WASHINGTON - There is an increased risk of a large-scale terrorist attack against the United States by al-Qaida prior to the Nov. 2 election
[quote=“cableguy”]WASHINGTON - There is an increased risk of a large-scale terrorist attack against the United States by al-Qaida prior to the Nov. 2 election
There’s always fresh warnings of terrorist activity whenever the Bush Administration wants to distract everyone’s attention from fresh revelations of their own incompetence. It’s like the boy who cried “wolf” in that its overall effect seems to be counterproductive. 9-11 Commission hammers the Bushies again? Uh-oh! Orange alert! Bushies get caught completely lying about the number of terror attacks last year? Uh-oh! Here better turn on the flashing-red-with-siren alert! The American people don’t need bogeyman bullshit. They need a president who actually funds the Homeland Security positions and gets them filled. They need CIA, FBI and all the rest of the alphabet soup communicating. They need a president who doesn’t divert billions of dollars into a completely fruitless search for nonexistent WMD.
There’s no contradiction between saying that the general risk of terror has grown (e.g., see the massive growth in terror attacks in the past year) while also knowing these unspecific nationwide “alerts” are a big waste of time and resources. It’s like somebody put Jeanne Dixon in charge of telling us what color alert we’re going to have today: “Today may be a bad day for Capricorns to be on the road…”
Yes there is.
so you guys think the government should stop issuing warnings? instead we should pretend everything’s ok until the next big strike hits. hey, at least we won’t be needlessly alarmed in the meantime.
i remember people were whining about the government’s warnings against travel to indonesia before the bali bombing. funny how none of them ever said anything again after the bombings.
No there isn’t.
From an outsider point of view I think you oversimplify the situation, it’s not a question if warnings should be issued but rather as to how credible those warning are and how much information is given to the public; reminding people of a potential threat could be done by anyone (say, the mainstream media).
However if there is no detailed information and/or an elevated level associated with the warning then people might take it for granted sooner or later and loose trust in the government’s assessment of such threats.
Releasing photos in an “America’s Most Wanted” sort of way might work once in a while… suggesting that we all need to watch out for something completely not specified seems like a big typical Republican wankathon.
No there isn’t.[/quote]
Yes, there
is
.
Yo, cabledude, would you believe a leftist anti-American source like the New York Times?
story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s … a_qaeda_dc
[quote]Bin Laden Aims to Attack U.S. This Year - NY Times
29 minutes ago [about 00:45 EDT]
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden, believed to be hiding along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, is directing an al Qaeda effort to launch an attack in the United States sometime this year, The New York Times reported on Friday, citing unnamed U.S. officials.[/quote]
Bush bad, NYT good. Right??
Just how loud and long do you think the Bush critics would scream if no warning were given prior to a terrorist act in the US for which the Bush administration had some, even if ambiguous, intel?
cableguy?
Well, I suppose they would scream until they died or jumped from the flaming building they were trapped in. Of course, I am assuming that anybody knowing that they were dying because of further Bush administration gross incompetence would become yet another “Bush critic” even if only for a few brief minutes while they pondered their impending fate.
And immediately after, if Bush remains true to form, we would go invade yet another completely unrelated country. If we’re smarter, we’ll chose a country like the Duchy of Grand Fenwick that craves American redevelopment money.
Yo, cabledude, would you believe a leftist anti-American source like the New York Times?
story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s … a_qaeda_dc
[quote]Bin Laden Aims to Attack U.S. This Year - NY Times
29 minutes ago [about 00:45 EDT]
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden, believed to be hiding along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, is directing an al Qaeda effort to launch an attack in the United States sometime this year, The New York Times reported on Friday, citing unnamed U.S. officials.[/quote]
Bush bad, NYT good. Right??[/quote]
Sorry but you are reading the article incorrectly. The NYTimes is not saying that there is a direct threat against the American people. THey are simply reporting what has been told to them by the Bush people. THus, they are doing their job. This is far different than what the Bush folks are doing by putting forth vague information that America is under threat of attack.
Bush is a horrible world leader who had no clear vision as far as an international policy was concerned beyond the refrain “Let’s get Hussein.” Where is bin Lauden? We have caught Hussein but where is the mastermind of 911, bin Lauden?
We are being asked to believe that the world is a safer place with Hussein out of the picture. In the meantime, more and more Americans and other foreign troops are dying on a daily basis. Bush has screwed up the world. He did what he set out to do which was to get Hussein. Ok, now what? Hussein is a walking dead man but the world is not safer from terrorism because Bush was more interested in toppling Hussein that catching bin Lauden.
The Magnificent Tigerman wrote [quote]Just how loud and long do you think the Bush critics would scream if no warning were given prior to a terrorist act in the US for which the Bush administration had some, even if ambiguous, intel?[/quote]
Ambiguous information is worthless. If there is a threat around every corner, and we are told that is what is happening, how are free people everywhere suppose to respond? Hide in our houses? Carry weapons? Simply putting out the warning without any specific information about when and where the threat is located is not helpful at all. It simply scares an already scared public.
Certain people need to know if there is a threat, like law enforcement and the military, but until the Bush people are ready to let us average folks know how we can protect ourselves, which will happen when they disseminate specific information, then simply saying there is a “threat” does no good. And I don’t think that any rational person would argue that the general public needs to know about vague threats aimed at American citizens.
However, perhaps you could enlighten me as to how simply telling the general public there is a threat, without being more specific, actually helps anyone?
Is it not more difficult for terrorists to operate in an environment where most people are on a higher state of alertness?
I would think this would be obvious.
It helps to issue a warning because if anything indeed did happen, you would seem to be doing your job. If no actual terrorist attacks occur, then you would be inclined to shrug it off.
Tigerman:
So if this is a serious deal, why has the alert color status not been raised? Isn’t that why it was created?
If “There is an increased risk of a large-scale terrorist attack against the United States by al-Qaida,” why isn’t Homeland Security upping the alert level?
Oh, right. It’s meaningless.
It’s useless from the standpoint of American security … and probably harmful if you consider the unfocused waste of resources and the gradual desensitization to real dangers. However, it has some utility for the Bush administration in the same sort of way that a big sparkling magic wand has utility for a cheap stage magician in distracting attention.
Now, the first time the Bush administration cried “Wolf” (no offense intended), people were wrapping their houses in plastic wrap and duct tape. The returns have been diminishing quite substantially – eventually no alert level will be able to distract from the Bush administration’s gross incompetence.
I’m kind of with Rascal on this one.
The alerts in and of themselves, I think, serve a valuable purpose. If and when the authorities have information, informing the public that they have something that leads them to believe there may be an attack is the right to do. And Tigerman’s right, in a more alert society, such attacks would be at least a little harder to execute. And in this case, even you more vocal opponents of the system have to admit, some kind of attack on a major campaign event or some such would be logical. There’d be all kinds of opportunities, and it’d be a high profile, high-“turnover” attack that way too.
That said, though, a few specifics now and then would do a world of good, IMHO. Sure, if they don’t have specifics, they don’t have them, but when they do have them, releasing a few - I’m not saying all, just enough to give an idea of what is suspected to happen - details would give the alert extra impact and make it at least seem more “real.” And that could also help sway (and thus protect) some of those who doubt the credibility of the authorities. If they can be seen as having specific information and not just generalised warnings, it could only strengthen their position.
Don’t know what’s more scary. The perceived threat of terrorist attacks or the paranoid/schizophrenic US reaction to these (often unspecified) threats. The US is under siege; not by Islamofascists but by its own security ‘services’ stationed on almost every street corner and in every building. What a crap country to be in: innocents are made to feel guilty just by not necessarily being American and flying the flag. As with most political things American, the reaction to terrorism is totally over the top and questionable in efficacy. I would subscribe to the notion that the alert system in place is being used as a political tool to scare and dupe the American public. Thin end of the wedge in a nascent totalitarian state.