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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (223615)	3/12/2005 12:12:12 PM
From: SilentZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573439

>- There has been no successful attack against the United States since 9/11/01 -- 3.5 years and counting. (It was 8 years between the first and the second <and only> attacks, so we are still under the frequency curve. If there are no attacks in the next 4.5 years, I'll admit that the threat has decreased. If there is an attack in the next 4.5 years, will you admit that the threat has increased?) Not to mention that it took five years to plan and execute the attacks on 9/11/01. -Z

To: Road Walker who wrote (223615)	3/12/2005 12:30:44 PM
From: i-node	Respond to of 1573439

>> Now, can you provide any evidence that the threat has decreased? I think I already did. Tighter security, reduced funding, dead leadership, etc. These represent pretty strong evidence that we have reduced the threat. - Significant chunks of their leadership have been killed or captured; (But their membership and motivation has increased.) I don't see increased membership as material unless they have also improved their skills, funding, and ability to penetrate the US. As to "motivation", it is difficult to say with any real certainty how deeply committed they are, and as democracy spreads throughout the ME how much of that commitment will be retained. There are at least 10,000 newly and fully trained terrorist in Iraq. Why do you think bin Laden was encouraging them to attack the US?) "Fully trained"? What are you talking about? When and where did these people get "fully trained"? If we learned anything in Iraq, it is that a military (or quasi-military organization) requires YEARS to train and equip (actually, we already knew that, since Winston Churchill clearly established that the Germans acknowledged this issue when they began retraining their military leadership in the 20s). (It was 8 years between the first and the second <and only> attacks, so we are still under the frequency curve. If there are no attacks in the next 4.5 years, I'll admit that the threat has decreased. If there is an attack in the next 4.5 years, will you admit that the threat has increased?) I do not believe we'll have a successful attack in the United States during the next year. But it could happen, and that would, in no way, be a measure of whether we're safer or not. The reason I asked you to back up your statement is that you made a rather definitive statement about something that has no definitive character; yet, what evidence there is points to the other result (i.e., that we are, indeed, safer today than before. Your assertion that there are now more Al Qaeda members is really the only support for your argument, and it is meaningless unless you can show that these people have either the propensity or the ability to attack us. The number of terrorists in the world, and their motivation to get the US, is certainly relevant to the subject of the increase or decrease in the terrorist threat. Unless you can present the methods by which their number and motivations were determined, it doesn't mean much. I suspect most new members are, in fact, LESS motivated than earlier members, but neither of us can prove the point one way or the other.

To: Road Walker who wrote (223615)	3/13/2005 5:48:46 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 1573439

John I've noticed that if some figure supports your version of the story you pass it on uncritically as if it was a certain and decidied matter (10,000 new and fully trained terrorist in Iraq, 100,000 + civilian deaths in Iraq), but if anyone else brings up a figure you demand a lot of links and argument for it, or just consider it as bogus. - Significant chunks of their leadership have been killed or captured; (But their membership and motivation has increased.) I think their membership has probably decreased, but others have been inspired by them. (It was 8 years between the first and the second <and only> attacks, so we are still under the frequency curve. If there are no attacks in the next 4.5 years, I'll admit that the threat has decreased. If there is an attack in the next 4.5 years, will you admit that the threat has increased?) Neither outcome will really settle the issue. It would take something more extreme to really be evidence for one side or the other, something like multiple major attacks in the same year, or no sucessfull major attacks over the next decade or two. Tim