June 8, 2007
Not-So-Terrifying Terrorists
National Review Online: Piddling JFK Plot Shouldn't Scare Us Into Curtailing Rights
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Play CBS Video Video JFK Plot Worse Than 9/11? If the alleged "Pipeline" plot had been successfully carried out, it might have had devastating results for New York City and the airline industry. Tony Guida reports.
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Video Foiled Terror Plot Analysis Two of four suspects in an alleged bomb plot against NYC's JFK Airport will appear in court in Trinidad, where they were arrested. Terrorism consultant Paul Kurtz discusses the case with Julie Chen.
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Video Foiled Plot: Enormous Concern The alleged terror plot to attack fuel tanks at New York's JFK airport had tremendous destructive potential. Director of the Institute for Homeland Security, Col. Randy Larson tells Kelly Wallace.
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A field of storage tanks are seen on the grounds of John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, Saturday, June 2, 2007. Authorities accused four Muslim men of plotting to blow up a jet fuel artery that runs through populous residential neighborhoods around JFK. (AP)
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Interactive America On Guard The Homeland Security Department, the terror alert system, preparedness quiz and more.
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Special Report War On Terror Complete coverage of the military's battle against terrorism.
In The Mouse that Roared, a 1959 movie starring Peter Sellers, the tiny European duchy of Grand Fenwick declares war on the United States after U.S.-produced “Grand Enwick” wine threatens to undermine the Fenwick economy. A devastating loss, they hope, will bring millions of dollars in American largesse a la the Marshall Plan. Alas, the tiny duchy defeats the United States by accidentally capturing the Q-bomb, a prototype doomsday device that could destroy the world if triggered.
How like roaring mice are we treating the bumbling JFK plotters? According to officials, their plan of attack was “not technically feasible.” They had no explosives and they had not figured out how to get some. They would have been more dangerous walking the streets of Brooklyn in armor, with swords and shields.
But why should that stop us from being scared? They had performed physical surveillance, made video recordings of buildings and facilities, and located satellite photographs of JFK on the Internet! The latter, according to the criminal complaint filed against these men, was done using Google Earth, a delightful information product that provides satellite imagery of the country free to anyone with an Internet connection and a computer.
But in the hands of nincompoop terrorists, Google Earth is transmogrified. “Google as Terror Tool?” asked smokinggun.com, which published the complaint. “Google Earth - cool or dangerous?” intoned a blogger riffing on the story. And so the Google Earth-terror angle spins and swirls out across the 24-hour panic-alert system known as cable news: Grand Fenwick has the Q-bomb!
There are serious questions here, of course, but most people ask the wrong ones, such as “How do we prevent terrorists from using new technology against us?”
New technology is not a particularly important focus given the persistence of old technologies like explosives and razor blades in terrorism today. Terrorists will use whatever technology is available in whatever way they can. It’s all quite beside the point.
Antiterrorist efforts must focus on what is feasible, on what works to stop or minimize terror attacks, and mitigate damage. They should not focus on all things conceivable to do. Indeed, that is not “focus” at all.
It is part of the terrorism strategy to attack from within, using homegrown terrorists or attackers insinuated into a society. One response is to make suspects of everyone. We have seen plenty of that in the push for a national I.D. and in increased surveillance of law-abiding Americans’ communications and financial transactions. The privacy of law-abiding citizens is a casualty of this approach, of course. To limit terrorists’ access to information technology, likewise, we would have to limit everyone’s access to information technology. It would be a self-injurious misstep.
Better to concede the point: Terrorists can get the same access to payment systems, health care, shoe stores, knives, computers, photography equipment, and vitamin supplements as everyone else. Google Earth, too.
That doesn’t give them anything they don’t already have, but it does allow us to focus. In the JFK case, focus appears to have paid off. A plot was infiltrated and broken up, using time-tested policing and security methods, long before it was anywhere near fruition.
The JFK plot is another victory against people who would use the terrorism strategy against us. It helps to show that terrorists are not all-seeing, crafty, super geniuses. They’re closer to dumb. They tend not even to be tall.
Mayor Bloomberg is our best defender against these attackers from Grand Fenwick. “You have a much greater danger of being hit by lightning than being struck by a terrorist,” he said when finally drawn into discussing the JFK boys’ piddling threat.
His sound effort to manage the psyche of his city brought a hail of derision from people invested in playing up the threat of terror, of course, and conflicted with many conservative pundits and his predecessor Rudy Giuliani. These “terror warriors” would unravel our society’s traditions with mass surveillance of law-abiding citizens. They would engage in the Sisyphian struggle to keep technology away from terrorists at the expense of freedom-loving Americans. They need to, quoting Bloomberg, “get a life.”
Terrorism is a strategy that weak attackers use to drive a stronger opponent into self-injurious missteps. Mayor Bloomberg refused to be the patsy to terrorism. He was right to ignore the mouse’s roar.
By Jim Harper
Reprinted with permission from National Review Online.
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
Say it! Say it! IRAQ
The former terrorist expert Richard Clark said that invading Iraq was the worst thing we could do. I was exactly what Bin Laden and Al Qaeda wanted us to do. To get bogged down in a mess like the Soviets did in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Posted by Sparks224 at 03:16 PM : Jun 09, 2007
+ report abuse
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that only happens in liberal backed govts like chavez humm havent heard anything about those radio stations anymore..any mass graves out there?...does that mean cindy and harry will have govt jobs??
Say it! Say it! IRAQ!
If they keep doing it they will be labeled America haters and Liberals. Their funding will be cut off.
when 2 tribes go to war..you prefer the other tribe
If they keep doing it they will be labeled Liberal America haters and their funding will be cut off.
[Posted by taddles at 05:44 PM : Jun 08, 2007]
i'm assuming you're speaking generally of the nro ... cause this story is not a 'terror monger' piece ... it's actually a commentary criticizing the strategy ... and praising bloomberg for speaking against it (subtly)
Even Eisenhower had problems with Israeli groups but he did not let them buy him!
READ AS THEY BRAG ABOUT THEIR INFLUENCE ON OUR GOVERNMENT!
http://www.aipac.org/forms/join_aipacClubs.htm
Founded in 1953 by Isaiah L. "Si" Kenen, AIPAC's original name was the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs. According to UCLA political science professor and author, Steven Spiegel, "the tension between the Eisenhower administration and Israeli supporters was so acute that there were rumors that the administration would investigate the American Zionist Council. Therefore, an independent lobbying committee was formed, which years later was renamed [AIPAC]." [SPIEGEL, p. 52].[citation needed] Today, AIPAC has over 100,000 members.[1]
Activities and stated goals
AIPAC's stated purpose is to lobby the Congress of the United States on issues and legislation "to ensure that the U.S.-Israel relationship is strong so that both countries can work together" to meet the challenges of "stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, [2] It regularly meets with members of Congress and holds events where it can share its views. AIPAC has been effective in gaining support for Israel among members of Congress and White House administrations.
The New York Times described AIPAC on July 6, 1987 as "a major force in shaping United States policy in the Middle East."
Posted by fredgrad2000 at 02:29 PM : Jun 08, 2007"
The NRO is a hard core Republican rag and always has been, for them not to fall in step with all the other neo-con terror mongers is stunning and demonstrates just how far from conservative grace the Bush crime family has fallen.
As to not having been attacked again since 911, you might just as well give Bush credit for keeping us safe from huricanes. God bless him, if Bush hadn't been in office the sun might have burned out.
The Bush group look at all the terror that they helped cause, due to incompetence as another opportunity to make their friends in phony companies richer to gain more campaign contributions. These are the same guys that never investigated the bombing of a U.S. warship in a foreign port and considered Al Qaeda a nuisance like "swatting flies".
Posted by bluestardad
Rather be pro-Israeli (a democracy) than pro-terrorist and pro-MoveOn like most posters here at the Clinton Broadcasting System. The "mainstream" media never gives any credit for the fact that we haven't been attacked again since 9/11, always downplaying every plot or burying it off the front page or focusing on what "rights" were trampled to prevent a plot by "nincompoops"; yet we certainly well know, the same press, if an attack happened or happens, will blame Bush for not doing ENOUGH...ridiculous when the "mainsteam media" becomes just another left-wing blog outlet.
I'll tell you what Oh Great Pundits..... get down on your hands and knees and beg the forgiveness of the American Public for you rampant support of the policies that have brought THIS GREAT DEMOCRACY to it's knees.... and then we'll talk about forgiveness of YOUR "mouse's roar".
- by bluestardad June 8, 2007 4:03 PM EDT
- ANOTHER NEOCON PRO ISRAELI RAG!
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