Larry,

Once again, you nailed it and so hilariously. I truly LOVE outraged snark and have a tendency to engage in it myself at times.

I have gut feelings a lot, too. Usually it means I have to go to the bathroom and use the loo. Seriously, though, is the best that Chertoff can come up with -- a gut feeling -- wonder where that ranks with Dubya's looking into Pootie's eyes and seeing his soul.

Frankly, I haven't believed word one out of these guys from the git-go. In fact, I knew before 2000 if they were elected we were going to be in for a lot of trouble. Started out with the fudging of Bush's military service, followed by Cheney's making a quick flight to Wyoming to "register" as a voter there -- so he could run as Bushie's VP candidate. People who will do this from the git-go have serious credibility problems.

BTW, when you were in the intel field, did you ever hear of LTG Sidney T (Tom) Weinstein? He was a biggie at the Pentagon, DA -- Intel. If you did know him, he passed away about a month ago. He was my Commander at Ft. Bragg and I had the privilege to work directly for him. In fact, he promoted me to E5, and upon my discharge, awarded me my ARCOM and GC Medals.

Good man.

I'm going to go with the former CT - sheer incompetence.

It seems every day there's another completely moronic Quote of the Day coming from a candidate for president...PRESIDENT! If this represents the "cream of the crop" our nation can produce in terms of leadership then I say burn the whole damned field, pave it the hell over and turn it into a parking lot.

I just don't understand why the media doesn't hammer home on these inconsistent (and often opposing) statements.

If al Qaeda opperatives are here, or coming here, or are in the general vacinity, then they are a threat. Pure and simple. They're not going to Disneyland for the rides.

So, which is it, Mr. Bush? Are there al Qaeda terrorists here? Or, is there no threat? Because, frankly, you can't have it both ways.

What gets me even more is that the general populace actually falls for this duplicitous double-talk from the Administration.

~~~~~~~~~~~
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.

Come visit PROJECT: Lucidity.

"When in panic, or in doubt,
Run in circles, scream and shout!"

I think the story you are looking for is Chicken Little with the sky is falling theme.

Playing the incessant terrorism card serves two purposes. It keeps the major media outlets on the right side of the administration and makes it easier for them to ask for the business favors they want (like eliminating net neutrality or limits on cross ownership).

It also, as they say in the news business, sells papers. Responsible reporting is a rarity when the outlet depends upon attracting viewers to make a profit. This is why the reporting from places like the BBC is so much more measured. Their funding is decoupled from commercial pressures.

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

Tell you what as a former small arms combat weapons instructor, and still a considerable expert in that field, terrorists really don't scare me a hell of a lot, I could probably still gun down a gross or so of those flea bitten types with out breaking much of a sweat.

Now...

...the Neo-Cons they are another matter entirely, they scare me considerably because I'm not allowed to deal with them like the threat to this country and my friends and family that they are.

…all this inane fear mongering, baseless or not, does for me is just piss the hell out of me.

Every time I see Chertoff, I think he's part of the PR campaign for the latest brainwasting comic book movie - he looks like Dr Doom or Skeletor!

Larry, you're at your best when to mock the fear mongering.

There's a lot of things I'm scared of. Heights. Ever appearing on Larry King. Cockroaches. Mostly cockroaches, to be honest.

Not terrorists, so much. Oh, I'm not pretending to be brave beyond my means. I'd be scared of terrorists if they actually did something to me. But I'm not overly concerned that they will. Heck, I'd be scared if I were mugged. I still walk around at night.

The Bushies will claim that it's their job to protect America, by any means necessary. They have too easy a view of what their jobs are. It's their jobs to protect America within the boundaries of civil liberties and at a reasonable cost, without trying to scare us. That's their job.

My grandfather was a cop. He used to say, "Being a police officer is hard. But, it's supposed to be."

That's how I feel about this. The Bushies keep claiming they're being shackled in the face of serious threats. They're supposed to be shackled. And they're supposed to be good enough and clever enough to be effective despite the very reasonable and important constraints on government power.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

BULLETIN! BULLETIN!

"Al Qaeda Cell in the U.S. Or On Its Way......or not.

This has been Brian Ross, reporting for ABC News"

Re: The Bush Crime Family wants this to happen in a big way, because they cannot win in '08.

If there's a terror atack today it will be blamed squarely on the incompetence of the Bush administration. It's simply way too late to blame Clinton. Now it's possible BushCo is so stupid they may not realize this, but such an event would sink any wild hopes Bush might have of leaving a positive legacy behind, or at least of bein gbetter appreciated ny historians to come. (and probably sink the GOP chances in 2008 too) Heck, a really bad terror attack, followed by a Katrina-style bungled response, might even produce overwhelming support for impeachment.

If it happens again, after all this Bushsh*t, I swear I'm gonna walk right out of my office, down to Pennsylvania Avenue and piss on the White House gates.

Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran

From the Caine Mutiny:

" When in danger or in doubt,
Run in circles, scream and shout"

Tom

Larry has the option of making light of any perceived threats, because he bears no responsiblity. Yet, when a 9/11 does happen -- these responsible parties take the brunt of the outrage of intelligence failure. I would be operating on an overabundance of caution too. Lives are at stake. One truck bomb can kill hundreds of people, and the Larry's of the world would be the first to start pointing fingers. Taking a terrorist threat lightly is simply not an option.

So, you're saying never question or criticize our public serpents servants because they may be criticized later if they don't overreact now. I'm curious, Brook, assuming you're not in intelligence or the military or homeland security yourself, what do you do when you take these serious terrist threats seriously? I mean what actions are you taking to thwart or defend against the impending attacks? What specifically are you doing to protect yourself and your family with this information?

When Chertoff can't believably raise the threat level to RED (and it's been at ORANGE almost perpetually since instituted), and he has no real information about a threat that's less likely than a monkey falling out of a monkey tree on your head to kill you, yet there is chatter and there are gut feelings, how do you benefit from his ominous warnings- how are you safer? I assume Chertoff's blabbering about his gut feelings do nothing to change his actions to secure the homeland, right? So, how do our leaders immunize themselves from criticism by trying to panic the public?

Yep, report all possibilities. That about covers it. One thing is certain. We're all going to die. Someday, somehow. The end is certain. The timing is up in the air.

This isn't 2001. 9-11 could (and was) blamed on Clinton's inattention and never mind the GOP's distracting pursuit of Monica's blue dress.
In 2007 or 2008 that ploy can't work. So where would the buck stop? And do you really think the American people, after six years of war and all the other measures taken to supposedly make us safe would not demand to know why we weren't safe? Just maybe Bush and gang are stupid enough not to consider that they would be blamed if they closed their eyes and allowed Al Qaida (or some other such group) to get away with another attack, but at best they would pursuade their hard core base: that 28% or so of voters who could not be pried from Bush's butt by a direct comamd of the Lord God himself. (But hey, even Nixon had his die-hards). The rest of the country would see it as Katrina with a Qu'ran and perhap call for impeachment.

Re: Why won't the same level of cheating happen in 2008?

What cheating? The tracks were eall legal. As I have tried to explain before on these boards the real scandal is not vote tampering (of which there is zero evidence); the real scandal is (barely) legal voter suppression, for which evidence abounds. But that only works when things are real close. When 70% of the country is against you keeping a few ten thousand people away from the polls is useless. And take off the tin foil hat long enough to ask why the Democrats managed to take Congress, even in very close races, last year if the GOP could really wave a maguc wand and produce any election results they wanted. Ask also why the new GOP governor of Florida has done away with paper-trail less voting and restored felon's voting rights if the GOP is one big conspiracy factory.
I sometimes think the GOP deliberately plants all these vote tampering tales in ortder to distract people away from their vote suppression tactics.

It's been obvious lately that there has been a WH push to exaggerate the al Qaeda threat again. But I've also wondered why this doesn't backfire on them. If al Qaeda is blowing everyone up in Iraq, doesn't that underscore our failure in invading Iraq? If bin Laden's al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan are thriving, doesn't that underscore our failure to defeat them? Maybe a lot of people don't connect the dots if our pundits and reporters don't do it for them.

Good questions, Don. First of all you can't ever go above 100%, which means if there have been no terror attacks in 6 years, you cannot be more safe than that.

There are specific levels of protocol assigned to ferreting out intelligence data to judge it's worth. Chertoff may or may not be able to specifically divulge threats when operations are in play, so he's deliberately vague in an Alan Greenspan sense.

The gut feelings of experienced professionals drive a lot of decisions in the corporate and political world. George Tenant has stated often he had an ominous feeling about Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Should he have acted more vigorously on those instincts?

Vigilance is not the same thing as paranoia.

This new threat story, conveniently leaked to ABC, appears to be related to Bush stating last week and again this week that the main enemy in Iraq is al-Qaeda and claiming (again, incredibly) very explicitly that they are "the same group that attacked us on 9/11." And we are told that civilian casualties are down, while we are suddenly killing more al-Qaeda (who dress like civilians).
As others said above, it's all al-Qaeda now. Looks like a coordinated propaganda campaign at a time when they are losing support and anticipating a negative report on the surge. I suppose any day now a Bushie will tell us something like "You know about the new threat from an al-Qaeda cell in America, maybe this is what happens when you have Democrats in Congress trying to set a date to surrender."
When in a crisis, Bush calls 911.
What I object to about this kind of news story is that they never tell us who initiated the story (even anonymously). If a Bush operative called ABC with the story, then maybe THAT is the story, and an appropriate question would be why they are pushing this story at this time, how credible it is, and how it ties in to other BushCo actions.
(If a Republican operative calls a reporter about Edwards' haircut, don't just tell us about the haircut, tell us that Republicans are trying to make an issue out of it and why they may be doing that.)

Six years of crying wolf by the Bush operation has created the situation where I just don't believe anything they say. If there is anything to this, their previous behavior will prevent any warning from doing any good.

OTOH, Bush has been taking a beating the past couple of weeks, and this, to me, is nothing more than his way of trying to interrupt it and gain the advantage. Why doesn't he do us a favor and just ...go away. After his Katrina performance, does anyone think Chertoff has any credibility? He has a feeling? Give me a break.

I don't know about you, but I certainly have lots of gut feelings about Chertoff. And, now that I think of it, I even have several about Bush, and most of his cabinet - no, make that all of his cabinet. My gut is rumbling ominously right now!

Hoppy in Sacramento

. . . but then, I'd have to kill you.

Larry,

Looks like you're saying this Administration has struck out in the War on Terror:

Strike 1: work the problem;
Strike 2: don't alarm the public;
Strike 3: and catch the bad guys.

To bad the MSM can't comprehend these points and put pressure on them to answer why they are failing to get even a base hit when they have to step up to the plate. Seems to me they keep fouling out and that is something that should be pointed out to the public.

vladimir putin's marketing his new plutonium tea you might try using

Right On. Nobody calls them on it. TheChimp is holding a press conference this morning to give IWrack mixed grades. He will blather and lie, giving KNOWN false information to the public and NO-ONE in the media will call him on it. No other serial Liars got to go on the Media and NOT GET CALLED after their first whopper. Until 2000.
Nancy Kerrigan can't sit down without someone on TV explaining about Tonya whacking her with a pipe...yet Serial Liars get to take the podium DAY AFTER DAY without anyone mentioning the outrageous lies they told the last 300 times.
The Duke LaCrosse players won't make a move in their lives without someone mentioning the Rape Scandal. Yet TheCheney and TheChimp just get to keep on spinning. Most amazing; Ted Kennedy's, Jimmy Carter's, and Bill Clinton's EVERY failing have been mentioned more in our MSM this decade, than any of GeeDub's. And GeeDub has coke-use, drunk driving, Military Desertion, crime, corruption, and blood on his hands. SO....not only did the three Dems get their laundry hung out at the time....it is STILL hanging out there. While GeeDub's never got an airing at all.

Truly, if the press won't tell us about it, it didn't really happen. The great, unintended gift that keeps on giving for CorporoFascists. That once a large population becomes dependent on the Media; only a simple sleight-of-hand is needed to make reality MOOT.

I am sick of hearing TheChimp and others tell us what ALKayda is thinking. If I said I knew what they were thinking, the Federales would be ALL over me for being a sympathizer. How else would someone be able to Channel the terrrrrsrsrsts the way old GeeDub can? He looks into their souls. Aha.
They also told us (gubberment flaks, recently on NPR) that the terrrrsts are on the run, they have severely subdued their fundraising and networks and thrown a net around these vast shady groups and have them pinned down. But now the report out from the Gubberment is that AlKayda is as strong as ever.

Our gubberment matches, lie for lie, any version of the truth.

I am not (here and now) making a case for revolution, but there comes a time when we see powers wilfully acting against the people's interest. No matter how many times the truth is shown, or used to match lies....entrenched powers can nullify it with more megaphones, more microphones, more paid schills.
We are already gasping in black fumes while Oilmen tell us it is good for us.

It is one thing to argue with facts, with reason, with issues. It is althogether different to use lies, hypocrisy, message discipline, corrupt media, Huge Dollars, and OutShouting.
It is time to stop countenancing the "Other Team" as fellow americans. Corporate Fascists know no country.

If reason, truth, the people's will are not allowed to stand...then we have to recognize WE are under attack. Not just call it politics, or All's Fair. Not just a blue team and a red team. It is People vs. Fascist Machine.

Think Regionally. Act Regionally

The most interesting hypothesis we can have to explain the fact of no serious terrorist attacks on the US since 9/11 is that the serious terrorist groups have a policy not to attack the US.

This hypothesis not only explains the lack of serious attempts at attack but also makes a lot of sense, from the terrorist point of view. The US has been weakened over the past six years by being increasingly isolated. The minimal initial support for the Iraq invasion has vanished. Initial support for the Afghanistan invasion/occupation has been steadily draining away. While countries around the world are more or less seriously attempting to deal with terrorist threats, the US war on terror is generally recognized as an absurdity. A serious terrorist attack on the US would only increase credibility and support for the US, which is not on the terrorists' agenda. Therefore, no attacks.

The Bush administration constantly cites the lack of successful terrorist attacks on the US as evidence of the effectiveness of its war on terror policies. Actually, its evidence of their irrelevance.

The US will be attacked again when a successful attack will weaken it.

Peter Miller

heh, Chertoff the jerko**

It's time to start asking these people whether they want America to be attacked by terrorists.

 Just because you don't know about cheating doesn't mean there wasn't any:

Go here:  http://www.iwilltryit.com/fixed1.htm

And as to the proposition that Democrats took back Congress and therefore the "Publicans" obviously don't know how to steal votes:  How loud is the cry at the moment for paper trails on our voting machines?  Everyone knew the Dems were favored in the last election; if results had been skewed once again, the din would be so loud that paper trails would be a shoo-in.  As it is, well...it's just too much trouble...it just can't be done...it violates the secret ballot...etc.

On the other hand, I completely agree that their major effort is towards suppressing voting in key districts, but put it all together and they could do it again.  This next election is huge for them.  They have not amassed all this Executive Branch power to hand it over to a Dem.

I think they let the last electon play out so they could go back to their previous cheating and get to ruin the Supreme court for the next two generations.

Tin-foil hat?  It's so easy to say that.  No one (including me) really wants to believe what this regime is capable of doing to wreck our country.

Jan

Al Qaeda, Iran and three carrier task forces soon to be in the gulf.

Duh! 

I wholeheartedly concur, and appreciate the story about your grandfather--the best cops have *always* used their intelligence and experience, keeping the gun as the last resort.

Unfortunately, we have Barney Fife running the country, and he's got all the bullets he cares to use (even nukular ones!), but with no wise Andy Griffith to hold him back!

Somewhere, in a cave in Afghanistan, there is a banner that reads, in Arabic, 'Mission Accomplished.'

I'm not sure if Bin Laden and AQ ever dreamed that the 9-11 attack would be the catalyst for the 'gift' that the Cheney/Bush administration keeps on giving them, however, they surely know the ancient edict that you won't go broke overestimating people's greed and gullibility.

I agree that, for the time being, there is no need for another attack on US soil...at least for AQ. Cheney/Bush, on the other hand...

The version of Little Black Sambo I remember, the tiger turned himself into butter, or more specifically, ghee. That's the part of the story that stuck with me; I never could figure out how a tiger running faster and faster in a circle could turn into butter.

I guess I wasn't sensitized enough to see the racism. The food aspect got my attention.

d

Given the number and body counts of proxy conflicts during the Cold War, it's quite logical they haven't tried to do more damage to the US. Did the USSR directly attack the United States or its territories, or were they content to supply the opposition in Vietnam and Korea, as some of the areas with larger body counts?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

The US was, rather absurdly if one is familiar with Sino-Vietnamese history, very concerned about Chinese intervention in Vietnam. There is no question that the Soviet Union was responsible for knowingly supplying the DRV and VC with weapons that killed 58,209 KIA amedicans and wounded 153,303. Those supplies also led to the death of approximately 250,000 South Vietnamese and wounding over a million.

While it obviously involved the Chinese as well as the Soviets, the Korean War cost 36,516 American lives and over 103,000 wounded.

al-Qaeda carried out one complex attack against the United States, which cost fewer lives than US soldiers killed in politically inspired, unrelated operations in Iraq. If anything, operations in Iraq are generating more recruits for al-Qaeda.

The Soviets didn't threaten to attack in Vietnam or Korea. They merely made sure that their clients had the equipment and technical advisors to kill tens of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of native troops.

Threats are cheap. Actions are credible. The Soviet and Chinese proxy actions against the West were very real.

Even counting the attacks outside the US, al-Qaeda hasn't accomplished that much in real damage. Tell the British how much more frightening al-Qaeda was, compared to the Blitz.

To borrow a Chinese idiom, the performance, thus far, of al-Qaeda is that of a paper tiger. Yes, there are vulnerabilities in the United States. Those vulnerabilities include the chemical industry and the electrical power grid. Between Iraq and national ballistic missile defense, we don't have the money to harden things vulnerable to accident, natural disaster or terrorist attack.

If al-Qaeda wanted to terrorize the US at low cost, all they need to do is bring in fewer than 100 "martyrdom warriors", have pairs pop up in shopping malls or campuses around the country, and start popping away with sporting weapons. They haven't done that. They haven't made large-scale attacks like 9/11.

I'm not going to live in fear of al-Qaeda, although there is a hell of a lot that could be done for real, not theatrical, domestic security. In World War I, the first large-scale chemical attack at Ypres used 160 tons of chlorine gas against a little over a mile of front. Had the Germans been prepared to exploit the gap it tore in Allied lines, they might have won the war.

Now, consider that railroad tank cars of chlorine constantly cross the US. The standard sizes are 90 and 55 ton. Consider the effect on a standard tank car of a shoulder-fired antitank rocket, or a shaped charge controlled demolition at trackside. That worries me. Iraq does not, at least as a threat to the US.

I didn't draw a parallel between Vietnam and al-Qaeda. I drew a parallel between the Soviet Union and al-Qaeda, and I suggest that by the standard of proxy war, al-Qaeda is more a Reichstag-fire symbol than a real threat.

Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]