BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved

Subject: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: lamarca
Date: 13 Mar 02 - 05:44 PM

What planet are we on?

The Washington Post reported today that Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi's approved student visas arrived this week at the Florida flight school where they trained before flying into the World Trade Center towers on September 11 (see article here).

Why are we passing new laws to limit personal freedoms and turn America into an armed camp in the name of security, when we can't even enforce the laws we already had in place?

Not expecting an answer to my rhetorical question - this is just a bewildered cry at the stupidity of it all and the futility of trying to advocate rational responses to an irrational situation....

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 13 Mar 02 - 05:46 PM

You said it all Mary. Simply (or at least it should be) unbelievable.

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: SharonA
Date: 13 Mar 02 - 06:12 PM

I love the quote in that article from Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.): "The Immigration & Naturalization Service is the Mickey Mouse Club of federal agencies, but this actually would indicate that's an insult to Mickey Mouse,"

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Mar 02 - 06:19 PM

Would you have any difficulty getting a student visa in the name of Mickey Mouse?

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Mar 02 - 06:29 PM

Did you see Ted Koppel's Nightline last night? There was an extensive segment on the INS. Evidently this is not a rare kind of thing or even unexpected. Unbelievable.

It's a great wonder this country functions as well as it does.

Ebbie

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: greg stephens
Date: 13 Mar 02 - 06:29 PM

I tend to feel that incompetent bureucracy is basically a good thing. It can be irritating, it can be downright dangerous, but the alternative, of super-efficient bureaucracy, will lead to a nightmare state. Connect up your super computers to each other if you must, but it will end in tears.

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Mar 02 - 06:51 PM

But what about a super-efficient incompetant bureaucracy?

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Mar 02 - 07:23 PM

To combine super-efficiency with incompetence is a scary notion indeed. I believe some of the British commanders managed to do so in both the French & Indian War and the American Revolution. One of them was named Braddock, and he lost a whole army doing it, when he was attacked by a large force of Indians in the deep forest.

My computer also tends to do it when playing wargames against me, committing certain errors in strategy that must be seen to be believed, while it totals up every last jot and tittle with superb accuracy.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: Gareth
Date: 13 Mar 02 - 07:33 PM

Reminds me of the "joke" about Staff Office assesments.

1/. This Officer is brilliant and hard working - he should get promotion but not to the top as he clutters his mind with unneccessary details.

2/. This Officer is brilliant, and lazy. Full promotion as he will delegate and will not fill his mind with uneccessary detail.

3/. This Officer is stupid and lazy - Some use may be made of him.

4/. This Officer is Stupid and hard working. He is a danger to the Army.

Actually, whats the betting that sooner or later some B Fool will ask the flying schools "Did this Student graduate ?"

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 13 Mar 02 - 07:41 PM

Gareth, of course there is also the one (possibly apocryphal) by the Colonel of a Cavalry Regiment:

"I cannot recommend breeding from this Officer..."

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 14 Mar 02 - 12:24 AM

As far as I understand it, about 4 years ago, one of my brothers lost his visa and had a hell of a struggle to get back to the US to finish a couple of affairs like sell his RV he had bought (he'd pretty near sold up everything he had to buy the RV and have a planned year in America) because a "friend" of his was caught growing a cannabis plant in his house (in the UK) and blamed my brother who pleaded guilty and then had a criminal record...

Apparently the US certainly had systems and enforced them then... Scary to think what they made a fuss of and what they let through...

Jon

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Mar 02 - 09:18 AM

American gov't agencies in general have a strange approach, which is to ignore almost everything, but to pick the odd case for draconian enforcement--the theory being that one case of "getting tough" makes it look like they are doing their job--

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: greg stephens
Date: 14 Mar 02 - 09:23 AM

Sounds much like the Public Entertainment License situation in England.

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: InOBU
Date: 14 Mar 02 - 10:22 AM

Two friends in law school had terrible visa problems. One, who was an Irish citizen and resident alian, did not know how or that he had to register for the draft... seems to me in stead of avoiding war by accdident, if he had made war on the US, he'd of gotten his visa? Eh? Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 14 Mar 02 - 12:58 PM

As to the student visas arriving at the flight school, while they are egregiously late, if they'd been processed timely it would have made no difference to the outcome.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: Ebbie
Date: 14 Mar 02 - 01:30 PM

Uncle DaveO, but did no one who compiled/assessed/stamped those documents say to themselves: Hmmmm. There's something familiar about this face/name/situation...?

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: lamarca
Date: 14 Mar 02 - 02:00 PM

Actually, Uncle Dave, I think that Mohamed Atta was on several watch lists at the time his application was submitted. If the folks at the INS had done their jobs and correctly checked those lists in a timely fashion, a lot of people both here in the US and in Afghanistan would still be alive.

Most of the people in government agencies are low-level employees, working boring jobs with essentially a lifetime tenure for mediocre pay with reasonably good benefits (I know - I'm one of them, writing Mudcat while at my government desk in my government job). I don't know what the solution is, but to give those bored and inefficient people in the INS, and Justice, and the IRS, and the new "Office of Homeland Security" the power to make decisions which will affect the lives and liberties of all Americans is a frightening thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: SharonA
Date: 14 Mar 02 - 02:01 PM

Ebbie: If they had, they would've saved face by not mailing the approval to the flight school, but I'm glad they didn't simply because they exposed their incompetency. Now they'll be watched more closely, and at least some improvements are sure to be made (at the very least, some incompetent heads will roll!). It's like trying to get a traffic light installed at a dangerous intersection: no one wants to spend the money on it until after someone dies there.

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Mar 02 - 03:32 PM

The good news? No ethnic profiling going on at the INS.

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Mar 02 - 04:17 PM

Sorry to bring it up guys but don't forget that Osama bin Laden was once welcomed with open arms and then trained by the CIA. Don't forget that the terrorists of today were the freedom fighters we supported last week. Who knows what they will become tomorrow but at the end of the day we are all pawns of the stupid games politicians play. Not that I'm cynical or anything...;-)

Dave the Gnome

Subject: RE: BS: Terrorists' Student Visas Approved
From: catspaw49
Date: 14 Mar 02 - 04:23 PM

My first reaction when this story broke a few days ago really hasn't changed at all......."Yeh, that's about right." I mean it would really behoove us all to remember as we relinquish our rights in the name of "fighting terrorism and safeguarding the Homeland" that THESE are the kind of assholes we are giving them up to!!!!

Spaw