Why does the government keep telling us to watch out??

Hey, if I were the Administration, and I was being attacked by the opposition party for not sounding the alarm for any and all threats that came through the grapevine no matter how vague, I'd be having a press conference every day talking about each and every threat that comes out regardless of how credible or how specific. If the public isn't warned about every single threat and something happens, the opposition will only use it against you later.

 

Actually, that may or may not be the reason. I was just saying what I would do, but I'm a petty little man (that's not to say that the current administration isn't either).

It may very well be that the public is being warned because law enforcement cannot be everywhere, so they have to rely on the public to be alert to perhaps foil some of these plots, if they do indeed exist.

Or maybe it's something else. I don't know.

 

It's a scary statement, a sobering statement, and quite possibly, a true statement. But i agree with you in some ways. Telling the public that these things are inevitable does NOT exactly give the public a lot of confidence in our ability to detect intelligence that will prevent terrorism. I know it's difficult, and i know it's a war unlike any other, but that simply means we'll have to try that much harder, become that much more skilled, and do everything we can as citizens, professionals and Americans to make sure these things don't happen again. Inevitable? Though possibly true, it's an F-ing copout excuse I don't need to hear from the people we put our safety and lives in the hands of.

 

What do you expect? Israel recovers from these events on an almost weekly basis. They can't stop it and they are dealing with much smaller geography and population.

We have a very open society and are scared sh!tless about civil liberty violations, I, for one, am prepared to live in a country that is less open and just plain safer.

 

I, for one, am prepared to live in a country that is less open and just plain safer.

and Musolini made the trains run on time.

 

This was the same reasoning that brought the Taliban to power in the first place. The Afghanistan public, tired of fighting by rival warlords were willing, at first, to give up some lberties in order to have a "safer" society. Sure, people had their hands lopped off in the public arena and women had to be covered from head to toe, but dammit, it was safer!

 

Then move to Israel.

 

<b>glynch</b>: Comparing 21st century US to mid 20th century Italy is not all that fruitful.

<b>Mrs.JB</b>: Who is more Talibanic: Democrats or Republicans? How about those Green Party meanies? Do you really think that it is accurate to compare a downtrodden, disorganized nation like Afghanistan (susceptible to tribal War Lords for God's sake) to the world's pre-eminent superpower in this way? Isn't that a tad-- no make that a wad-- unrealistic?

<b>RM95</b>: No thanks. They already live with the horror over there that I am trying to avoid over here. Why not be proactive? How will you stop the suicide bombing?

 

Time to clean the guns...

 

If the US government knows of terror to happen, why can't they stop it? I mean, how can you tell your people that "Suicide bombings are inevitable"?? INEVITABLE??? What the heck? If you know they're gonna happen, why can't you stop it?

How would you propose stopping it? There are 280,000,000 people in the US. All it takes is one person who knows how to build a bomb -- information which is easily available all over the place. Hijackings and such are one thing -- they are planned in intricate detail, etc. Suicide bombings? One person, no plan. How do you stop that?

Israel has very put security at the top of its list over individual rights and such, and they haven't made a dent in the problem. As silly as it sounds, in the long run, the only way to reduce the likelihood is to reduce the number of people that hate you. That's why so many people talked about re-evaluating foreign policy after 9/11.

 

The administration is in a no-win situation. If they give constant warnings every vague & unspecified threat, they're accused by Tim Noah of fear-mongering to further the war on terrorism & deflect criticism. If they don't, you get Maureen Dowd screeching that they've got their head in the sand.

Let's face it, further attacks on America & American interests abroad will be attempted. The military has done an exceptional job of ensuring that Afghanistan can no longer be used as a base for these attacks. Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Lebanon/Syria, Yemen etc... are next. For those of you who think that Israel's fight against terrorism is somehow different from ours, here's a revealing report from ABC News:

The latest swarm of alarming, unspecific statements came amid reports of intelligence findings that officials find more threatening, including word that the Beirut, Lebanon-based Hezbollah may be plotting attacks on American targets. Also, sources told ABCNEWS that members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network recently met with key militant Middle Eastern groups to discuss joining forces in a war against the West.

Leaders of al Qaeda, the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, and a number of other groups linked to terror, held a summit in Lebanon in late March, marking the first apparent effort at coordination among the groups, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials told ABCNEWS....

"What we have in terms of targeting is a general increase in threats, somewhat similar, unfortunately, to what we were hearing in July and August of last year," said Bob Graham, D-Fla. [chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee] "We know that Hezbollah, while it has not attacked the United States in our homeland, has attacked U.S. interests abroad and has operatives in the United States who have been trained and recruited for the purpose of carrying out terrorists acts."

This is not a "clean" war, with a clearly defined enemy; many of our successes will never be made known to the general public. Victory is necessary, but will never be completely achieved, no formal treaties will be signed on the deck of the USS Missouri. For the forseeable future, we as citizens of this country have to accept this.

 

How true is this? What are the great sacrifices made by Israelis? Those suicide bombers are going to public places to do their evil and those places are teeming with Israeli citizens.

 

How true is this? What are the great sacrifices made by Israelis? Those suicide bombers are going to public places to do their evil and those places are teeming with Israeli citizens.

The sacrifices aren't made so much by the Israelis as the Palestinians that live in Israel. For example, if Israel things you might be a terrorist, they may just come and bulldoze your house. Curfews everywhere, limited ability to travel (even to work), etc. Those types of restrictions.

 

If Israel thinks you might be a terrorist, you probably are. I wish I could say the same about the FBI and CIA.

 

I'm with you, RMTex, but may I put a wrinkle in your assertion: If the US thinks you might be a terrorist, you probably are. I wish <b>the US people had the guts to do something about it.</b>

Look at all the criticism leveled at Ashcroft, a.k.a. Fascroft. Who gives a rat's ass about the rights of someone who wants to murder innocent lives.

I hope that we don't continue to be so open-minded that our brains fall out. This is a new kind of war declared on us that fights dirty. It targets civilians exclusively.

I don't know about you, but I have children whom I want to protect and for whom I want to leave a decent world to live in.

 

But once you start doing that giddyup is when you cease to be the country you are trying to protect. It's easy to stand up for what this country was founded for during peacetime, what makes real Americans is when they stand up for them during war time.

 

Look at all the criticism leveled at Ashcroft, a.k.a. Fascroft. Who gives a rat's ass about the rights of someone who wants to murder innocent lives.

The problem is getting the innocents. To think that just because the government thinks you're guilty, then you are is foolish. Something like 20-30 people have been found innocent off *death row* in the past 10 years so (if I remember correctly). And that's the situation that requires the most definite evidence possible and we still get it wrong. Think about how many thousands of people must have been wrongly convicted in our justice systems? That's the reason we put as many protections as possible. If you reduce those, even more people will be wrongly convicted.

Suppose your son was wrongly convicted. Is it worth sacrificing him to get other criminals? That's the inherent problem with loosing the guidelines on getting these people.

 

i agree entirely with this post!

the media is driving this in many ways....they're running like crazy with the story of what the administration knew before 9/11. The administration is saying, "hey...we only had very vague warnings!! that's it!!" but the media races on....

but on the other hand...i hear sam donaldson say today on the radio, "why does the administration keep crying wolf???" HOW ABOUT BECAUSE IF THEY DON'T REPORT THESE THREATS, AND SOMETHING HAPPENS, YOU'LL CRUCIFY THEM, SAM!!!???

I've said it soooooo many times in regard to the current administration...and I'll say it again here because it's really applicable....they're damned if they do...they're damned if they don't. when they don't report vague warnings and something happens, they're told that they withheld information they should have shared. when they do report these vague warnings, they're told that they're only creating an atmosphere of fear.