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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (42778)	9/9/2002 6:39:40 AM
From: SirRealist	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hey, an excellent article LB, one I agree with 100%. Let me take it further, making what I consider to be 'reasonable guesses', which are based on some knowledge that 75% of top security info threatens no security but is merely politically embarrassing or woyuld create liabilities for govt officials. They are also based on direct experience and historical study, both of which created a profound skepticism of all governments in me. The guesses: 1) Very few Al Qaida operatives have been captured. Rather than admitting the failure to obtain a major objective, it's easier to keep hundreds of mere footsoldiers uncharged and incommunicado in Gitmo cages, to suggest we have more Al Qaida than we actually do. 2) The Patriot Act wiretaps will yield more convictions for drugs and other illegal activities than terrorism. 3) Within two decades, we'll see revelations that indicate the FBI has been spying on dissident or political action groups in the US long after establishing that they are perfectly legit, much like Cointelpro. 4) Osama is alive and they know it. Or dead and they're not disclosing it. 5) We've spent billions on airport security yet the sole major security improvement preventing another WTC disaster is that the passengers won't passively accept hijackers anymore. 6) Under the loose definitions of what terrorist groups are, several legit independence or resistance groups will face violence or prosecutions, if not by us, by other governments. In fact, were these definitions enforced 250 years earlier, the American Revolution never could have come to pass. It's human nature to trade freedoms for the perception of increased safety. But for the most part we're surrendering the former w/o gaining the latter. The fact that the 18 hijackers were almost completely legit w/ visas, etc, continues to be overlooked.