Lap Bomber???

[FluffyMcDeath]

[...]when you're at war with terrorists it's not just the troops in Afghanistan that are on the front line, we're all on the front line

That's actually bullshit.

Don't hold back now, tell us how you REALLY feel. :wink:

OK, I will. You know well that the "fight them there so we don't have to fight them here" line is bogus. It a) isn't the way you fight the threat of terrorism b) isn't the reason we are "over there". It is simply the way they sell it to the uneducated rabble who have to supply the kids to hold the guns and catch the bullets.

However until the first Gulf War America's involvement has mostly been behind the scenes -

Principally taking over the roll from Britain after WWII - toppling Mussadegh and installing the Shah in Iran with MI5, and in 1958 MI5 and CIA backed Ba'athists in Iraq to topple Qasim and practically installing Saddam as dictator.

But the US practically owned Saudia Arabia from the 80s on with the arms for selling oil in dollars deal. Bin Laden has always stated that his prime motivation was the US military presence in Saudi Arabia.

Regan was prez when the US lost 299 service men in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983.

Sure, Kuwait added to the pressure, but it wasn't the start. US/UK have been the owners of ME oil for decades after the Germans tried to grab it and they aren't about to let go.

Undoubtedly there are, as you note, many attacks attributed to Al-Qeada, and also, as you note, they have been somewhat haphazard and poorly focused. That is quite indicative of what Al-Qaeda is - a small time loose association of people with various beefs and limited means - not the sort of force you take over terrain and decimate a civilian population for. It is an intelligence scale problem.

All wars are winnable

False on its face. Some wars are draws. Some wars just peter out. Some wars end with all sides losing because they exhaust their resources.

The problem here isn't that we're fighting al-Qaeda, it's that we're fighting al-Qaeda in a really stupid way.

We are fighting Al-Qaeda in a stupid way because we are not fighting Al-Qaeda. If you don't realize what the fight is actually about it just looks like it is being fought in a stupid way. It looks less stupid if you look at it for what it is, resource war.

In the sense that Al-Qaeda IS a threat it is a small and acceptable threat. It almost certainly can't kill anyone of importance. It has enough capabilities to kill ordinary people in a scary way and therefore is more useful alive than dead. Whenever the US actaully gets a chance to do them serious damage they tend to "fail". Torra Borra? Whoops, Bin Laden got away. Mullah Omar got away. In Northern Iraq where Saddam couldn't operate because the US owned the "no-fly zone" is the only place in Iraq where Al-Qaeda linked terrorists could operate with impunity even though the US knew where they were. They chose not to attack them because they a) could be useful in a dirty war b) could be used as justification for a ground assault.

George Bush's immediate response set us on a coarse to failure.

You think? He isn't in power anymore and no-one can think of a politically acceptable way to get out therefore he has achieved permanent occupation and domination of Iraq for decades to come. He failed to join Afghanistan to Iraq by invading Iran but that isn't for want of trying. Having to negotiate logistics through Russia and Pakistan really has crimped that campaign and may be what dooms it in the end.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

@ Mike

And some wars just last a really really long time.

 

[cecilia]

Yes, I remember that. The security cameras are everywhere and yet - they almost never seem to work. Isn't that amazing. Someone made money installing them though, but one wonders whether they ever installed real cameras at all, or they just installed fakes and pocketed the difference.

Actually, I think the cameras were working, I saw footage of the guy kissing his girl on the TV news. You can even see it on youTube: Newark Airport Security Breach Video Footage. It gets interesting at the 5:30 mark.

I think those cameras were owned by the airline and not the airport or some such detail.

bottom line: the airport fucked up

 

[cecilia]

esp when I was in HS wearing that uniform.

Ummm.. got any photos? :mrgreen:

har har :roflmao:

 

[cecilia]

The fact that the scanners would not have detected the kind of device that the underbomber carried means that they are already obsolete. That aside, how would you feel about the scanners if you knew that they were capable of capturing and saving images? because, they can. Simply by delivering the unit with the feature turned off does not mean that it can't be turned back on, but it does give the TSA some leeway about how it can describe them to the public. Since the new technology can be trivially tied to the new passports, it would be trivial to build a naked database and since it is trivial then it will be done probably quietly on the excuse that it could constitute important evidence if something later happens to the aircraft. And from then on it becomes part of the security record and the FBI will be able to access it and eventually the police will get access - still feeling OK with it? And, yes, Mike is right, eventually the police will be carrying these things in their pockets and scanning people at random stops - and all police officers are trustworthy and not corrupted by the power.

I'm not joyful about these scanners - just that being mauled is worse in my mind.

and my point is that the airports are SO stupid and incompetent that them thinking they can try tricks like getting a scanner makes me not want to take a plane ever again.

I said this long ago, if you want to catch a criminal - Think like a criminal! no need to waste money on silly devices when what is really required is using ones imagination.

frankly, I just feel that the airports are so desperate to not lose money that they throw all this bullshit - "yeah, we are protecting YOU"

whatever. stupid smokescreen.

you don't catch criminals by treating everyone like a criminal and then hoping the "real" criminal falls into your lap (pun intended).

 

[faethor]

2 year old on TSA list gets frisked

 

[cecilia]

I wouldn't trust toddlers either

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

I said this long ago, if you want to catch a criminal - Think like a criminal! no need to waste money on silly devices when what is really required is using ones imagination.

frankly, I just feel that the airports are so desperate to not lose money that they throw all this bullshit - "yeah, we are protecting YOU"

It's not really about catching criminals. It's all about the control architecture of society and how you drive that wedge. Schools already have metal detectors. Scanners will come one day too, especially in the "less good" schools, you know, the ones where the poor people go.

Social disparity is reaching a point the point where the population could start to get a bit hard to handle if the proper systems aren't in place to prevent them from trying to challenge the exploiters.

Every little crisis is an excuse to clamp down on the citizens a bit more. You just have to keep on doing it a bit at a time. The old timers may complain about it but most of them are scared of terr'ists so they'll accept whatever constraints on their freedom because, heck, they never used it anyway. If you're a conformist, the idea of freedom isn't of much use anyway.

20 year olds today won't even remember what it was like before 9/11 because they were still dependents and not politically aware or involved then. They'll be having their kids around now and in another 20 years the folks who remember how much freer it used to be will be dying off. And it's not like we are on the first wave of this.

Restrictions on the web to stop kiddie porn aren't about kids. It's just about getting the same sort of abilities to track and shut down internet users that are subversive. It's the same thing as China does and for the same reasons but with better PR.

The no-fly list has a lot of Muslims on it, mostly arbitrarily, but it also contains names of "trouble makers", people who are involved in movements to organize the poor, union reps, intellectuals, etc. But it won't have your name on it if you ARE a terrorist but the CIA thinks that it can turn you as a double agent though not all double agents work out so well - boom!

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Speaking of airport security in general, I hear there was another "crisis" with a passenger in a secured area and once again it caused mayhem and shut downs. Life is getting easier for the terrorists now, eh? All they have to do is wander into the wrong area and instantly millions of dollars are wasted and hundreds of passengers are inconvenienced. The upside of this action is that you are still alive afterwards. This is a huge improvement over suicide bombings as it should be easier to recruit and repeat strikes become practical.

meanwhile, did you hear about the guy they took into custody in Ireland for having bomb parts in his luggage?

Wouldn't want to be that guy.

Another case of "if you didn't do anything wrong, you have nothing to fear"?

 

[faethor]

If you believe you'll find weapons you will

"In one trial, 50 percent of the scans showed a gun or knife in the bag. In this test, subjects did fairly well, only missing the weapons about 7 percent of the time....
...In another trial, the guns and knives appeared much more infrequently - in only 2 percent of bags. This time, subjects missed the weapon 30 percent of the time"

In other words if you are used to seeing something it's easy to find. If it's the exception to the rule then it's more difficult. Also I think this speaks to the Israel solution of talking to people. If you get the impression they are 'guilty' you are more likely to look at them and their items for weapons.

 

[faethor]

The reason we can't just scan people wearing burka's getting on airplanes. There exists Christian Milita from central US This isn't the first time such an organization existed and is far from the last.