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BBC World news

By Oz_Media ·
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.

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Israel lives with this everyday

by Garion11 In reply to BBC World news

Its scary indeed.

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I'm sorry Garion

by Oz_Media In reply to Israel lives with this ev ...

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 waiting for the other shoe to drop.
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

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Palestineans live with this everyday too

by zuhairl In reply to Israel lives with this ev ...

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

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Kerry - and the DNC say its old data and we shouldnt

by JimHM In reply to BBC World news

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 ...

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but the American people are pretty stupid and don't research for themselves

by Oz_Media In reply to Kerry - and the DNC say i ...

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?

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alas and alack.

by husp1 In reply to BBC World news

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?)

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MMMM

by Oz_Media In reply to alas and alack.

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

Gotta run.

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Correct to be alert; not sure about the publicity

by DelbertPGH In reply to BBC World news

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.

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That's a valid argument

by Oz_Media In reply to Correct to be alert; not ...

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.

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The Black Swan

by DC_GUY In reply to BBC World news

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.

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