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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JDN who wrote (203207)	4/18/2007 5:38:45 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793868

JDN, it doesn't cost much to buy box-cutters and one way tickets. <Right now these terrorists are expending their funds on Iraqi targets and easier (cheaper) targets in Europe and Asia. If the monies they are spending now are set loose they will apply them toward funding USA attacks. > It's not shortage of money which is stopping attacks in the USA. Nor motivation. If the USA pulled out of Afghanistan and Iraq and generally left Islamic Jihad alone in their own festering countries, the incentive to join Islamic Jihad in the anti-USA brigades would reduce. I couldn't see a good reason to attack Iraq as was done. Sure, there were plenty of provocations from Saddam, but there were other ways of sorting it out. Iran sells a LOT of oil. To China, India and places. They aren't short of a buck. Heck, they can even afford nuclear reactors to make nuclear bombs. So I don't think their allegedly embedded terrorists in the USA are short of cash flow for their purposes. The only Iranian I know of embedded in the USA is Allen Salmasi who was instrumental in helping QUALCOMM develop CDMA and Globalstar and now is running NextWave Wireless. Without him, the USA would have been much worse off. So would I. Maybe the TSA people could arrest him. Your basic premise is false. Car bombs in Baghdad cost almost nothing. The training is simple and cheap, unlike spending 5 years learning to fly 747s, getting a job doing so, then deciding to crash the plane. Iraqi nationalists just need to find an angry young guy, show him how to steer a car, pack it with diesel and fertilizer or something better if available, then blow it up downtown. Or, strap a vest on him full of semtex or something, drop him off at a restaurant or bus stop. It's not a cash shortage which stops polonium 210 being sprinkled on your buffet 'eat all you like' salad. Putin could sell a LOT of that stuff. Not that he'd want it getting into the wrong hands - it could be used against him. How do you think Al Q could attack the USA? Buying handguns and going nuts in a school seems a good way. Handguns are freely available because they don't kill people. So are lots of other guns. But they'd have to get a student visa first. Osama claims to have a big deal Homeland attack lined up. Maybe he has. He has issued the official warnings. It seems pointless to issue the warnings if he doesn't have something. It's not as though the USA is going to surrender because of the warnings. It's more like a pro-forma warning for ethical reasons - going to Allah with a clear Islamic conscience in having fought the infidels in the right way. While the USA is busy fighting Saddam, arranging regime change and getting the oil in Iraq, the main event has been ignored. That's very unwise, akin to leaving the cockpit door open. Focus should be on the serious danger. Saddam wasn't a serious danger. That was obvious. It was also obvious that he was only a friend of Osama because 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' .... 'time enough later to kill him'. Mqurice

To: JDN who wrote (203207)	4/18/2007 6:03:31 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793868

I should have added, the Dept of Homeland security has the intelligence of a frog. I would not depend on them to keep me safe or intercept Islamic Jihad attacks. They are very good at hassling tourists and regular people. So far, the Air Marshals have succeeded in shooting and killing a panicking person scared of flying who wanted to get off the aircraft via the air-bridge. No doubt they have done a lot of other dopey things and not done much to make flying safer or less unpleasant. The British succeeded in shooting, many times, a Brazilian electrician on the underground. Sitting around bored all day, the air marshals will start to come up with "mission creep" which will NOT be passenger-friendly. If they were to help with serving tea, that might be good, but they won't. When undercover aviation security people are looking over crowds for dangerous people, they find each other. Which is not surprising, as they are dangerous. When I look around airports, and crowds in general, it's pretty obvious that there are very very few potential terrorists. Mqurice