Terror Alert upgraded to HIGH

I saw that too, I hope it is just precautionary. I can't imagine what another tragedy would do to everyone.

 

These alerts are bullsh$t. What are we as Americans supposed to do? If a plane hits my building my reaction will be pretty much the same whether I was alerted or not.

Also, I'm not sure what your whole vigilante statement was supposed to accomplish but if I see some hoard beating a Middle Easterner I'm popping a cap and I won't be firing at the brown guy. This is America and we don't behave like that.

 

You're putting trust in the nutcases to actually be able to discern a Middle Easterner from any other brown-skinned asian? You're probably giving them too much credit.

 

fine..but don't blame the administration for not warning you if something does happen.

 

Summer Song Giver:- The simple answer would be not to be in your building if a plane was going to hit it on 9/11. Thats how Americans can take simple precautions.

 

exactly... government officials get lambasted whenever anything goes wrong if they don't warn us... so the alerts are a necessity, in order to "protect thier backsides." Therefore i understand the use of alerts, even if the public has no need of them.

 

I don't think so, and I certainly hope not!

I think that you might find isolated instances of threats to mosques, and maybe a few ignorant idiots doing something (like in Phoenix against the Sikh gas station owner), but I don't think we would regress like that.

 

Dr. of Dunk:- Most Asians are oriental and can be distinguished quite easlily!

 

I don't know if you were just kidding (lack of smiley face confuses me on that fact) but I think he was referring to Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, etc.

Unfortunately i'd have to agree. However, I wouldn't just narrow it to Middle Easterns. Like it was mentioned earlier, many people of differing Asian nationalities are confused for Middle Eastern all the time. I can easily envision such occurences by people lacking a good education and wanting to take out their frustration on the "next brown person they see."

 

Not sure what you mean by this,are you saying a precaution is to stay home and not go to work? Anyway the report says that US Transportations should be alerted. I work at the Union Pacific Railroad Corporate office in Omaha, Ne and we have not been alerted to anything as of yet which is unusual since we normally get these type of reports right before they are announced to the general public when it involves the US Transportation system. We have a self imposed "High Alert" status since the tragedy of last year. I guess this is the norm and we should all be aware that something could happen, but I`ll be darned if I will let it affect the way I live

 

Say now, NJRocket's remarks indicated anti-vigilantism, not pro-. Unfortunately, he could be right, but I hope not. A year ago I worked with a guy in Houston, the most reactionary dude you'd ever meet. Insisted that we should basically nuke Afghanistan off the face of the planet. "What about the women? The children?" "F---'em; the kids would grow up to avenge the fathers." He would only stop when he saw my dumbfounded look of horror, or when he realized his views were a bit more extremist than others'. But there are more than a few people out there who share such sentiments.

I was in the military years ago and I know for a fact (doesn't take a genius to figure this out) that terrorists love anniversaries like a girl loves her sweet sixteenth birthday. For example, we went into heightened alert (I was stationed in Sicily) on the anniversary of a bombing in a Berlin nightclub. Imagine the heightened alert for 9/11. You can bet security status out there right now is hairy. And it should be.

 

The "warning system" is mostly political. Politicians are risk-averse. Nobody wants to be accused of being unprepared if something does happen and prior warnings were not issued.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid it's going to become like "the boy who cried wolf."

I'm not being partisan on this issue - I'm sure the Democrats would do the same damned thing were they in the White House. It's just annoying and yet another indication of inherent problems with popular democracy. Too bad there's nothing better...

 

I am scared...

 

While I agree in part that the terrorist alert system is political, I think it is also a deterrent to potential terrorist activity. If I put myself in the shoes of a terrorist for a moment, and am plotting terrorist activity for a particular date, I would think twice before attempting to execute something while a heightened security alert was in place. Everything I've read about al Queda suggests that when part of their plan goes even slightly wrong, they often abandon the effort completely or postpone it. Both of these are attractive outcomes relative to a plan being executed.

 

The idea with the warning system is a good one. The idea is more to help public safety organizations and businesses put systems in place -- for example, if we get moved to orange, we will do this...... It takes some of the heat off of these organizations as far as what response to make on an alert. It also helps them cover themselves.

For exmple, where I work we have a hurricane chart and map that gives threat levels -- for example, if a level 1 hurricane is 400 miles out, we automatically go to 72 hour alert. A level 5 hurricane, at the same place, and we go to 24 hour alert. Each level of alert has a given set of procedures, determined in advance, and everyone has a copy. We may or may not be affected by the storm, and the storm, of course, doesn't care. But, it takes the guesswork out about what to do when a "Tropical storm alert" happens. There's no committee or guesswork needed. It saves time and eliminates confusion.

I think that's what the government is trying to do -- they just don't quite have the system down yet.

I did just hear one of the most inane comments from one official in a radio interview. 'We aren't really going all the way from yellow to orange. More like, halfway. It's more like... PEACH. We aren't enacting all of the powers that come with orange, such as National Guard activation and so on...

 

I think this year's 9/11 will be the most safe day. That's just my opinion. There is intelligence, and there is anti-intelligence trying to confuse the intelligence. Terrorists want to catch us off guard. When we almost forget it, they have a better chance of success. So, whatever the alarm color is, I'll go on my normal life. There isn't much I can do anyway.

 

I have to wonder how many businesses and organizations actually have such plans in place for terrorist threats. I like your comparison to hurricane planning, but I really don't know of any businesses that have similar plans for terrorism. I know that the company I previously worked with (which was both pre and post 9/11), there was absolutely no plan. So I don't know how credible this reasoning is, even though it makes good sense.

I agree. Partly because of all the preparations that the government and security forces are taking as an aberration towards terrorists. I've also been watching Fox News most of the day and they have shared a common theme. Their "experts" have stated that the M.O. of terrorists is to catch the public off guard and that they are not really into anniversaries. They feel their "work" is more effective when its a surprise, rather than when it is expected, as it is on 9/11/2002. They like to attack when people are going amongst their normal lives, something that most probably won't be the case for the entire month of September.

As for the warning system, I can't help but be pessimistic (if that's the right word) and continue to think that the only reason they are in place is for the government to cover its own a$$. God forbid something actually happens, the government will be able to say that they warned the nation beforehand. Without it, after some time people will point to their elected officials with anger, demanding to know why orgs. like the CIA weren't doing their jobs and sniffing out danger before it struck.

 

I don't understand why it would be an act by a "vigilante"

A vigilante takes justice into his own hands against someone that has committed a crime. A middle eastern individual in the streets is just as innocent as the people in the World Trade Center.

Even if there was violence against percieved muslims following another terrorist attack, the type of ignorant fools that would force such acts are probably not even intelligent enough to differentiate between a Hindu, Seikh or muslim, let alone a Arab (Middle Eastern) Muslim versus an ETHNIC muslim from Indonesia, China, Russia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Somalia or Algeria.

Its is completely idiotic to blame Over a Billion muslims worldwide for the insane actions of a few. Should Muslims despise Christians because of Pinochet, Hitler, Milosevic, Stalin, David Koresh, the IRA or Jeffrey Dahmer??

Its just ironic how when a crime or act of violence is done by a muslim it is the religion that is evil and the religion is put on trial, versus in other evil actions it is simply seen as the individual.