Domestic terrorism

[-- Dusty]

I was thinking about this terrorism issue, and I think I figured out how the terrorists are doing it. Make a few attempts, advertise it, and then make a few half-assed attempts later on in areas not previously covered.

Look at the TSA now. Feeling people up in a manner that in any other industry would at best get people fired for (and worst, charged with sexual assault), yet known that they still won't find much IF anything dangerous.
Running people through an x-ray machine that years ago was turned down because of the carcinogenic potential (and has not been upgraded). And the same thing- it MIGHT find something. Under best of conditions.

The ill-logic TSA uses totally escapes me. Likely because logic itself escapes TSA.

If they are fearful of the shoe bomber, keep in mind that Richard Reid was a British citizen. Remember the underwear bomber? Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab? Last I knew Umar is a Nigerian citizen. Now reflect on the 9/11 terrorists.

American Airlines Flight 11 hijackers: Mohamed Atta (Egyptian), Waleed al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian), Wail al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian), Abdulaziz al-Omari (Saudi Arabian), Satam al-Suqami (Saudi Arabian). I don't see anyone AMERICAN in there, do you?

What about United Airlines Flight 175? Marwan al-Shehhi (United Arab Emirati), Fayez Banihammad (United Arab Emirati), Mohand al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian), Hamza al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian), Ahmed al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian). Again, any AMERICANS?

And the same for American Airlines Flight 77 and United Airlines Flight 93. Hani Hanjour (Saudi Arabian), Khalid al-Mihdhar (Saudi Arabian), Majed Moqed (Saudi Arabian), Nawaf al-Hazmi (Saudi Arabian), Salem al-Hazmi (Saudi Arabian), Ziad Jarrah (Lebanese), Ahmed al-Haznawi (Saudi Arabian), Ahmed al-Nami (Saudi Arabian), and finally Saeed al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian). They don't seem very AMERICAN, do they?

Yet AMERICANS are forced to go through body searches? The same body searches that not only won't find an underwear bomb, but the same radiological equipment that has been refused many times in the past because of not only it's faulty detection characteristics but also carcinogenic potential.

Last I knew the only terrorist act committed by an American is the OKC bombing with Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Not counting the kid from California, Another from Michigan and then one out of Portland.

I won't fly because I already know that if I ever fly I will be profiled because I exercise my Freedom of Speech.

If I didn't know any better I'd say it's the TSA we should be worried about, not the Taliban.

So someone please explain this terrorism stuff to me.

 

[George]

Money wise the Terrorists get a big bang for the money invested, even if it fails. There are usually a few hundred incidents each year in the US that are classified as domestic terrorism. Many are Eco-Terrorists or Animal Rights Terrorists, & many are kids blowing up mail boxes with soda bombs. The Israelis look for Terrorists, we harrass everyone under the silly "we are all equal in out democracy" concept. A Senator isn't going to be a Terrorist, yet he/she is expected to go through the same pat downs. A security guy tried to take Joe Foss's (former Governor & head of the N.R.A., winner of the M.O.H.) M.O.H. from him because the moron thought it might be used as a 'throwing Star". Absolute nutty thinking. There is something like 5 million Moslems here, many immigrants. Some radical Somalis are turning up, + others.

 

[Ted]

That is the time we are living in... Because of the dangers of terrorism all citizens of all countries are possible perpetrators. Because it isn't obvious who is going to blow himself up, all are equally suspicious.
Because the the people, who are supposed to protect us, don't know who will commit acts of terrorism, they made legislation in which everybody is a suspect. They don't have to prove much before they can take you in preemptively. We, as a group constituents, have rendered ourselves, powerless against the one group which is meant to protect us. We lost from our own fear!

 

[Yossarian]

Still all politics aside, the domestic terror plots that the general public does hear much about still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I do agree absolute that the side effect of the shock of domestic terror is that security can and does sometimes infringe on the rights of the private citizen.

I agree with saftey all the way, but somtimes the warranted situations wich high security infringes on said rights in places of mass transit for example are just riduculous.

 

[old woody]

Still all politics aside, the domestic terror plots that the general public does hear much about still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I do agree absolute that the side effect of the shock of domestic terror is that security can and does sometimes infringe on the rights of the private citizen.

I agree with safety all the way, but somtimes the warranted situations wich high security infringes on said rights in places of mass transit for example are just riduculous.

It's worth note that in my flights last year,I never went through an X Ray personally. I went through a metal detector and I knew to not fly with a lot of metal "stuff" that can't be in the bags,trays etc. easily. Ironically, they took a half a ball of Mozzarella cheese I'd been snacking on the first leg of the flight. The goof said it's a gel. While that's dumb, it's not worth arguement,so next time, I snacked on cheddar and cookies. Mozzarella as an edible weapon/ I doubt McGiver could dream up something. Fine.

It does beat having another 9/11.

Yes,the norm has been that terrorists have middle eastern roots and are islamic. Most are young. There are European and African Muslims that do not look Arab,and there are Greeks,Mexicans,Indians who could pass for Arab. The "one size fits all" policy does a basic screen on everyone.

Domestic terrorism exists with no Jihadist,middle east connections and it's a different thing.

Whether it's a wingnut bunch of weekend "soldiers" scared of the One World Order or whatever,some racist or religious cults,some criminal gangs,there's been some 'terrorist" stuff. Typically, those types have no urge to be a martyr,and they have no major financial backing. They also probably look at very specific targets for specific reasons and are not okay with a lot of collateral damage.

Then...there's always the exception.

Terrorism is by it's nature counterproductive...yet is efficient in terms of raising fear and doing damage when the terrorists have NO chance to actually GAIN anything. It also is a cowardly and scorned way of promoting a cause and thus doomed to fail. Any merit the cause had goes down the sewer with the ugly tactics used.

 

[LeMask]

Well, what's your point?

That we should just search "brown people"? Or following the color of the passport?

Terrorism will then stop sending Arab/black terrorists, and they will send you women, then children, then blonds with big TNT boobs...

And by treating our immigrants inside our country like potential terrorists, we might even convince them that it's the case.

I personally think it's BS, we gave these small phenomenons enough publicity...

Tobacco kills far more people than terrorism and we dont see SWAT teams blowing up doors to get cigarette sellers...

Well, good job making terrorism such a powerful weapon... Yesterday it was a tactic capable of killing a few people, now, it's a tool to remodel the world.

 

[Yossarian]

Well, what's your point?

That we should just search "brown people"? Or following the color of the passport?

Terrorism will then stop sending Arab/black terrorists, and they will send you women, then children, then blonds with big TNT boobs...

And by treating our immigrants inside our country like potential terrorists, we might even convince them that it's the case.

I personally think it's BS, we gave these small phenomenons enough publicity...

Tobacco kills far more people than terrorism and we dont see SWAT teams blowing up doors to get cigarette sellers...

Well, good job making terrorism such a powerful weapon... Yesterday it was a tactic capable of killing a few people, now, it's a tool to remodel the world.

I'm so confused....

You lost me at explosive breasts... And their apparent connection to heart disease and lung cancer?

I do agree on the one size fits all policy, but as of now, apparently nobody is coming up with something better.

As far as it stands now, we have all the bad people inside the country, crashing planes into IRS buildings and burning down dog pounds, and all the bad people outside the country, setting POWs in front of cameras and beheading them.

There is a lot more to this than may meet the eye, but the fine line between safty and outright discrimintion has to be kept in strict check.

 

[-- Dusty]

After watching how things have been transpiring lately over the protests & revolutions in the Middle East as well as the political activities here state-side, I am inclined lean towards what Abbie Hoffman wrote: "You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists."

America is tightening it's grip on it's people, in a futile attempt (I presume) to quell any similar revolutions here. Failing to realize that the more they tighten their grip on us, the more they lose grasp on the freedoms and the respect of the people. There is no reason to have the extent of the laws we have today. How about you ground your children from eating ice cream and prohibiting them from going outside without a GPS transmitter implanted because an ice cream truck was once part of a kidnapping scheme in the 70's? Do you see the relation? The relevance? To me it is clear. Is it to you?

 

[LeMask]

Yossarian, I just think that terrorism have a very very limited ability to kill people. It's main power is to change you, to push you to coward behind silly foreign policies, you close yourself, and then, you die slowly...

Just take a big country, and tell people that you are going to kill one person every day. It's a major problem. Of course. But it means that you will kill 350 people a year. But if everybody in the country starts panicking like idiots... You will lose 100 people a day... And the whole country will change. If it was a peaceful country where everybody was nice and polite, they will turn slowly into savages, racists, bigots, paranoiac characters accusing each others...

Terrorism cant kill you... But your reaction to terrorism is the critical part.

A 9/11 attack cant bring America down... But two illegal wars against the will of the international community can weaken its relations.

And if yesterday we had a few terrorists in a cave in Afghanistan, now, thanks to the unrest in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are hiring like crazy and they have many areas of the world to control.
Even the criminals who were roaming in the Sahara areas (Mali, Mauritania etc...) joined the "label" Al-Quaeda.

And the more errors the military will make in these wars (killing civilians, war crimes etc...) the more they will spread their doctrine to other populations.

A father crying about the soldiers who raped and burned his 14 years old girl is a pretty universal call. You dont need to be Arab to feel some anger and some despair... All you have to do is to be human.

So of course we will have much more domestic terrorism...

 

[Yossarian]

Yossarian, I just think that terrorism have a very very limited ability to kill people. It's main power is to change you, to push you to coward behind silly foreign policies, you close yourself, and then, you die slowly...

Just take a big country, and tell people that you are going to kill one person every day. It's a major problem. Of course. But it means that you will kill 350 people a year. But if everybody in the country starts panicking like idiots... You will lose 100 people a day... And the whole country will change. If it was a peaceful country where everybody was nice and polite, they will turn slowly into savages, racists, bigots, paranoiac characters accusing each others...

Terrorism cant kill you... But your reaction to terrorism is the critical part.

A 9/11 attack cant bring America down... But two illegal wars against the will of the international community can weaken its relations.

And if yesterday we had a few terrorists in a cave in Afghanistan, now, thanks to the unrest in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are hiring like crazy and they have many areas of the world to control.
Even the criminals who were roaming in the Sahara areas (Mali, Mauritania etc...) joined the "label" Al-Quaeda.

And the more errors the military will make in these wars (killing civilians, war crimes etc...) the more they will spread their doctrine to other populations.

A father crying about the soldiers who raped and burned his 14 years old girl is a pretty universal call. You dont need to be Arab to feel some anger and some despair... All you have to do is to be human.

So of course we will have much more domestic terrorism...

One I am not dying slowly, and two yes war crimes have happened, but this is the Coalition we are talking about, not the Mongol hordes, there is a high degree of professionalism there.


And Afghanistan did not have a "few" terrorists, it had a dedicated system of idealogy and a manufacturing bases to train and harbor international and deadly dissedents who fought for the cause.

I am not scared of the terror threat, just pissed.

Yes the cases about fighting men in the Middle East committing atrocities is very unfortunate.

But the cases of railways being bombed, crowds lit up, Embassy's being bombed, service men an women beheaded, and not to mention close to 3,000 innocents killed in one day. And do not dare tell me it was ten years ago and does not count.

I guess that gives them all right to do what they wish? You say there are swelling in number, maybe, but maybe it's because they are the only one's hiring.

And do you think that both domestic terror cells and international one's do not commit atrocities? That they are not responisble for rapes murders and pilaged thefts?

Why do you think that in the warzones in the Middle East alone, that village elders ask the Coalition not to leave there settlement in fear of Taliban retalitation? Because they know exactly what they would do to them.

Yes there is another side of the fence when it come's to terrorism, but it is nowhere near as pretty, and any terror group is not just like "us" living by their cause by no means.

I am not calling for arrogance, it's just trying to aviod it by sending out bombs to kill inoccents for no good reason what so ever does not help avoid that either.

 

[LeMask]

I just love making ridiculous comparisons...

But by our modern standards, the Coalition isnt better than the Mongol hordes. Back in these days, slavery, death, pillage etc were pretty much common in warfare.

And I cant help but think about how Iraqi administrations responsible of oil production were protected and how the museums holding the remains of one the first civilized societies in the world were left with no protection and at the mercy of looters.

I dont know how the professionalism intervenes in this balance...

But what I know is that the military arent trained, equiped and sufficiently aware of the situation to be the right tool to fight terrorism.

And terrorism wont disappear in a century or even more... It's here to stay.

And the military forces we have are too expensive. We cant rely on them for long endless battles...

I think that the best force we could have against terrorism would be intelligence work & also reworking our political structure.

Terrorism isnt a military weapon, but a political weapon. We have to be in the right battlefield.

 

[03USMC]

You realize that the museums that were looted during the Battle of Baghdad while coalition forces were advancing and clearing and the Iraqi forces were retreating and the Fedahian were conducting insurgent ops. right?

Hard to secure places when the action is fluid and moving.

 

[-- Dusty]

The problem discussed here is, as the OP I feel the need to clarify, not international terrorism, but domestic terrorism. Amarah is not down the highway from Auburn. Toliahuh is not across the river from St. Louis.

 

[LeMask]

Well, I wasnt there to know the details. I was just explaining that they moved to hold the administrations of the oil and energy buildings before thinking about the museums.

If I was part of the leadership behind these decisions, I would have focused my whole energy on protecting what is irreplaceable. And what's in these museums is... While I really cant imagine what's so important in the building of a corrupt regime like Saddam's...

And we are talking about domestic terrorism Hmmmmm. You know that it's easy to blame the Coalition, as we expect a lot from them and that we judge them as all-powerful and capable of doing what they want.

If the Coalition kills 10 civilians "by mistake" and that the terrorists kill 1000, the focus will be on the Coalition.
It's not a civilization battle between the Muslim culture and Western culture... Only in a few mind. In fact, it's a fight in our own level of civilization.

It's time to behave correctly after years of misbehavior. Domestic terrorism is the proof that it's not always a foreign force trying to destroy us... Sometimes, it's someone that's pissed off at the actual power and trying to "fix it" through violence.

We have to defend ourselves of course. No way we are going to tell the terrorists "okay, do whatever you want, it's your right." if someone is threatening your life, destroy him... But control the violence you will use, because if you harm an innocent person, you will make the problem worse.

Our best weapons are good politics and fair justice. The day we wont have the "pure evil and corruption" tag on our asses, no one will want to shove explosives in his body to blow us off when we take a plane...

 

[03USMC]

Right. You weren't there. You have no idea what the OPLAN was or where the resistance was encountered, so basically your blowin smoke yet again.

 

[LeMask]

Well 03USMC, I remember the reports on the news, all the looting that happened in Baghdad when the coalition entered the city.

They took the country in a few weeks... But the war lasted for years. So, I dont have to know their plan to say that it didnt work well.

And honestly, if you studied management, you would know that management of "human structure", civilian or not, is very messy... it's rare to see a healthy structure, because this structure will grow to a point where people will have responsibilities beyond their skills/knowledge.

Look at what's happening in Japan. A nightmare with a lot of radioactivity. And these guys were professionals, and Japanese, highly disciplined people... And look at the results.

Experts are overrated sir.

 

[GHR]

Sorry I´m fftopic:

And honestly, if you studied management, you would know that management of "human structure", civilian or not, is very messy... it's rare to see a healthy structure, because this structure will grow to a point where people will have responsibilities beyond their skills/knowledge.

You can’t compare civilian leadership with military leadership. There is a difference between civilian and military leadership. The military characteristics (managerial) makes that the military only conditional can use civilian leadership and management theories.

The military makes use of an interaction in their governance, which switch between leadership, depending on whether it is performed in the operating structure or during war and war-like conditions. Interactions are also depending on the resolution level you are on, tactical, operational or strategic, and the time constraints, the environment you are in (the threat level). The exchange is trained continuously and the volatility there is hereby achieved is a goal in itself for the military leader. This kind of leadership is called situational leadership

For quite general to understand the difference between civilian and military leadership we need to go one step up and ask if there is a difference between military and civilian thinking. Nobody is born as a military or civilian, and therefore the difference is a product of the environment that surrounds you. Management of men under pressure, combined with the use of force and a statistically relatively high chance of losing life is an exceptional combination that is unique to the military.

Civilian leaders usually receive no formal training in management. Recruitment takes place mostly within the organization by "promotion to the command" or managers with the right qualifications are obtained from outside the firm. A course can then complement the development and training of leaders. Military leaders are trained from scratch.

Experts are overrated sir.

Yes, it's an attitude you have proven time and again.