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BBC World news

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by oz_media Aug 3, 2004 last reply Aug 6, 2004

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BBC has aired a report on BBC world news that again is scrutinizing intelligence that indicated a possible terrorist attack today.

The BUSH administration is furios at reports of the US government catering to US security and allowing false fears to be instilled on citizens without reason for the sheer purpose of increasing funding for secirty measures in the USA.

Apparently, the information that has tipped of the administration to a possible attack, was found on a laptop seized from a suspected AlQaeda member last month. Yet the information is dated for 2001, thus raising concerns that the threat does not warrant the security measures and threat level being raised.

THe information was stored and discussed on an email that was sent BEFORE the 9/11 attacks and therefore AlQaeda would have changed the strategy due to heightened security scine 911.

Now I almost have to stick up for Bush on this one (that's right, I said it, ALMOST!).

A big criticism after 9/11 was the negligenceof the US administration to act on 'tips' of an attack they had received. I think even if the fear is falsified, it is still only wise to heighten security if done with some formality and not just paranoia.

This is just precautionary protection, a much better rection to a suspected threat than to simply incade and attack, even though in THIS case the world is at war with AlQaeda and pre-emptive or even counter attacks would be justified.

I can't fathom living in a country with such a threat looming over it each day, the threat meter and the whole thing just makes me glad to be foreign. In this case, even though the threat is OLD, almost 4 years old and even before the last terrorist attack, this can not be taken lightly, or else we would all be criticizing bush again for not responding to a possible threat.

I just don't condone offensive actions against a 'third party' form of terrorist network.

14 replies

by garion11 Aug 3, 2004

Its scary indeed.

by oz_media Aug 3, 2004

Quite honestly, and without the intent on starting anything, I simply didn't get what you mean.

TO be clear on my own point, I disagree with the criticisms toward Bush for heightening security due to a discovered threat, even if it was a four year old email that implied specific US targets were to be hit. He has been criticized for ignoring the threat on the WTC and is justified 100% this time.

I then added that I would not be comfortable living in America right now as it is in such a state of preparing for atttack, or [i]waiting for the other shoe to drop.[/i]
By foreign is was referring to me not being American, even though situated very close to the USA yet far from suggested targets.

I guess it's times like these that we can be glad to live in a less threatening country (not meaning you threaten people but that the terrorists are threatened by America's size and might).

As I've always said, it's always the biggest, loudest guy in the bar that's the first target for the drunk that wants a fight.

But in a nutshell, I just posted because I think it's unfair to chastize Bush for not responding to an earlier threat that occurred on 9/11 then criticize him for issuing a security threat after finding another suspected terrorist plot however old or unlikely it may be.

You sitting down?

Bush scores 1 point with Oz

by zuhairl Aug 4, 2004

Hi Gorion,

if we just think for a moment of the reasons why the Israeles and the Palestineans live under such conditions. let us not take sides on this one.

Regards

by jimhm Aug 4, 2004

John F'en Kerry (Woose) - and the DNC (Democratic National Committee) are the ones claming that the information is 3 years old and shouldn't be of concern.

They don't understand about terrorist - they figure that the 9/11 was being planned for over 4 years before it was executed ...

I just pray that Kerry is defeated this November - but the American people are pretty stupid and don't research for themselves - to many parrot the media - and don't think ...

by oz_media Aug 4, 2004

Certainly you are only speaking of those that oppose your decision though, right?

You wouldn't be one to call American's stupid or uninformed, would you?

by husp1 Aug 4, 2004

sure the info is old but unfortunatly the election itself is influencing the public reaction beyond the actual threat to the person to do something about it. ( if your hungry do you form commities and have fourms and then form sub commitees to manage the forums then form a seperate commitee to evaluate the information that the other comitees submit or do you just make a burger?)

by oz_media Aug 4, 2004

BURGER!!! Good idea! Time to fire up the ole Barbeque! Mushrooms, Cheese, onions, Caesar salad, good pit of stout!

Gotta run.

by delbertpgh Aug 4, 2004

I have to agree that the threat was worth taking seriously. Al Qaida has been shown to plan many years in advance. Just because the info was old doesn't mean the plot's stale.

I am pretty uncomfortable with some of what was done. The five buildings sure needed to be alerted and to beef up security. However, by yelling to the world the secrets we had uncovered, and by going into deep detail about how we got so much info off a laptop computer, I think that we tipped our hand. Al Qaida now will certainly not waste time on these targets; they will prepare for something we don't know anything about. And Al Qaida will surely get tougher on data security, making it hard to score this kind of discovery again.

Looks like somebody was more interested in publicity than in the country's security.

by oz_media Aug 4, 2004

That's a point I was wondering if anyone would raise. I originally asked myself the same but then decided AlQaeda KNOW these targets are being tightly protected.

They KNOW that data was captured already when the suspect was caught almost a month ago with his laptop and disks (so clever aren't they? At least we KNOW they aren't TR members, that would never happen to someone with secure data.)

The information was three years old and probably of no concern to them at this time. HOWEVER, the government may have uncovered much more than they are actually letting on.

News today showed the disks and laptop, they were using cheap Imation disks so it proves they aren't too concerned about the data :-)

But there were at least 7 disks shown and the information is sipposed to be an explicitly detailed plot. There is probably a lot more information on them than we will know about until the time is right.

The other thing that confuses me is that they hae video and live surveillance of several KNOWN AlQaeda members as they cased several taget buildings, yet they made no arrests.

I know that it is sometimes better to let the smal fish go so that you can catch the bigger fish, but with the state of affairs they way they are I am stunned that they didn't just shoot these guys point blank. I mean they invade a country on suspected WMD but they let known terrorists run free in New York, although under constant surveillance?

It makes all the allegations, of Bush ordering no arrests or detention of known terrorists on US soil, seem more believable when this stuff happens.
Again, I acertainly HOPE there is a valid reason for al this but in light of the Iraqi invasion decision, it makes me wonder what's REALLY going on behind the scenes.

by dc_guy Aug 5, 2004

There was a very good op-ed in the NY Times in April entitled "Black Swans." All swans are white, everybody knows that. So when somebody sees a black one it is a total surprise. They spend quite a bit of (often unconscious) mental effort trying to fit it into their comfortable paradigm. It's diseased, it evolved on Hawaii where it had to blend into a black background for safety, I imagined it, it's a publicity stunt, it was just a really big duck.

We're not programmed to handle surprises well. If you crawl into a cave with your spear to get out of the rain and a sabretooth cat springs out and almost gets you, you remember never to go into that cave again. You don't start working on a plan for foreseeing and reacting to the other unexpected threats.

9/11 was a Black Swan. That "cat" will never "go back to the same cave." No one will ever again hijack an airliner full of Americans because no American will ever again believe a hijacker who says, "Just stay in your seats and you won't be harmed."

We're furiously trying to prepare for attacks like the ones that have been launched in the past. What we need to do is learn to be more on our toes so we can react more quickly to new types of attacks. A group of confused, scared-stiff, unprepared, unarmed, disorganized civilian American strangers accomplished what the entire civil and military might of the World's Only Superpower couldn't do: prevent the destruction of the Capitol (or the White House, we'll probably never know which). Even though they'd watched THREE other airliners follow exactly the same plan to attain their targets!

I think what we should have learned from 9/11 is to put more faith in our individual citizens and less in our bureaucratized government. Terrorists have devolved war into an individual activity, not a national one. The passengers on that airliner proved that we can do the same thing with defense.

On a less philosophical note, Jersey Barriers do a perfect job of protecting buildings from the inertia weapons (truck bombs) that terrorists have to use on foreign soil rather than the ballistic weapons (big guns) that military forces have. There is never a need to roadblock an entire city district to protect a few buildings from truck bombs. This is a classic case of governments, which move and learn at glacial speed, being incapable of protecting us from Black Swans. They're still checking caves for sabretooth cats.

"Let's roll" is America's new slogan. And it was NOT coined by a politican.

by oweneg Aug 5, 2004

Oz:
I suppose I have to accept the fact you were probably not around during WW2.

I was and I can assure you we lived in constant fear of air attacks. I lived in a large seaport and for months on end we faced the blitz (or the possiblity of the blitz) night after night.

Sometimes for a little relief, German warplanes attacked during the day.

I agree with you it is never nice having to live under such conditions BUT people simply accepted it and "just got on with it". That's a fact you never get use to it but you just carry on

Slowly but surely the tide turned and went the other way. Again, serving in occupied Germany at war's end it was a rather horrible sight to see what retribution the German people went through.

God help us, never again.

by oz_media Aug 5, 2004

Well I was not alive during WWII, BUT Both myparents were living in London during the blitz, I was born on the IOW.

The IOW was a major fortress for defense against attacks and landing craft sent from France, whenI was young, I saw what was left, I understood the INNER pride the British people held and I am STILL a British citizen although ilving in Canada for the time being.

I suppose your post was in response to my saying I don' tknow how people can live in constant fear.

This in n way can be equated to the London Blitz, of course poeple were scared, they pulled their socks up and fougth off the Luftwaffe successfully though and stopped Hitlers attempts to invade England. These pople were being bomed and attacked, one thing I respect about England, th eruins still stand (where publically safe) as a reminder to al of it's history and pride (plus many of these buildings are several hundred years old and simply cannot be knocked down.

The photos in my dad's scrapbook, my mum's pictures of her in a gas mask while in high school classes is all too real to me.

They weren't waiting for the second shoe to drop, they weren't waiting in speculation of the next attack, the world was at war.

I live in Canada now, I have NO enemies, there are no countries out to get us at all costs, we have no international threat meter, nor did London just haunting air raid sirens when the planes came.

We cannot in any way equate what Western Europe did during WWII to what is happeningtoday, eve if we look at it as a modern day terrorism equivalent.

How many times (I am assuming you are British) have you told someone they were lucky England won WWII and they should be greatful for your efforts? Yes I remember Rule Brittania but how much flag waving goes on OUTSIDE of Britain?

Britain has an inner pride,they KNOW what they went through they KNOW what happens in a war.

I have read here over and over again, that anyone outside America has no idea what it's like to be attacked or to be at war, uhhhhh, yeah. And they just can't understand why America is acting on a reflex. Well Britain didn't start bombing every country on earth, they focused on Hitler and kept that focus through to the end. They didn't stat looking for every enemy they could find and start killing them instead, they went after Hitler with a global and common focus. In essence, what the US has done in Iraq is the same as Great britain saying, okay we can't stop Hitler, lets get a less formidable but equally disliked opponent to kill.

People in England had pride and inner strength during WWII, much different than the sense of fear that President Bush has instilled into the people of America that causes them to shout out at the world and start killing nything that moves, this is simple paranoia.

If you or your father fought for my freedom in WWI, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.