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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (9775)	7/24/2001 5:56:06 PM
From: jlallen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

Puhleeze!! Its easier to defend the fleet at sea. A wise move indeed... Only a dope like Clinton would have sent our ships into Yemen, a hotbed of terrorist activity, to begin with. JLA

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (9775)	7/25/2001 8:54:15 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

Nadine... you can't protect against "suitcase" bombs anymore than you can protect against some wacko driving his car into a crowd of people. The only way you can deal with such activities is to have a serious offensive Human intelligence operation in place, with spies and agents being placed, or bought off, in every terrorist camp. Even Signals intelligence only goes so far since most of these groups deliberately send out false information in order to occlude their true intent, or merely to force a US reaction/response (sending the ships to sea and canceling Marine maneuvers in Jordan). You must have sound intelligence from human agents who are considered "reliable"... And then you confirm the intelligence using additional sources. Some may consider watching the fleet "skedaddle" as a sign of weakness, but I consider it a sign of strength that shows that our intelligence assets are functioning and US commanders are not being lulled into complacency. Terrorists rely upon that "cry wolf" strategy, hoping that one day we'll fail to respond the way that we have in the past, and thus open up an opportunity to strike. In addition, as we've seen with the USS Cole, once an incident occurs, our policy in that area is more detrimentally impacted than it would have been had we been more cautious and followed the proper procedures for force protection and/or rules of engagement. The real key to deterring terrorism is similar to deterring crime. Once a crime is committed, or you have sufficient evidence of such a conspiracy, you bring all of your available diplomatic, military, and "additional" resouces to terminating those threats, or bringing them to justice. Notice how calm Quaddafi became once he lost one of his children in a US bombing raid. Btw, infiltrating these groups often involves dealing with some very scummy elements of society. Thus, it must be done quietly and in such a manner as to not later embarrass the US. Btw, I liked your comments over on the "War" thread. You're one of the few people I'm encountered who understand the true situation about "palestinian independence". Hawk