I am a reasonable person. Let's be reasonable for a minute. Think to yourself what you could do to harm the U.S. infrastructure if you were a terrorist.... not to hard is it, does it happen? No? Then there are no terrorists.
Example- Derail trains/tools crowbar and seclusion
Example- Wildfire starters/tools a match
Example- Destroy powerlines/tools rope, grapple
Example- Destroy pipelines/tools a shovel
Example- Destroy mail system/tools talcumpowder
Etcetera

Now I am not advocating harming the U.S. but if there were terror cells all over the U.S. then where is the mayhem a few people could cause? I am ex-military(U.S. Army) and I know the "terrorists" are not stupid.(I couldn't fly a plane or make anthrax). Billions of dollars are being spent and no one is safe.
I think this war on terror is a LIE.

that post doesnt work
FACT 1) lots of money is being spent on counter terrorism
FACT 2) there have been no recent terrorist attacks

your conclusion - counter terrorism is unnecessary
the correct conclusion - in America, counter terrorism has been succesfull in countering/preventing terrorism

EDIT:
who would gain from decieving the public??
Can you rememeber as far back as September 11?
Do you really think that Saddams supporters are going to remain content with staying in Iraq forever

No my friend, America is in great danger, and Bush is trying his hardest to keep the country safe (though he doesn't seem to be succeding)

Alain, the only terrorists we had to endure inside the "homeland" before 9/11 were EarthFirst and the occasional right-wing nut. And the GOP, but there's much debate about including them.

A one-time, decade-planned affair and then a bunch of squirrels scurrying around for nuts. We went straight past common-sense in this country without blinking. We hit knee-jerk just in time for Democrats to roll over and hand an evil man everything he could ever ask for in order to carry out a holy war against a people he hates.

Thank you for offering me your friendship alain.:) It is encouraging to engage in civil discourse in a public forum with someone you disagree with. I disagree with you.
I conceed you your two facts, with a qualifier. Yes, money has been taken but with congresses lack of oversight, it is not shown to me to be spent on counter-terrorism.
Seattle police chief Kurakowski recently said[(paraphrase) that everytime the threat level increases, that day cost the county 20,000$ and the state 60,000$.] That money comes out of the state budget to be reimbursed only about 25% sometime later, by the feds. This does not include maintaining the security level, or military costs. This seems to me to be an executive unfunded mandate.
My conclusion is clearly stated:"I think the war on terror is a lie." Believe it or not I think counter-terrrorism is necessary. Gather intel on suspects when intel becomes actionable, intervene and diffuse the threat.
This is not what the war on terror is, or even pretends to be. This is not what happened in IraqII. Even Rumsfeld conceeded this year that Iraq did not appear to be in cahoots with Al-queda, under Sadaam. The U.S. invaded a soveriegn nation on a pretext of the immenant threat of WMD and cited noncomplience with the U.N., variously muddling the invasion's rationale with liberating Iraq, freeing the world of a madman and finally, well it was the right thing to do. Now the president says that Iraq is ground zero in the war on terrorism. and well now it is. But I digress...
Your 'correct' conclusion would have us believe that everyday that passes without an incedent is a day that our counter-terrorism team stopped a terrorist. Are you seriously suggesting that we dropped the ball only 7 or so times in 62 years, while every other day our intelligence agencies stopped or caught an invading terrorist?
Your post edit questions would require a very long post but I'll answer each,briefly.
1)Halliburton for one,gained enormously from this deception
2)(suppressing rant)Everyone in the civilized world remembers 9/11 (The current administration admits that Sadaam had nothing to do with it either).
3)Sadaams supporters were supporting a legal soveriegn nation, albeit a fascist dictatorship NOT terrorists.
Yes my friend, America is in great danger. I do not believe our president, let alone think his policies are in any way keeping our nation safe.

post script
I see now that my thread may seem flippant in its over simplification, obviously the subject matter has filled the pages of a great many books in recent years. I don't care to rebut every point that is unrelated to the supposition of the thread.
The supposition is this, a few terrorists could wreak widespread chaos in America at anytime, the examples I gave were literally of the top of my head and would be near impossible to stop or apprehend(where is the anthraxer) Since there have been no attacks in over 2 years and there have been no U.S. arrests in 2 years then where are they?

>> who would gain from decieving the public??

Well the elite of course... this has happened many many times in history.... notable Hitler and the bomb attempt (?fire) in Germany, where he took a dictatorship role......

The same errosion of "freedoms" is happening today.... our politics today is very much "nazi".

You figure... wont be long before anyone and everyone will be suspected, spied upon and incarcerated.. a la McCarthy era in the USA.

Insanely Elite

Now I am not advocating harming the U.S. but if there were terror cells all over the U.S. then where is the mayhem a few people could cause?

A few people can cause more mayhem for the US in Saudi Arabia then attacking almost any installation inside the US. The “war on terror” for the terrorists have moved on from one of ideological importance (alas 9/11) to more pragmatic ventures, i.e. killing scores of Americans in Iraq, Afghanistan, kidnapping them in Pakistan, Iraq, and Saudi (some guy was captured today in Riyadh), and disrupting the flow of oil. Just because America the homeland isn’t being hit, you are feeling the affects of terrorism when you fill your unnecessarily large, and fuel exorbitant car/SUV/truck.

the correct conclusion - in America, counter terrorism has been succesfull in countering/preventing terrorism

Has it? I haven’t heard of any terrorist attack prevented lately, the last one was here in Canada by Canadian officials. Secondly preventing terrorism is impossible, delaying terrorism is the correct use of semantics. Thirdly the terrorists are arguably are doing much more pragmatic damage now then before.

On the part of terrorists, there may have thus far been an assumption that it requires a small number of spectacular attacks to move a large country into diplomatic overstepping and military overextension. Spectacular attacks require considerable preparation and training, extremely loyal, and mature, well-travelled operatives. Under the US/Isareli occupations, it's just the reverse: Motivation is everywhere, and the necessary training minimal.

Already skittish, America could now rapidly be sent writhing and bucking into a trap using only small burrs under her saddle: Small, multiple, and random car bombs, snipers, and examples like Insanely Elite offered, could break the economic and social legs of the USA in short order.

Thankfully, smaller provocative acts, that no Department of Homeland Security can ever presume to forestall (although they want Americans to believe otherwise, and buy their product), require a significant number of committed terrorists. This is not currently so easy in the US. Compare this with situations of occupation and misery, where young recruits are trapped within hopelessness, and even until the moment of their self-destruction are reliable for their handlers: With nothing to lose, they are utterly loyal to the mission until death.

It's much more difficult to send impressionable youth into independent operation in a more distant, comfortable, alluring, and even exotic environment, while expecting the mission not to be abandoned or procrastinated on, before other distractions turn a terrorist mission into a lost summer. There is presently infertile ground for a militant islamist fifth column within the US, because Arab-American immigrants are overwhelmingly the "brain-drain" componont of the Arab diaspora, and are living far more fulfilling lives than the unfortunate residents of Gaza, Sadr City, or al-Suwaydi. Arab-Americans also confront every day a barely repressed American xenophobia that they would be loathe to provoke in their personal lives.

The less spectacular terrorists who have struck within the US have had home-grown American hate, or have been in the throes of internal psychological conflict. None were young Saudis or Palestinians with clear political objectives, for example. It requires a rare profile among foreign-bred terrorists for there to be an individual both mature and psychologically secure enough to cross cultures and remain focused on a relatively unspectacular but politically-conceived mission.

We should nevertheless expect smaller, and more frequent attacks in the US, understanding that the state cannot protect the citizenry from terrorism: The only thing that a government can do about smaller-scale terrorism is to either provoke, or not provoke.

To every psychological profile, there are exceptions. Those exceptional enough to set off a typical car bomb or explode themselves on a bus in a distant country must be a rare combination of malleability (to be implanted with murderous youthful zeal), but also extremely resilient (to resist being influenced by direct dontact with a new culture). That's a tall order.

Soldiers or terrorists, it is by overwhelming majority the young who do political killing under the direction of the old. Young soldiers better retain their programming, because they can be operated in peer groups, and psychologically isolated from figures in bombsights and gunsights. Equivalent large and self-policing terrorist networks in theatre are far more expensive, and much easier for police to detect, than are independent opreratives.

Contrary to popular American xenophobia, would-be terrorists do not easily find support and safety among Arab communities and mosques here. Lone terrorists therefore can't enjoy anything approaching the psychological insulation provided by peers in action, as when a mission is planned and launched, and a sleeping family is killed by the crew of an Apache gunship.

Understanding this difference, the most effective defense Americans have from small but efficient forms of terrorism (small-scale, incessant mayhem) is our sincere acceptance of diversity. If poverty, ignorance and racism were to sufficiently detiorate the quality of life of minorities, then Boston 2005 can rapidly become Beirut 1976. As can any and all other US cities- The fabric of our civilization is largely woven on trust, and contentment- turmoil is suspicion and desperation.

Right now, because there are exceptions to every rule, and because US military intervention has provoked unprecedented anger, that fabric is very likely to continue fraying with fear, and will get cut by more attacks. Just as before 9-11, Americans as a whole have extremely naiive notions of terrorism and how their government should respond to it.

US leadership is thus far promoting its competence by provoking more terrorism, undermining American understanding of the implications and motives of the terrorists we face, is grossly exaggerating government's ability to forestall terrorism, and putting future American generations deep into debt. Considering these mounting threats being heaped on this country, there are plainly terrorists in America, and we must have priorities to go after the most dangerous first: The most threatening operatives are hard at work in the Bush administration, unconscionably exploiting fear in order to consolidate power.

"Thank you for offering me your friendship alain"
you're welcome, thank you for accepting

"Everyone in the civilized world remembers 9/11 (The current administration admits that Sadaam had nothing to do with it either)."
and America had forewarning that it was going to happen, but, because the counter-terrorism guys were too busy, they did not look into it, if they had more money, and therefore more people, they could have

"Has it? I haven’t heard of any terrorist attack prevented lately"
picture 2 soccer goals, one has a goalie infront of it, the other doesn't, to score a goal in the one without a goalie is easy, aim for the centre, you can kick from a long way of and you'll still score, but, many times that you could have shot at an empty goal, you dont shoot if the goalie is there, because you know that he WOULD save it

counter terrorism is the goalie, and the fact that it is there, stops terrorist attacks before they start

"I do not believe our president, let alone think his policies are in any way keeping our nation safe."
no, but you cant get angry at him for failing, he is trying his hardest, and i doubt you could do any better then him, myself, id probably declare war on the sea or something :P

"The supposition is this, a few terrorists could wreak widespread chaos in America at anytime, the examples I gave were literally of the top of my head and would be near impossible to stop or apprehend(where is the anthraxer) Since there have been no attacks in over 2 years and there have been no U.S. arrests in 2 years then where are they?"
most of them are in Iraq, fighting off the Americans, but, as you say, it only takes a dozen guys to make a terrorist attack. i dont know, it could be that they are infact getting arrested, but it is top secret and alerting the public would also alert America's enemies

Hello Undecided,
I like my handle in bold print.
You appear to be quoting me in the first set of Italics, and
alain in the second set of Italics
Do you realize this?
Maybe you're channelling your avatar...

Responding to whats under my quote now
three things:
1- I agree that a few terrorists can cause damage outside the U.S. creating internal harm.
2-Are you saying you agree with me since you say"..the terrorists have moved on.."
3-America the Beautiful. please. not America the homeland. Homeland sounds like fatherland

ps please edit your post and quote alain in your second set of italics.

Hello Hypewaders,
Hello again alain,
I was writing my response to undecided while you both were posting.
I had been up since Thursday, and I couldn't believe It took me 3 hours to respond.
I passed out for a few hours this afternoon, so my facilities are renewed a bit, such as they are.

Good points Hypewaders.
What ever happened to "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"?
I completely agree that the worst terrorists are in the white house.
Look at the findings from the world court, chilling :eek:
http://deoxy.org/wc/warcrim2.htm
No wonder Reagans memos aren't being released.

alain- My friend, I am not angry with our president.
I am completely disillusioned with our government.
So many deceptions. Zero open public debate.

hey IE

my advice would be to not expect so much and you wont get as dissillusioned :P

One contributing factor worth considering in the apparent dearth of recent terrorist attacks on America is that there are a significant number of Americans remaining who believe and habitually abide by the concepts of reciprocity, common humanity, decency, and humility in most daily activities, excluding the foreign policies we support in votes and taxes. With a significant amount of this collective action, warfare of a kind America has not yet experienced, more horrific and enduring than 9-11, can be averted. Alternatively, an increasingly militarized and domestically agitated America would provide a much more fertile environment for terrorist tactis to remove the ability of the USA to install and support governments, or garrison troops in the Mideast.

True counter-terrorism in the Homeland requires learning what has happened in the Arab world, from the Arab perspective, for at least the last 60 years. Then understand that all of us would behave in nearly indistinguishable ways in identical situations. We are all potentially terrorists or peacemakers.

There is no profitable path in this conflict in escalating political killings on the part of either side. Escalation is the embracing of terrorism, and the promotion of its expansion. For a lone hyperpower, escalation of assymetrical war is not just counterproductive, but self-defeateing. In the less affluent but more sustainable "enemy" economies,the conflict can easily be perpetuated with growing support from the population for a century, or indefinitely.

Very simply, the Golden Rule is now the only logical enabler in US Foreign policy, if the goal is to maintain our present national standards of living. Any deviation from this simple policy will predictably lead to a loss of legitimacy throughout the world, whose resources and labor provide Americans with the good life- at the expense of millions of increasingly mobile, world-conscious, activist, and justice-deprived people around the globe.

I concur completely with your assesment, hypewaders. Appears that the solution is not being applied to the extent that the problem prevails. We can expect that violent activities will grow and we can place the responsibility squarely in the hands of those who wield power from ignorance, more so in the people who control the resources of the greatest military might on the planet.

Presenting an example of the sanctity of life is not receiving its due. We will need to learn how to handle the responsibilites of power without concomitant corruption. The ability now exists to render great and perhaps unrecoverable damage to our biosphere through ambivalence to its fragility and our preoccupation with forcing servitude. We will need some new tools to turn this around or face the least favorable outcome of the Fermi paradox with excruciating suffering for each of us. We will need to turn the situation around relatively quick as the information explosion will continue to avail powerful abilities.

I suspect a new understanding in the realm of communication science will be our best bet. Forums such as this have real limitations as far as promoting a capacity to share information efficiently and to any depth or breadth in a non-self destructive manner. I suspect, a peer-to-peer completely scalable collaboration software scheme may be much more efficient, a way to share and coordinate great amounts of information among huge populations to the extent that diversity is preserved rather than feared or fought.

"Time keeps on slipping..." Steve Miller

Supposedly, a father land terrorist plot was foiled with the incarceration of a person in November of last year, http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5209103/

Let's pretend I'm a terrorist.

My goal is to infiltrate and sabotage. Unfortunately, I'm Muslim and look Arabic. Bam, racial profiling, the feds are already watching me and the mosques.

I derail a train. Al-Whatever claims responsibility. The FBI or whatver then do the CSI shit and find me. Oops.

My terrorist buddy attempts to do the same thing, but the paranoid public sees the same shit going down, calls the cops. Oops again.

I think it'd be extremely easy to find people doing stuff terrorist like because they look like terrorists. That's why they don't do it.

Actually, it'd be really easy to fuck with people, too. Counter-terrorism must be countering the big stuff. Not the guys with pipe-bombs or rifles or a crowbar.

Hmmm... this is indeed strange.

There are no terrorists in the U.S.

Well I've found a few...


http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/people/shows/mcveigh/images/story.tim.uniform.attention.jpg

http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/images/kkk-6(flag)_small.jpg

http://www.everetthealthcare.com/images/washsniper2.jpg

BTW It seems being a terrorist is just not good enough these days. Now you have to be the right sort of terrorist.

Defense officials think Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh was an Iraqi agent (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25061)

LoL!
Anybody who believes that gets the government they deserve.

IMHO When you live in a society so dependent on technology the range of potential targets is huge. Electricty substations, telephone switchgear, cellphone masts ect ect. You can't guard it all, you can even shut down your local mass transit by putting your hand down the toilet. (http://www.metro.co.uk/metro/weird/article.html?in_page_id=4&in_article_id=13920)
Expecting 'counterterrorism' to have a major impact is expecting too much. If you don't have a man on the inside providing sound info, and he has to be way high in the suspect organisation to tell you anything other than the plans of his local cell, then your gonna get nowhere.
As for profiling...
Remember what they said about the Washington Sniper?

all the expert profilers appearing on TV news programs confidently said the sniper was a white male.

http://www.aim.org/media_monitor_print/591_0_2_0/

If you had a major terrorist problem you'd know it already.
Dee Cee

BTW It seems being a terrorist is just not good enough these days. Now you have to be the right sort of terrorist.

That's basically it. You've hit the nail right on the head. I watched this documentary a couple of months ago and I remember this interview with this guy who's an expert on terrorism and terrorists. His comment about terrorists in the US was that there were more terrorist organisations flying 'under the radar' in the US because they were US citizens intent on bringing down the Government. As he then pointed out, the US Government was so busy looking for Islamic fundamentalists and terrorist suspects that the people intent on bringing down the US Government could do so easily... because they aren't suspects and they don't fit the profile.

The sad thing is though that the policy taken by the US and also other Governments around the world is resulting in Muslims who are just going about their day to day lives being terrified in case they become suspects. I have this lovely guy in one of my classes... immigrated, with his family, to Australia from Egypt when he was around 5 or so... and he wanted to do one of his research papers on the effects that terrorism was having on domestic laws. But he then approached me and told me that he wasn't going to research that topic anymore because he was scared that doing the search on terrorism and terrorist online (whether at uni or at home) could result in he being picked up for questioning. And he's probably right when one considers how much 'observation' power the Government has given itself lately. He could very well have been picked up. Ridiculous really.

The Governments are so busy for what they think is obvious that it will be the ones who are the least obvious and the ones who don't fit the profile who may end up doing something.

You appear to be quoting me in the first set of Italics, and
alain in the second set of Italics
Do you realize this?

No I realize this; I am just a very lazy person. I thought it would be implied.

2-Are you saying you agree with me since you say"..the terrorists have moved on.."

I agree that they have moved on, but what I meant really was moving on from these ideological attacks to more pragmatic ones. That doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t going to attack the US proper, I just think that the attacks will be much smaller in scale. Now I believe that they have much more important goals then attacking the US now. They if they were to overthrow the Saudi regime and replace that with a Islamic one (very real possibility), and radicalize Iraq they have more damage to the US then most Americans would realize.

3-America the Beautiful. please. not America the homeland. Homeland sounds like fatherland

Looking at the current state of affairs under Bush, you are converting into a hybrid fascist state. Ask many Americans, they are extremely nationalistic, and paternalistic somewhat like the Germans. America is a young empire, which will soon learn its lesson; it’s only a matter of time. Every empire has learned it the hard way… hey it was your president who called it the “Homeland defense”.

ps please edit your post and quote alain in your second set of italics.

Too late now, but I will next time that should happen.

"... if [al-Qaeda & the like] were to overthrow the Saudi regime and replace that with a Islamic one (very real possibility), and radicalize Iraq they have more damage to the US then most Americans would realize"

Also, this would be the achievement, or imminent achievement, of a primary objective, as has widely been disclosed both through manifesti and recruiting rhetoric. The Ummah that Islamist radicals dream of creating most idealistically begins in Makkah.

These organizations have no more abilities in predicting future events/responses than anyone else (obvious, but important to remember). If they were previously expecting a tougher US defense (in terms of military/political maneuverability and public opinion) of the Saudi regime before, and now see an unanticipated opportunity to destabilize and topple, then there could be far less emphasis on organizing attacks on the US Homeland.

State Dept has now, for the second time and more emphatically- advised US citizens to leave the Sa'udi state. Fahrenheit 911, most conspicuously along with much other other "fringe" media are causing ever more Americans to wonder about the nature and implications of Washington's relationship with the Sa'ud family. The photo ops with Prince Bandar are over. American posture is very subtly and not a little bit uncertainly shifting, because it's nearing crunch time (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=31950&highlight=SaudiBomb).

Why don't we all just move to Africa?

Too many cooks spoil the brough.

Kin anyone tell me why the West is so obnoxious to these people?

I was watching History channel and they were talking about how this has been going on for centuries.. islam vs. west.

West says war on terrorism.
Terrorists say holy war.

Who is right?

Kin anyone tell me why the West is so obnoxious to these people?
Has your government not told you why your fighting who your fighting?
I think it would be nice if they did.
Dee Cee

Yeah DeeCee
I envy your UK gov't public acountabiliy. I saw Blair in his monthy press conference and thought how lucky England is in this regard. Bush never talks exterporainiously. He has no debate or open questions put to him.(Prescreened questions at best.)

That's sort of my point, US citizenry are ill-served by the media. This leads to 'trust us we're the gov't' when there is no basis for this trust.

John Ashcroft (Attny General) has spoken before congress 3 times in as many years. This last time he was de facto in contempt of congress, and was warned his actions were contempt of congress but the dems evidently didn't push it. (He illegally refused to surrender papers/memos to the commitee) This is all to familiar.

I don't agree with all Blair's policies but at least he can argue intellegently, off the cuff, to the point, on any subject in his administration. Bush blows monkeychunks and thinks "um" is a complete sentence.