Where Have All The Terrorists Gone? Were They Ever There?

We screen virtually ever person who gets on a commercial aircraft in this country, but we don't find any terrorists. Cameras are set up on street corners all over the country but they don't find terrorists. We're told constantly that our protection needs to be constantly upgraded because the 'terrorists constantly change tactics' but as far as I can see there are neither tactics not terrorists out there to adapt to in the first place.

I'm not saying that there aren't people on this earth who do not wish is great harm, but after 6 years of running the country into bankruptcy and subjecting ourselves to abandonment of our own Constitution trying to find them we seem to have pitifully little to show. To the best of my knowledge, what I can know with some reasonable certainty, there have been less than two dozen honest to god terrorists in this country all told, and they all died on 9/11/2001. Where are the rest of them, why aren't we catching any more if they are plotting every day to get in here and destroy us - are there no more or have all of our efforts at identifying and capturing them failed? Oh, and the couple of small clicks of unarmed idiots shooting their mouths off to each other don't count. What I mean is if there is a constant threat why has nothing materialized from our efforts to protect ourselves.

a musicologist (in recent weeks: http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070920/EDIT/709200309/1014/NEWS02)

-- and in the past, a British novelist http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/books/167186_mcewan01.html
.

Whew! Those were close calls.

Terrorists like these two are everywhere! Ignore them at your peril!

previously known as Cat Stevens.

:sarcasm:

I'm having a very difficult time seeing him as a menace. To me, he's a talented musician and an obviously spiritual man.

Before his official conversion to Islam, his music hinted strongly at spiritual themes and there was a kind of yearning toward the spiritual realm.

Also he was no slouch at a love song, either. "How Can I Tell You" is my favorite.

I have some of his music on my shelves here, and go to from time to time with appreciation and respect.

It embarrasses me that my government under Bush is so insecure that it would embarrass all of us with such an insecure, infantile reaction to a creative and peaceful man like Islam.

You've figured out the BIG lie.

The whole war on terrorism is a manufactured threat meant to advance empire. Period. Endit.

which was used to perpetuate the third BIG lie which is the war on terrorism. It's all one BIG lie aimed at global dominance. It's all bu$hit and we continue too fall for it EVERY DAMN TIME, one lie at a time.

Where Have All The Terrorists Gone
Long time passing
Where Have All The Terrorists Gone
Long time ago

Where Have All The Terrorists Gone
Gone to Pakistan everyone
When will they ever learn
When will they ever learn

My apologies to Peter, Paul and Marty

Of course!!! How could "the people" have ever been willing to accept the most immoral, unlawful, brutal, oppressive, barbaric and inhumane oppression by our government unless they were brainwashed into believing they were in imminent danger of being harmed by some boogey-hoo that could steal their life at any moment?

What's really disgusting is, notwithstanding the FACT that we presently have greater odds, as individuals, of hitting the lottery than dying from terrorism here at home,...this administration has succeeded in increasing terrorism around the world.

Of course, it would succeed in increasing terrorism. After all, terrorism is inflicting violence upon innocent people for purposes of imposing political views. What has this administration done?

I think this administration, the so-called "empire", should take its reality and shove it firmly up its own arse in a prison cell.

That is what I think.

They hate us for our SUVs and are working closely with the shoe bombers to destroy our American way of life.

We need to give the DHS more more billions of $$ to kick back to GOP contractors!

Or, that was my understanding from a previous reading of the DoD's definition of "terrorism".

Oops. I forgot the "directly" or "indirectly" part.

My mistake.

Just joking. :)

Just like an SUV.

We are merely objects.

than that. I believe Neocons are obsessed with world-wide population reduction and not just indifferent to human suffering, but actively engineering it. Thus their senseless prolonging of the Iraqi slaughter, their fondness for depleted uranium and nuclear weaponry in general, their shenanigans in lower Manhattan, etc.

Look no further than Washington D.C.

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy.” - Gandhi

Some words hold truth,...forever,...don't they.

What I most love about Gandhi is his absolute belief,...we would not only survive but certainly prevail over oppression, human oppression.

Do tell.

How many civilians died as a result of their bombing?

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Dresden, Hamburg..to name a few.

Or, perhaps you think all those dead civilians committed suicide.

What matters is the purpose of the mission.

Usually the purpose of military "missions" is to kill people.

Which is usually what the purpose of so called "terrorist" missions are, also.

I suppose the defense put forward by any surviving WWII bomber pilots would be that the "other guy did it first." (That is in some ways a "first grade" defense, but you hear it in our day in time by people on all sides of the spectrum.)

Hitler used bombing of civilians in cities in Poland (to test it out) and later in England and Russia as strategy to break the will of the civilians of the opposing country. It was a counterproductive strategy, IMHO, since while it terrorized the populace of England or Russia or Germany, it also caused them to hate the perpetrator even more and strengthened their resistance.

In a sense WWII was the first conflict in which it was technologically possible to terrorize civilians from the air. Strategists were learning as they went along, since there was no history of the effects of aerial bombing to study. All sides in WWII avoided using poison gas because they knew that if one side used it, the other would too, and they all knew the effects of using poison gas learned in WWI. Aerial bombing of civilians was probably done as much out of a sense of revenge, in most cases probably mixed with a belief that it would help end the war.

The fact that such aerial bombing of civilians was a counterproductive strategy in military terms, just as our era's use of terrorism may eventually prove to have been counterproductive, did not become clear until later, IMO.

BTW, thanks for inspiring my next OP... it's gonna be a block-buster

That the Minutemen may be the most fertile breeding ground for domestic terrorism since the militia movement of the 90's.

Well it does fit sort of a formula?

Xenophbia about a country to our south while suspicion and hatred of those living and workign within America? An obsession with security and 'keeping out undesirables' seems like a warning sign to me. What do you imagine to be the mentality of the people that will join these organizations?

I think it is highly likely that elements of the organization will become more and more xenophobic as the futility of their activities becomes apparant. It is highly likely they will take some kind of action.

I did say it was a breeding ground for terrorism.

My view of the Minutemen is that they are white racists with a "militia" bent. The only "credit" I would give them is that they, unlike the KKK or the Nazis, pretend not to be white racist xenophobes.

"Reply to Jose from Minuteman Project President Jim Gilchrist:

Jose,

Thank you for writing to me. You are quite correct about U.S. businesses engaging in the 21st century slave trade without regard to the consequences to the victims.

The Minuteman Project receives about a dozen complaints each day via email informing us of those who are deliberately breaking U.S. immigration laws so they can laugh all the way to the bank.

We actually provide some of this critical information to law enforcement in hopes that they will carry out their sworn duties and investigate and/or arrest these scoundrels.

The impoverished souls all around the world who are lured here to labor for dirt cheap/no benefit jobs are not the only victims. The American taxpayers, the shrinking U.S. middle class, and labor union workers are also victims.

As surprising as it might sound, we agree on many of the same issues.

The Minuteman Project is not anti immigration. We are for an orderly cue of LEGAL immigrants with specific work skills needed to help our nation, as a whole, flourish, and whose integrity and character are of a caliber necessary to preserve our nation as a civilized society. To fulfill these goals the U.S. enacted immigration laws long ago.

While the unscrupulous segment of American businesses are certainly to blame for the current lawlessness in the U.S., Mexico and other countries are equally to blame. The corruption and the political, social, and economic oppression of these third world countries against their own people is despicable and creates an exodus of their unwanted populations into the U.S. There are six and one-half billion people in the world. The U.S. cannot provide and care for them all.

The Minuteman Project supports a peaceful, bloodless revolution by the people of these nations so that they, too, can create a dream in their countries at least equal to the American dream in the United States.

It can be done. All that is necessary is the willingness to accept the challenge.

Sincerely Yours,

Jim Gilchrist
Founder and President - The Minuteman Project."

Is Gilchrist being disingenuous in this email? Is he smart enough to hide his organization's real sentiments (again distinguishing it from the KKK and Nazis)? Certainly.

My only point was that, in the discussion here during the immigration debate this summer and, more recently, about Mexican truck drivers being allowed into the US, the exact same sentiments expressed by Gilchrist have been expressed at DU by many many posters. ("arrest these scoundrels ", "American taxpayers, the shrinking U.S. middle class, and labor union workers are also victims", "peaceful, bloodless revolution by the people of these nations".)

Though I think Gilchrist has a gut-level xenophobia that DU'ers do not have, the majority of posters here seem to oppose illegal immigrants and legal truck drivers from Mexico. If you say you're not a xenophobe (as Gilchrist does), but don't want foreigners in the country, are you a xenophobe or not?

Almost everything subsequent to 9/11 has been self inspired, invented, contrived to appear to be so etc etc.

Hermann Goering :

Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

Last two sentences are the key ones.

,...our dear leader is wrong is denounced as inspiring the "terrorists" or appeasing them or whatever, and, taking it further, are characterized as "enemies". Fellow Americans are "enemies" if they disagree with the ruling class, the corporatocracy.

Of course, the corporatocracy holds itself out as moral when its entire membership has confessed being AMORAL (whatever THAT is suppose to mean).

Mind-boggling anyone even listens to the pile of crap dished out every day by this corporatocracy when it has been repeatedly caught, red-handed, intentionally misrepresenting facts in order to get whatever it wants.

We've spent trillions running a war on the veneer of a Global War on Terrorism. But there's no domestic deaths due to 'terrorism'in 6 years that I am aware of (accept the deadly anthrax attack on the Media and Democrats). But natural disasters and rotting infrastructure....those are real threats that this administration won't fund or plan for.

:thumbsup:

They prey upon our fears, fear of these insane fucks in our govt. For the past two years, just like cloclwork the we're going to bomb Iran threads pop up out of nowhere. If that isn't terrorism I don't know what is.
To answer your question where have all the terrorists gone, I don't know, maybe there weren't any besides the ones needed by our esteemed leaders.

If they really wanted to prevent future acts of Islamic terrorism - which they claim they are so afraid of - they'd beef up the CIA abroad, not here, hire more Arabic translators (making friends with American Muslims rather than alienating them)- winnow down the terrorist watch list until it was meaningful, and fill in whatever gaps prevented them from discovering in time the two hijackers who actually went onto that list.

The information that got the two hijackers onto the terrorist watch list came from CIA spying in Yemen. Not from spying on Americans.

"You can fool some of the people...." and so forth. Again and again, just replay the scene.

That is such a great demonstration of the concept!

I was about to add the story about the Cartoon Network electronic marketing ads around Boston. The police had to take them down and blow up because they were so dangerous for a cost of more than $1M. Some tv network had a couple guys hang these electronic pictures around the city advertising some new cartoon for tv. Of course Homeland Security could only see them as bombs so rather than call the phone number on the ad and make an inquiry they put on the bomb suits and blew up each one as it was discovered around the city. The tv network did eventually pay half the cost for the city. Seemed to me at the time it would have been just as effective and much cheaper to put it in a bucket of water.

It's some kind of extremism, the way this 'war' on terror is handled. Grow a beard, and you'll be stopped at airports because of that facial hair alone. On the other side, wear a 'I love Bush'-t-shirt, and you'll get straight up front when he speaks.

It is sheep-like behaviour, allright. Or are those goats in that anigif mabye? ;-)

Notice Clinton had a fund raiser with lobbyists from that industry and some heads of committees. Colin Powell said the dangerous part about this is that the people need to live in fear for this new terrorism industry to survive. What happens when we all our numb from the threats, which most already are? Will our government let another 9/11 take place? Will they take part in a false flag? If Clinton gets in the oval office, how will she take care of those lobbyists, how far will she go for their interests? Scary stuff going on in this country lately.

Case in point, José Padilla.

That's a good point. Thanks for posting.

to spend billions, spy on us, and try to scare us to death without making them answer specific questions about their "war on terror".

Sometimes I wonder what the hell is wrong with people.

Madrid


London


Baghdad


Beirut


Bali


World ain't just America.