Tom Ridge to Address the Nation

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by vee4473
I'm curious if this same post would have been made if during Bill clinton's administration, the 1993 failed trade center bombing had actually been successful in taking down the towers back then..
hmmm...

If they're responsible, string 'em up. Who cares what political party or ideology?

The president is at least trying to do something about terrorism, and to say that there has been no progress is just dumbfounding...

Pushing on a rope is also "doing something." The administration has the benefit of a mostly invisible, broadly defined (and the definition can be changed at will) "enemy" who can be cited anytime as the reason for almost any policy. There's always that "chatter" we never hear, about "no specific target," but there's a "credible threat."

And most likely, we'll be hearing the same stuff next year, and next year, and next year....

How about just supporting the country in this war instead of using every opportunity to try to seize a political advantage?

The "war" itself is political. A vague enemy that is never and will never be ultimately defeated, and presto, instant justification for any policy, instant stifling of any meaningful debate or criticism, because you're either with us or you're with the terrorists.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
one thing i've never understood is this. since it's always a bright idea to be on yellow or orange alert, why the **** have anything below yellow?

If yellow is the bottom, then people will think "hey, everything's ok, no need to give Ashcroft expanded powers under PATRIOT II" etc.

So you have to create a couple of levels we never use, to remind that folks at home that "there's a war on."

[Q Classic]

If yellow is the bottom, then people will think "hey, everything's ok, no need to give Ashcroft expanded powers under PATRIOT II" etc.

i'm ok with that.

[MichaeltheGreat]

We'll be down there shortly to ask you a few questions. It shouldn't take more than a couple of years....

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

You can't blame Clinton. It's a fact that he was pretty sharp on the need to do something about terror.

Idle talk. Anyone can write a memo, Clinton didn't initiate any action to deal with the problem, however.

He didn't take any action domestically maybe, but he did launch attacks on suspected terrorist targets in Sudan and Afghanistan.... The Afghan attacks were clearly an attempt to destabilize OBL's organization after the Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Unfortunately our outrage over the embassy bombings wasn't strong enough to force Clinton into pressing further action against OBL back then.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9808/20/us.strikes.02/

[Gatekeeper]

The War on Terror (TM) does seem to be one of those endless things that can be used to justify just about anything, given enough time.

[Dis]

Stalin only killed 6000 people. Hmm, learn a new thing everyday.

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


This is the equivalent of holocaust denial. The Medvedevs, Marxist historians of the SU, have documented much higher figures.

Well. The following hypothesis could be made. The Soviet Union deliberately falsified the casualties incurred during the Great Patriotic War, what we here in the West know as the Russo-German War. Conservative estimates say that this war caused in total 20.000.000 Soviet losses, of which 10.000.000 were combat fatalities. The motive of hiding the true casualty figures which I hypothesize to be nearer to the 50.000.000 mark, was that if that figure had indeed transpired at the time, the Soviet Union would have made themselves more vulnerable to what they percieved were the aggresive imperialist pretensions of the Western Powers. They had after all intervened on behalf of the Whites against the Reds during the Russian Civil War.

If we accept that the Soviets lost between 200.000 (Soviet claims)and 800.000 (German claims based on captured intelligence) during the short campaign that was the Winter War against Finland in 1939/40, and this operation only involved one front, then if we extrapolate that the Soviets had seven Fronts for four years against a much more technologically advanced, and capital heavy German army we say: 28 times 200.000 equals a mere 5.600.000, but 28 times 800.000 equals 22.400.000. That is only combat losses. Here we should add the conservative estimate of 3.000.000 Jews exterminated in the German occupied sectors of the Soviet Union, and 7.000.000 gentiles. This would lead us to the total combat and civilian losses of the Soviet Union of 32.400.000. This is, as noted still a very conservative estimate, since the vast superiority of the German military machine as compared to the Finnish has not been factored into the equation, neither has the intra Polish-Ukrainian Civil War, neither the Partisan/Civil War in the Ukraine, nor the losses incurred in the Campaign against the Japanese in 1945.

Indeed it would then not be hard to imagine that the Soviet losses would in fact have been higher than what has been stated from the records, demographic and from the Red Army. But being conservative the numbers would still be around 10.000.000 higher. Should this number then be subtracted from the 30.000.000 that Stalin was supposed to have killed so that the number should instead be 20.000.000, or should one consider if in fact the Soviets lost in all 60.000.000 under Stalins rule?

However I think that a case can indeed be made that the Soviet losses during the War should be substantially upgraded, and that would in turn make a case for a new investigation as to the factual number of fatalities that Stalin's peacetime regime should be made guilty of.

[Imran Siddiqui]

but he did launch attacks on suspected terrorist targets in Sudan and Afghanistan

As has been shown to be politically motivated. Remember he did it right before he was about to get impeached. And he ended up bombing an aspirin factory in Sudan. Doesn't seem very well planned out to me.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
The War on Terror (TM) does seem to be one of those endless things that can be used to justify just about anything, given enough time.

Yep, Terrorism has become the new Red Scare, just what Shrubby wanted.

[Dis]

Woohoo!! My city is a significant area of concern for attack. I feel so special.

I've been saying all along that my city is a terrorist target. Yet the federal goverment gave money to 30 other major cities in the U.S., but not mine.

I'm certain its a conspiracy. We already took a lot of heat by the DEA director for trying to legalize marijuana. I think the conservative republicans don't care if my city gets wiped off the map.

quote from article "There are particular concerns about Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Nevada, a handful of other cities and two rural areas -- one in the East and one in the Southwest, officials said."

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/12/22/threat.level/index.html

What I'm most curious about is the 2 rural areas. What are they? Where are they?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Probably secret military bases .

[Dis]

they can't be secret if terrorists know about them.

I was thinking the Hoover Dam might be the one in the southwest. I'm not sure about the southeast.

I already said in the other thead if they blow up the Hoover Dam, we won't have any water to drink. But we have plenty of bottled water . Nobody drinks tap water, so current shipments of bottled water should be sufficient- except for showers and sinks and such of course.

If I stop posting after a terract in my area, just assume I'm dead

[Imran Siddiqui]

It didn't say SouthEast, it said East .

Maybe Langley .

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Dissident
Clinton didn't do anything. I'm sure he understood the threat. But his hands were tied. He couldn't take away liberties by increasing homeland security- that would be deemed as targetting middle eastern nationalities- not something the democractic party would approve of. And he couldn't risk military action (Somalia taught him a lessong there).

For one, he doubled the counterterrorism budget (including tripling the FBI's counterrorism budget).

He put the people who bombed the WTC in jail, where they still reside.

He proposed an extension of intelligence agencies wiretapping powers, which was voted down by the Repugs.

Foiled numerous terrorist plots.

Issued a Presidential directive authorising the assassination of Osama Bin Laden.

Authorised creation of a strategic plan to take out Al Quaeda in late 2000 (after the embassy bombings). A senior Bush administration official admitted that this contained everything that Bush has done since 9/11.

Organized extensive briefings of the incoming Bush administration on the terror threat and his plan. The Bush administration basically ignored the whole thing.

In early 2001 the third Hart-Rudman Commission report was published which stated that massive terrorist attacks were a serious concern and that the US was unprepared for such attacks. It made recommendations which Bush and co. ignored.

Yeah, it's all Clinton's fault.