Either we are safer, or we are not
POSTED BY: rue
UPDATED: Thursday, October 19, 2006 06:20
VIEWED: 5565
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal
As far as the timing is concerned: 1) the threat of a terror attack is considered high because of the election. We know that Al Qeada had great success in changing the Spanish government to one that is more favorable to their politics, and it is reasonable to conclude that Al Qeada may attempt to affect the US outcome by staging an attack here as well. ...
I had to jump in because of your statement on Al Qaeda and the Spanish elections. Your statement is one that has been often repeated but I think it's a very simplistic interpretation of what actually happened. In the immediate aftermath of the commuter bombings the Spanish government laid the finger of blame on Basque terrorists, even though there was evidence that Al Qaeda was responsible. One possible motivation for the government lying was that they had a strong stance against the Basque terrorists and hoped to use the attack to be re-elected, positioning themselves as the best party to deal with the Basque threat. It quickly became apparent as the evidence mounted that everything pointed towards Al Qaeda and nothing pointed towards the ETA. Exit polling suggests that the majority of those who voted for the opposition did so to punish the government for blatantly using a terrorist attack for political gain. So, in essence, the Spanish government shot themselves in the foot by lying to the public about who was responsible for the attack and they were held accountable.
Now, with that being said, would the results of the election have been different if the government had told the truth and laid the blame squarely on Al Qaeda? I don't know but I tend to think the results would have been the same. Would the results of the election have been different if there was no attack by Al Qaeda? I don't know but I tend to think the results would have been the same. The majority of the Spanish people did not support the decision of the government to participate in the Iraq War in the first place.
So the situation is pretty complex. If the goals of Al Qaeda in attacking Spain was to get them to withdraw their troops from Iraq (which is a safe assumption) or, at the very least, to punish Spain for participating in the Iraq war (which is equally likely in my mind) then the attack was successful from Al Qaeda's point of view. However, the Spanish government should be held equally, if not more, responsible for the outcome of the election based on their reaction to the attack (at the very least they energized the population even more). But I'm not even sure that the attacks affected the outcome of the elections at all (I wasn't following the election before the attack so I don't know what the polls looked like).
editted to add: Actually, the evidence and arrests point strongly to Islamic militants. I'd have to go back and verify that those Islamic militants were members of Al Qaeda (but that's the impression that I had). So replacing every instance of Al Qaeda in my post with Islamic militant might be more accurate.
I shaved off my beard for you, devil woman!
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SoupCatcher: That is true. One can go into much more detail on the events that transpired in Spain. I wasn’t ignoring those details; they are simply irrelevant to my point. It doesn’t matter what happened between the train bombings and the final ballet of the election. It doesn’t matter at all WHY the Anzar Administration was voted out and Socialist’s Workers Party voted in. All that matters is Al Qeada attacked = election results good for Al Qaeda. The election was ironically decided by the Anzar’s Administration allegedly trying to pin the blame on the Basques. Although I believe that polls taken prior to the whole incident were in favor of the Anzar Administration, not against it. It doesn't really matter what actually swayed the Spanish vote; the appearance of causality is all that matters.
Which means Al Qeada will be encouraged to attempt it again, maybe here. And it doesn’t matter what direction the elections are going in the US; it doesn’t matter that an attack by Al Qaeda might only serve to unit the people under Bush. It only matters that in the mind of Al Qaeda, they attacked and ‘Allah’ will bless them.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Which means Al Qeada will be encouraged to attempt it again, maybe here. And it doesn’t matter what direction the elections are going in the US; it doesn’t matter that an attack by Al Qaeda might only serve to unit the people under Bush. It only matters that in the mind of Al Qaeda, they attacked and ‘Allah’ will bless them.
This is, of course, assuming a widespread terror network is less intelligent than a handful of message board lurkers. Which is also a rather dangerous assumption.
Not that I think they wouldn't attack - as I've said above. Just zeal doesn't make them entirely stupid. Best to overestimate an enemy rather than underestimate.
Radhil Trebors
Persona Under Construction
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As the originator of the thread, I'm going to take some liberty and wander even more.
BUT, did you ever wonder WHAT the 9/11 evidence was that led the US to invade Afghanistan - a foreign sovereign country - and topple its government? Within days (literally) the admin said they had information but they had to keep it secret. About 2 months after invading Afghanistan, the Admin ran press releases that the FIRST information associating 9/11 with al Qaeda had been discovered in Afghanistan. About 2.5 months after that, there was another story saying there was more evidence making the association even stronger. What I got out of it was the Admin went into the Afghanistan war on a guess. I bet they were happy to have guessed right.
What I also think is the Admin gambled they would find SOMETHING for crying out loud in Iraq to post facto justify the war. They could not have guessed more wrong.
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I don't think I could buy into that. Intelligence is a far easier task after the fact than before - they had the passenger manifests from the planes, they knew the hijackers names and nationalities and that they'd been training at a pilot school in the South less than a week afterwards. From there it's all tracing associations, where have they been, who have they seen. Those things are relatively easy to do, given a starting point that is accessable and investigatable (and sadly, this is easily provided by the blast point). Compared to assembling a threat analysis from disparate and possibly conflicting sources of information, and sketching out a future attempt well enough to stop it.
As a further example - no one saw Tim McVeigh coming at Okhlahoma City. But if I recall correctly, it took less than three days to find him, and barely 24 hours to identify him as the perp.
This, of course, does not absolve the Iraq situation.
Radhil Trebors
Persona Under Construction
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Thanks for the reply.
I was just comparing Admin messages. And I was actually watching the news closely for that particular item. When they found evidence in Afghanistan it was a BIG deal - both times. The sigh of relief was audible even through the official press-release rendition on network news.
They may have had a general idea it was al Qaeda, and had a few general pointers in that direction. But when it came to SPECIFIC evidence, the only stuff they found (it came from Afghanistan) was a videotape of bin Laden and somebody or other at dinner toasting 9/11, and a cryptic note.
To me, a guess is a flimsy excuse to topple a foreign government, and it's also probably not legal.
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Finn mac Cumhal: It's good to see that you are aware of the complexity surrounding the Spanish elections. Many of my friends just throw around the, "Well the Spanish voters caved in to terrorists" line, which is not quite accurate - so it's become a bit of a sore spot with me 
.
I understand what you are saying - that the attack in Spain could be perceived as a great victory for Al Qaeda and therefore they are motivated to attack the US right before our elections - but to me that's making the case more complex than it needs to be. In my mind, Al Qaeda wants to attack us. Period.
I recognize there is a threat. And I recognize that the government might want to increase the terror alert level without providing us with all the information that went into their decision. And I recognize that they may lower the alert level based on new information. But at some point I think the administration needs to be honest with the public and outline why they raised the level and why they eventually lowered the level. Since the color coded scheme was first introduced we have been in two states: yellow and orange. Increasing the level to orange has direct consequences on local government resources. The language that Tom Ridge has used in the past to explain the level increases has been exceedingly vague. If you're going to ask the entire country to go to a higher state of preparadness I think you eventually need to brief people.
For this reason I thought the latest increase in alert level was a better approach: to only raise the level in specific areas. That way the rest of the country does not commit resources that the Department of Homeland Security knows are unnecessary. But as I learn more about the nature of the evidence they used I get more skeptical as to the timing of the raise in alert level.
I really want to believe that those who are running the country would not use an attack, or the threat of an attack, for partisan advantage. But the more I learn the harder it is to believe that.
Here is a brief history of our color coded past since the scheme was introduced. I have yet to find a clear explanation for why the threat went up and why it came back down for many of these (granted, this is a topic that I have not researched in too much detail so any and all input is appreciated).
march 12 - september 9, 2002 YELLOW
september 10 - september 24, 2002 ORANGE
september 25, 2002 - february 6, 2003 YELLOW
february 7 - february 27, 2003 ORANGE
february 28 - march 16, 2003 YELLOW
march 17 - april 15, 2003 ORANGE
april 16 - may 19, 2003 YELLOW
may 20 - may 30, 2003 ORANGE
may 31 - december 20, 2003 YELLOW
december 21, 2003 - january 9, 2004 ORANGE
january 10 - july 31, 2004 - YELLOW
august 1 - present ORANGE
I think this is complete but I could have missed one in there somewhere.
I shaved off my beard for you, devil woman!
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IMHO the warnings are a bullshit system to keep the cows in fear and let certain folks in this country compensate for their feelings of inadequacy in protecting their families from an IDEA. Because that is what terrorism is at the root. An Idea.. and you can't really fight an idea.. at least not with a rainbow colored alert system that no one I know in the United States neither understands nor really pays any attention to. The War Against Terror (herefore after referred to as T.W.A.T) is just like the war on drugs.. you can't win it. As long as the idea survives, people will use it.
As long as people are talking about terrorism, and as long as the media is giving more and more light to each of these factions with their own agenda, we are showing those folks that in America, terrorism works. You blow up a few people, and you and your groups demands and beliefs end up on CNN for the next 48 hours.. instant press and an easy outlet for anyone's frustrations against American society. Wanna hurt/piss off/scare Americans? join/fund/support a terrorist group.
The more we change our society and way of life to combat this idea, the more ground these enemies and gaining in T.W.A.T.
Terrorism has been around for a long time, bombings, suicides, even beheadings.. Am I suggesting we just ignore it all and pretend it doesn't exist like before and the world will get better? No.. but, accepting it and moving on would be a good start.
Abolishing Terrorism is like abolishing swimming.. even if you somehow managed to prevent everyone in the world from swimming, the myth or memory of it would remain.. and someone, somewhere, for whatever cause, for whatever reason, would eventually try it again.
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Soupcatcher: Your concerns are not unwarranted, and you seem to have a strong command of the issues. I don’t know all the reasons why HLS increases or decreases the terror warning either. The truth is that you will probably never see much of the deciding information because it is classified. I know that you want to know why, and that is a legitimate concern; but you must know that so do the terrorists, and they have the same access to information that you do.
Al Qaeda does want to attack us. Period. That is true. That doesn’t change that events in Spain may have encouraged them. The difference between a fanatic that hates the US and one that attacks the US is the willingness to do so. But in the end, you are right. Ultimately, terrorism is very unpredictable. It’s very difficult to say that it will happen here and now, or over there and later. But terrorists will be evaluating the situation in the US as well and, as I said earlier, our greatest protection is the warnings, even if they are purely random (and I don’t really believe they are). Because various Al Qaeda militants are watching the US and evaluating an optimal date for an attack. If you can’t find any rhyme in these dates, then probably the terrorist can’t either, and so they must fight what they cannot see.
What is good for the goose is good for the gander. If the terrorists are unpredictable, so must we be.
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Quote:
Because various Al Qaeda militants are watching the US and evaluating an optimal date for an attack. If you can’t find any rhyme in these dates, then probably the terrorist can’t either, and so they must fight what they cannot see.
What is good for the goose is good for the gander. If the terrorists are unpredictable, so must we be.
Is this just word play or do you really believe it? Because it is just plain looney.
Why not throw resources around in an insane way? Because you won't be putting them where you need them. Because they might not be there at all when it's important. Because of the lessons of the boy who cried wolf and chicken little. Because setting off false fire alarms is illegal for a good reason.
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