of Business said current plans rely too much on sensors to detect an anthrax attack and not enough on getting drugs and medical workers to an affected area fast.
The study projected what would happen if two pounds of anthrax were dropped on a city the size of New York and affected 1.5 million people. The authors said by the time the public lined up for and received medication, 123,000 would have died over a four-day period. “
http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/03/18/healt...reut/index.html

SF CA did a similar study in 1999 with similar results.
To imaging the AQ folks are un aware of this is foolish. The government is so worried that in some cities chem./bio devices have been integrated into cell towers.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...751C1A9649C8B63

Okay, you do know that Anthrax occurs naturally in nature, and that anyone in the US with a modicum of training can manufacture it with some easily obtained equipment>

Once again, Ted, 100k from Anthrax, puh leaze.

And Ted, there is a whole cottage industry in Russia of ex KGB and FSB agents that make money off of fearmongering. Hey- welcome to the Russian equivilent of the Nigerian scam.

And I was wondering who was foolish enough to buy what they are selling, guess I know now.

Well NO this is not true. “Weaponized” anthrax is hard to make but several countries have made it including Iraq (8,500+ liters) according to the UN, Russia and others. This type stays “airborne” like fine dust and can we easily dispersed.



As usual CR you fail to read what I post (or ignore it) and then make statements like above? Do you want to support that statement as I did mine or just leave it with the silly smile and pretend it means something??

.

Ya I know those silly government experts – they should have just checked with you and saved all that money and time? Foolish of them to worry.

christopher:

Forgive my belated reply, but you wrote:

"And your desire to live in permanent fear where we are all to just do as we're told because some like yourself are so afraid of every possibility of danger is better? As for the hitler fearmongering -- what a tired and sad tactic. No one will ever be allowed to reach the same level of hitler again. The reason for not falling to the fear tactic is simple, AQ is not hitler, doesn't have the resources he had, and never will. "

Three items in reply:

(1) You don't have to live in fear in order to value the lives of other humans and see the need for their protection. I also do not desire that someone else play the 1 in 1,000,000 and so Osama can try and take me if he feels the need. And as I've said before, I believe in resurrection and so Osama can do whatever he likes to me and I prevail, so no reason for any fear on my part.

(2) Re no one ever being allowed to reach the same level of Hitler again, you're right, as it was no one person but instead a relative handful, here, Pol Pot aka Saloth Sar, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, and Ta Mok. Then there's Rwanda. Need I go on? I literally get ill every time I hear some soul say "never again".

(3) I imagine that fear was pretty much life for your average soul in the Taliban's Afghanistan and Saddam's Iraq. So what is it again that you have against our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent attempt[s] at nation building, or is some living in fear okay and some not? And maybe it isn't those wanting the violent, spare no expense response who have the fear, but instead the others who want to withdraw from the world and hide here at home where one can feel nice and safe, I mean, what with the others having a greater chance of being hit by a meteor than a hijacked fuel-laden Boeing 727 out of Dallas-Ft. Worth.

You also wrote:

"I also disagree here Kirryboy. The inhibition against a nuclear response at this time--as you suggested-- is inappropriate to most Americans, but perhaps the Middle East should keep this in the back of their mind, should someone like AQ ever indeed look like they will attain hitler like levels, the reaction from this country would be devastating to behold, just look at the level of fear fueled rhetoric from supporters of bush now after very minor losses.
maybe AQ does gets a handful of nukes or even Bio.
Our response would likely turn the whole of the ME to GLASS.
Hell we are the only country to have ever used nukes on a civilian population -- twice. Even after we had beaten our enemy.
We did that just to cut down on our casualties, we were no longer even afraid of our enemy any longer."

Two items in reply:

(1) Why would we nuke the whole ME simply because we despise Osama and might have notions of pay-back on our collective mind? I'm all for the elimination of Osama & Co., the Taliban, and Saddam Hussein & Co., but I don't want to nuke the whole place simply because that would make things rather easier for us in a certain sense. I don't want to firebomb the place either.

(2) We didn't bomb Hitler but one of Tojo's successors and I don't otherwise think that we can safely say that some were "beaten" as they hadn't said "uncle", they also had 3,000,000 or so men still under arms, and at one point during its progress some were having second thoughts re the invasion of Okinawa's eventual success [or not] and so were pondering whether to call the thing off. In that last respect, only the carnage inflicted and sustained during the early war night actions off Guadalcanal comes close to "matching" the carnage sustained by the US Navy off Okinawa. As the Japanese knew then and know now, while Okinawa is Japanese for some purposes it isn't Japanese for other purposes, and so if one were to believe that the ferocity of Okinawa represented maximum effort on their part then one would be mistaken.

(3) If we were to nuke the whole place into glass our action would not be any righteousness on our part but mere racial and religious disdain. Here, please note that we did not even go that far with the Japanese. More specifically, please note that we made Tojo and not Hirohito the object of our propaganda. We spared Hirohito the virulence of our propaganda so that the general public wouldn't hate Hirohito so much such that it would later be politically impossible for us to agree/allow Hirohito to remain on the throne. We also didn't bomb Kyoto and its historic art and temples in our attempt to show the Japanese that it was not their "identity" [or "national essence"] that we wished to destroy [as the BBC puts the meaning of Kyoto: "Kyoto is noted throughout Japan as being a sort of cultural repository of all things Japanese"].

You lastly wrote:

"One other consideration for this thread. Even after the 1st trade center attack i don't believe our security was focused on terrorists all that much. The warnings about how strange it was that certain swarthy persons were trying to become pilots was never taken seriously from the higher ups. i would also add that the reason that the hijackings were as successful is that we had basically had always seen them as relatively non violent affairs. Perhaps a death or two but most often hijackings always stereotypically seemed to end up with a surrender after a demand for political asylum in some backwater or the demand for the release of some fellow "revolutionaries"."

One item here in reply:

(1) Why is that second any surprise? The Japanese purportedly wore Coke bottle bottoms for glass lenses, had bad (buck) teeth, and was deemed incapable of being an adequate combat pilot owing to his having been carried on his mother's back a bit too long when he was but a youth. As the late Admiral Chester Nimitz wrote in his diary rather soon after Pearl Harbor, we must not again underestimate the Japanese. Both then and more recently, the action was workmanlike in every respect. If Tom Clancy can otherwise write of a JAL pilot flying his jumbo jet into a joint session of Congress then why would we think that the same would be beyond the vision of some other soul? In any event, Lingayen Gulf and Okinawa should have taught us that man can become the bomb. And so instead of crash-diving the Enterprise, some instead crash-dived the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

Lastly, back to the fear. As I related, there doesn't need to be. In other terms, even Spock finally understood that sometimes the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many. For the same reason, the citation for the Medal of Honor awarded to Sergeant First Class Randall Shughart provides:

Sergeant First Class Shughart, United States Army, distinguished himself by actions above and beyond the call of duty on 3 October 1993, while serving as a Sniper Team Member, United States Army Special Operations Command with Task Force Ranger in Mogadishu, Somalia. Sergeant First Class Shughart provided precision sniper fires from the lead helicopter during an assault on a building and at two helicopter crash sites, while subjected to intense automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenade fires. While providing critical suppressive fires at the second crash site, Sergeant First Class Shughart and his team leader learned that ground forces were not immediately available to secure the site. Sergeant First Class Shughart and his team leader unhesitatingly volunteered to be inserted to protect the four critically wounded personnel, despite being well aware of the growing number of enemy personnel closing in on the site. After their third request to be inserted, Sergeant First Class Shughart and his team leader received permission to perform this volunteer mission. When debris and enemy ground fires at the site caused them to abort the first attempt, Sergeant First Class Shughart and his team leader were inserted one hundred meters south of the crash site. Equipped with only his sniper rifle and a pistol, Sergeant First Class Shughart and his team leader, while under intense small arms fire from the enemy, fought their way through a dense maze of shanties and shacks to reach the critically injured crew members. Sergeant First Class Shughart pulled the pilot and the other crew members from the aircraft, establishing a perimeter which placed him and his fellow sniper in the most vulnerable position. Sergeant First Class Shughart used his long range rifle and side arm to kill an undetermined number of attackers while traveling the perimeter, protecting the downed crew. Sergeant First Class Shughart continued his protective fire until he depleted his ammunition and was fatally wounded. His actions saved the pilot's life. Sergeant First Class Shughart's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest standards of military service and reflect great credit upon him, his unit and the United States Army.

leder:

What price do you put on a human life? Is your liberty worth more than someone else's life? My view otherwise comes not from any desire for self-preservation on my part but instead from my desire to preserve the lives of others.

And why are you still on this "tyranny" thing? There is no tyranny that I can see. As I said here before, I equate tyranny with self-aggrandizement, i.e., us being the means to someone else's end and that's all we are. I am simply unaware of anyone using the Patriot Act or some other piece of legislation as a vehicle through which they make us a means to their end.

Re the operation not being masterfully planned, I disagree. First, it worked. Second, given the constraints, some did what they could do, which was to bring on board a weapon that some, you included, believe is relatively harmless, and then some made sure that they had enough manpower on board to complete mission. Don't confuse what you apparently believe were "primitive" means with a lack of intelligence. As the one soul said in Black Hawk Down, don't think that because I grew up without running water... Or as Tom Clancy put the matter in his Patriot Games, with reference to the Patterson brothers, if intelligence tests were not biased towards the literate, well, then the Patterson brothers would test as rather cunning souls.

And you wrote:

"Surely your intellect points to something other than they hated our freedom."

Apparently, you haven't read:

"Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying the [Danish] cartoons [of Mohammed] -- one depicting the founder of Islam wearing a turban resembling a bomb --showed press freedom should have its limits."

With the single limit of import here being that we can never question Islam and Allah's prophet Mohammed. And that's how free we are.

And you also haven't apparently seen this:

http://archive.ucimc.org/usermedia/image/2...s_in_London.jpg

And to hell with your and my freedom:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4682262.stm
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/12...y.ap/index.html

Oh, and your line, well, it's Osama's too:

"So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism."

And here's a reading of the circumstance that I agree with:

http://harryzzz.blogspot.com/2007/09/trans...-bin-laden.html

I agree with that reading as the Osama speech in question provides:

"It has now become clear to you and the entire world the impotence of the democratic system and how it plays with the interests of the peoples and their blood by sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations."

So no more impotent democracy for me and you, friend. And capitalism is out as well:

"This is why I tell you: as you liberated yourselves before from the slavery of monks, kings, and feudalism, you should liberate yourselves from the deception, shackles and attrition of the capitalist system."

To now ask the obvious question, if we chuck democracy and capitalism, then what have we? Here's what:

"So it is imperative that you free yourselves from all of that and search for an alternative, upright methodology in which it is not the business of any class of humanity to lay down its own laws to its own advantage at the expense of the other classes as is the case with you, since the essence of man-made positive laws is that they serve the interests of those with the capital and thus make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

The infallible methodology is the methodology of Allah, the Most High, who created the heavens and the earth and created the Creation and is the Most Kind and All-Informed and the Knower of the souls of His slaves and the methodology that best suits them."

And there won't be any separation of church and state:

"So how about you when you associate others with Him in your beliefs and separate state from religion, then claim that you are believers?!"

And here's Osama's direct invitation to the dance [as it were]:

"To conclude, I invite you to embrace Islam, for the greatest mistake one can make in this world and one which is uncorrectable is to die while not surrendering to Allah, the Most High, in all aspects of one's life – i.e., to die outside of Islam. And Islam means gain for you in this first life and the next, final life. The true religion is a mercy for people in their
lives, filling their hearts with serenity and calm.

There is a message for you in the Mujahideen: the entire world is in pursuit of them, yet their hearts, by the grace of Allah, are satisfied and tranquil. The true religion also puts peoples' lives in order with its laws; protects their needs and interests; refines their morals; protects them from evils; and guarantees for them entrance into Paradise in the hereafter through their obedience to Allah and sincere worship of Him Alone.

And it will also achieve your desire to stop the war as a consequence, because as soon as the warmongering owners of the major corporations realize that you have lost confidence in your democratic system and begun to search for an alternative, and that this alternative is Islam, they will run after you to please you and achieve what you want to steer you away from Islam. So your true compliance with Islam will deprive them of the opportunity to defraud the peoples and take their money under numerous pretexts, like arms deals and so on."

So the war ends when we adopt Islam. Until then we are the great shaitan, whispering our temptation into the ears and hearts of men, and as such, unworthy of life.

Your ignorance of Islam is quite astounding. Let's start with Imam Nawawi [13th century]:

"Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word 'mujahada', signifying warfare to establish the religion."

So as Osama said, learn from the mujahideen [those trying to make the religion Allah's].

And then there's that certain hadith reported by both Bukhari and Muslim:

"I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay zakat. If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me, except for the rights of Islam over them. And their final reckoning is with Allah."

Now back to the great shaitan that some say we are, as Ibn Ishaq makes plain, "fight them so that there be no more seduction" and until "the religion is Allah's", i.e., until Allah alone is worshipped.

You otherwise miss the point, as we are being attacked because we are the ones most able to get in the way of their plans for making the religion Allah's. And make no mistake, friend, it isn't just Osama, as our other friend, the leader of Hizb Allah said:

...death to America is not a slogan that is uttered. Death to America is a policy, a strategy and a vision...

And here's why some need listen in, though in your purported love for liberty you would presumably not have the same:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6268934.stm

Now note that unlike you, the Deputy Assistant Commissioner is prepared to call their tradecraft "sophisticated", as am I.

Lastly, friend, if you truly wish to speak about things selfish, we'll see how you feel about our "war on terror" when it's your neighbor's child who dies from eating the meat made rotten by the toxin described in that recipe. Again, sorry friend, but I'll give up most of my liberty to save the life of somebody else's child. It's not even a close call.

Absolutely. For I can think of no other reason why those Danish Muhammad cartoons have been plastered all over the U.S. media. Oh, wait a minute...

Seriously, christopher, all you're doing here is projecting your own tendencies onto the rest of the country. We live in a culture where defacing the Bible is "free expression", but defacing the Quran is "hate speech". Offending Muslims has - bizarrely - become one of the worst taboos one can violate today. You want obnoxious? Perhaps you've heard of a couple of fellows named Penn and Teller. They have a documentary show on Showtime whose title, speaking of "obnoxious", I can't post here without violating foum rules. Basically put, they're two militantly atheist libertarians with absolutely no fear of offending anyone - well, almost anyone. Their shows have mercilessly attacked the Church, Mother Theresa, and the Bible (with Penn taking malicious sardonic delight in referring to it as the "G[ ]-d[ ] Bible"). But so far, strangely enough, they have yet to go after the Quran or Islam.

And the same trend appears over and over again (or as you say, "wash, rinse, repeat"). Another "fearless iconoclast" is Sarah Silverman. Loves being as politically incorrect as she can. Recently, she had a show where she had a "one-night stand with God." Still awaiting this hotshot's one-night stand with Allah.

"South Park" has an episode which features ever so briefly an image of Muhammad, and the network cuts the scene, while leaving uncut, in the same episode, scenes where images of Jesus are defaced up, down, and sideways.

So yeah, Americans have no fear of standing up to Muslims. And Elvis didn't do no drugs.

leder:

To add to my last, if it isn't ultimately our freedom that some are after [and maybe our very lives too], then please explain question no. 13 here [with the "assist" here going to Victoria and her new thread]:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22218889/?GT1=10645

So, to Osama & Co. and Hizb Allah we can add our friends in Hamas, fighting for global Islamic domination. Need I again report that such an eventual end won't be good times for kufr you and me? Maybe it'll help if you simply recall here the Taliban blowing up that one likeness of the Buddha. I imagine that such is what they have in mind for our God and us too.

This must be true. I read it on Fox News.

Al Qaeda is building a white army of terror in the United Kingdom, according to the U.K.'s Scotland on Sunday.

According to a source at MI5 — the British equivalent of the CIA — 1,500 white Britons are believed to have converted to Islam with the purpose of funding, planning, and carrying out surprise terror attacks, the newspaper reported.

Security experts say the growing number of white terrorists poses a serious threat because they are less likely to be detected than members of the Asian community.

Terror groups like Al Qaeda reportedly began recruiting white non-Muslims in response to the success intelligence services have had in disrupting and stopping extremist plots around the world.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,322419,00.html

Why should we be surprised at this? They have failed to mount a significant attack on US soil or even out interests outside the US (except Iraq) which is a dramatic change for the 90s. This tactic was predicted and will be a cause for concern. Some terrorists will no doubt cross our wide open southern – or already have.

“Texas Sheriffs Say Terrorists Entering US from Mexico
By Kevin Mooney
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
August 21, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - The chief law enforcement officers of several Texas counties along the southern U.S. border warn that Arabic-speaking individuals are learning Spanish and integrating into Mexican culture before paying smugglers to sneak them into the United States. The Texas Sheriffs' Border Coalition believes those individuals are likely terrorists and that drug cartels and some members of the Mexican military are helping them get across the border.

Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez of Zapata County, Texas told Cybercast News Service that Iranian currency, military badges in Arabic, jackets and other clothing are among the items that have been discovered along the banks of the Rio Grande River. The sheriff also said there are a substantial number of individuals crossing the southern border into the U.S. who are not Mexican. He described the individuals in question as well-funded and able to pay so-called "coyotes" - human smugglers - large sums of money for help gaining illegal entry into the U.S.”

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewSpecialReports....E20060821a.html

The Canadian border is just as porous as that to the South - and Canada is a fairly easy-entry for many from SE Asia, Central Asia and the Mid-East.

And the "non-Muslims" statement is a non-starter. Although it is pragmatic to a degree, Al-Qa'ida is about as ideologically driven an organization as you can find. Non-Muslim connections in organized crime etc. may be exploited for support purposes (finance, logisitics, etc) but not for direct action. There is no shortage of radical Muslims who can easily blend in to American society with the right preparation. Many Muslims from the Middle East can pass in the US as "white" without a problem - especially those from the Levant region. And anyone who's served in Afghanistan can tell you the range of complexions hair and eye color that are to be found in the cities and villages. Then there's the blond-haired, blue-eyed radicals in the Caucasus. Then, of course, we have the Asians from the Al-Qa'ida-linked Jama'at Islamiyya in SE Asia, or the IMU in Central Asia, and other groups who are not "white", but who also do not come close in appearance to the popular perception of the Arabic suicide bomber.

In any case, regarding the Cybercast News Service, they ain't exactly known for their accuracy in reporting - more like reporting tweaked (almost outright fabrication in some cases) in order to support particular political positions. Their slant makes Fox News look like neutral, unbiased reporting.

Again, regarding domestic discussion regarding the border and terrorists, it tends to be fetid mix of political posturing with outright manipulation of reporting - much of it in a drive to get a bigger chunch of homeland security grant funding. And the reporting itself is often so full of assumption and conjecture that it lacks any real substance; recall the huge proportion of terror "suspects" that have had to be released later on lack of even the most tenuous evidence that they were truly linked to any terror organization.

I see a lot of LE reporting from across the country every day. Although much is heavily focused on terrorism-related reporting, and in some of it the desperation to even tenuously link weak conjecture to terrorism comes through (reinforcing the financial angle for LE agencies regarding grants and other funding), there has been no substantiated reporting of this nature that I've seen. Regarding Austin in particular, there has been a steady increase in the gang problem in the city - but that's a different story.

Granted but lets be realistic. If AQ is working operations in the US they need to be here and our porous borders to the north and south make that a lot easier than flying in. Combine that with a lack of support for Real ID and we could still see terrorists with valid state drivers licenses in the US.

Add to this the desire to do anything to kill people and damage our economy (like shooting down planes would do) and we have a lot to be concerned about.

Do you agree with the overall assessment in this Foreign Affairs article? How serious a threat is al-Qa'ida and/or other Islamic terrorist groups to our own national security?
9/11 took years of planning and preparation. It was also done with a safe haven and the Taliban in power. I don't think we really know for sure if al Qaeda will attack again, but it appears they have a diminished capacity given the loss of many top leaders, disrupted funding and arrests in other countries. I don't think we can say the same thing about some of the older terrorists groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. They appear well financed and more of a threat, but only in the Middle East at this time. They may be waiting for an US administration change.

Why, in your estimation, would they do that? What would be the advantages and disadvantages?

Maybe because they hope the American people will elect a surrender monkey like Obama or Edwards as President. Someone who will sue them instead of fight them.


Aquilla

In the same vein Aquilla, they would benefit long term by a president who follows bush's policy as it has been generous in gaining them new supporters and training opportunities. Iraq has been a great training ground, the weak ones die and the good ones refine their technique. Continued American troop presence in Iraq and the ME is a never ending source of propaganda and recruitment.

As opposed to someone that allows us to be drawn into their own backyards where we can't tell who the bad guys are? What a genius military strategy - no wonder you're all for it.

Ok, so you figure that if the US cuts and runs in Iraq, throws Israel to the dogs and just tells the rest of the Middle East to "deal with it", Al Qaeda is just going to go away? Maybe bin Laden and his merry band of terrorists starts selling timeshares in Tora Bora? You think that will happen Chistopher? If you do then I can get you a heck of a deal on a cave with a view.


Aquilla

Got your daily dosage of right-wing talking points down, don'tcha?

Aquilla, if all you have to offer up are limp one-liners with no basis in reality, maybe you should apply for a gig writing jokes for Letterman or Leno. You seem like the type of guy who wouldn't have a problem crossing a picket line.

By the way, you should be a bit more circumspect in juxtaposing a slur like "surrender monkey" in the same sentence where you are referencing a African-American candidate. Someone might get the idea you have a issue with Obama on a deeper level than mere political differences.

I think suing the Bin Laden Company or the Saudi Arabian Gov't for indirectly funding the crimes of AQ would have been a more effective way to prevent a second 9/11 than invading Iraq.

At the very least, the causality between the two would have been more obvious.

I would find it hard to believe that anyone could dispute that AQ's prime goal on 9/11 was to force us into an emotional, over-reactive response. They clearly succeeded. We have spent trillions of dollars.......trillions of dollars; we are considering a national ID; we have submitted to egregious violations of privacy and civil rights; by linking Iraq to the war on terror, we have lost some 4000 American lives, and our military is hollow and stretched to near the breaking point. And yet, our southern border and major ports are wide open to another attack.All for the cost of plane tickets and box cutters.

Whatever the Wahabi version of high fives and chest bumping is, it's certainly happening in the caves of Pakistan. I don't have the answers on how to defeat Islamic terrorism, but we're clearly going in the wrong direction.

Whoo-wee! Amen my man.

For about five days after 9/11 I, probably like the rest of you, walked around this earth brimming with a pride for this country that I personally had never experienced -- a pride that was lacking in the cultural battles of the past four decades. For those few days, our political differences seemed like esoteric picked bones hurled from another planet, meanwhile, it seemed like America's moment to champion justice and goodness throughout this world had come. For me as a democrat, the fact that Bush was our elected official seemed almost inconsequential: this moment belonged to the American people, for us to go out onto the world stage and re-claim our basic decency as a people.

Apparently, it just took a few weeks, a few months tops, for the real fall-out from 9/11 to take hold.

The death of 3,200-some Americans was tragic on a level I can't comprehend. I'm living in NYC right now, I'll be the first to tell you, the mere effect Osama Bin Laden had on our skyline is criminal. Lower Manhattan looks like Alfred E. Neuman's grin-- two front teeth missing.

But on a much deeper level, the tragedy of 9/11 was that it brought forth our greatness as a nation for maximum one month, then immediately accelerated our plunge towards base indignity and planned obsolescence as a people. We looked backwards, towards antiquated notions of nation-on-nation warfare, when History offered us a chance to move forward. We chucked our moral authority in the sea at the very moment our moral authority shone brightest. We didn't just give up the moral high ground -- we leaped off it, and naively expected the Western World to follow, or the very least, understand.

I am shocked at how successful Al Qeada ultimately was, and the pain of it all is, we did this to ourselves.

If I've said it once, I've said it 1000 times - why would anybody want to fight us here? From a military strategy standpoint, it is foolish and counter to history.

If they tried to "fight us here", they would lose - you can't beat 150,000,000 rednecks with guns. Further, the enemy can't assimilate. America would be uninhabitable to them. Conversely, if they could lure us into their own backyard, they could hide within the civilian population and use our respect for life against us as a military tactic.

From that standpoint, 9/11 was more successful than they could ever hoped for.

Interestingly enough, I've been laid up with the flu for a couple days and when flipping through channels, ran across a movie called "More American Grafitti" with Ronnie Howard and Cindy Williams (of Laverne and Shirley fame). This movie was based on life from the 50's into the 60's. A major part of the story was the Vietnam War protests. What was so interesting, was that virtually every talking point used today in reference to terrorists was used back then, but the word "commie" was used instead. I heard everything from "support our president because he's the one we elected" to "we need to fight them over there so we're not fighting commies here". Don't take my word for it - rent the movie and come back and tell me I'm wrong.

Of course, I'm sure some will claim it was right then, right now, and right whoever the next boogie man is.

But but but - I thought the score was 655,000 to 3,200 civilians- therefore aren't we winning?

I guess you consider the Vietnam war a "win" then?

I suppose that if our intent was to kill 655K of their civilians as opposed to the 3K they got of ours, then I guess you have a point.

Seriously, is that the best you can do?

You seem to miss that fact that they have “fought us over here” and beat the hell out of us on 9/11. their goal was to do us economic damage by doing so and again – great success.

The reason they want to attack us here is that it is far more effective and harmful to us. In the 90s that attacked us again and again overseas with little result. Our half backed attempts to get them were a waste including the stupidity of putting them on the FBI most wanted list. Even the first attack on WTC was a bust and we quickly went back to business as usual.

9/11 changed all that and if you really think they will be satisfied with anything less than another spectacular and enormously costly (to us) attack on this country tell me why.

Ted, you're absolutely correct. AQ is most likely planning the next major attack on US soil. I would figure they need to conduct one about every ten years to acheive the desired effect. Just look at where we are today. Civil rights are far weaker, our military is far weaker, the economy is in the toilet and our clout and prestige around the globe is nil. Maybe, if we're lucky, the president at the time the next attack occurs won't tie us down militarily and economically by invading a nation that had nothing to do with the attack in the first place.

Huh? On which planet? I'm talking about here - on planet Earth.

They neither fought us or beat us. According to your logic, Timothy McVeigh fought us and beat us. Both examples are absurd unless you revise history - something you are clearly attempting to do here.

Even in trying to do so, where in the heck could you have possibly dug up the premise that their goal was to inflict economic damage? Flying an airplane into the Pentagon and potentially, the White House was to inflict economic damage? Out of the multitude of talking points posted under your name, this is a new one.

So, if an enemy wishes to "beat" us, all they have to do is stage symbolic attacks like the ones on September 11, 2001? Is that what it takes to beat us?

I agree – lets hope so.

As we know some attacks have been foiled that would have had a 9/11 type effect (again). An airliner hit with a Stinger would bring air travel to a halt – and quickly since the ability to defeat the missiles, although available, has not been funded by the geniuses in DC. Instead the morons concentrate on letting terrorists talk to each other while trying to sue Telecom companies for helping us after 9/11.

I will not play games with your baseless assumptions. My freedom puts nobody at risk. You assume that if I had less freedom, I would then have more security. The truth is that I would have neither. You are sacrificing liberty for the illusion of safety.



Why? If the preservation of human life is your main objective than rail against smoking, driving, or sunbathing. All of those activities lead to more deaths than terrorism.



I wouldn't expect you to see it. Authoritarians would not see the loss of civil liberty as very important. But just as 'progressives' fail to see how the loss of economic liberty affects individual liberty, authoritarians fail to see how the loss of civil liberty affects individual liberty.



If you never go outside, then you will never see the sun. The Patriot Act is not the single end all mechanism of authoritarian power. If you look at the complete picture, the loss of civil liberty through the PA and warfare, the loss of economic liberty through the welfare state and disastrous fiscal & monetary policy, and the continual increase in centralized power...then you may get the idea,



You miss the entire point Kivro. People do not create an international terrorist organization and attack nations because they hate the freedoms of others. If that was truly their belief, they would attack their own oppressive governments. Hostility to the US is directly related to US policy in the Middle East. We had no problems with middle eastern terrorists before WW2. It was not until we began to involve ourselves in their affairs that problems arose. Capitalism, democracy...these are Western ideals that we are attempting to impose on Arabs and Muslims. They don't disagree with capitalism and democracy in principle, they disagree with the fact that they are Western ideals that are being imposed on them in an imperialistic matter.



Then your beliefs contradict the very foundations of this Republic and the ideas of liberty. Your appeal to emotion displays the weakness of your argument. I will not live in fear like you.

Just a minute, please:

Perhaps if you had seen what many Americans and foreigners had seen more objectively building up in the 1990's, you might be less inclined to say the following:

If al Qaeda operatives are as determined and inventive as assumed, they should be here by now. If they are not yet here, they must not be trying very hard or must be far less dedicated, diabolical, and competent than the common image would suggest.

Having been through the middle eastern capital of Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the 1997 to 1999 in the United Arab Emirates, and working for nationalized oil interests there, I saw firsthand that the concept of terrorism is only cloaked inside a jihad Muslim shell. I have never seen this in print, but I will try to put my concepts down into words that can be understood. I don't want to "debate" with all the very knowledgeable readers who have strong feelings pro and con but there are some facts and issues that firsthand evidence could shed light on.

Your passionate defense of "freedom" and this could be the freedom of Iraquis or the "freedom" of Americans facing terrorism, or the "freedom" of US interests abroad, or the "freedoms" that we face losing if we have a totalitarian response to terrorism -- all these are valid. However, I wish to carefully examine the core issues of who is my enemy.
Essentially, you are dealing with an organized crime unit called the Al Quaeda who has built up several entities funded by oil and business interests in the middle east. Because like our own heroes The Sopranos, they have their own mob bosses, too. The start, rise and continuation of this organized crime group is similar to all racketeers that have taken over and use protectionism to crontrol their turf. It is no surprise that the FBI is handling much of the prosecution of their cases, the ones that are actually caught.

The results of policing activity overseas suggest that the absence of results in the United States has less to do with terrorists' cleverness or with investigative incompetence than with the possibility that few, if any, terrorists exist in the country. It also suggests that al Qaeda's ubiquity and capacity to do damage may have, as with so many perceived threats, been exaggerated. Just because some terrorists may wish to do great harm does not mean that they are able to.

True, true. But they are doing incalculable harm to the ruling families of the Saudis, the blackmailed ruling houses of oil rich nations that pay out protectionism money to the Al Quaeda to keep them off their backs. Al Quaeda supplies arms and quick vengeance whenever they need to flex their muscles. On the other side of Iraq, there is an Iranian subculture that is locked into a running gun battle with anyone who will expose them. Many Pakistanis that once were our friends, have now bellied up to them. Fear rules.


But while keeping such potential dangers in mind, it is worth remembering that the total number of people killed since 9/11 by al Qaeda or al Qaeda­like operatives outside of Afghanistan and Iraq is not much higher than the number who drown in bathtubs in the United States in a single year, and that the lifetime chance of an American being killed by international terrorism is about one in 80,000 -- about the same chance of being killed by a comet or a meteor. Even if there were a 9/11-scale attack every three months for the next five years, the likelihood that an individual American would number among the dead would be two hundredths of a percent (or one in 5,000).[/quote]

Hasn't it occurred to anyone to ask WHY are the Iraqui's not set on ending their own civil war? Fear of the Al Quaeda (in a double coup they are paying off government officials as well as suicide bombers) and their running gun-battle for control of Iraq and its wealth, and that war will be generated and spread to our shores, with the same mimickry. You want a straightforward debate, but you are not asking the questions of responsibility which must arise to end war. Iraquis are not warring among themselves over disputatious religious texts of the Koran. No, they are warring over who will control the export fees of oil, and who will control the hiring and construction contracts payoffs in Iraq. Throw in the mix the Kurds who also want control and mix in the Iranians, who want double payoffs from the Al Quaeda to "skim" the oil revenue, much like the mob used to skim the casino takes. Now, you understand the mob wars and loyalties that are breaking apart their society. Is the likelihood high that they will do the same to our society? I am reminded of the saying, You'd better bar the door after you cast out one devil because seven more will come back to take its place. An ethical social time-out with the Iraquis won't cleanse them of the Al-Quaeda any more than a "political" solution will. You are dealing with organized crime that sucks a society dry of its economic wealth. They arrive in airplanes dressed as businessmen. However, their loyal lackees get a fleeting moment of time in the spotlight before they blow themselves up. Talk about "never give a sucker an even break"! Alas, it prevents them from identifying their Al-Quaeda operatives who are pushing their buttons, literally.

So this leads fairly straightforwardly to the question for debate:

Do you agree with the overall assessment in this Foreign Affairs article? How serious a threat is al-Qa'ida and/or other Islamic terrorist groups to our own national security?

Yes and No. Yes, they are a tremendous threat to any peace loving nation, and only a Communist government could control them. Long before 9/11, we were made aware that Americans should leave the Middle East because we were the targets of these predators who actually size America up as their competition in economically taking over the world. I heard it at a conference of all the oil states, they were sworn to destroy the American ECONOMY. Note that the World Trade Center was their target in 9/11.

And No the threat is not as serious for the time being because their greed is currently focused on oil revenues and construction contracts. That will evaporate in time. Are Islamic Fundamentalists being used as puppets, and like a good chess game that Arabs so love, being used as pawns to march across the board until they take our King? Certainly that is the case, and they can bide their time, stretching the war out as long as possible to effect a catastrophic economic blow to America. Will Americans have to die? In their religious-speak, our lives are not sacred to them.Constitutional democracy is not sacred to them either.

I have some ideas on how to clean up this mess, but these ideas mirror what the RICO commission did back in the 1970's and 1980's to start prosecuting, and then making gambling legal in Atlantic City and other casinos. It was so effective that the mobsters just sold out and changed their stripes to become wealthy businessmen. I see the same pattern with Al Quaeda operatives who just change their stripes again and again. Now, we see the Iranians have upped the stakes with nuclear weapons, a WMD self-fulfilling prophecy, that will trump and take over Iraqui oil. Still, the Al-Quaeda shape changers will survive and blend in with their Iranian counterparts in terrorism, only now they sport a branch of their organization that has nuclear weapons.

You want to get a handle on Al Quaeda's blood-sucking racket, go to the FBI.