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#1
10-20-2006, 08:01 PM
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Is there a terrorist threat? The myth of an omnipresent enemy
Good article I read today.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060901fa...ist-threat.html [ QUOTE ] On the first page of its founding manifesto, the massively funded Department of Homeland Security intones, "Today's terrorists can strike at any place, at any time, and with virtually any weapon." But if it is so easy to pull off an attack and if terrorists are so demonically competent, why have they not done it? Why have they not been sniping at people in shopping centers, collapsing tunnels, poisoning the food supply, cutting electrical lines, derailing trains, blowing up oil pipelines, causing massive traffic jams, or exploiting the countless other vulnerabilities that, according to security experts, could so easily be exploited? One reasonable explanation is that almost no terrorists exist in the United States and few have the means or the inclination to strike from abroad. But this explanation is rarely offered... [/ QUOTE ] 
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#2
10-20-2006, 08:43 PM
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Re: Is there a terrorist threat? The myth of an omnipresent enemy
[ QUOTE ]
"Today's terrorists can strike at any place, at any time, and with virtually any weapon." [/ QUOTE ] To illustrate the ridiculous deceptiveness of this concept, consider this statement: "Even the greatest poker player in the world runs the danger of losing everything he has in front of him, all the time, every hand, with any two cards." This is technically true (assuming you're less than the chipleader in NL), but it is incredibly misleading. Take a minute and just think about how easy it would be to kill a random person. A handgun and a little practice should guarantee at least a few deaths in a public place. Even without access to firearms, there are tons of ways to kill people. You could sneak up behind anyone and slit their jugular vein, chloroform someone and tie the cloth, knock someone over the head in an alley and strangle them...the possibilities are endless. I'd even wager that the average rational person could get away with a number of murders if he really put some effort into it. This guy actually managed to kill over a hundred people for no reason and got away with it. Similarly, a rogue wave could, at any time, wipe out my house on the Jersey shore, tornados could rip apart the midwest and earthquakes could devour california. Lightning could strike anyone dead who walks outside, and a truck could, at any time, go off road and blow up your house with you in it. But all these events are so [censored] unlikely that there's simply no need to worry about them. Oh, yeah, 9-11 happened. Put some security on the [censored] plane. Problem solved.
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#3
10-20-2006, 08:43 PM
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Re: Is there a terrorist threat? The myth of an omnipresent enemy
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#4
10-20-2006, 11:44 PM
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Re: Is there a terrorist threat? The myth of an omnipresent enemy
This is a pretty good documentary on the issue, done by the BBC
part 1 http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...rism&hl=en part 2 http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...rism&hl=en part 3 http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...rism&hl=en
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#5
10-21-2006, 02:58 AM
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Re: Is there a terrorist threat? The myth of an omnipresent enemy
[ QUOTE ]
Oh, yeah, 9-11 happened. Put some security on the [censored] plane. Problem solved. [/ QUOTE ] It's really amazing that the constitution has been suspended all because airplanes didn't have locking cockpit doors. Well, that's the 'accidental' theory of history anyway.
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