They’ve raised it a few times before, but for some reason I think something may actually happen this time because the warning was more specific.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3335595.stm
“to exceed or rival those of 11 September”
What I found interesting was the link to the seizing of heroin, hashish and methamphetamines being smuggled on dhows in the Strait of Hormuz, possibly run by al-Qaeda operatives. If that’s so, then so much for fundamentalist Wahhabi rhetoric.
The capture of Saddam is great blow to them. It’s likely that they will react with rage and attempt something.
It’s probably a good idea to raise the terror alert level.
Both Judaism and Christianity celebrate important holidays this time of year. They have in the past performed attacks on holidays - In Israel they attacked once on Yom Kippur. Back on passover was the horrible masacre.
I think security should be raise for both Christmas and New Years. With a lot of people in Times Square, evil thinking terrorists could try anything.
Having done the Times Square New Year’s Eve thing a couple of times in my younger days, I find the crowds, the cold, the traffic and the impossibility of finding a rest room reason enough to stay away.
[quote=“Daniel_Bingamon”]The capture of Saddam is great blow to them. It’s likely that they will react with rage and attempt something.quote]
Al Quaeda could care less about Saddam Hussein. He and Osama Bin Laden despise each other.
What I think is that when they have nothing more specific to tell us, they should just shut up and leave us alone. Maybe it’s just keeping the psychosis alive?..
There are terrorists in the world beside Al Queda. Saddam Hussein attempted to assassinate the elder George Bush, why do you think his sympathizers would not try something? Besides, as Daniel Bingamon mentioned, the religious significance of the season may increase terrorist activity regardless of the recent Hussein capture.
Nah, they’ve got nothing; they’re doing it to keep the
terrorism-psychosis alive.
Oh, OK. I guess I must have slept through that part of the vast right wing conspiracy meeting last week. Wait I remember, the terrorism psychosis discussion was right before the cookies and punch.
Edited - manage to misspell “cookies”
What I think is that when they have nothing more specific to tell us, they should just shut up and leave us alone. Maybe it’s just keeping the psychosis alive?..
Patrick, come back to us, old fellow. Sorry to use irony,
but please…
Actually, I think the terrorists realize that we have almost nothing in the way of humint assets – we rely almost entirely on electronic evesdropping and such. So, they’ve learned that whenever they want to get a reaction all they have to do is start a bunch of “non-specific” chatter and it will panic the intelligence community which doesn’t want to take any chances since 9/11.
After a while, the intelligence community will have “cried wolf” once to often and we’ll get complacent again – then the terrorists will hit again.
At least, that’s how I’d be working it if I were a terrorist 
I don’t think Al Qaeda, anyway, acts out of rage.
A luxury they can ill afford. Also I don’t think
they hate the American people, though of course
they’re trying to kill us. There’s this strange
almost beseeching quality to their communications:
‘We’re trying to tell you what we want,
again and again, we’ve warned you repeatedly,
but you never seem to understand why we’re
doing this…’
After awhile? I quit listening after the Duct Tape Follies.
Susan
You know before 911 some of us were called kooks because we suspected such a thing would happen.
I had a dream in 1997 of a plane hitting a skyscraper, I won’t even get in one today because I saw the dream come true.
The problem is that people want the problem to simply go away by ignoring it, that’s not going to happen. I was never excited about Bush but shudder to think of the mess we would have been in under Gore.
Al Queda? Don’t forget that large number of Palestinians that going to Iraq. They’re at war with us and we’re not careful we might see suicide bombers in our country (God forbid).
I know foreign fighters are there. Is there
reason to think they’re palestinians? Curious
I agree w/ pthouron on this.
But to take it a little furthur, I think the Bush admin. wants to keep the public afraid. That way, they can justify every right they take away from the people, in the name of fighting terrorism, and we’ll say thanks In return! Its ingenious. And in time of war, people seem to vote republican.
I’m not the least bit worried about a terrorist attack. And if they manage to blow me up, good for them, so be it- I’d still rather have that than worry about terrorists.
I don’t see any good reason for them to alert us of impending doom, b/c there’s nothing we can do about it. What, be more vigilant? Yeah right.
If they know we need to evacuate a city, tell us then! But otherwise, its old news.
What rights do you feel the Bush administration has taken from you so far?
I’d like to point out that most(all?) of the positions(pertaining to why the threat level was raised) asserted so far in this thread are pure speculation. Maybe the feds actually do know something this time. Maybe they are just playing with our minds. Maybe Bush really is an Evil Man, who only wants power and money and will stop at nothing to do it. Maybe he isn’t and he’s honestly doing what he thinks is best for Americans. Maybe Franklin D. Roosevelt planned for Pearl Harbor to get us into World War Two. Hey, he coulda. You never know what politicians might do. Maybe JFK staged the moon landing, and we really didn’t beat the Russians in the space race. It wouldn’t have been that hard, and it’s a good move politically(outside that it would be asserting falsehoods).
So, speculate as you please. Just don’t form your speculations, and then assume they are true and libel people based upon these speculations which you invented.
Just a little reminder to help us all stay sane in tense times.
A good place to start on that would be the patriot act.
-Detain immigrants as long as they want- as seen on the news if you remember that, I do.
-infringe on privacy- monitor email’s, library accounts, medical records, wiretaps, probably cause be damned.
“I don’t think that’s any of the government’s business. I don’t think what people read is subject to inquiry. What difference does that make? It has a chilling effect on fundamental freedom of activity.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) (“Murkowski Proposes Changes to USA PATRIOT Act to Protect Civil Liberties While Fighting Terrorism,” Press Release from the Office of Senator Lisa Murkowski, 8/01/2003)
“I think [law enforcement officials] are trampling on our rights and they are doing it in the name of trying to protect us from domestic terrorism’”Rep. C.L. “Butch” Otter (R-ID) (Congressional Record, Page H7289, 7/22/2003)
“I told the President I thought his Justice Department was out of control… Are we going to save ourselves from international terrorism in order to deny the fundamental liberties we protect to ourselves?… It doesn’t make sense to me.”David Keene, Chairman of the American Conservative Union (“Ashcroft: Good Intentions on a Bad Road” The Hill, 7/31/2002)
On Abortion Rights:
The ACLU opposes the so-called “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003” (S.3/H.R. 760) because it outlaws safe abortion procedures and thus threatens women’s health and reproductive rights. Proponents of this bill claim that it will prohibit only a single, “late-term” abortion procedure. But the bill prohibits more than a single procedure; it bans safe and common abortion methods used in the second trimester of pregnancy, well before fetal viability. It also lacks an exception to protect women’s health – a requirement that is constitutionally compelled, as the Supreme Court made clear in its recent ruling in Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914 (2000).
Bush signed that one, didn’t he?
On Education:
School voucher schemes would force all taxpayers to support religious beliefs and practices with which they may strongly disagree.
At the heart of these proposals are the goals of commingling church and state in the classroom and diverting public funds to private and parochial schools. Religious schools represent 85 percent of the total private school enrollment in the United States. These schools by their nature combine proselytization with education and therefore should not be funded by taxpayer dollars.
The list can go on and on.
Bush has his conservative agenda, and yeah, I think it may violate our basic civil rights.
www.aclu.org/
Thanks for your post. I guess what I was asking was how you felt the Bush administration had impacted you personally. Both an ACLU spokesman and Dianne Feinstein have been quoted as saying they are not aware of any complaints arising from misuse of the Patriot Act (I can dig up the links if you want but not right now).
My opinion is that after September 11th some changes in the way terrorism is prevented was inevitable and that some form of the Patriot Act would have developed regardless of who was in the White House. If it had not, there probably would have been criticism that not enough was being done. Many of your quotes are from conservatives - abridgement of individual rights is not traditionally a conservative tenet yet the Patriot Act is often painted as a conservative issue.
While people might disagree with school vouchers and partial-birth abortion, trying to relate it to fear of terrorism is a stretch and I don’t believe the Bush administration ever used that argument in relation to those issues.
Quote @ OutOfBreath
Actually, I think the terrorists realize that we have almost nothing in the way of humint assets – we rely almost entirely on electronic evesdropping and such.
We’d have more on-the-ground intelligence if the Pentagon wasn’t firing Arabic linguists left and right (and Korean, too, for that matter) just for being gay. Being as our Arabic speaking people are few and far between, that’s a rather stupid reason for firing people we need for our own security.