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| Author |
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| 25 new of 67 responses total. |
jmsaul
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response 25 of 67:
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Jun 3 02:31 UTC 2002 |
The US *is* hypocritical on the topic: we talk a good game about rights and
civil liberties, while at the same time propping up a number of abusive
regimes in the Arab world (and elsewhere) because we're afraid that the
alternatives will be worse. Or at least wouldn't sell us oil at the same
prices.
Of course, the alternatives -- where the alternatives are fundamentalist
Islamic parties -- almost certainly *would* be worse for everyone except male
members of those parties, but people suffering under a repressive and corrupt
government may be willing to take the chance.
Marcus, I wasn't looking for citations that Al Qaeda dislikes the US, I was
looking for citations that they specifically want us to become more
restrictive of our own citizens.
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mdw
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response 26 of 67:
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Jun 3 08:32 UTC 2002 |
No argument on US hypocrisy (witness US w/r/t cuba/china). Clearly bin
ladin style islam has little to recommend it to most in the west,
although there are elements of its thinking that are uncomfortably close
to elements of some of the religious right.
Some quotes from the above URLs:
"Freedom and human rights in America are doomed.
..
"The values of this Western civilization under the leadership
of America have been destroyed. Those awesome symbolic towers
that speak of liberty, human rights, and humanity have been
destroyed. They have gone up in smoke."
..
"Let the United States know that the battle will continue to be
waged on its territory until it leaves our land, stops its
support for the Jews, and lifts the unjust embargo on the Iraqi
people."
..
"American soldier was just a paper tiger."
..
"The American government is leading the country towards hell."
..
"After World War II, the Americans grew more unfair and more
oppressive towards people in general and Muslims in
particular."
There's a certain amount of inconsistency in the various interviews. In
some, bin Laden denies any interest in what americans think. In others,
he has a specific message for americans. In some, he draws a
distinction between the US gov't & US people, in others, he makes it
clear he regards both as equivalent; equally valid targets. Clearly,
unless directed by specific questions, when talking about american, he's
mostly interested in talking about how evil and weak the US is, about
assorted evil things they've done in the "arab world". If he had the
opportunity, it sounds like he'd turn america into something very like
afghanistan - if he didn't go for the glass plain option instead.
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jmsaul
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response 27 of 67:
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Jun 3 13:21 UTC 2002 |
This is the key point here:
"Let the United States know that the battle will continue to be
waged on its territory until it leaves our land, stops its
support for the Jews, and lifts the unjust embargo on the Iraqi
people."
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klg
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response 28 of 67:
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Jun 4 02:13 UTC 2002 |
re: "#21 of 27: by Mary Remmers (mary): The Taliban's agenda is to have our
culture more closely comform to their culture. And the way they've set about
doing that is incredibly clever in it's simplicity. They'll blow up a few
buildings full of people then sit back and watch as our fear (and Ashcroft)
does the rest. It's working like a trained pig."
and
"#22 of 27: by Paul Kershaw (brighn): #18> If we abide by the costs Ashcroft
and Bush would like to extract, the essence of our nation will be lost, and
there will be nothing left to protect."
Loathe as I am to quote anything written by most NYT columnists, perhaps you
two could benefit by a recent piece from Nicholas Kristof, who wrote that
"civil libertarians are . . . dishonest in refusing to acknowledge the trade
off between public security and individual freedom . . . One reason aggressive
(FBI) agents were restrained . . . is that liberals like myself . . . have
regularly excoriated law enforcement authorities for taking shortcuts and
engaging in racial profiling. As long as we are pointing fingers, we should
peer into the mirror.
"The timidity of bureau headquarters is indefensible. But it reflected . .
. an environment (that we who care about civil liberties helped create) in
which officials were afraid of being assailed as insensitive storm troopers.
"So it is time for civil libertarians to examine themselves with the same
rigor with which we are prone to examine others."
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gelinas
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response 29 of 67:
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Jun 4 02:49 UTC 2002 |
It's always a balance between "security" and "usability". Sometimes, we come
down more toward one end, other times, more toward the other. However, giving
up usability may be secure but is . . . useless. Similarly, giving up
essential liberty for safety results in neither. And yeah, that's old.
Doesn't make it any less true.
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dbunker
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response 30 of 67:
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Jun 4 03:30 UTC 2002 |
Re #28: Gee, so you found a self-flagellating liberal to quote. Big deal.
Maybe you missed that such noted left-wingers as William Safire and
Congressman Sennsenbruner have also criticized the Bush administration.
Or maybe you missed college, or at least the part about "compare and
contrast." Everything *didn't* change 9/11. The WTC had been attacked
before and the government was well aware that other attacks were coming.
Hell, certain Americans (myself included) expected something to happen
sometime. Sure, it was still a shock. But that's not the same as surprise.
Another thing to compare and contrast is how previous attempts had been
successfully prevented, UNDER THE OLD RULES. Got any idea on the number?
Here's a hint, it's more than 100. Under the old rules. As Safire wrote,
those rules worked for Reagan, they worked for Bush Sr and the worked for
Clinton. They worked, period. Shrub has failed to articulate any good
reasons why those rules that worked before are suddenly unworkable now.
9/11 didn't occur because the new rules weren't in place. It occured
because of a failure of our intelligence operations, which couldn't
efficiently process the information it had. Information which, BTW, was
obtained UNDER THE OLD RULES.
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orinoco
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response 31 of 67:
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Jun 4 07:54 UTC 2002 |
I read the same piece as klg did, and actually thought it was pretty
reasonable at the time, although I don't remember it that well.
The thing is, there _is_ a tradeoff between openness and security. Protecting
against espionage and terrorism is much harder in a country with fairly open
borders and a high degree of personal freedom. It's not an absolute tradeoff,
mind you -- you can be more secure or less secure at a given level of freedom,
and more free or less free at a given level of security -- but it's a very
real one.
Both sides of the debate seem to recognize the tradeoff, in fact. Very few
people are claiming that we'd all be safer if the INS backed down, or that
we'd end up with more personal freedom if we let the government do whatever
they wanted in the name of security. Instead, both sides are acknowledging
the tradeoff between freedom and security, and saying that one is more
valuable than the other. The liberal argument boils down to "I'd rather live
with a little more risk than live in a police state," and the conservative
argument boils down to "I'd rather be safe in my own home than place all these
restrictions on the government."
So fine, let's be honest about it. I'm in favor of civil liberties, and I
admit that the liberties I favor place me at a higher risk of all sorts of
things, including terrorism. That's a trade that I would willingly make,
without trying to deny the consequences. If you can't say the same, then
you're not really in favor of civil liberties, you're just an idealist.
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other
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response 32 of 67:
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Jun 4 07:59 UTC 2002 |
Actually, the conservative argument seems to be, "I want to be safe in my
home and business from government intrusion, regulation or limitation and
I'll support a strong police and military so long as they are only used
in ways that don't threaten me, my income, my friends, my family or my
religious beliefs. Oh, and if that commie weirdo down the street comes
anywhere near me or my business, I want him arrested and deported."
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orinoco
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response 33 of 67:
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Jun 4 08:29 UTC 2002 |
Well, that's just as ridiculous as the idealist argument that everyone should
just be nice and get along, and there should be no cops _or_ war. But,
contrary to popular belief, there are conservatives who don't have their heads
up their asses. (I don't think they're any more or less common than their
non-craniorectal equivalents on the liberal side of the fence, actually).
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mdw
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response 34 of 67:
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Jun 4 09:00 UTC 2002 |
I suspect there are other things we can do that would increase our
security without compromising our liberties. There are many aspects of
our foreign policy that seem more oriented around greed than security.
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brighn
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response 35 of 67:
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Jun 4 16:12 UTC 2002 |
#28, #31> I'm not sure I get the point. #28 is implying that my attitude about
civil liberties is carefree, and that perhaps I hold some bitter resentment
towards the FBI for letting all those innocent people die, if only...
If only klg read my posts more carefully. I've been consistent, since 9/11
and I daresay before then. Here are the extremes:
Total safety, no liberties. The government designs cars to strap us in,
immovable except for our arms and feet; the government bans guns, drugs, fat,
sugar, coal, cigarettes, knives, forks, belts, glass...; the government
installs multiple cameras in every room of our house, every park in our
cities, every nook of our airpors. We are in no risk of dying of anything
until our cancerous tumor eats us up at 99.
Total liberty, no safety. The government ceases to exist. We can go where we
please, buy what we want, take what drugs suit us, shoot other people for
recreation, and so forth. Anarchy rules.
Now, if we're to maintain a civil society with a respect for liberty, we need
to find a spot somewhere on the scale created by the extremes. That's what
the trade-offs are all about.
Am I sad that thousands of people died in the WTC? Of course, what sort of
animal do I look like?
Am I sad that the WTC has been destroyed? Yes.
Am I afraid that someday, somehow, I might be on an airplane, or in public,
or in my own home, and some madman with a knife or a gun or a bomb in his shoe
will kill me? It doesn't fill my every thought, but sure, that anxiety has
passed through my thoughts now and then.
Am I willing to allow the FBI to deny people rights because they're of Arabic
descent, and for no other reason? ARE YOU INSANE?
Am I willing to allow the FBI to tap my phonelines because I'm vocal in my
disdain for President Bush? Not hardly.
Am I willing to accept that the cost of my unwillingness to fall victim to
the Bush Administration's paranoia is a greater risk to my own life, and to
the lives of people I care about? Yes, I accept this.
I would rather die with my liberties than live as a slave to a domineering
government.
I write these words now, but they could just as easily have been written by
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or Patrick Henry. The people whose
beliefs form the intellectual backbone of this country.
Now, I repeat: If Bush gets want he wants, the essence of our nation will be
lost, and there will be nothing left to protect.
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mary
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response 36 of 67:
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Jun 4 23:27 UTC 2002 |
Re: 28 Hey, I read that article and I'll say here what I thought then. If
the FBI and CIA had been doing a better job with the legal tools they had
we'd be in better shape. So I see no real need to rip our rights to
shreds at this point. The problem with our security isn't that they can't
gather the pertinent information. It's that they can't figure out what to
do with information they already have.
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brighn
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response 37 of 67:
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Jun 5 03:41 UTC 2002 |
#36> That's roughly my position on Hate Crimes: We have the laws already. We
shouldn't create more laws because the ones we have are being incompetently
applied. We don't need to give the CIA and the FBI more powers because they
don't know how to use the ones they already have.
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russ
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response 38 of 67:
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Jun 5 03:59 UTC 2002 |
Re #31: Unfortunately, your straw-man conservative (you really mean
"police-state advocate") position doesn't guarantee safety either.
Giving too much power to the police means that the police become more
of a threat to life, liberty and safety than the putative criminals
(think J. Edgar Hoover here).
Even letting the police snoop too much is dangerous. Some FBI agents
were just indicted on stock-manipulation charges for using information
from their databases to make companies look bad and profit by selling
short. It would be really easy to profit politically the same way,
and there wouldn't be any futures transactions pointing back at the
perps either...
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bdh3
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response 39 of 67:
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Jun 5 08:40 UTC 2002 |
For every lead that came into the FBI or the CIA in the past year
that may have directly pointed to the really stupid but effective
tactic of the murder-bombers of 9/11 there where at least 10 that
had nothing to do with or lead elswhere. This is a fact.
Hindsite is always 20/20 and that is exactly what 'they' count
on. The more they can 'dirty' up the system and force us to
respond to every rumor and hint so much the better. From a
counter-intelligence standpoint you selectively release story
and then observe your oponents response - you tell three people
that you intend to bomb the Golden Gates and then when your
opforce reacts you now know one or more of three are
compromised. Duh.
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mary
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response 40 of 67:
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Jun 5 11:38 UTC 2002 |
And I'd buy that too except those who know how intelligence works and who
are looking at the mistakes are shocked at the ineptitude. This isn't the
media manufacturing a problem. All you have to do is look at Bush's
reaction and you know they screwed the pooch.
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klg
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response 41 of 67:
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Jun 6 00:08 UTC 2002 |
As George Orwell once said, "One has belong to the
intelligentsia to believe things like that,
no ordinary manc could be such a fool."
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bru
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response 42 of 67:
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Jun 6 01:13 UTC 2002 |
I wish intelligence were that simple. It is like looking at a mosaic from
three inches away. What is that a picture of? you have 12 people all staring
at their own 3 square inches of the mosaic. Can they arrive at what it is
a picture of?
So we have 28 Arabs learning to become pilots. Which of them is a terrorist?
Are all of them? Are any of them? How can you tell? My eighbor is islamic,
she is 17 years old. Before 9/11 she wanted to be a pilot. She still does,
but is now afraid she will never be accepted into a school because her father
is from the middle east. Should the FBI investigate her, and him? What if
her father is a deep cover terrorist and no one in his family knows. It has
happened before. It will happen again.
Where do we balance this out?
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aruba
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response 43 of 67:
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Jun 7 01:08 UTC 2002 |
Re #40: Mary, could you elaborate? I haven't heard the story you are
referring to.
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bdh3
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response 44 of 67:
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Jun 7 08:45 UTC 2002 |
It is clear in 20/1000 hindsite that the US should have 'known'
what was gonna happen. But reality ain't that simple. I like
to compare 9/11 to 12/7. It was very clear in May of 1941 what
the nips were gonna do (we had the additional advantage of
having 'broken' the Jap's code). It was so brilliant and obvious
that Mitchell in the 1920s wrote detailed plans of how it would work
and how to prevent it and the Nip navy used such significantly.
It was so obvious that prior to 12/7the USNAVY even after it forward
deployed the Pacific Fleet in 1940 from Diego 'gamed' it and practiced
it for at least a year in advance.
The fact of the matter was that except for the singular interception
and decryption of the message "Climb Mount Nitaka" a significant
portion of the japanese fleet 'fell into a black hole' and the
US played 'catch up' just like it is doing now.
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mary
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response 45 of 67:
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Jun 7 12:07 UTC 2002 |
Both the NYTs and Newsweek have done in-depth articles detailing what
was known and either lost in processing or not shared out of some sense
of warped arrogance or competitiveness. It really is too much to info to
lay out here. I still have the magazine and will save it for you.
The Times stuff will be online.
I was left with the feeling heads should roll and that the last thing
these guys need is more information. They can't handle what they've got.
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bdh3
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response 46 of 67:
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Jun 7 13:36 UTC 2002 |
Gosh, you really think that all the information the FBI and the CIA
had was what Newsleak and Times knew about.
Now who is being naive? The peoblem was not what we knew and when
we knew it. The problem was separating all the retrospectively
true facts from all the garbage or noise, and putting it all together
in such a fashion and in time to have been able to prevent the events.
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mary
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response 47 of 67:
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Jun 7 14:54 UTC 2002 |
Arab men wanting to learn how to fly jumbo jets but not being
interested in knowing how to land 'em. All with ties to terrorist
groups.
Read the article, Brian. ;-)
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orinoco
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response 48 of 67:
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Jun 7 15:52 UTC 2002 |
(I've heard that the story about wanting to know how to fly, but not
how to land, is an urban legend. But I also haven't been paying much
attention to this story. What's your source?)
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mary
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response 49 of 67:
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Jun 7 17:36 UTC 2002 |
Newsweek.
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