i think we should give each of them a worther's original butterscotch candy, because they're sourpusses

seriously though, the only sound tactical option is to get proactive and attack the terrorists wherever they are - attacking a nation is not the answer to fighting an asymmetric threat. whatever happened to the good old days when the CIA could get an agent into a third world country and assasinate or topple whoever they needed to with a good chance of success? those were the days alrighty

you didn't mention the recent cell phone plot - its totally stereotypical, but a very plausible explanation: Middle-Eastern-Americans run bodegas and sell sketchy merchandise like counterfeit brand name clothing, prepaid cell phones, and groceries they bought retail, so why should it be surprising to find a couple enterprising young men targeting a lucrative market?

p.s. only drug dealers and other criminal types buy prepaid phones, since there's no name on the call records - it's easy to see some reason for concern when two young men buy a crap load of these cellphones at once - presumably you could use them to remotely detonate bombs without leaving a trail of evidence, or use them to coordinate activity while frustrating wiretap efforts. this story hasn't developed much but i'm betting that they are just failed wannabe-copycats

Edited by - Cold_Void on 8/20/2006 2:31:21 PM

*Scratches head*

I could have sworn they made a movie about this, now what was it, Oh yes!! "The Phantom Menice".

Taw, there are terorist out there, they blow themselves up to kill others, they put bombs in dead animals by the road side to kill people, they use children to carry the bombs in public places, and lest we forget, The bombed the trade center with a van full of explosives as well as the planes that hit them years later. The co-pilot who shut down the engines of a plane and killed all on board. And, the London train bombings, the Spain train bombings, and even the Homegrown version, the Oklahoma bombing of a federal building that killed children in a daycare. So many examples. It really amazes me that people have such a short memory these days.

I for one do not belive things will ever get better again in this world. I think you know what I mean Taw. And, freedoms are lost several countries that have no bombings as well. It is a sign, of the times. Sad to say.

Edited by - Finalday on 8/20/2006 2:53:24 PM

God... I don't feel like reading all that right now.

*Shoots whoever went grave digging.*




Edited by - Killa on 8/20/2006 7:50:21 PM

Congratulations on a thoroughly useless post then....

@Taw
Oh dear, someone's got a conspiracy theory or twelve haven't they? First of all, criticising the accuracy and impartiality of the BBC and then claiming to get all your 'reliable' information from Al Jazeera is hypocritical to say the least, especially considering the subject in question. I'll concede that neither source is likely to be completely unbiased, but personally my money's on the BBC for solid facts.

To be perfectly honest - and no offense intended here - I can't work up the energy to reply to all the points you made above because a lot of them strike me as ridiculous. Sure there have been widely publicised mistakes by the police in the past, but there have been a large number of accomplishments that you neglected to mention. The notion that "there is NO terrorist network hiding beneath the surface of society. it's a fanatsy that serves the purposes of governments, police forces, and intelligence services to increase control and repression of ordinary citizens" sounds like classic, ignorant conspiracy-theorist material to me. There are groups out there prepared to commit atrocities in the name of whatever cause they believe in, be it fighting the "Great Satan" in the West or purportedly in the name of Islam, and we call them terrorists. 9/11 and the London July Bombings weren't carried out by a few disenfranchised citizens. They were carried out by groups of well-organised people with the capabilities and the will to go to such extreme lengths. Terrorists.

You may find the new security measures inconvenient but without them we'd be in a far worse situation. Even if this latest incident turns out to be a faux pas on the part of the police, and I don't think it will, it still sends out a message; that they are prepared to take decisive action to defend the country and it's citizens. If the security measures were relaxed to a pre-9/11 state then I'm certain we'd see more 9/11's in the very near future. It was done once and there are undoubtedly many other people willing to go to the same lengths.

I'm due to fly out to France in a few days and I'm sure the rigorous security checks will still be in place then. It may be inconvenient but I'm happy to go through it; even though I may never be in danger myself I'd rather wait an extra hour to board a flight than see even one person killed by terrorist action. Being disallowed a drink and walkman on the plane seems a small price to pay to rule out even the possiblity of loss of life. Perhaps that's just my opinion.

Please bother to actually read what I write rather than choosing bits as suit you. This is important as I'm trying to teach you something about the nature of the world we're living in today, which is what this thread is actually about.

hypocritical? I fail to see how you come to that conclusion. I've long been a supporter of the BBC's impartiality but hat has been severely circumscribed since they became largely emasculated as a result of the Hutton Enquiry (which was openly used by the authorities to whitewash themselves from all blame regarding Dr David Kelly's mysterious death and put the blame onto the BBc's investigative journalism. I suugest that you read the numerous articles and interviews by Greg Dyke regarding this process. Al-Jazeera, despite it's popular demonisation in the West, is in fact one of the world's most highly respected news organisations, with the rather interesting distinction of having been banned in Iraq by both Saddam Hussein and the former CPA as well as the current "govt" in Baghdad (on and off) so generally I tend to think that they do a pretty good job (and aren't in the pay of any vested interests or national authorities)

as far as conspiracy theories, nope; not a one. Don't hold with them. You're deliberately trying to belittel my argument by labelling it a conspiracy theory yet the facts remain that there is no global terror conspiracy with some mastermind sitting in a mountain fortress in C Asia. if you like I can demonstrate to you [istep-by-step how this myth came to be believed by so many people including the people who invented it.

following the bombings in E Africa of American embassies, the FBI needed a means by which to proescute Osama bin Laden and his associates in absebtio. They did this by using legislation originally intended to proseucte organisedc crime in the US. They obtained a witness from the Jordanian police, a former associate of bin Laden, who after being promised witness protection and several hundred thousand dollars, made statements that gave the FBI everything they wanted. There was this "organisation" called "Al-Quaeda" with sleeper cells all around the world - it was a prosecutors dream. That said witness was actually on the run from Osama after stealing money from him was conveniently ignored, as was the inconveneient fact that he'd been passed around from intelligence service to intelligence service in the Middle East and was considered utterly unreliable bya ll and sundry. All voices in the FBi that said, hang on, this guy's evidence is full of holes and won't stand up, were also ignored (or silenced)

After 9/11 this seriously flawed evidence and the means by which it was used by Us prosecutors formed the basis for everything that followed, including the military action, arrests, imprisonment without trial, the works. The same bogus evidence was used to justify those weeks of B-52 strikes on the Tora Bora mountains, and the much vaunted Operation Anaconda, on those supposed mountain fortresses. Which didn't exist. The reason that American (and British) forces didn't find any "Al-Quaeda" terrorists in said mountains is because they were never there, because Al-Quaeda doesn't, and never did, exist. It was an invention. if you don't believe me, go and look at the court records for yourself. They're available under the American FOI.

As to the handfuls of "Al-Quaeda" fighters captured by the Northern Alliance, did you know that the Northern Alliance were paid in gold for everyone they delivered to the Americans? as Afghans have a long tradition of human trafficking and ransom, do you think it's possibly more likely that they just kidnapped anyone who looked vaguley Arab and sold them to an American military desperate to show some results in an operation spectacularly lacking in results? Most of these people were local shepherds and farmers.

look I'm not saying terrorism isn't real; of course it is. Of course there are terrorists. there have been for years and there will continue to be. What I'm saying, if you bother to actually read what I put and not just give knee-**** reactions based on popular preconception, is that there is no global conspiracy, no central mastermind, no secret society hiding behind a veneer of normailty. What there is are increasingly large numbers of angry and disaffected young Muslim men who, inspired by a romantic idea of jihad and a admittedly justifiable indignation at the treatment of Muslim people historically, go and make home-made explosives int heir baths and walk onto trains. And how is that going to be defended against? please explain to me how when central London is one of the most closely-surveillanced cities in the world, they were able to succeed? because it's undefendable. Ergo, unless you completely seal off city centres and search everyone coming in and out and check their ids, like we had to in Belfast in the 70s and 80s (and I was there) how is it possible to protect a moajor capital city? without so much disruption as to make life virtually unbearable. it's not, is it? that may be a price you say you're wiiling to pay, but I'm not, and there is a limit to how much intrusion people can take. I've had the same argument with my father-in-law who answered "but we're at war" - to which i answer "who with? where are they? please point them out. is it him? or him? or him? or her? or them? who are these terrorists? what do they look like? shall we seal off every Muslim community in the country, herd them all into ghettoes, then we know where they are and we'll be safe?" You see what I'm getting at, surely; it's a question of degree. happen to think, with much justification, that the terrorist threat has been grossly over-exaggerated and that it has been deliberately manipulated in order to give politicians an authority they have been lacking for many years now, to concentrate the public mind on an an enemy that's been lacking for even longer and to provide a "patriotic" outlet so thatwe can all pretend it's a "real" war, and the Police and Intelligence services a range of powers they could never have got by other means. I've already told you that in a police state, in the correct meaning of the term, suspects are automatically assumed to be guilty, or else why would the police have arrested them in the foirst place? sound familiar?

As to the plane business, let's get realistic; it's been impossible to get so much as a rats whisker on a plane for the last 20 years since the Lockerbie bomb (and it wa shard enough before) and that was put on Pan Am 73 at Frankfurt, not in Britain. You're seriously trying to tell me that suddenly a bunch of ill-eductaed oiks from madressehs in the sticks of Northern Pakistan managed to suss out a security breach that the IRA, ETA, and a dozen other much more experienced and capable terrorist organisations couldn't? with baby-milk and crayons? now that's taking "possibly" to the absurd.

you're probaably not old enough to remember the real dark days of terorism in the past, Black September, PNLA, IRA/INLA, P2, Red Brigades, Baader-Meinhoff; they didn't have half-baked schemes involving bay-milk, they got on planes and gunned people down and blew stuff up for real. While security was increased quite sensibly at airports etc, there was no need to impose the kind of draconian restrictions on everyday life that are coming all the time now. You've bought into a false security, if you don't mind my saying so. And I think really, an intelligent chap like you probably realises it, you just don't want to find yourself agreeing with me. All this nonsense isn't going to make you any safer at all, it's just to increase the pressure and uncertainty and make you think the authorities are doing some thing.

btw if you like I can mention some very nasty terrorists of the past called Irgun and The Stern Gang; you might care to read up on their history, what they did, and see who they were/are and what they went on to be?

it's all very saddening to me because it's all been so predictable and obvious. Under Reagan the Us set out to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan and humilaite them. As a result, and with the Us priding itself on its defeat of the evil Communists and the downfall of the Soviet Union, Afghanistan was as those of us who observe such things then realised, forgotten, and fell apart. Those heroic mujahideen freedom fighters turned out to be bloodthisrty murdering warlords who in turn spawned a reaction of militant Islamists, who themeselves beleived that is was they who'd defeated the Soviet empire (whilst American neo-cons thought it was themselves and the aggressive projection of American power) In fact, the Soviets collapsed because the were rotten, stagnant, and bankrupt. But these two groups of idealogues drew the wrong conclusions and started on a path that that led, ultimately, to 9/11, and Iraq, and so and and so forth.

conspiracy theories? no. just a link of events going back decades that developed, as such things do, a momentum of their own that became ustoppable. As the US backed corrupt dictatorships in the Middle-East to counter-attack Soviet influence, they ignorantly alienated the increasingly strident islamists, but when the Soviet Union fell, these Islamist didn't go away. So they started to become the new enemy, the new axis of evil (paraphrasing Reagan's 1983 "empire of evil" speech) Unfortunately it was role they didn't altogether fit particularly well, esp as most of their actions took place in their own countries as they were more interested in displacing their own corrupt regimes and replacing them with Islamic ones than they were with the US. Then 9/11 happened, which changed everything. Suddenly there was a global conspiracy with sleeper cells in every town just waiting to strike.

but there weren't, and there still aren't. 9/11 was a unique event, made possible by a particularly daring expoitation of hsitorically very lax American security and a ruthlessness driven by fanaticism hitherto unforeseen. No hostages, no ransom demands, just suicide. Yet the fact remains that even the most simple security measures taken in time would have prevented it. And if the administration had bothered to read their own reports warning that terrorists from the Middle-East were planning to hijack planes and fly them into buildings? yes you can read that one too under the FOI; well you could before that bit was censored out. that's not conspiracy theory, that really happened. You can see copies of the documents that people got before the censorship, and the ones that came after that are now the "official" version - the ones with all the incriminating bits blacked out. Good one, eh? if I was a conspiracy theorist I'd beleive that the Us Govt was behind the whole thing - i don't. but I do think that certain key members of the administration were culpably negligent to the point of criminality, and the evidence available does in all fairness lend itself to that p.o.v.

incidentally those terrorists involved in 9/11 were never under a central command of Osama bin laden; he provided them with the money and useful contacts in the US - he was never their commander. it's an important distinction if you want to get to the truth. as I've said repeatedly, there is no organistaion, no central command, no hierarchy, despite what you read - just disparate groups united only by a common idea spread by web-pages and e-mails, taking inspiration from each other. Mind you, the myth of Al-Quaeda is now so powerful that even Osama, al-Zawahiri and the rest draw power from it themselves, sudeenly they're now powerful figures rather than being isolated nutjobs sitting in grotholes in N Pakistan, and thus they can say "we're going to do this" and everybody quakes in fear, and some more restrictions come down on everyday life. Osama doesn't have to do anything excpet make videos and send them to Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabbiya, that gets him the effect he needs.

Anyhoo, me and Mrs Taw are off in a few years when the kids are grown, we don't liek the way things are going at all. the country's changing into a dictatorship - if that's what you're happy with, fine, you're welcome to it, we're off to the sunshine at the first opportunity and we won't be coming back. Central France or Northern Italy, somewhere near Lake Como sounds nice. You keep your id cards and body searches and cctv and the rest, you're welcome to it if it makes you feel safer.

Bah, always said I am going to Canada - and I will be going... eventually.

As for Osama - I was under the impression that he came to notice to the Americans in the late 80's, early 90's... as did Al Quawhateverit'sspeltas did too (in the 90's).

I don't exactly believe everything, but since papers have proven time and again that you can get whatever you like onto a plane that isn't metalic (metal detectors) - that is ALL they manage to detect... otherwise how can they stop plastique yet still get millions of pounds of heroin and cannabis through? They go on intel, just like any security force does. Ergo, I don't buy or give credence to the idea that you cannot get anything onto a plane. Just like getting reporters into the Palace - anything is possible where fallable humans are invovled.

I personally don't believe terrorists are masterminds, or even amazingly brilliant or amazingly secretive either... and as long as they don't talk to others (or request/purchase weird stuff), there is no way to find them either. They only get noticed because by and large they are cowards who brainwash others into doing their bidding. The "others" they brainwash require information, know-how, instructions and guidance as to what to do - and that is how these things come to light.

As for this being a myth, I am sure there are tons of things we just don't know about... just like the ol IRA. The ceasefire they came to the table about in the 90's, when really it was because SAS & MI5/6 were bumping off their operatives left, right and centre. We never knew of 95% of their operations, only when it became a big issue. Just like we didn't know anything of that lot, there is no way you can know of what they do each day either - how much evidence they have to sift through to try and find genuine threats. I don't really see us as any more under threat than we were from the IRA, but I am not so presumptious to assume that it's all just one huge hoax, and we know everything that occurs.

As for that news channel - if you put stock in that one, you are just as bad as us putting stock in the BBC. Whilst you may not agree with the BBC, sadly Channel 4, ITV, Channel 5 and Sky seem to correlate their reports every single day - so either every single news channel in this country is corrupt, or they actually report factual stuff.

@Chips
Agreed, even in the midst of this security explosion people are slipping through, usually unintentionally. Por ejemplo a couple of days ago a woman boarded a flight from Heathrow with a tup of hand cream - a class 1 banned substance under the current measures due to it's similarity with liquid explosives. It was completely unintentional, and when it was spotted during the flight the plane was diverted to the nearest airport and escorted down by F-18 fighter jets. In another instance a 10-year old boy managed to get through all the security checks and board a plane without possessing a valid boarding pass, passport or anything. There was also the case of the guy last week who left his wallet on a plane, so simply walked back throught the terminal, smashed the door release leading to the plane and got on board. If these people can do it unintentionally then I'm sure Johnny-Terrorist can find a way to smuggle half a pound of semtex or astrolite on board.

@Taw
I apologise if it seemed like I was trying to belittle your argument, I can assure you I wasn't. I respect, if not always agree with, your opinion and you obviously have a wide range of knowledge on the subject.

It's 1am here at the moment but I've read through your post, and I'll read it again when more alert, and all I would ask for is some evidence on the birth of this ficticious Al-Quaeda as a result of the embassy bombings. In some ways I find it hard to believe, but in other ways I'm still open-minded on the subject. It does seem that, had the US administration needed a scapegoat in the aftermath of 9/11, Al-Quaeda would have been a prime target.

In addition I never did infer the existence of one worldwide terrorist network, given the difficulties with infrastructure and the relative lack of advantages in doing so. Terrorists generally take direct, localised action and the benefits of networking the Iranian Mujhaddin al-Kalk and London suicide bombers seems trivial in comparison with the increased chance of detection. I suppose it's more a question of degree; while I agree there is no omnipresent organisation I would suggest there are numbers of smaller terrorist networks, most likely constrained to the country they operate in. Perhaps "network" is the wrong word, I'd say terrorist "cells" is more appropriate.

Terrorist network or elaborate fairy tale, the fact remains that there is still a very real threat. It may have moved on from The Troubles and the massacres organised by the Provos but it's no less real, and for that I'm prepared to tolerate CCTV and airport security and whatever else it takes to keep that at bay. You mention the fear of visiting Central London during the Christmas bombings, yet you then say that you had "none of the draconian measures that (we) have now and life went on" . Do you mean to say that you'd be willing to tolerate the loss of life simply to regain some of these civil liberties that the Government are apparently so desperate to supress? Because if these "draconian measures" are relaxed then I can assure you there will be further incidents and further loss of life.

I came to a bit of an interesting conclusion a few hours ago:
What is one of the major differences between now and about 2 decades ago?
Apart from all these terrorists, it was pretty much technological advancement and development (Not to metion previously prototypical and experimental technologies finally finding thier way tinot he public arms).

Now in the 1980s, due to the (relative) low level of technology, many governments were forced to improvise in order to obtain thier goals (Try making a low-budget movie. same basic principle). Tactics, stealth, and ingenuity reigned. before 1950 you wouldnt hear much about terrorists or infiltrators or anything like you hear today.

Personally, i believe that many superpowers have done away with these old methods in favour of using defensive security (i.e. cameras, checks, and other bricabrac). Before now, if the U.S. (Or britan, either is a good example) got attacked, they would get very pissed, send out a bunch of agents, topple the threat, and everyone is on thier merry way. Now, with all this 'unbeatable' security technology, everyone has fallen on the defensive, and the terrorists will keep attacking and attacking, and they will keep breaching our defenses until there is nothing left to defend.

Change your tactics! Defensive is only good if you know that your attacker will give up, which we know these people are not going to do! . There is no point having defenses if you do not intend to eliminate the threat! send some infiltrators in! launch a proper military campaign (Unlike this whole WMD thing in iraq. Hell, other, more persistent threats have WMDs, but we dont invade them. not only that, they were ignoring the terrorists, which are and have been the real threat for quite some time). Hell, if all else fails, launch a few cruise missiles at them!

ok, i might be overdoing it a little, but i do believe that it is time to stop being completely defensive. a change of tactics is in order...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ULSA5wktywI

a picture's worth a thousand words - here's 5 minutes of jaw dropping nuclear test footage at 28 fps(84,000 words), with the grimly appropriate "Love" by canadian death metal band Strapping Young Lad

I'm not really interested anymore. The whole thing really p*sses me off, the entire country is going hysterical, and people are getting arrested and kicked off planes for speaking Urdu or saying prayers. Ive decided to completely switch the news off and not read any newspapers at all, it upsets me so much. Sooner or later we Muslims are going to be forced to register at the police station and wear special badges and probably have to sit on separate seats (or not be allowed on public transport at all) It's an absolute disgrace. I did my bit for this country which is more than most people have and this is how I get treated?

I was sat in the caff the other day talking to one of my colleagues from work, Hannahah, lovely girl, devout Muslim, always wears her hijab to work, and when she got up to go the loo, a stupid woman in the caff came over and said to me, "oooh you don't want to be talking to one of them, she might be one of those terrorists, you never know these days do you?" You can probably imagine how I reacted to that. Honestly it absolutley makes me sick, but this is the environment of fear and suspicion that the stupid irresponsible media (mostly owned by Rupert Murdoch) and their idiotic terrorist scares every 5 minutes have created. Ordinary law-abiding people minding their own business marginalised and discriminated against because stupid people want something to be frightened of and something to hate and fear.

and don't tell me it's understandable, because it isn't. it's no different from the way Jews were treated in Nazi Germany or blacks in America before the 1960s. I'm getting so angry about it these days that the next time some idiot says anything about Muslims being terrorists or associetd nonsense I'm quite likely to smack them in the chops. And the govt can stick their silly ID cards where the sun doesn't shine, I'm prepared to go to gaol over that one.

horrible rotten country it's become, didn't used to be like this.

It can't stay this way forever. Sooner or later, our governments are going to push us to the point where we're gonna start pushing back. Anyone who says that they are willing to give up some of their freedoms to stay safe from terrorism is an absolute gutless coward who's afraid to live their own life and deserves to die.