Terror rant

First of all, this is not thousands of years of hate.

Wahhabilism is only 300 years old, and it was only a minor fringe element until oil was discovered in the Middle East in 1938. Terrorists without financing are no threat.

You have two choices.

1. Accept the fact that we may have a major attack every 5-8 years (seems to be the norm) and use your best intel and police work and international cooperation to stop the attacks. World cooperation in this matter CAN make (no pun intended) a world of difference.

OR (fade to John Blutarski voice . . . )

2. Saudi Arabia? Dead! Pakistan? Dead! Syria? Dead! Iran? Dead!

Gasoline at $15 a gallon. Heating bills $1,000 a month.

American economy? Dead!

I'll take choice No. 1.

I really don't know what else to pick.

 

No, but this is close.

http://games.apropo.ro/penguin-modified.html

 

The future of this country is not at stake.

Yes, I feel safe.

Here's the deal: We've been that close to airline disasters for a long, long time. Remember two two three decades ago when it was fairly commonplace for airliners1 being hijacked for either trips to Havana or hopscotch junkets around the Middle East? They don't do that anymore, do they?

And don't get me started on Iran. We could have made an ally out of Iran, but it would have required leaving Saddam in power; the Iranians' history with Saddam's government would have given us a perfect negotiating point to open talks with Tehran. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has consistently refused to take the long view of things and has paid for it with the current clusterfuck.

It has failed.

The Afghanistan thing could have been a successful operation. However, 1) the Bushies went about that in the wrong way and 2) they let their personal obsessions with Iraq lead them into a theater which had nothing to do with 9/11/2001. As a result, the wheels came off both operations a long, long time ago. By every standard, what we've been doing for the last five years has failed.

Traditional tactics and big troop movements don't work in Afghanistan; the British and Soviet armies have already proven that beyond a reasonable doubt (those who don't learn from history, &c. &c.). I believe you can do more in a "war on terrorism" with Rangers, SEALs, Recon Marines and a hangar full of MQ-9 Predator Bs than you can with an entire brigade of regular infantry. Unfortunately, hunt-and-kill operations in the dark of night don't make for glamorous television like the infamous "drive to Baghdad." The whole hearts-and-minds thing ... well, it ain't working. To get back to your cancer analogy, it only treats the symptoms; we have yet to effectively hunt down and destroy the tumor itself.

And we all know at this point that invading Iraq had as much to do with the fight against terrorism as does an episode of Sesame Street.

1Except El Al. And nobody else is willing to do it the Israeli way.

 

The future is always at stake. I'm not talking about the collapse of democracy, I'm thinking about the way we live, the leadership we choose, what 'freedom' will look like in ten years.

You buried your best point...'the Israeli way.'  Believe me, we don't ever want to live the way Israelis do--expect the worst and be surprised when it doesn't happen--but every citizen there understands what it means to be vigilant about security and protection.

 

I showed up at my small commuter airport yesterday to fly down to LAX, thinking I've taken the necessary precautions ("no liquids") to be able to just pack one set of clothes and a few limited toiletries in a carry-on to avoid having to wait for a checked bag (since my dad was driving down to join me with the rest of my luggage later last night).

For some reason, even though I removed toothpaste from my toiletries, I forgot to take out an almost-full bottle of cologne in my bag. After running it through the x-ray, one of the screeners manually inspects my carry-on and says he'll have to confiscate the cologne. I didn't want to throw away $60, and thought about asking if it would be OK if I sprayed some so he could smell what it was. But rather than risk causing a scene or giving anyone a reason to pull a gun, I just checked the bag after all. Turned out to be as bad as I had feared, as it took almost 45 minutes from the time I got off the plane in LA until my bag showed up on the carousel.

As if that didn't tick me off enough, they didn't let anyone bring anything bottled onto the plane — even bottled water purchased several feet away from the gate, after security screening. I wouldn't have minded, except that the flight attendants were pretty stingy about filling my cup with any regularity.

I think I'll just drive next time. I'm sick of the bothers of flying these days..

 

Well, my flight is in eight hours (gotta hit the sack right after this) and I'm wondering this: What if, in the next terrorist plot that is pre-emptively stopped, the terrorists were planning on planting explosives in their teeth? Will we have to have all our teeth pulled at the security checkpoint?

Point being this No Liquids, No Gels, No Toothpaste BS is ridiculous.

 

Or if the terrorist put explosives in a rat chihuaha?

 

You could hardly blame them for that.

 

dead solid post!

We as a country have become soft and too compliant. 4 hours in advance for a flight and toss your tooth paste- Yes sir - no problem.

We need to start taking a more millitant approach to terriorism.

Ned Lamont in and Joe Liberman out should be a wake up call for us all.

 

Quite some time back I was at the grocery store after work, meaning the middle of the night, which is when all of the mutants do their shopping.
In front of me in line was a guy you would have bet money had just got out of county jail.
He's got blonde hair and a goatee. He's skinny like a tweaker with bad teeth and bad, home-done tattoos. He's wearing old jeans and a dirty wife-beater.
But he's also wearing pink fuzzy slippers.
And he's got a teeny, tiny backpack slung over one shoulder like a purse, and there's a little rat chihuaha sticking it's head out of it.
And he's talking baby talk to the dog.
If that guy is in line ahead of you at the gate, don't get on the plane.

 

Hillbilly tweekers don't bother me. I'm used to them.

Hell, I go to Wal-Mart every week in the early A.M. and some creature of the night is in line in front of me.

 

That is exactly why we need snakes on the planes....control the rat chihuahua population.