BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Teribus
Date: 05 Jan 04 - 05:39 AM

musicmic, you have a conveniently selective memory, as pointed out by Sledge above:

In 1946, the bomb attack on the King David Hotel was ordered by Ben Gurion (Who went on to become an Israeli Prime Minister and Head of state). The attack was carried out by Stern Gang operatives who were under the direction of Menachem Begin (Who went on to become an Israeli Prime Minister)

In 1948, the murder of UN Mediator Count Folke Bernadotte by LEHI (Stern Gang). Yitzhak Shamir (Who went on to become an Israeli Prime Minister) was responsible for the planning and execution of this assassination.

Generally:
Alert Status, and change of alert status, as someone else has on this thread is specifically targeted at those responsible for the safety of the general population. They are the ones who have to put response measures in place and implement them, not the general public.

Should the general public be made aware of such changes? Yes of course they should. Anyone who has reservations about travelling can then either alter their travel arrangements or cancel them - the choice is theirs based on best information available at any given time. It also serves to increase the level of awareness of the general public to what is happening around them.

Announcing changes in alert status also deters the terrorists themselves, renders information gleaned through previous surveillance of targets useless, and sows doubts regarding possible security breaches within their own cells and organisation.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: sledge
Date: 05 Jan 04 - 03:57 AM

As Kevins statements are some of the most eloquent that are posted on this forum I would just like to add something following musicmic's little outburst where he stated:-

". If, by a "fair amount of terrorist attacks", you are refering to the activities of the Stern Gang, their tactics were condemned by the Hagana, the Palmach and every subsequent Israeli leader and the officers of the IDF"

Why then did Israel in 1980 do the following,they instituted the Lehi ribbon, red, black, grey, pale blue and white which is awarded to former members of the Lehi underground. Lehi being the name of the reformed Stern gang from 1942, one of the leaders being Yitzhak Shamir. Didn't he become Prime minister?

Sledge

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 08:23 PM

Ain't no war!

No more than a war againt drugs, or drunk drivers....

No reason going invading countries....

That won't bring any victory...

Jus' more enemies...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 06:53 PM

Eloquent

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: freda underhill
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 08:52 AM

Q: Daddy, why did we have to attack Iraq?
A: Because they had weapons of mass destruction honey.

Q: But the inspectors didn't find any weapons of mass destruction.
A: That's because the Iraqis were hiding them.

Q: And that's why we invaded Iraq?
A: Yep. Invasions always work better than inspections.

Q: But after we invaded them, we STILL didn't find any weapons of mass destruction, did we?
A: That's because the weapons are so well hidden. Don't worry, we'll find something, probably right before the 2004 election.

Q: Why did Iraq want all those weapons of mass destruction?
A: To use them in a war, silly.

Q: I'm confused. If they had all those weaponst that they planned to use in a war, then why didn't they use any of those weapons when we went to war with them?
A: Well, obviously they didn't want anyone to know they had those weapons, so they chose to die by the thousands rather than defend themselves.

Q: That doesn't make sense Daddy. Why would they choose to die if they had all those big weapons to fight us back with?
A: It's a different culture. It's not supposed to make sense.

Q: I don't know about you, but I don't think they had any of those weapons our government said they did.
A: Well, you know, it doesn't matter whether or not they had those weapons. We had another good reason to invade them anyway.

Q: And what was that?
A: Even if Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein was a cruel dictator, which is another good reason to invade another country.

Q: Why? What does a cruel dictator do that makes it OK to invade his country?
A: Well, for one thing, he tortured his own people.

Q: Kind of like what they do in China?
A: Don't go comparing China to Iraq. China is a good economic competitor, where millions of people work for slave wages in sweatshops to make U.S. corporations richer.

Q: So if a country lets its people be exploited for American corporate gain, it's a good country, even if that country tortures people?
A: Right.

Q: Why were people in Iraq being tortured?
A: For political crimes, mostly, like criticizing the government. People who criticized the government in Iraq were sent to prison and tortured.

Q: Isn't that exactly what happens in China?
A: I told you, China is different.

Q: What's the difference between China and Iraq?
A: Well, for one thing, Iraq was ruled by the Ba'ath party, while China is Communist.

Q: Didn't you once tell me Communists were bad?
A: No, just Cuban Communists are bad.

Q: How are the Cuban Communists bad?
A: Well, for one thing, people who criticize the government in Cuba are sent to prison and tortured.

Q: Like in Iraq?
A: Exactly.

Q: And like in China, too?
A: I told you, China's a good economic competitor. Cuba, on the other hand, is not.

Q: How come Cuba isn't a good economic competitor?
A: Well, you see, back in the early 1960s, our government passed some laws that made it illegal for Americans to trade or do any business with Cuba until they stopped being Communists and started being capitalists like us.

Q: But if we got rid of those laws, opened up trade with Cuba, and started doing business with them, wouldn't that help the Cubans become capitalists?
A: Don't be a smart-ass.

Q: I didn't think I was being one.
A: Well, anyway, they also don't have freedom of religion in Cuba.

Q: Kind of like China and the Falun Gong movement?
A: I told you, stop saying bad things about China. Anyway, Saddam Hussein came to power through a military coup, so he's not really a legitimate leader anyway.

Q: What's a military coup?
A: That's when a military general takes over the government of a country by force, instead of holding free elections like we do in the United States.

Q: Didn't the ruler of Pakistan come to power by a military coup?
A: You mean General Pervez Musharraf? Uh, yeah, he did, but Pakistan is our friend.

Q: Why is Pakistan our friend if their leader is illegitimate?
A: I never said Pervez Musharraf was illegitimate.

Q: Didn't you just say a military general who comes to power by forcibly overthrowing the legitimate government of a nation is an illegitimate leader?
A: Only Saddam Hussein. Pervez Musharraf is our friend, because he helped us invade Afghanistan.

Q: Why did we invade Afghanistan?
A: Because of what they did to us on September 11th.

Q: What did Afghanistan do to us on September 11th?
A: Well, on September 11th, nineteen men, Fifteen of them Saudi Arabians, hijacked four airplanes and flew three of them into buildings, killing over 3,000 Americans.

Q: So how did Afghanistan figure into all that?
A: Afghanistan was where those bad men trained, under the oppressive rule of the Taliban.

Q: Aren't the Taliban those bad radical Islamics who chopped off people's heads and hands?
A: Yes, that's exactly who they were. Not only did they chop off people's heads and hands, but they oppressed women, too.

Q: Didn't the Bush administration give the Taliban 43 million dollars back in May of 2001?
A: Yes, but that money was a reward because they did such a good job fighting drugs.

Q: Fighting drugs?
A: Yes, the Taliban were very helpful in stopping people from growing opium poppies.

Q: How did they do such a good job?
A: Simple. If people were caught growing opium poppies, the Taliban would have their hands and heads cut off.

Q: So, when the Taliban cut off people's heads and hands for growing flowers, that was OK, but not if they cut people's heads and hands off for other reasons?
A: Yes. It's OK with us if radical Islamic fundamentalists cut off people's hands for growing flowers, but it's cruel if they cut off people's hands for stealing bread.

Q: Don't they also cut off people's hands and heads in Saudi Arabia?
A: That's different. Afghanistan was ruled by a tyrannical patriarchy that oppressed women and forced them to wear burqas whenever they were in public, with death by stoning as the penalty for women who did not comply.

Q: Don't Saudi women have to wear burqas in public, too?
A: No, Saudi women merely wear a traditional Islamic body covering.

Q: What's the difference?
A: The traditional Islamic covering worn by Saudi women is a modest yet fashionable garment that covers all of a woman's body except for her eyes and fingers. The burqa, on the other hand, is an evil tool of patriarchal oppression that covers all of a woman's body except for her eyes and fingers.

Q: It sounds like the same thing with a different name.
A: Now, don't go comparing Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are our friends.

Q: But I thought you said 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11th were from Saudi Arabia.
A: Yes, but they trained in Afghanistan.

Q: Who trained them?
A: A very bad man named Osama bin Laden.

Q: Was he from Afghanistan?
A: Uh, no, he was from Saudi Arabia too. But he was a bad man, a very bad man.

Q: I seem to recall he was our friend once.
A: Only when we helped him and the mujahadeen repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan back in the 1980s.

Q: Who are the Soviets? Was that the Evil Communist Empire Ronald Reagan talked about?
A: There are no more Soviets. The Soviet Union broke up in 1990 or thereabouts, and now they have elections and capitalism like us. We call them Russians now.

Q: So the Soviets, I mean, the Russians, are now our friends?
A: Well, not really. You see, they were our friends for many years after they stopped being Soviets, but then they decided not to support our invasion of Iraq, so we're mad at them now. We're also mad at the French and the Germans because they didn't help us invade Iraq either.

Q: So the French and Germans are evil, too?
A: Not exactly evil, but just bad enough that we had to rename French fries and French toast to Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast.

Q: Do we always rename foods whenever another country doesn't do what we want them to do?
A: No, we just do that to our friends. Our enemies, we invade.

Q: But wasn't Iraq one of our friends back in the 1980s?
A: Well, yeah. For a while.

Q: Was Saddam Hussein ruler of Iraq back then?
A: Yes, but at the time he was fighting against Iran, which made him our friend, temporarily.

Q: Why did that make him our friend?
A: Because at that time, Iran was our enemy.

Q: Isn't that when he gassed the Kurds?
A: Yeah, but since he was fighting against Iran at the time, we looked the other way, to show him we were his friend.

Q: So anyone who fights against one of our enemies automatically becomes our friend?
A: Most of the time, yes.

Q: And anyone who fights against one of our friends is automatically an enemy?
A: Sometimes that's true, too. However, if American corporations can profit by selling weapons to both sides at the same time, all the better.

Q: Why?
A: Because war is good for the economy, which means war is good for America. Also, since God is on America's side, anyone who opposes war is a godless un-American Communist. Do you understand now why we attacked Iraq?

Q: I think so. We attacked them because God wanted us to, right?
A: Yes.

Q: But how did we know God wanted us to attack Iraq?
A: Well, you see, God personally speaks to George W. Bush and tells him what to do.

Q: So basically, what you're saying is that we attacked Iraq because George W. Bush hears voices in his head?
A. Yes! You finally understand how the world works. Now close your eyes, make yourself comfortable, and go to sleep. Good night.

Q: Good night, Daddy.

California International Studies Project;
Stanford University

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Jan 04 - 09:14 AM

When did Congress declare war?

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 10:30 PM

Well done, McGrath. To my knowledge, we (U.S.) have never won one of our nebulous wars- the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on illiteracy, the war on whatever. It is just a catch phrase that some people admire and some politicians like to use.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 08:36 PM

I question whether there is anything that can honestly be described as "a war on terrorism" as such. The very term is a metaphor, similar to terms such as "war on poverty".

"Terrorism" is a type of violence which is carried out for many reasons, by many people, including governments, some of them "friendly governments", and at various times by organisations which have received training and support from the USA.

Terrorism is violence directed at civilians to achieve political objectives. It is a vile thing, whoever does it. It is similar to torture - in fact in many ways it is a kind of torture.

If Bush and they others were to declare war on all forms of torture, including especially the kind of torture which is implied in terror attacks against civilians, it would be clear that this was a more complicated commitment than an ordinary war, with an identified external enemy. Sadly torture has its proponents much much closer to home - and so has terror as an weapon of policy.

However the rhetoric of "war on terrorism" has been employed in such a way as to suggest that it is all out there, and that there is an "axis of evil" which is the source of it all. James Bond stuff. A dangerous distortion of reality, which plays directly into the hands of the kind of people who organised September 11.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: freda underhill
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 07:13 PM

mutual cycles of revenge and retaliation are all about blaming someone else, always. sabre rattling rattles anyone being shook at.

perpetrators often identify as victims in some way - age old psychological and political problem.

diplomacy - has worked in other times, other countries, other decades, other eras, and can do again, with the right political will.

freda

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: DougR
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 06:40 PM

Obviously the majority of you disagree with the way Bush is handling the war on Terrorism.

How would you handle it?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 09:26 AM

Keep in mind that Fox "News" [sic] is the propaganda arm of the RNC, PNAC, and NeoCons in general. And they admit as much.

If you're want fantasy, I suggest LOTR as a much better alternaive.

Best, Greg

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 08:00 AM

More British Airway flights were canceled to Dulles today as well as French and Mexican flights to LA.
Prince William Alaska and the Valdez oil terminal have also been shut down. (Arabs are afoot on the tundra?)

I sense and read that most people consider the code orange to be contrived yet local Fox news keeps showing the interview of an American woman traveler at the airport claiming her fear is a normal fear in this world of uncertainty.

Having fear is normal but now there seems to be a component of having the "correct" fear.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 02:33 PM

Agreed, Greg F. I was perfectly willing to carry on a rational discussion with Mike, but judging from his last couple of posts, this is not possible. He's playing the Anti-Semitism card against anyone who disagrees with him, and that says more about him than it does about anybody else. When the name-calling starts, I bow out.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 10:52 AM

Kevin/Don:

You cannot reach a reasoned accommodation with a crazy person, and each attempt only produces a more hysterical reaction.

or

On a dead man's door, you can knock forever.

Best wishes for the New Year.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 08:52 AM

I'm sorry you read those kinds of ideas into what I have written here from time to time, musicmic. I won't accuse you of lying, because I am sure you believe what you say, but you are mistaken.

If you've ever seen anything in what I have written which looks like antagonism to Jews, that's not what I was intending to convey, because it wouldn't in any way represent my feelings.

Anti-Semitism is a horrible thing and it has to be challenged wherever it crops up. But branding people as anti-Semitic falsely does not in any way help in that process.

My comment that terrorist acts were carried out by Jewish militants in the course of the struggle to establish Israel is not a lie. It isn't even a matter of controversy. Saying that it happened is in no way an indication of anti-Semitism.

Terrorist acts have been carried out in the course of the struggle for Irish independence and Irish unity. Saying that does not indicate any anti-Irish prejudice on my part.

My point was, the fact that terrorist acts have been carried out has not and shouild not rule out the possibility of negotiating with people who share the political objectives of the people who have carried out such acts, or even with people who have been responsible for such acts. Nor does it mean that those political objectives should be rejected out of hand.

The link I gave, to the story about the Israeli authorities moving against the soldier who has admitted that he had lied about the circumstances in which he shot an unarmed peace activist, was a recognition of what appears to be a positive move on their part, which should be welcomed.

As I've several times said, I do not believe that "one man's resistance movement is another man's terrorism". Terrorism is deliberate targeting of civilians as a way of exerting political pressure. It is illegitimate whoever carries it out.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: musicmick
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 05:07 AM

Mr. McGrath you are a liar of the first water. If, by a "fair amount of terrorist attacks", you are refering to the activities of the Stern Gang, their tactics were condemned by the Hagana, the Palmach and every subsequent Israeli leader and the officers of the IDF. Your Adolf-come-lately anti-Semitism clothed in the one sided criticism of the combatants in this tragic war is phony and cruel. It is surely true that one man's resistance movement is another man's terrorism. But your paralels are scewed and slanted. I do not seek to change your mind about Jews. Gerald L.K. Smith and George Lincoln Rockwell went to their graves hating Jews. G.K. Chesterton and William Shakespeare never spoke of Jews but to scorn. Stalin never trusted the Jews and H.L.Menken mocked them. You are not alone in libeling the Jews. Better men than you have been doing it for two millenium.
No, I do not expect you to, suddenly, develope odjective tolerance for a people who are historically guily of Deicide. My replies to threds like this one and postings like yours is to serve notice that, no matter how many lies you spread, we are not going to lay down and die or march, meekly, into the ovens. And, what's more, we will expose your lies whenever we encounter them. If there is a lesson to be learned from the last time the Jews were demonized, it is that silence is an inadequate defense.
I do thank you, however, for being the first to honestly answer my question. You do not think that Israel is a legitimate state and, thus, you stand with the Arabs on that seminal issue. I suspect that many of your fellow posters agree with you. And that scares the hell out of me.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 08:03 PM

"...the nation that was decreed by the UN in 1948" - following a fair amount of terrorist activity by Jewish militants.

Nobody has clean hands.

One small bit of good news for the New Year in thta part olf the world - Israeli soldier held over shot Briton - "Israel has arrested a soldier in connection with a shooting that left a British peace activist brain-dead. Tom Hurndall, 22, was shot in the head while observing the Israeli army in Gaza in April, leaving him in a permanent vegetative state."

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: musicmick
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 06:54 PM

Can you tell me when anyone has ever negotiated with Arab terrorists.
It is not me saying they are not to be moved, it is them. Obviously, you have not personally encountered their brand of warfare. I have.
Your friend in Israel is probably not a supporter of Likud. Neither are the majority of Israelis, myself included.
By the way, I noticed that you, too, have not said whether or not you feel that the Jews are entitled to the nation that was decreed by the UN in 1948. Where do you stand on that issue? (It was and is the only real issue in the Middle East for the past 55 years.

                            Mike

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 05:53 PM

"Your suggestion that Jews are behaving like their persecutors is insulting and insensitive."

I'm sorry if this bothers you, Mike, but it is not a suggestion that originated with me, nor does it grow out of ignorance or flippancy on my part. I first heard this observation from the son of an old friend of mine who happens to be Jewish and who has spent several years in Israel. That was his observation. He despairs of peace ever occurring for Israel, and he puts a lot of the blame on the intransigence of people like Sharon. It appears to me from what you say that his experience is just as valid as yours.

Nor did I suggest that Israelis are rounding Palestinians up and enslaving them or sending them to death camps. But they are trying to cram them into isolated enclaves. True, I applied the term "ghetto" to this, but again, I'm not the only person that this particular parallel has occurred to.

Retaliation breeds further retaliation. Always has, always will. Somebody has to have the guts, intelligence, and humanity to break this cycle. But obviously it isn't going to be Sharon. And dwelling on the intransigence of the opposition and saying that there is no use even trying to deal with them will certainly not solve anything.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 04:25 PM

Don Firth, I'm proud to know you.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 04:15 PM

The IRA...customarily prewarned civilian targets.

Sometimes yes, sometimes not, frequently ineffectively, because intentionally imprecise.

The point is, it's just not worth letting this kind of thing get to you. You're going to die sometime, whatever happens, and your chance of being killed in a road traffic accident or a non-political mugging is probably vastly greater than any risk from terrorism.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: musicmick
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 03:25 PM

Neither am I, Don. I do not, for one moment, suggest that cowering and trembling in fear is a proper response to terrorism. I lived in Israel for three years and I learned that life can and does go on, even when the threat is real and frequent. The answer is awareness and some degree of counter control. You must know that, if your home is broken into, you will, probably, take more precautions to insure your safety in the future. Another good way to live with the terror is to keep some kind of objective sanity and perspective. I am more than willing to engage in diologue with those of you who oppose the Israeli position but, in every response I have made to threads like this one, I have said that the stated position of the terrorists is the elimination of the state of Israel. They have never suggested a willingness to compromise this demand and, in fact, they increase their operations whenever there is an accord with Israel and her Arab neighbors. I mention this because I want you to realise that it is not Jewish paranoia that causes us to fear the tender mercies of our enemies. Unless and until we appreciate that these people mean exactly what they say, we will keep shouting at one another and not at the fanatic murderers who threaten us all. Your suggestion that Jews are behaving like their persecutors is insulting and insensitive.
Jews are not enslaving Arabs. Jews are not rounding up Arabs and sending them into death camps. Jews have not stripped Arabs of citizenship. Jews did not start this war. When Jews were in their most desparate straights, during the Holocost and at the time of the Pogroms and when they were enslaved in Egypt and when they were driven from Iberia in the Inquisition, they never, NEVER, rained terror on the world in protest. To equate the positional response of Israel to any of those horrors is flip and demeaning. (And, I think, unworthy of you. I have read some of your postings on other threads and you are not that ignorant.)

                               Mike

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 03:12 PM

A Republican Congressman's take on the alert:

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TIMES_SQUARE_CONGRESSMAN?SITE=NMALJ&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 02:59 PM

Don, I agree with everything that you said.

Mike you said that,
" You are so wrapped up in your hatred of G.W.Bush, you can't see past it. Somehow, you reckon, the REpublicans are to blame. My God, do you really so fear them that you believe them capable of creating and maintaining a reign of terror? Yes, I guess you do. I am afraid. I admit it. But I am not as afraid of the Fedayim as you are of the RNC. Lighten up, guys. We have survived regimes even more right wing than this one and, like my wandering people, we're still here."

I don't hate W either. I think his policies however are somehow tied
to a despotic mindset regarding foreign policy and a use of cynical misuse of paranoia to acheive his ends. In short, politics as usual.

I think that hysteria does create an atmosphere of a "reign of terror" and I don't think we have ever come into contact with an
administration more right wing than this one. The Patriot Act is
very scary and tramples on the Bill of Rights. The Second Patriot is
initiating a kind of "reign of terror" in which innocent people's rights can be taken away and they can be unduly punished without proper safeguards for their liberties. It's the kind of approach used in many military juntas in Central and South America in the past
and I can see it opening the door for American "Disappeared". I don't remember corruption in corporate America being so rampant and supported by an administration since from the times of Jay Gould and the Robber Barons.

The problem is that Reactionary suppression of human rights is like a disease whether it comes from the Middle East or the US. The solution is not "counter-terror" which is another form of "terror" but a growing resolve to overcome fear with support from the world community. This is why the United Nations was organized and needs to be supported. The World Court is another source of true advocacy that we promote in a democratic society. The concentration of political power in the hands of an increasingly irresponsible Right-Wing in the US that vitiates diplomacy and alienates former allies
is part of the problem, not the solution.

It must be acknowledged that Palestinian school children are equally
as affected by reaction as Israeli.

Sharon is on a collision course with history. Theocracy is the enemy of democracy whether Evangelical Right-Wing pseudo-Christianity, distortions of Islam or a failing Zionist policy in Israel today.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 02:08 PM

Mike, I'm not underestimating the threat of terrorism, nor am I unmindful of the havoc and grief they have caused. What I am trying to get across to you is that, with you, the terrorists have won. Other than taking people to task for not being paralyzed by fear the way you seem to be, you offer no suggestions as to what we should do, other than "Be afraid! Be very afraid!"

Just what, exactly, do you expect me or anyone else on this thread to do about terrorism? Curl up in the corner in the fetal position? No thank you! I have a life to live and I'm going to live it. Other than maintaining the same kind of alertness for my own safety and the safety of those around me that I normally do, I don't see that I can do a helluva lot to stop terrorism. But I'll be damned if I'm going to let the fact that there are terrorists in the world rule my life and dictate what I do or don't do.

And as far as hating Bush is concerned, I don't hate Bush. But I think his foreign policy (and the foreign policy this country has had for decades) is the kind of thing that breeds terrorism. If you are essentially helpless, how can you fight back against a juggernaut like the United States, that has been cozy with and supportive of dictators, tyrants, and oppressive regimes in the Middle East for generations, exploiting those countries for their natural resources and taking geopolitical advantage of these alliances wherever it suits us to do so—including supporting Saddam Hussein in anything he wanted to do until he eventually got difficult to manage?

Or Israel. It has been said that an oppressed people, when they eventually get out from under oppression and attain power, begin to take on the characteristics of those who oppressed them. It appears to me that Ariel Sharon and his cohorts (and not all Israelis agree with their policies) are not interested in the Palestinians other than regarding them as a roadblock, and simply wanting to get rid of them, or at the very least, drive them into ghettos. Not unlike the way Jews were treated for centuries. So the Palestinians fight back in the only way they can. This has little to do with religion per se. It has to do with elitism and political control.

If religious fanaticism gets into it at all, it is being used to exploit both Islamic fundamentalists who are hell-bent on jihad and Christian Millennialists who want to bring about the Battle of Armageddon and hasten the Second Coming (part of the Christian Millennialist scenario involves the restoration of the "State of Israel" before Christ returns to separate the sheep from the goats and establish the Kingdom of God). But this whole thing is not really about religion. It's about world power and who's going to wield it. And it's not totally clear to me just how much the religious aspect of this influences and reinforces the actions of George W. Bush, but it's certainly in there. Note all the "Good vs. Evil" stuff he lards his speeches with. He's not just talking about "good guys" and "bad guys" here, he's talking about Good versus Evil in the Biblical sense.

The Bush administration with its pre-emptive war policy does absolutely nothing to win a "war on terrorism." It makes it far worse. Going after terrorists with whole armies is like my above analogy of trying to ward off wasps with a baseball bat. You destroy a lot of real estate, but you don't get the wasps. You just make them that much madder! Howard Dean was right when he said that the capture of Saddam Hussein doesn't make us any safer. Even if a whole bunch of people howled like scalded cats when he said it, he was still right.

The best I can do to fight terrorism is to work to change the regime in Washington, D.C. to one that is less dedicated to aggravating the situation and breeding terrorists. Our best hope of eliminating, or at least reducing terrorism is to alleviate the causes of the anger and frustration that fuels terrorism. Because you will never—ever—stop terrorism any other way! There are a couple of Democratic candidates who understand this. So that's where I concentrate my efforts.

But in the meantime, I am not going to cower and tremble.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 08:50 AM

The first post of this thread was "my" pictorial take on terrorist threat alerts.

Now that it has somehow been removed, responding to subsequent quips and responses makes little sense.

However

Unlike musicmic:

I do not hold personal animus toward the knowledable opinions of the members here of long standing.

I do not stand on a foundation of quicksand and worship the monuments of smoke and mirrors so graciously provided by FOX news.

I am not the only person at the epicenter of the current unslaught of killing and loss.

I can not counter the fundamentalist beliefs that lie at the heart of of those respondsible for the current climate of never ending war.

--------------------

What I do know is that the truth is so awful and horrendous that most people will never allow themselves to ever question the big lie.

I forgive people who believe the lie for it is only natural to clutch at a measure of self preservation and a noble reason for the peril they feel after watching people leap from the burning WTC building hand in hand.

I have seen the blood on the ground from terrorist bullets with my own eyes and not just from television.

I remember the photo line up of the terrorists that were on board those jets appearing only hours after the 9-11 buildings collapse. I also remember 3 of those individuals coming forward to tell us their names and pictures were falsely used since they had never left Pakistan.

I know that a fundamentalist faith is required to accept all the evidence as justification and proof of a new imperial take over of oil rich lands.

Yes God himself must have put the pristine, unscathed, unburned wallet of Atta, who was the kingpin of the Saudi terrorist pilots, atop all the debris of ground zero to let us know the truth.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: musicmick
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 01:24 AM

Thanks for the reassurance, Don. It may well help me forget the friends who have been killed by these harmless pranksters. The utter gall exibited by those of you in the cheap seats would be amusing if I were more tolerant and more absent minded. I sincerely hope that you and yours escape the horrors that Israeli school children face every day. But, until and unless your lives are on the line (or until you realize that they are) your poo pooing is as heartless as it is gutless. There are many legitimate causes and many oppressed peoples in our world. My own people suffered as much as any. But, never in the history of man, has one group brought about such senseless horror upon non combative nations or peoples. Even the obcenity of war has been waged with some degree of law, if only out of fear of retribution. The 3000 souls who died in the WTC were not at war with their killers. The passengers in the doomed planes were not harboring enemies of Al Qeda. It is fairly obvious that you and your fellow corespondants have not, yet, encountered the tender mercies of those whose threat you so blithely disregard.
What's the point? You are so wrapped up in your hatred of G.W.Bush, you can't see past it. Somehow, you reckon, the REpublicans are to blame. My God, do you really so fear them that you believe them capable of creating and maintaining a reign of terror? Yes, I guess you do. I am afraid. I admit it. But I am not as afraid of the Fedayim as you are of the RNC. Lighten up, guys. We have survived regimes even more right wing than this one and, like my wandering people, we're still here.

                           Mike

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Dec 03 - 10:36 PM

musicmic I don't blame you for being brain washed. A lot of time money effort and lives went into brainwashing millions.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Cluin
Date: 30 Dec 03 - 05:05 PM

"How we respond will determine our resolve and courage."

Haven't you got that backwards?

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Dec 03 - 04:33 PM

Musicmic, you seem to have fallen into everybody's trap here. First of all, you sound like a very frightened person. So frightened that while looking over your shoulder for possible terrorists, you might just step into an open manhole! I'd say the terrorists have been very successful with you. You're terrorized!

Second, when you use expressions like ". . . nuts . . . they are insatiable and without pity or empathy," it appears that you've swallowed the Bush line right down to the gills. Dehumanize the enemy, then it's okay to use any means to deal with them, including taking away your civil rights. This is a device used by every tyrant since long before Ghengis Kahn, and I'll bet that Machiavelli has a whole chapter on it.

Your chances of being killed or injured in an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist attack are minuscule. Crawl back out from under your bed. If an airliner hits your house, you won't be very safe there, either. Lighten up and get back to living.

Besides (and this is something that Bush obviously doesn't grasp, even if he is a Texan), when wasps disturb your barbeque, hitting their nests with a baseball bat is not exactly a brilliant way of keeping them from stinging you.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 30 Dec 03 - 10:37 AM

Thank you Cluin.

Everyone, here's my take.

The so-called enemy is being seen through distorted lenses.
Here's the real deal. The Al Quaeda is interested in an Islamic theocracy in the Middle East. That's what it's all about, not just indiscriminately killing Americans.

What the White House needs is a department on Anthropology so
that the rulers in government can know who really they are dealing with.

Otherwise this "terrorist" thing becomes another political
tactic and power play. If we are at war than we have seen
the real enemey and as Pogo says, "it us us".

That's not to say that Al Quaeda isn't a vicious organization
and fanatical as well. They perceive America as being inimical
to their goals to theocratize Islamic countries but their
fundamentalism is as irrational as it is with all fundamentalist religious groups. Their craziness plays right into the
craziness of the Evangelical Radical Right-wing in America.
I think the two groups understand each other and they are the ones who are really at war. The rest of the world is "collateral damage" (a disgusting and obscene term).

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: musicmick
Date: 30 Dec 03 - 01:45 AM

At least McGrath has had some experience with terrorist threats but even his enemies pale in comparison with the Islamic fundimentalists.
The Germans who attacked England in the early 1940s were identifiable and had a country that could be attacked in retaliation.(There were, in fact, retaliatory responses by the RAF and, later, by the land and air forces of the Allies.) Al Qeda has no "official" state to accept responsability and to answer for there offenses.
The IRA was, and is, a paramilitary orginization that, for the most part, employed military targets and customarily prewarned civilian targets. Whatever one's position on the Irish question, no one can suggest that the IRA attacks were not specific or that their goals were not reachable through negotiation and compromise. Al Qeda's goals are religious and not subject to compromise. Their targets are general and designed to kill as many people as they can.
Those nations that have been dealing with these nuts for decades know, only too well, that they are insatiable and without pity or empathy. Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have lived with the threat of Islamic fundimentalism for forty years. Some have appeased them in hopes they would just go away.
(They don't go away. They never go away.) The USA is now facing their threats. How we respond will determine our resolve and courage.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Cluin
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 09:03 PM

My money's on Frank's assessment above.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: mike the knife
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 05:48 PM

That $1 Billion/week to maintain the "Orange" alert... wanna guess where it goes?

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 05:36 PM

Some of you may be old enough to remember "clear and present danger".
Hysteria circa 1950's. We found out just how much of a threat the USSR really was. (Negligible). But in so doing, free speech was crippled, and a a Pavlovian response was created in the minds of many Americans.

It's a replay of the same old tactic. Create an enemy, make people afraid of that enemy and they do anything you say except think for themselves.

The more things change.................

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 02:45 PM

"Chatter" isn't a threat, it's people talking and sending messages. And chatter has been used before as a ploy to get an enemy confused -- the Allies did it with Patton's fictious Army before D-Day, for instance. It's cheap and can be very effective.

As for supplies, etc.: we usually have at least three days supply of food in the house (usually more), and there is at least fifty gallons of water in the water heaters. I use heavy mill plastic sheeting for everything from the garden to drop clothes, and duct tape holds the world together. We carry "winter kits" in each car as well, dating from the time we got stuck for three days in the snow.

Not that I expect some sort of terrorist attack, but being snowbound or losing power for a few days because of a storm is a definite possibility.

As for terrorist attacks -- I doubt that commercial passenger aircraft will be used again. It's been done, and terrorist won't do that again soon if at all (and an attempt would be met with resistance by the passengers and crew now). Secondly, the attacks have been against symbols that are identified with the US in the minds of the terrorists.

There is something else: You are never safe, your life is not now and never has been risk-free. Just accept that and get on with living.

In short, no, I'm not worried. And -- I returned last night from five days in DC, I flew out and flew back. The official paranoia was extreme.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 11:49 AM

We've had bombs and bomb threats around our part of the world much of my life - first the Germans, then the IRA. Now it's Al Qaida. You get used to it.

And governments use it for their own effect. Tanks on the news all round Heathrow Airport. A fat lot of use against blokes with boots set to explode. But it did get headlines in the papers, and helped to win a crucial vote.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: musicmick
Date: 28 Dec 03 - 08:22 PM

The willingness to attribute security measures with Bush manipulations
and Republican conspiracy is in inverse proportion with the individual's sense of threat. That anyone would think that Arab terrorists are a creation or convenience of the present administration is evidence of American isolation from the realities of the modern world. I suppose it will take a few more incidents to convince even the most ardent government haters that the threat is real and indiscriminately dangerous. This does not mean that we should, therefore, re-elect a conservative president just because he takes the threat seriously. I hope that candidates like Dean, Kerry, Sharpton and the rest will recognize the enormity of the menace and the extreme steps that must be taken to combat it. I fear that the public, realizing the reality of the threat, will vote for that candidate who is most willing to do something to protect them. In fact, I am scared, and I have every reason to be scared and so have you. We are at war and it is damned well time for us to admit it. Our enemy is dedicated and ruthless. He is on a mission from his God and he doesn't mind dying. He is well financed and without tolerence or pity. He does not have a specific country that can be attacked in retaliation and he does not have a negotiating position. He is neither controlable nor answerable. His supporters are those who finance him and house him and hide him. Those supporters are the "innocents" and the "victims" and that doesn't matter one iota.
For reasons good or bad, these people want us dead and I am not interested in meekly complying with their demands.
By the way, these people don't care about your politics. They are equal opportunity assasins. They kill everyone who isn't them. France has done cartwheels to appease the Arab world and that didn't stop the threats to Air France any more than their allowing terrorist orginizations to operate openly in Paris shield them from raids on Orly. It is time for the left to set some priorities or we will be stuck with Bush and Bushalikes for decades.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Dec 03 - 06:12 PM

Of course those might just be Bushie quarters at times...

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Dec 03 - 05:39 PM

http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/math.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Dec 03 - 05:08 PM

If any of you have the comedy movie 1943 starring John Belushi , check out Robert Stack explaining the color coded threat warnings in the begining of the movie. :D


btw pdc, It occured to me, and I did an editorial cartoon about that last week. "an Al Queda quarter in a phone booth destroys $7 billion of US money."

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Dec 03 - 03:58 PM

I imagine that people in America can expect this kind of thing all this year.   Timed rightly, public warnings could be a very effectuive electoral ploy for Bush and Co.

At the same time, as has been pointed out, leaking phony threats is a great way for Al Qaida (or whoever) to hit the US economy without needing to do anything partucular.

Either way, spasmodically crying wolf every now and again will just help ensure that the security precautions get increasingly slack over a period of time.

The only sensible way to deal with a continuing threat is to maintain a continuing automatic level of caution, and get used to any inconvenience incurred as a way of life.

For example reorganise so as to cut down on the plane travel (we've got the Internet and all that now, electronic conferences and so forth), and build in the delays at the airports for those whose jourtneys are really necessary. And at the same time accept that you are never wholly safe in this life, and live with that.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Dec 03 - 03:32 PM

Got it, pdc! Somebody starts a rumor or says "BOO!" and it all but paralyses the whole country and sucks billions of dollars out of the economy. How's that for a "weapon of mass destruction?" Not even high-tech.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 28 Dec 03 - 01:59 AM

I'd like to make a point that doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone. Although I dislike Bush and his cabal, and distrust everything they do, it occurs to me that Al Qaeda may be pulling something interesting right now. All AQ has to do is make threats of terror -- it doesn't have to perform any actual terrorist acts, to do great damage to the US.

Consider that the Orange Alert level costs $1 billion a week to maintain. That's expensive for a country that is already running an enormous deficit from the ridiculous invasion of Iraq. If a sufficient number of threats are made, Orange Alert could become a "normal" status, with high associated costs. Red Alert would be much worse.

Consider the other costs as well as the financial ones. If the US is forced to live under constant Orange or Red Alerts, the psychological damage to the national psyche will be enormous. If people have to be constantly on guard, watching their neighbours, monitoring the behaviour of others, the US will move into a state of national neurosis which will negatively affect the culture.

Al Qaeda doesn't have to do anything but make threats, in order to wreak great harm, IMO.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: maire-aine
Date: 27 Dec 03 - 11:39 PM

Amen, Brother Bobert. I, too, am volunteering for Howard Dean. I've put most of my other projects on hold (except playing music) since summer, until next November. The rest of the stuff can wait-- We've only got eleven months to get Bush voted out of office.

Maryanne

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Dec 03 - 10:49 PM

I had a beastly time coming home today. First there was a three hour wait at the airport, because there was a "mix up" with my ticket. Then I found out my suitcase had been searched. I am working on Howard Dean's campaign team, and I wish I thought it was a coincidence.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Dec 03 - 10:24 PM

The democrats are funded by the same type of people that the republicans are.Big business is the problem and representative democracy is the system it uses to maintain control.If the populace get too uppity demanding change etc then government sheds it skin and becomes the Democrat party government.The people blame the governments but it's who's behind the governments that are the real cause of the major problems.Government is merely a chameleon that changes it's skin to present a more attractive look to those it regulates,it's still the same beast.

In my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: musicmick
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 02:36 AM

Well, Bobert, I'm glad to see you say it. You really are going to get off your soapbox and into the real fight? I'll believe it when I see it. The only fervor I've seen in the pits has been from the religious right, the feminist left and the professional politicians whose business it is to be involved. When you guys start realizing that political action is a process that is slow, frustrating, disappointing and, ultimately, fruitful, you will be taken seriously.
It will require that you work within the system and that means within the existing party structure. The religious right could have started their own party but they recognized that power was more readily obtainable by backing the Republicans and making themselves a major constituancy. You can do the same in the Democratic party. I hope you do. This nation needs a vocal and effective left wing. At present, the left is as potent as eunich.

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 10:01 PM

Ahhhhh, excuse my overly vulgar post of Dec. 23rd. The P-Vine must have spiked the egg-nog...

But no apologies for the content... Bush and his cronies will do anything, and I mean anything, to hold power. Lie? Check. Cheat? Check. Steal? Check. Kill? Check.

Tell the truth? Forget it.

They are now trying to run out the clock on the '04 elections by sandbagging on the 9/11 Investigations.

You believe that?

Heck, a danged airplane falls into the ocean off New England and they spend months retrieving every nut and bolt of it and reassemble it in a hanger.

But let 19 Saudis hyjack 4 airlines and kill over 3000 people with em' and like, who cares????.... Not Bush? Hmmmmm? Why? Exactly what am I missing here?

Let a golfer's plane fly over a resricted space and F-16's are on it in minutes but let, not one, but 4 airliners drift way off their routes and zip! And after the 1st airliner hit the WTC, why would a 2nd be allowed to do the same when F-16's were within minutes of it yet it didn't hit the 2nd tower until some 20 minutes later? And why did the Bush governemnt allow bin Laden family memebers to be picked up the day after 9/11 when no other airliners were allowed to fly over US airspace except this Saudi airliner? Hmmmmmm? Wasn't it Sauidis that the governemnt had all ready identified as the hyjackers?

Something smells purdy danged bad here, folks.

I'm getting purdy danged tired of being lied to and being sandbagged by the Bush regime...

These guys are the most dangerous folks since Adolf Hitler. They make Joe McCarthy look like a Boy Scout...

We all need to get it into our feeble minds that the come next year, we're gonna have to give up some time that we spend here BS'ing to work on getting these folks out of office... America can't take another 4 years of this brutal assualt on the truth and on democracy....

I'm wearing my "Dean" pin and have my "Dean" bumper stickers on both cars and he if doesn't get nominated, whoever does in the Dem. party, I'll wear their buttonas and slap their stickers over the Dean ones... But, I'm serious, we need to get Bush out before it's too late... And with Diebold doing the counting we're gonna neede 53% of the vote to win....

We need to put a Code Orange on the Bush regime and send Bush back to the ranch...

Sorry about the drift...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: My take on terrorist threat alerts
From: mg
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 08:49 PM

You might want to keep reading the Drudge Report. mg