Fear Itself: Why Are We Letting The Terrorists Win?
Washington's (and the complicit media) obsession with the Christmas Day underpants bomber and the need to not only find blame, but to demand reactions to "make us safe" made me realize that we collectively have become the five year old who needs his parents to scare away the monsters from under his bed at night. How else can you explain the fear behind the Fox poll showing a majority of respondees wanting to waterboard Abdulmutallab?
It's ludicrous to think that there is any system that could offer us *perfect* security. Forcing us to stay seated for the last hour of a flight? What's to say the next bombing attempt won't be during take-off, or even in a crowded terminal prior to boarding? Richard Reed forced us to remove our shoes; will we now have to strip naked, thanks to Abdulmutallab? And how do we enforce this from foreign airports, since Abdulmutallab boarded a flight in Amsterdam? Or maybe it won't be airline-related at all. Lex at Scholars & Rogues:
What i don’t understand is the idea that Americans are entitled to perfect security. Here we are (and for the record, all the troops stationed everywhere in the world are you and i) crashing around the globe and blowing shit up, yet those of us in God’s country should face no threat. And for the most part, we don’t face any threat. Nobody’s bombed any of the weddings i’ve been to over the last few years. I’ve never thought, “I don’t think i should go downtown, because somebody might suicide bomb where i shop.” I’m convinced that the Canadians will launch their plan for world domination any day, by invading the social and evolutionary cul-de-sac of America where i live. But as of yet i have not had to contend with RCAF close air support in the neighborhood.
Still here we are, gripped by fear and willing to submit to whatever the organs say is necessary to protect us.[..]
I’m not being glib nor am i underplaying all those “very real dangers” that we face in the post-9/11 world. I’m saying that if we don’t want to live with the dangers then we might want to stop provoking them. I’m saying that there is no such thing as perfect safety and security; you are going to die someday and you probably won’t go to heaven. And i’m saying that our government consistently overplays any actual threats (and their probability) in order to control us through fear.
The intent of terrorism is, by definition, to terrorize. If we have reached the point where we can no longer have anything on our laps or use the restroom during the last hour of a flight, then the terrorists have succeeded in doing just what they had hoped.
I still have to--on occasion--chase out the scary monsters from under my little one's bed. I do this by mocking them: I've told her that they can't stand the smell of my perfume, because they know I am a ferociously protective mama and much scarier than any of them could hope to be. So I spray a little bit of my cologne around her room and she feels better, knowing that familiar scent will keep the monsters away. I acknowledge the fear, but minimize its importance. I would much rather not have my government be the parent who focuses on the scary monster so much that it becomes bigger and scarier than anything that could fight it.
Is it so difficult to not be treated like a five year old?
good luck
watching, as yet again, the magpies adopt the gop talking points and elevating a bullshit political hit to a national crisis -- making obama's reaction THE issue.
the irresponsibility of these fucking bastards enrages me to no end.
are opportunists; Bush goes to Afghanistan to attack Saddam for some slight against Daddy Bush.
Bush / Darth / Aunt Jemima use 9/11 to erase Human Rights in Amerika.
Etc.
Which makes Obama a war monger, apparently.
Obama didn't start this mess, bin Ladin did and BushCo prolonged it for opportunities.
BushCo could've laid waste to Saudi Arabia in a flash but decided to kiss their Saudi wanks while the World snickered.
We are not 'giving in' to fear, it is being sold to us 24/7, and some people are buying it.
I was NEVER scared of terrorism, I flew to Thailand 3 days after 9/11. At a plane change in Hong Kong a very handsome Chinese Soldier confiscated my nail clipper file. Somehow it got thru the "Security" as SFO! O the tragedy!
Better the US stop meddling in other country's affairs, robbing them, and so on. I bet the 'terrorism' would stop pretty quickly.
Face it, Obama's a war monger. Stop living in denial.
Did you type that with a straight face?
Obama is now part of the problem rather then the solution.
I agree he's part of the problem, but that doesn't make him a war monger.
Use words too casually and they lose their meaning.
Helloooooo, are you using that brain, or is it just a big glop of grey jello in there? Hasn't obama added another 60,000 or so troops in Afghanistan? Hasn't he started or maybe just continued a dirty little war in Pakistan? Isn't he in the process of building new bases in colombia, which will do nothing but create an arms race with the other countries in the area? Has Obama brought home the troops from Iraq? What has he done that makes you think he's not a war monger? Other than give some damn fine speeches that is?
No, escalating a war doesn't necessarily equal war monger.
Let's contrast Obama with an actual war monger - a person who has never sent troops anywhere - Billy Kristol - a man who never didn't want to have wars just about everywhere.
Get real man just because we see pictures of Obama having a Shave Ice with his kids means he's not guilty of War Crimes?
He's already a War Criminal less then a year into this whole farce.
So he's gone from war monger to war criminal? Care to explain that?
I suppose if you were elected you would have shut the whole thing down right after taking the oath, right? Everyone needs to be home in a week?
Whatever his reasons, Obama is escalating the various "wars" our Country as initiated. Whether he is "mongering" or not, he is not pacifying anyone.
My guess as to the cause: Money. It's ALWAYS money.
should join the Israeli Army, then follow orders.
I looked it up in my Funk and Wagnell.
It's a political leader who continues to wage war against other sovereign nations.
That would be Obama.
Chomsky's right. The U.S. military, at the behest of the various U.S. administrations from the past and currently, is merely doing the bidding of their corporate masters who hire them and put them in positions of power. Just about every seat in Congress and The White House has been bought and paid for and we all know it.
Why was Mosedegh overthrown in Iran? Oil. He was nationalizing oil. So the CIA overthrew him and placed the Shah in power. The people overthrew him, we had the hostage crises...
Same thing with Saddam. He was our bad boy in Iraq. We gave him hundreds of millions in weapons to fight Iran. He was a brutal dictator but he was OUR brutal dictator. Then he crossed the line in Kuwait and we kicked his ass to the curb. Hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi's died during the U.S. imposed sanctions. Remember what Madeleine Albright said when asked, "Is it worth it that thousands of innocent children have perished?" And she cooly replied, "Yes. It is worth it."
Now we're meddling in Columbia and it appears we're about to launch an in your face coup against Chavez. Why? Because he's tight with Fidel and Ahmadinejad and Sean Penn. Since being elected he's practically erased illiteracy from Venezuela. Healthcare is being offered to practically all the people. He is a populist, socialist leader and the U.S. cannot afford to have a successful socialist country in South America for the whole world to see.
The CIA has more "off the books" assassination squads and other internationally illegal operations than one could shake a stick at. They even have Blackwater goons now involved in "secret ops".
Obama neglects to tell us that almost HALF of the "troops" going into Afghanistan this year will be private corporate mercenaries who are take NO OATH to the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice).
Right now Iraq is very upset over the recent court ruling that basically has allowed Blackwater to murder innocent civilians with impunity.
Many schoolchildren were recently murdered in the dead of night with their hands tied behind their backs in Afghanistan. Kharzai is up in arms over this.
All these events cause the world to hate us. Not for our "freedoms", but because we act as terrorists ourselves.
And our continued support for Israel I believe has become the tipping point for the hatred. Israel is a rogue nation at this point. They commit war crimes in Gaza and scoff. They have over 200 nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them yet they refuse any IAEA inspections and they refuse to become signatories to The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
How dare Israel and the U.S. demand that Iran not have nuclear power or not join the nuclear club as a deterrence against Israel?
As long as Israel continues to be the number one recipient of U.S. foreign aid and the bulk of that aid is of a military nature to be used against the Palestinians in the OCCUPIED TERRITORIES, all of us will continue to be hated.
It's time to call the dogs off and try to make peace with the world.
Oil or no oil.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Right on the money. Well said.
And yes, I fundamentally disagree with Obama's handling of the entire situation.
We should cut our losses and get the hell out of the mid-east. That's means anywhere over there where we are at war, business, etc. That would include Saudi and every single place in the mid-east.
We have a huge country with more resources than just about any other country on the planet.
Is there any good reason we can't get by with what we have?
I can't think of any.
Personally, I'm all about minding my own business as an individual and as a country. And we have no business being over there for any reason.
If they have problems it's their problem and not ours.
After all, the "defense" industry, (read war making), is too big to fail...
Barack Obama: Change we can only imagine
n/m
For those who haven't figured it out yet, BushCO conceded the win to terrorists since 9/11.
Instead of creating policies to give people reasons to like us, Bush gave just about anyone who isn't a rabid right-winger all the reason in the world to hate us.
Obama has done better but only marginally. Frankly, he's been a huge disappointment to me on so many levels.
This methodology has been used by many states. Fascist Germany was a master at it and those on the right are only practicing what their philosophical allies did.
Don't forget...
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
--Voltaire
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin - 1755
The arrogance, that because you're offended by something, no one should be exposed to it is offensive.
Change the channel, don't go. But don't tell me how or what to think.
I'm new here.
There is some comfort to know that others do see it for what it is.
Join in anytime.
Thank you. I've been reading this site for years, but somehow missed the comments part. Refreshing to see reason is still alive.
Is the handle Satin a more feminine version of Satan?
It has a more soothing quality about it...(just kidding)
Good article, Nicole. Exactly what I believe, too. But we'll probably end up spending billions of dollars on new equipment and force passengers through ever more stringent security requirements just in time for the terrorists to change tactics and start blowing up malls.
I'll be under the bed quivering and peeing myself. I'll be whimpering,"Take all of my civil rights away - just keep me safe from dusky intruders!"
Am I a teabagger yet?
Yow!
First you need to unlearn spelling and punctuation. ;-)
Barack Obama: Change we can only imagine
Also, you need to be afraid of just about anything Fox tells you to be afraid of.
Didn't Rush go to Hawaii to get frisked by Jack Lord and give Dan'l a 'reach-around' in an airport restroom?
But in that case, Idaho would have probably been better.
Barack Obama: Change we can only imagine
A very good point.
"Let's talk dirty to the animals"
Wish everyone were able to reap the benefit of the Muppets' knowledge.
I am no more afraid of terrorists than I was yesterday, ten years ago, twenty years ago or indeed forty years ago when I was a child. First, I understand that the chances of my being hurt or killed by terrorists are exceedingly remote and second, I refuse to let SOME people in this country exploit fear to consolidate their control over my life. In fact, I am much more adversely affected by the terrorists here who are trying to make me afraid of those other, (brown) terrorists than I am by the latter, foreign groups.
Barack Obama: Change we can only imagine
Here in TN we passed a law last summer allowing patrons with a gun permit to bring a gun into a restaurant, if the restaurant owner does not object (the law allows them to place signs banning weapons of they so choose).
There are many in this state who are afraid that someone will come into a restaurant (perhaps the disgruntled boyfriend of a waitress, or someone looking to rob patrons) and start shooting. They want to keep their families safe while enjoying a salad and tea.
I have lived in my town for almost 40 years and there has never been an incident with someone shooting a gun in a restaurant. Our local paper has run several stories about this law, and in the web site's discussion area the only two examples of justification people can provide for wanting to pack heat while they are eating a steak dinner are a reference to the "Luby's massacre" that happened in 1991 in Texas, and the fact that nearly 30 other states have a similar law and there have been no incidents of law-abiding patrons getting drunk and pulling out their guns to threaten anyone or re-enact a shoot-em-up in the Old West.
The law states that if you are carrying a gun, you cannot order a beer or other alcoholic drink. I feel so much safer due to this. Asking my fellow citizens how a waitress is going to know if a customer is packing heat since it is, well, a "concealed" weapon, I get no answers. I suppose they are counting on the honor system to do its job.
u gotta shoot that burger, make sure it's dead.
I wonder if the father of the hot pants guy would have alerted the govt about his son if he had thought his son would be put in a prison somewhere and waterboarded? I doubt it. What father would?
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
I'm still wondering where the video tape is that shows the "man trying to help "Fancy Pants" get on the plane without a passport?
Anybody seen that tape yet??
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Happy New Year to you too and all the other Abbybwoods in your family.
Yeah, that story keeps hounding me too. It popped up and now we hear nothing about it.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
Good catch. I've wondered about this too. I thought you couldn't fly/land in another country without a passport ! I can't tell you how many dreams I've had where I've gotten to the airport only to discover that I left my passport at home.
i keep dreaming i have a part-time job i keep forgetting 2 show up 4.
I know my chances of getting hit by lightning exceed the odds of me being hit by terrorists. It is the right wing media that wants you to be afraid.
Even if your chances of being a victim of a terrorist attack it wouldn't matter.
The problem is that we give reasons to hate us and it's not about our freedom. It's about our interfering and our siding with other other people's enemies and then pretending to be innocent, "Who... me???"
When we learn to mind our own business (probably never because frankly, we're not that bright overall) then we'll have fewer enemies.
And when somebody does attack us for nothing we did then we have all the right in the world to crush them. Right now we're on the low ground and we have no intention of relinquishing it.
Spot on.
With respect to what the terrorists can or cannot accomplish, Colin Powell once said the terrorists cannot destroy this country. They cannot take over this country. They cannot change our political system. Yes, they can knock down buildings, but they will never destroy this country.
I think I found this on Thinkprogress a year or so ago; sorry I don't have a link.
The terrorists won't destroy the country, it's cowards like bushco, that'll do that.
As long as cowards like Lt. Gen. Tom Mcierney have a platform to speak their fearful frightened drivel, you can say good bye to the "Land of the free and the home of the brave."
Yeah, be afraid so the republicans can keep you safe. That's the meme today for the mini-brains of our society.
I heard the no bathroom/nothing in the lap rule was made because they feared it was al Qaeda and al Qaeda has a record of making making identical multiple attacks. They didn't want another hot pants guy on another plane to perhaps be successful around the same time as this guy was burning his family jewels.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
the people who are calling for the government to protect us from terrorists, are the same ones complaining about the "nanny state".
Win the war on terror! STOP BEING AFRAID!
Dude, I'd be in Gitmo for all the breaking wind I've set on fire!
I wished I were smarter or had a better birds-eye view of the last week's worth of media coverage into the thwarted underwear bomber incident. I can't shake the five-year old's fear of the dark gut pang that, somehow, some corporation (or group of corps) will find someway to pillage, plunder and profit from all of the ginned-up hysteria.
Last time around, wasn't it the folks who produce the tiny bottles of liquid everyone was forced to get if they wanted to bring liquids onto an airplane? Maybe it'll be the corp that produces something one can by to shield one's privates from the body scans in the airport? Could there be an "EZ Pass" notion for the busy business traveler wanting a faster route to their waiting jumbo jet?
There's profit to be made.
..on the day w told us all to go shopping? Sorry, they proved their point a long time ago and our "leaders" since 2001 have force fed us fear and loathing and have done nothing to reduce our role in radicalizing an individual who practices an otherwise peaceful religion. Idiots.
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
Laughing at Al-Qeida and anyone else who can't laugh at Captain Underpants.
For crying out loud - Exploding Underpants? This is what scares people? And NO, I'm not surprised the Spineless Dems remain spineless on this - with their false gravitas and insincerity - what a bunch of pussies. They should be waterboarding Pete Hoekstra over his fearmongering too.
C'mon people! It's comedy gold!
Is that a bomb in your underpants or are you just glad to see me?
Yeah, I get that at airports all the time. People screaming - "Hey! That Guy's NUTS! Grab 'em!"
I switched from Jockey's to Fruit of the BOOM!
My doctor wanted a urine sample, a stool sample and a Yemen sample, so I gave him my underpants!
it's all in the punctuation tho'.
"Hey! That Guy's NUTS; grab 'em!"
Gotta give credit to Dom DeLuise/Burt Reynolds movie - The End for that one...
Had the guy succeeded the whole plane would have exploded.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
or has someone done a story about how big an explosion it would have made and the damage to the plane had it "gone off" as it were?
Just once I'd like to be addressed as Sir. Without the "You are creating a scene"
but there is some experiments with it on you tube showing damage
it's the exact same thing that drives every local news station to take a run-of-the-mill snowstorm and tout it as the storm of the century. sensationalism. it glues their viewers to their sets. it makes it easy for their advertizers to sell stuff...snow shovels...salt...snow tires...generators...
in the case of fear, terror alerts, 24 bauer senarios, and the like it sells their political agenda...and stuff...full body scanners...the tub stacking army that is the TSA...
follow the money.
They are trying to create a national reality teevee show. Tune in tomorrow to see who says the craziest thing about the President not running home when a guy set his pants on fire in an airplane.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
This jumped out at me in the story above:
Here we are (and for the record, all the troops stationed everywhere in the world are you and i) crashing around the globe and blowing shit up, yet those of us in God’s country should face no threat.
That's not true. WE are not going around the world terrorizing other nations and peoples in the governments and corporations name. The US government is doing that. They've proven time and again that they don't give a damn what we "common" proles have to say about foreign policy. They'll do as they damn well please. It's truly unfortunate that for hundreds of thousands of people the only way to get a job is to join the armed forces. That said though, those recruits are brainwashed thoroughly into following orders mindlessly. The US government and corporate policies are intertwined, what's good for the corporations is good for the government and vice versa. After all, there's money to be made looting the world for raw materials.
The term "national defense" is bandied about with pleasure by the politicians and generals. What in the world does destroying any country or government that doesn't knuckle under to US pressure to conform to a stringent version of US capitalism have to do with national defense? The only countries that the US invades or meddles in the affairs of, are ones that are trying to go their own way economically. There is a long list of countries that have been invaded or had their leaders overthrown because they dared to try to do things their own way. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is the latest Latin American leader to feel the wrath of US anger. Arbenz of Guatemala, Mossadegh of Iran, Sukarno in Indonesia, Al-Bakr in Iraq, Allende in Chile. You get the picture. If it hurts a corporation or a government tries to go it's own way economically, it's overthrown by whatever means possible.
happened in 2003. And it was Chileans.
Would they be the ones hating us for our freedoms?
09/11/73....the day democracy died in Chile.
I wrote the piece that Ms. Belle quoted (thank you, Ms. Belle). I thought about the parenthetical statement that displeases you for some time. I kept it because i'm a firm believer in participatory democracy. Theoretically, we live in a nation governed of, for and by the people. And while i don't disagree with your point of view on this matter, i think that it's counterproductive to walk away from the responsibility that we have.
All of our rapacious and idiotic foreign policy is done in your name, my name and the name of all Americans. To simply say, "It was Bush's fault" or "It's the corporate-national-security state's fault" does not help. Your federal tax dollars will be used to repay (theoretically) the loans used to purchase the armaments to blow shit up all over the world. That makes you complicit...and me too for that matter.
I'm not asking you to do anything i wouldn't. And to that end i'll volunteer to be the first person in the box for crimes against humanity: i've been working on the speech for roughly a decade.
It's about using terrorism as a convenient tool to manipulate public opinion toward a selfish and blatantly political end. Repubs and their media lackeys are blatant fearmongers that will do anything to achieve their objectives.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
Mebbe we need:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq9jSCkuYfw
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Hmmmm....seems like we've already got a big fat ideologue with a thing for brown phallic cigar symbolism...Rush isn't dead yet, right?
I'm still waiting for the epic movie with the David Mamet script, with music by Monty Norman, and directed by Oliver Stone about the cataclysmic showdown that finally answers the question CAPTAIN KLUTZ v CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS.
http://www.hembeck.com/Images/FredSez2007/Cap...
http://www.chrlc.vic.gov.au/cb_pages/images/C...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I have been saying this for many years.
Be afraid, be very afraid. Bin Laden and his stone age army are winning this war because we are doing exactly what he wants us to do. Be afraid, be very afraid. The U.S. government is playing right into his/their hands. They are bankrupting the richest country on earth. Be afraid, be very afraid. They have got the government fighting two wars one of which we should never never never should have fought the other should have been done with less than a year after it started. Be afraid, be very afraid. The Republican jokers want to start one, two , three or more new wars. Do you think for a minute that Bin Laden and his stone age army are not winning. Be afraid, be very afraid. They are winning the same way they won when they beat the Soviets out of Afghanistan. They are bankrupting us. Be afraid, be very afraid.
It's kinda like if you build the Death Star
The X-Wing fighters will come...
(I can't believe I made a Star Wars reference
I HAAAATTEE Star Wars).
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
..that bin Laden and his family have been long-time associates of the Bush crime family, and that Osama came to prominence originally as a CIA asset developed by Zbig Brez____ for use against the Soviets in Afghanistan, in a previous century.
Al Qaeda, 'the Base', is also a creation of the CIA and a figment of our imagination. This is not to say that there are not 'crazy' Islamists who've been put under the spell of leaders (religious and otherwise) to do the work of "Their Gawd' by killing infidels. They are controlled by the fear 'specially created for them, by their own homegrown propagandists.
The trick here is to keep one's eye on who benefits from these never ending 'wars', conflicts, and incessant fear-mongering. It's not a bunch of rag-tag Arabs running around screaming religious phrases before blowing themselves up. It's the same group of wealthy, powerful elitists who've used the peoples of the world as their pawns for centuries.
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
Could you imagine a Western where John Wayne and the settlers were all pissing their pants, and pantaloons, because the Injuns might come?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I was right with you - but then you had to bring Native American Genocide into it....swing and a miss, dude.
Nice try though...
I was always cheering for the Indians to win....
(I'm part Huron Indian).
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
free...before it was America.
We supposedly are part Cherokee.
Can't see it in my face.
But my grandfather was real conservative, but I remember him reading Bury My Heart and Wounded Knee and getting visibly angry.
And there was something about his bone structure and expressions that reminded me of old photos of Geronimo and Sitting Bull (although they weren't Cherokee).
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
source of pride to be a descendent of such great nations.
http://www.amazon.ca/Indian-Givers-Indians-Am...
This is a voracious read....from food, mining, medicine, agriculture and the ideas of freedom and democracy that have not been paid due homage.
Technically, I think my own face is a hodge-podge. I have a peaches and cream complexion, that seems to reflect back some of the colored lights around me. I tend to photograph red, but I think for the same reason you see red dots on the eyes. I have real straight and compressed nose and ears (close to my head). And somewhat large almond shaped eyes, but with heavy lids and sockets.
I've been told by some people I look very English. One guy told me I looked like this one guy from Ireland he knew when he worked on an oil platform in the North Sea. When I was in the service they thought I was at least half-Asian (maybe because I'm only 5'4"). They just could figure out what: Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese or Korean.
Although when I'm bearded (I just shaved it off yesterday), I probably look more British.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
And you have to remember the fledgling democracies in AmerIndian tribes were comparable to the Anglo-Saxon Witan that would later develop into the Parliamentary Ideal. While the Tudors resurrected King Arthur as their champion and Ideal King, the Parliamentarians responded by bringing back the Legends of Robin Hood the Saxon Rebel, and by extension the Witan.
These seem to be comparable also where you have bronze age era type cultures heavy on the hunt and/or agriculture.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
In the book Weatherford talks about Ben Franklin's respect for 'The Noble Savage' and the Iroquois League of Nations. Very interesting stuff.
were they not at one time the terrorists....
who hated the settlers for their freedoms?
Interesting that terrorism can be a two sided coin.
Nearly all of Washington's army would have qualified for Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld's "unlawful combatant" or "insurgent" status: no uniforms or insignia, hid behind rocks instead of marching into battle like professional soldiers...
The natives were not the terrorists. It was the invading settlers who did the terrorizing. Read the book The History of the United States From 1492 to the Present by Howard Zinn. It turns everything I learned in school right around and told me so much that I'd never heard before.
Genocide to me always sounded like the name of a cocktail made with gin.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
How else can you explain the fear behind the Fox poll showing a majority of respondees wanting to waterboard Abdulmutallab?
Americans are morally bankrupt.
C'mon Brewerman, it's a FOX pole. As diseased as any Stripper Pole.
they clean those stripper poles.
Actually I think all the girls do is oil and polish them.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
They only polled FOX viewers?
We've all been getting poled by FOX for years now...
because they need something to talk about other than health care and jobs.
But security of air travel is a REAL concern. What if the guy had succeed in blowing himself up? There would be 278 people we would be mourning.
The system failed at the airport.
Having full body scans, taking off shoes, or pat downs etc, while a pain in the butt, is not a invasion of privacy since you are flying with other people and those efforts more often than not will stop someone like the underpants bomber.
I fear the thought of being plastered all over the ground if the airplane is blown out of the sky and I'm a nervous flyer as it is.
...he uses big words like 'particularly' and 'delicatessen.' -- Jack
were shot out of the sky on July 3, 1988?
And what did GHW Bush say about Flight 655?
"I will not apologize for America, I don't care what the facts are".
One thing I wonder about is if the underpants bomber was successful would we even know he did it. Remember the plane that went down off Long Island in the late 1990s (I think)? They said it was a fuel tank problem but is that for real? Or was it an underpants bomber sitting over the wing?
I might agree with you. The Navy didn't send someone on that flight with a bomb in their underpants.
...he uses big words like 'particularly' and 'delicatessen.' -- Jack
If al Qaeda was smart (and honestly, I've seen no evidence of that--this was a stupid operation from the beginning), they'd move on to something non-airline related: Grand Central Station during rush hour?
Full body scans ARE an invasion of my privacy, not to mention that they have potential health risks to subject you to x-rays. It may not be a big deal to you, but I used to fly 2-3 weeks a month for my job, so it would be something like a HUNDRED x-rays every year. No thank you.
Let me give you an example of how stupid the screening process is. I recently took my kids to NYC. My youngest had to confiscate a 6 oz bottle of scented lotion on our first leg. My eldest had to confiscate a bottle of hand sanitizer and toothpaste on the return trip, which had passed through the first time. Neither security gates found my pepper spray, which is on my key chain.
Let me make you understand something: you are just as safe from terrorists flying as you are driving on roads, working in skyscrapers, shopping at a mall. Anyplace where there are large groups of people, you run a risk.
Maybe when they are x-raying people on EVERY SINGLE FIGHT they can throw in a prostate exam and a breast cancer scan.
Your piece has raised the point many of us have been on about since 9-11....
To me, courage in the face of fear has often been embodied in our ability to satirize and laugh at those who would continue to have us live in fear - whether it's Bin Laden or his BFF Bush/CheneyBurton, or Fox "news" or Rush Limpdick...
BTW: There's a big difference between this and Chimpy's infamous "Bring 'em on" bullshit.
I realize Obama can't personally ridicule Captain Underpants, but somebody ought to...
If al Qaeda has any intention of making their next grand attack on something non-airline related, what better way to prepare our defenses than to get us focused on scanning for nail clippers, shoelaces, shampoo bottles, and underpants at every airport?
That we need to look back in history and try to understand WHY WE ARE SO HATED THAT ANYONE WOULD WANT TO HIT US HARD HERE AT HOME?
I believe we need to take a long, hard, honest look at U.S. military imperialism throughout the world and try to understand why we are so hated.
And as just the "common" folk we can't absolve ourselves of all the rotten and illegal "Shock and Awes" we've been waging!
We're PAYING FOR ALL OF IT!!!
It's time to call the dogs of war off!!!!
Not to raise a sore subject, but Ron Paul (and Dennis Kucinich) are right!!
Plus, we need the funds to finance health care.
HEALTHCARE NOT WARFARE!!!
Remember all the mantras of "Peace on Earth" over the past few weeks on all the cards we received?
We'll never realize peace by constantly creating wars of aggression based on lies.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
You are absolutely correct! The problem is that we have too many Republican minded idiots who what us to blow up anything anywhere when somebody does not agree with their insane take over the world mentality. Damn I wish there was some way to divide the country in two . Them and us.
to be alert and knowledgeable citizenry....
Watch this clip...
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/
ps...well said.
I hear the adult industry is booming.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
And most flight passengers have been plastered for years.
But I find it hard to do with those dinky bottles they serve at $8.00 a pop.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
A determined nutjob can wreak havoc anywhere, anytime.
Don't let these little pricks keep you afraid. It's fear that has allowed, enabled, encouraged MASS MURDER (and by mass murder, I mean Chimpy's Criminal Wars of Personal Vendetta and Profit) and tarnished our national image worldwide....
Blackwater thugs - employed by the US - murdering women and children in the streets, getting away with it....how does that make us safer or less of a target for retribution attacks?
For every action there is an equal and opposite REACTION.
We are on the WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY FOLKS.
It's past time to right our ship of state.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
I seem to recall Khrushchev crushing walnuts at the UN with his shoe.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
That Guy's NUTS; Grab 'em!
Bloody Billy on Fox just said that closing the embassy in Yemen was a sign of the President's and our country's weakness. The general idea of the crowd was that any precautions our country takes now shows we a are a weak country. We're these the same people who thought taking away our privacy rights was a good idea? We're these the same people who thought the President should hurry back to DC as soon as that kids pants started smoking? So for eight years the republicans said we have to do whatever is necessary to protect ourselves from terrorists, but when a democratic president closes an embassy to protect the workers there, then that is a sign of weakness?
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
of 911 really collectively discussed and answered sufficiently to the American people?
Of did national narcissism prevent that?
Failure to understand the grievances and address them is a losing game.
During the round of Republican debates Ron Paul explained why the 1979 hostage crisis was blowback from the 1953 coup. (and Guliani asked him to apologize to the crowd)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldgbOxDX6DE&fe...
Why is Paul the only politician that can acknowledge this?
For the same reason Bill Maher was fired for saying that the hijackers on 9-11 were not cowards but brave sons of bitches for doing what they did. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Also for the same reason the fundies have made death a very scary thing. To be avoided at all costs.
.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
I taught my kids not to be afraid of monsters by getting them involved in video games very early where they were the ones slaying the monsters. No matter how big and bad the boss monster was, there was always a way to kill it yourself using the tools you have available. Now in their dreams, they have empowering imagery to face their fears with. My kids never have monsters under the bed or in their closet either.
Maybe more people need to play video games and learn some self reliance in protecting them from their own imaginary demons rather than expecting big brother to chase them with the power of real life government.
Because they just wanted it more?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
First of all its a Fox News Poll among Fox News Watchers what do you expect? The majority of them would want Obama waterboarded to finally prove he's not a US citizen. Secondly, Nate Silver laid it out the best. The odds of being hurt by a underware bomber are rediculous. Why do we let the media continue to report these comments by Republicans as if they are news. When will we get real journalism again?
Richard Bencivengo
Americans are cowards.
I am _not_ trying to be glib either.
We are being trained to be so dependent on government we won't be able psychologically to fight back against the loss of our constitutional rights and the economic collapse ahead.
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