Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Bilow who wrote (43301)	9/11/2002 5:05:07 PM
From: maceng2	Respond to of 281500

I still don't see any war with Iraq. Oh... so you mean maybe my bets on the stock market (gold going up) maybe are correct -g- -ng-

To: Bilow who wrote (43301)	9/11/2002 5:27:16 PM
From: epsteinbd	Respond to of 281500

Can't see it (war)...can't smell it ? Wait till tomorrow...

To: Bilow who wrote (43301)	9/11/2002 6:32:53 PM
From: Rascal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

See Bush Marketing/Propoganda Plan rollout right now on every channel. First time I ever saw him kissing and touching so much. Great photo ops. Brand Management at its best. Touchy-feely today ruff'N'tuff tomorrow. How does he do it? Check the backlighting of the Statue of Liberty later tonight. Andy Card is implementing it all perfectly. Too bad the flag that has been hanging at Ground Zero since last year had to rip in half. Bad image, Bad Karma. I'm so cynical I feel like banning myself. On the other hand her is Maureen Dowd, skip it if you hate her. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- September 11, 2002 Echo of the Bullhorn By MAUREEN DOWD ASHINGTON At 4 a.m., I was awakened by the roar of F-16's, once more patrolling. At 8 a.m., I packed khakis and a sweater, because a TV expert was warning that those working near the White House should have a change of clothes in case of a smallpox, anthrax or nerve agent attack. At 12:30 p.m., Dick Cheney canceled his appearance at a dinner honoring Henry Kissinger and hurried back to his Secure Undisclosed Location. At 1:35 p.m., John Ashcroft revealed that Al Qaeda "chatter" was back; the color-coded chart was back, ascending to a "high risk" orange alert; the fear of "dispersion of radiological contaminants" was back; the oxymoronic exhortation to be fearful and fearless was back. At 1:40 p.m., federal workers wheeled "Break glass in case of emergency" gas mask cabinets into a Congressional press gallery. At 2:30 p.m., Representative Billy Tauzin declared he was at the end of his rope with Martha Stewart and the president declared he was at the end of his rope with Saddam Hussein. At 4:26 p.m., Donald Rumsfeld had live ammunition readied for loading into anti-aircraft batteries around Washington. As the East Coast grew more rattled, veering between the sad, endless loop of Al Qaeda's past depredations and the scary, endless loop of Al Qaeda's future machinations, Mr. Bush seemed calm, confident. The first President Bush has told people lately how impressed he is that his son goes to bed every night without a worry in his head. Should the nation really take comfort in this fact? On 9/14/01, Mr. Bush picked up a bullhorn at ground zero and assured rescue workers: "The people who knocked down these buildings are going to hear from all of us." A prodigal son who had spent much of his life unfocused suddenly had sharp focus. A self-indulgent generation suddenly found itself in the middle of its own Pearl Harbor. How would a president and a country used to easy respond to hard? At first, Mr. Bush was ferocious, spitting cowboy threats about getting Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar "dead or alive." He promised to reinvent the failed alphabet apparatus — F.B.I., C.I.A., N.S.A., I.N.S. — and secure our borders and airports. We liberated Afghanistan, which was good for Afghanistan. But what else had been accomplished? Osama et cetera remain unaccounted for. Al Qaeda has regrouped and is said to be plotting smaller attacks against American targets. It is still startling that not a single head has rolled at the C.I.A. or the F.B.I. George Tenet has escaped the fate of his counterparts at Enron and Arthur Andersen. The Homeland Security Department is bogged down in Congress. Airport security remains risible. After a few months the president shifted his attention from a hard war to an easy war, from an unconventional war with no end or bad guys in sight to a conventional war with a clearly discernible end and bad guy. Administration hawks attempted to justify the easy war by portraying it as a part of the hard war, doing their implausible best to make Saddam and Osama seem like co-conspirators in a single threat. Even as the F.B.I. was persecuting Dr. Stephen Hatfill for the anthrax letters, the vice president was implying on "Meet the Press" Sunday that Saddam might be the culprit. The more Bush officials insisted upon these dubious connections, the less persuaded Americans seemed to be. And the more they showed their hand with insistence that Saddam had to go, the more they made people worry what a psycho dictator with plenty of poison and nothing to lose might do to Israel or the U.S. Even the cautious Bob Graham, the Senate intelligence chairman, told The Times's Carl Hulse that if we wanted to catch terrorists, Iraq was the wrong spot. "Avoid the allure of distractions," he warned, calling Syria and Iran more immediate dangers. If the old Desert Storm warriors want a new desert storm, they should stop condescending to their fellow countrymen, who understand both that Iraq is a threat and that Iraq had nothing to do with the destruction of the World Trade Center. The administration is now in the business of simplification. Those rescue workers at ground zero on 9/14/01 were not cheering for "regime change." They wanted the head of Osama bin Laden. And they still do. nytimes.com

To: Bilow who wrote (43301)	9/12/2002 11:34:17 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

unitedmedia.com

To: Bilow who wrote (43301)	9/12/2002 12:00:42 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

We're Not Winning the War On Terrorism One year later, things aren't much better. By Jesse Walker reasonOnline September 11, 2002 reason.com <<...Protecting the Homefront If the situation abroad is troubling, the situation at home—i.e., where the aforementioned English-speaking resident of North America doesn't have to rely on other people for all his information—is downright disturbing. When Cheney, Mueller, and the others declared that further terrorist attacks were inevitable, they may have been exaggerating—perhaps Al Qaeda will get its hands on a weapon of mass destruction, and perhaps it won't. But they were basically right. This is not because the terrorists are especially wily fellows. (We are speaking, after all, of a group whose recruits apparently thought it wise, while preparing to hijack four airplanes, to brag about their plans to some lapdancers in a Florida strip bar.) It is because, on almost every level, the "security" measures passed in the last year have been, at best, time-wasting jokes—and at worst, dangerous diversions. The proposed reorganization of American intelligence has floundered in bureaucratic warfare, with entrenched agencies more interested in protecting turf than protecting American lives. Part of me can't blame them for this—after all, they're merely emulating the behavior on display at the top. The Bush administration's ass-covering response to questions about its failure to foresee the attacks are matched only by the behavior of Democrats so bent on scoring political points that they won't extend their investigations to the Clinton years. A healthy institution learns from its errors; an unhealthy one hushes them up. The worst offender is probably the FBI, a bureau so wary of embarrassment yet immune to shame that its best agents have found themselves going to the media rather than their superiors with news of how leads that might have stopped 9/11 were not pursued. But a special honorable mention should be granted to the new Department of Homeland Security, which immediately attempted to exempt itself from whistleblower protections. It's hardly unusual for a bureaucracy to put its own health above its stated mission, but it's rare for one to indicate its priorities so early in its life...>>