Playing Politics with Terror Alerts

They are the same people that fall for the Nigerian scams and that believe Kerry will be good for the US as president.

You may already know better, Kristie, but far too many people don't.
Snopes is a great site to send them to.

If they're suggesting something is a scam/whatever, I know that I'd do some more research of my own.

Yes, Snopes is a very valuable resource.

You learn something every day here.

I haven't wanted to go back too many pages cause my computer is slower than malaises. But everyone does know that the information leading the current terror alerts is three days old don't they?

Security alerts hot
Security alerts cold
Security alerts in the pot three years old

blame my grandbaby and mother goose

Sounds like your computer is suffering from "Jimmy Carter syndrome."

Isn't this particular alert 3 years old or something? I heard on some radio station something like that.

Snopes is a very reputable reference source. But the reason you can trust them, as any site run by "academics" and intellectuals, is that they cite their sources. If you don't trust them, you can go back and check their sources.



Sure the threat of terrorism is real. That does not mean the people don't overreact. In this case the woman in question was clearly overreacting.

Some over-reaction is laughable. There is always the impulse to just "do something" whether the action is logical or not. I remember being taught to "duck and cover" as a plausible response to a nuclear attack (I don't know how old you are).

The problem is that often over-reaction hurts innocent people. My uncle was personally hurt by the communist witch hunts. In spite of the fact that he was very patriotic, fought in WW2 and was quite conservative, he was labled as a "communist" by who knows who and investigated. It hurt his career and he was deeply upset by this. Those of us who knew him personally knew how foolish the charge was. But public hysteria of any kind often has innocent victims.

Other examples include the Japanese internment where a real attack lead to a great American injustice.



In this case, it was hysteria. By all accounts except hers, this lady overreacted. She caused a disturbance on the plane, not the muscians who she saw as a threat. The professional marshalls gaurding the plane said she overreacted. The FBI who investigated after the fact said she overreacted. There is no evidence that these musicians have any connection with terrorism. None.

So here is an example of a person "running around, freaking out".



Everyone wants to protect the lives of US citizens.

You are making a false choice between protecing lives and protecting the rights of citizens and non-citizens alike.

We can keep our security and hold to the ideals of liberty and justice that America stands for.

Is that anything like a "nu-kew-lar" meltdown?

Revel, I'd suggest you go to the Computers forum and look for the information about removing spyware from your computer. That should help a great deal.

As far as her overreacting, I flew into Detroit right after 9/11 and there were a bunch of middle eastern men and women on the flight. Believe me, I certainly paid a great deal more attention to them than I normally would have. I still get that feeling in my gut whenever a middle eastern man suddenly stands up on a plane. I don't care what you call it, it's just survival instinct.

No, everyone does not want to protect the lives of US Citizens. And if making a choice between MY rights as a US citizen and the rights of those who are not US citizens is wrong so be it. If they don't like my country and my opinion they can leave.

Which of your rights is being threatened here? Your right to "run around and freak out"?

Are you asking for the right to not fly with Arab musicians?

I don't see where we were making a choice between any of your rights and anything else here? None of your rights (or the rights of this hysterical passenger) were violated in the least.

And Geesh, are you saying that if people don't like your opinion they should leave the country? Maybe you just mean that "non-citizens" who don't agree with you should be forced to leave.

Arab musicians who don't like your opinion should definately be asked to leave.

Let's review. Given that:

a) Bush's approval rating among undecided voters is a stunningly low 32 percent, and...

b) the war on terrorism is the only topic on which Bush has a majority favorable rating...

... you can see why Bush must play the "we're a nation in danger" card to absurd lengths to stay in power. (Obviously the danger exists; the urgent question is whether it's being confronted honestly.)

A month ago, members of Pakistan's security services warned that the Bush White House was planning to distract the U.S. media from John Kerry's moment in the national spotlight by delivering a well-timed al-Qaeda arrest during the convention.

Obviously, if it turned out the Pakistanis were telling the truth, this is prima facie evidence that Bush manipulates the war for his own gain, which disqualifies him not just from holding public office, but from the respect of any decent American.

And of course, this is precisely what happened, when the arrest of what was called a "most wanted" al-Qaeda member (despite his having no known relationship to 9/11) was announced just hours before Kerry's acceptance speech (despite the arrest having taken place several days earlier), conveniently putting a Bush-is-winning-the-war story on the wires side by side with news of Kerry's speech.

So, you conclude, the Bush campaign is using the war for their own ends. Appallingly so.

Ah -- but wait. Bush's people then called up an Orange Alert, which just happened to keep the White House's preferred Bush-as-fearless-leader meme alive while the Kerry campaign has momentum. The timing, however, couldn't be political (Team Bush claimed) because the new alert resulted largely from the arrests in Pakistan, which led to information requiring urgent action.

The Orange Alerts, in essence, help demonstrate that the Thursday announcement wasn't just politics; the two are irrevocably tied. And this is consciously, openly intended to be understood by the press and public as proof that Bush is indispensible, as explicitly stated by Tom Ridge just yesterday (and as I quoted him in the thread's opening post):



If the Orange Alerts are legitimate -- and the media spent the last 24 hours doing a fine job of buying in -- then maybe Bush is right, and the Pakistani intelligence figures who predicted Bush's well-timed PR stunt with uncanny accuracy were just, I dunno, lucky.

And you should all be afraid. Very afraid.

But if not, then Bush and his crew are again revealed as contemptible liars, manipulating the war on terror for their own gain, of late on an almost daily basis.

There's really no middle ground. Either they told the truth, or they didn't.

Bush does not deserve one more minute in the White House.

You know, E_, this set me to thinking. Paranoia about threats can not only lead to injustice, it can actually be injurious to the useful efforts one might make. Lieutenant General Walter Short was the commander of the military district on the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. As the air forces were then the United States Army Air Forces, Short was responsible for all of the air forces in the islands other than Navy and Marine aviation. Short's one and only mission was to protect the naval base. Short however, seems to have believed that the Navy would protect "his" base, and he was only completely comfortable when the fleet was in port. Long before the attack, people in the United States had begun to be suspicious of Japanese-Americans, and this was especially true in the islands, as this was the home of the Pacific Fleet and few people had any illusions as to the likelihood of an eventual clash with the Japanese.

Short decided that "fifth columnists" from the local Japanese-American community were the most likely and dangerous threat to his installations. Therefore, he ordered pursuit aircraft (what we call fighters) to be parked in clusters in the center of the airfields, as far from the fences and the gates as possible. He futher ordered that the ammunition bunkers be kept locked to prevent the chimerical saboteurs form using Army guns to destroy the facilities. The key was to be subjected to the highest level of personal responsibility--a single officer on each base had the key, and signed for it from his predecessor of the previous watch.

When the Japanese attacked, there was a torpedo group, a dive-bomber group, a horizontal bomber group, and a fighter group. The first three homed in on the basin at Pearl Harbor. The fighters found no planes in the air to opposed them, so they peeled off to their secondary targets, Hickam, Wheeler and Bellows fields. Some of the Japanese pilots reported that they did not use their machine guns on the initial pass, because they were so shocked to see all the aircraft bunched-up in the middle of the fields. Two pursuit planes managed to take off from Bellows before the Japanese got there. The commander of the fighters was strafing Hickam field when a pilot rushed out of a hanger firing a .45 automatic pistol at him. He wrote that he pulled up because it made his heart sick to see a valorous man so deprived of the means to defend himself.

The anti-aircraft gun crews had to find bolt cutters to open the locks on the ammo bunkers which were not yet exploded so that a more or less feeble defense could be made against the second and third waves of fighters which came in. Not a single incident of "fifth column" sabotage was reported during the entire attack--not even Short, nor Admiral Husband Kimmel used such an allegation as any part of their respective defenses in the many boards and hearings held afterward. Short's bascially racist-motivated paranoia about the Japanese in Hawaii not only did a great injustice to them, it lead him into such a world of unreality and obsession that he was totally unprepared to effectively deal with the real threat which was bearing down on him from the North Pacific.

I don't feel any safer, either, but not for your reasons... And fwiw, dining on the "fine cuisine" from the golden arches makes me need to frequent the bathroom as well, but it doesn't make me any more a terrorist than those gentlemen were. FTR, not all arabs are terrorists, not all black people like watermelon, not all Texans are gun fanatics, et cetera, et cetera.

Well, I hope that pilot went on to down many Japanese fighters and their occupants.

I also think I could probably down a Zero with a full clip of .45's, if he didn't get me first. Ever seen a zero up close? They're tiny and super light. Maneuverable, but vulnerable.

All of the Japanese aircraft deployed in 1941 were fast, light, and poorly armored, or not armored at all. In terms simply of performance, it was years before we could match their aircraft. But even in early 1940, American pilots in China had learned that the Curtiss Tomahawk could hold together in a dive, even a powered dive, in a manner which no Japanese plan could match. They developed the tactic of "taking the high ground," and then diving through a Japanese formation, and of strictly avoiding dog fights with the Japanese. Later Navy aircraft such as the Corsair and the Hellcat were both heavily armored, as were all American aircraft, both on land and sea, and they were able to perform with the best of the Japanese aircraft. In relative terms, the Japanese aircraft were much more expensive to produce, and that in nation so starved for raw materials that the military had determined to invade the English- and Dutch East Indies to secure said materials. This meant, of course, that they had to consider "what to do about the Americans." Isoruku Yamamoto knew what to do. Yamamoto knew it likely was to eventually prove to have been suicidal to attack the United States. Yamamoto knew that a Japanese attack was inevitable, though, and he used his prestige and influence to accomplish what i personally consider to have been the most amazing and successful naval operation in history. Lucky for us that the command of the First Air Fleet went to Admiral Nagumo based on seniority. That old battleship sailor decide to quit while he was ahead, and launch no futher attacks. Genda and company seethed with enraged frustration. Nagumo's decision was reasonable from the perspective of the professional military man. This is yet another example of why there are many, many Bernard Law Montgomery's in history, but so damned few Frederick of Prussia's.

In relative terms, a "Zero" cost 50% more to produce than a Corsair, and was much more vulnerable in combat. Italian aircraft suffered from a similar problem, high performance and almost no armor. Both Japanese and Italian aviation performance peaked in the late 1930's. By 1942, Japan, Germany and Italy were all relying upon 1930's model aircraft for the main flight line. Both the United States and England continued to produce new models and to overhaul older models throughout the war. Personally, if i had been obliged to fight in the air in that war, i'd have wanted a Republic Thunderbolt . . .

I have given up on trying to fix things on my computer and just have learned to deal with it, but thanks for the advice.

The whole story on the information on the new terror alert is suspect and so obvious.

What Pdiddie said needs to be repeated over and over and over. That is exactly how I understood the events to unfold and why I find it disgusting that anyone would use the American people in this way!

Go back up and read what Pdiddie said a few posts up if you think this alert isn't political.

Initially I didn't think that this current alert was politically motivated. New York has remained at an Orange alert level since 9/11 and they are ratcheting up security in anticipation of the Republican convention anyway.
So, the only new twist in the current alert was the addition of parts of New Jersey and D.C., and the specificity of certain financial institutions as potential targets.
I assumed that such a specific alert would have to be based on very recent information. I also assumed that political motivations would not figure into such a specific alert which basically affects only a small area and a small sector of the country. I also assumed the government would not emotionally terrorize people with questionable alerts issued only for political gain.

One should never assume anything.

After considering all of the information, I do believe it is possible that political motivations may have played a part in the current alert.

If true, that raises the frightening spector of not knowing when to believe this administration regarding any future alerts, and that sort of cynicism and skepticism really does no one any good in the long run. Congress already gave Bush carte blanche to wage war based on faulty intelligence information which was conveyed to them. The combination of faulty intelligence (and there isn't much evidence that our intelligence has substantially improved), plus political maneuvering in the timing of the release of certain information, seems to be a recipe for disaster in addressing the problem of terrorism.

One way to try to circumvent the problem might be to have a national intelligence office attached to Homeland Security which is bi-partisan in nature. While the Director of such an office obviously has to be someone the President can trust, I think that person has to be selected in a non-partisan matter and have bi-partisan Deputy Directors. This should not be just another Presidential appointment. Not only must this person be able to inform the President, he/she must be someone that the Congress can trust not to have any partisan motivations.

The solution would have to involve removing these terror alerts from the possibly of being used as political footballs.

I think the solution also involves not returning Bush to the White House.

Ebrown-

I never said people who don't like my opinion should leave. And opinion is just an opinion. I am saying that if non-citizens don't like this country enough to become a citizen, they should leave. Why are they here?
And with that, I am going to end my posting on this thread because we are just going to have to agree to disagree and honestly I am in a rotten mood this week so I am being meaner than usual. I apologize if I've offended anyone.