Thats all we were ever told! Warnings! With no backup for the warnings, just scaring the population into making the war justifiable.
Orsino-- Ya don't like it, don't read it. Chuck-- You cannot compare the islamic fundamentalists in Iraq with the Christian fundamentalists in the US. The current Christian fundies (while obnoxious) do not promote suicide bombings, they do not support organizations that specifically target innocent civilians (i.e. Hamas), and they do not beat and rape women when they show their ankles (i.e. Afghanistan). The christian fundy influence is PSYCHOLOGICAL, while the islamic fundy inflence is psychological, cultural, LEGAL, governmental, and physical. Hell, at least in the US you're legally allowed to oppose the Christian fundamentalists--try protesting the Taliban in rural Afghanistan and see how hot you look decapitated. Spooner-- Yes, it would have been better for Africa if imperialism never happened. But, the Hutu hatred for the Tutsis goes back centuries, and you are forgetting that in Rwanda the majority of killings happened not with guns, but with machetes--farm equipment that even the poorest of the poor owned. Belgium could not have predicted the massacre of 800,000 people in 3 months 40 years before it happened. It's called "hindsight 20/20". No one can stop every single crisis before it happens--that's why humanity needs a FEASIBLE back-up plan. Sure, we can look back on the Rwandan genocide and analyzed what went wrong NOW because the genocide is OVER. But what good would it have done if the world leaders got together while the killing was going on and tried to analyze it then? Do you think the tutsis really were thinking about history when their arms were getting cut off? I'm not saying it's useless to try and figure out what went wrong to try and prevent them in the future, but DURING a crisis you HAVE to do something a little more IMMEDIATE.
I guess we should do away with the warning system then, then do away with the weather service, tampa got hurricane warnings during every hurricane that almost hit this past summer. It didn't get hit. But were were prepared if one did hit us. The warning system here means Be on the look out for suspicious activity. Its a small attempt to get people to try to prevent terrorism on their own. There is no telling how many attacks may have been foiled because some paranoid old lady saw somthing suspicious and called it in. The homeland security warning system is there to increase the vigilancy of americans, not to scare anyone.
Yes, you can compare the two. The Islamic fundies are obviously more violent and crazy, but the Christian fundemental government supports torture and the use of deadly weapons against its own civilians (google "protestor deaths by nonlethal weapons" or something of that sort"...but I didn't think we were comparing the two anyway...I am saying that most of the Muslims that are fighting are over there are trying to protect their religion and land from our government, which wants to take it over. If this isn't what we were talking about, nevermind, I agree with what you just said here.
OK Hurricane warning... Theres a huricane forming, we can see it. Watch out for it. The whole terror alert level, or the anthrax scares, or the dirty bomb crap, I don't even know why that was such a big deal, there was never a threat or anything, the media just started saying; "Well if somebody had a dirty bomb like this, look at all the damage they could do! " no reasoning behind all of this crap. And do you think that anybody becomes "more vigilant" when the terror alerts go up? Most people I know just laugh at it.
Just so ya know, a lot of these threats are real...and not just fear tactics. I used to think just like you, and I still laugh at the little color coded alert system we've got, but ever since my fiance up there joined up in the airforce I've gotten a whole new look at it all. Things have happened...actually HAPPENED, not just empty threats. Another woman I know who's hubby is in the AF let me know about something that happened up at her base too. I can't go into much detail. Don't want to get anyone in trouble who wasn't supposed to share certain info. But the point is, there are threats out there that are being acted upon. And Andrew has a security clearance that allows him to hear about much much much more than he can even tell me. We can both assure you that it's not ALL just fear tactics. Some maybe, I still think so anyway...Andrew may have a different opinion on that though. Anyway...all ya gotta do is be aware. That's it. That's not so bad....honestly, given what we know now, it's kinda stupid not to at least be aware.
That may be. But why isn't the public being told this stuff then? How is the public supposed to take these warnings seriously? And never the less, my whole point there was that these warnings were no reason to attack iraq.
Oh no, I agree with you on that. I DEFINITELY do NOT think we should have gone into Iraq. I honestly don't think Iraq was a threat to us like some would have us believe. But the threats aren't really anything to do with Iraq. They're from everywhere really. There was even an incident with some homegrown nutcase. I just thought I'd give a little info though. I honestly don't quite know why they don't tell the public about the threats they get. Maybe they're afraid we'll all go nuts? Maybe they don't want those 'tursts to know that they're on to them? Who knows. I think I've told Andrew before that I wish the gov't wouldn't keep things from the citizens they're supposed to be working for, protecting, etc. Maybe he'll come enlighten us with the reason (I'm sure he's told me before, but my memory is like swiss cheese) whenever he gets off work in the morning. *shrug*
thats true. Theres alot of declassed documents explaining why the government doesn't tell people everything. Example: Project Blue book explains why they don't say anything about alien interaction or UFO's. Because it would create a mass histeria in society, and suicides would run rampent within religious sects that believe differently. A more real world example: if we gave our a vague description of a perp, saying maybe that the fit a middle eastern look, (to the public) and they are coming to bomb somewhere. Then your going to have every redneck in town up in arms trying to perform a citizens arrest on every middle eastern person nearby. Causing a mass panic, law suits ensuing, and people may be killed. (what happens is) Law enforcements get the BOLO (Be on look out for reports) 1st, because we believe in proper verification before prosecution. Also we are trained in how to sniff out inconsistancies. Plus we can make bull shit up to have a reason to pull someone over fitting the description. Thats the unprofessional Gist of it.
