[bin Laden] 'It's only a question of time'

I'm not sure about that. But we've all been fairly certain that he and most of the others we are looking for are along a narrow strip of the Pakistan/Afghan border. However, that region is semi-autonomous, and it wouldn't fly for the Pakistani government to go in--much less let the US do it for them.

 

LifeSabre could not have said it better myself!!!!

 

I don't think anyone here is stressing over this. We are however discussing the importance of this and other related events. Big difference.

 

So far there have been little or no white males involved with the Islamic extremists that we have been fighting. The profile should match what we already know which is largely Muslim. If whites or any other ethnic group start to sympathize and adopt the same ideology/get involved with attacks or attempts to do harm to America they should be included. This is not a racist thing, per capita few Muslims are terrorists but so far all terrorists have been Muslim.

McVeigh was not motivated by Islamic extremism so I don't see your connection but I can tell you that when they found out it was a white male they were not looking at Asians, Muslims, and Blacks just to be fair.

 

I think his point is that not all Muslims are Arabs.

 

By the grace of God, the heroic mujahideen will strike with great power and disgrace the cross-lovers and apostate pigs, God willing. We have warned you not to listen to Bush and Blair. Now, it's too late!

Muhuhahahahahaha!

<[-]> Saber

 

No kidding but it was Clinton who was offered Bin Laden by the Saudis during his term. IT was even on tape CLinton's response. He said NO. And let him go. After The Tower attacks in 93 he lets this guy go. I blame Clinton for 9/11. He had OBL 12 times in his crosshairs I heard and did not do a thing.

 

Exactly!!!

 

Do you remeber the '93 bombing of the World Trade Ceneter? The US Embassy bombing in Africa? The USS COle in Yemen. All OBL DURING CLINTON. CLINToN DID NOT DO ANYTHING AFTER THOSE ATTACKS!!!!! 9/11 was planned way before Bush got into office. Of course Bush will be pissed after 9/11. If OBL just let things be he would still be in control in Afghan with the taliban!!! Do you know your history at all !!?!?!?

 

Meh. If you wish to lay blame don't even bother. The current politicial situation isn't all Bush Sr's fault. Clinto. Bush Jr. Reagen, etc. Its a cumulative effect and it certainly didn't help when Carter botched the hostage rescue which helped show that the American military wasn't the right hand of God. Of course 'Nam did the have the same result, but the botched rescue attempt didn't help.

I agree.

 

Just like Clinton did by bombing Iraq to distract from the intern romance.

 

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Either we need the wiretaps or we don't. Make up your mind.

 

How many times are you going to post in succession?

I was never for the illegal wiretaps.

 

I am. And I do not believe they were illegal.

 

Not illegal? Oh, they're illegal. That's a discussion for the other thread though. I'm still trying to find that one.

 

what's so hard about asking for a warrant to do a wiretap? if they think the person is up to no good they should have evidence on that already and present it to the judge to support their need for wiretapping this person. as long as they have a warrant i could care less if they wire tap people

 

Actually, I wouldn't think this does much of anything. They scout locations for security long before they try an actual attack anyway, so they'd find out about any new screening processes, etc that were being used. As for revelaing vulnerable locations, even though they now know that those places are vulnerable, they also know that we know they're vulnerable--meaning that they're not likely to stay that way.

So really, I don't see what the big deal is. Arguably, you could say this about secret programs like the wire-tapping or the thing a few years back about tracking cell phones but:

A) That was illegal
B) I would assume they never really trusted that all their communications were secure in the first place

So is there some impact? Yeah, some. But on the whole, overall, and as a general trend, I don't think it's nearly half as important as you're making it out to be.

 

Apparently the tapes referenced an article from December 05, so they oldest they could be is a little over a month.

I visited Las Vegas over the holidays and we talked about how easily that place could be a target. Unless there's some sort of security going on there that we don't know about, someone could quite easily take a suitcase full of explosives into the lobby of a few of those hotels and cause some really, really serious damage.

...Islam isn't a race, so racial profiling doesn't make sense. White men can be Muslim, and Middle Easterners can be Christian.

 

I think there were some threats and locations identified around the 1 year anniversary of 911, Vegas and Disneyland were named specifically IIRC.

Majority of the terrorists have been of Middle Eastern descent so yes it does.

 

But it's not being Middle Eastern that makes them a terrorist - it's factors related to being an extremist Muslim.

This will sound slightly off-topic, but go along with me here:
Around the same time that ice cream sales go up, the number of drownings increase. From that, you may extrapolate that ice cream causes drowning, so if you outlaw ice cream then drownings will go down. But that wouldn't make any sense, because there's a third factor here - if you ignore the fact that ice cream sales and drownings happen because the heat rises, then you're never going to get to the root of the problem, and you'll just have a bunch of people upset because they can't buy ice cream.

Just because there are a large number of terrorists that are Middle Eastern doesn't mean that being Middle Eastern makes you more likely to be a terrorist - you need to find the third factor, otherwise you're completely missing the point.

 

don't believe anything Bin Laden says. every single year, he comes out with a Tape saying " We will launch a holy war" and blah blah blah. same old story.

 

A few years ago a good high school friend of mine was detained for a few hours at the local airport because she was of middle eastern descent. She was forced to miss her flight because the authorities picked her out at random and detained her for no other reason than the color of her skin. Hell she's not even Muslim, she's Catholic but her parents were from Lebanon who immigrated to the States back in the '70s IIRC.

The odds of picking a random middle eastern person and detaining them while holding an investigation who happens to be a terrorist is pratically slim to nothing. Meanwhile you're not helping releations with all the GOOD middle eastern/muslim community by using racial profiling.

As for better border control and being willing to pay for that, anyone have any idea how much it would cost to close off the Mexican/American and American/Canadian border? I'm all for having better border protection but we're talking a huge amount of resources here. Especially if in 3 years a vast majority are crying its a waste of resources when 3 years earlier they wanted it.

America has a habit of supplying enemies of its enemies with weapons and resources. Bin Laden isn't a fool, you don't control one of the most powerful terrorist organizations in the world and are an idiot. By making these videos he's reminding the American public that he's out there and he can carry out another strike when he wants and they can't do anything about it. He's keeping the fear in place and pushing the US resources even further to try and prevent whatever vague threat, if any he was hinting at.

Though again everything that has gone down isn't all Bush's fault. He inherited the Middle Eastern problem from Clinton, who inherited it from Bush Sr and he from Reagen and so on down the line. Hell if you really want to say which single individual is most responsible for our releations with the Middle East you might as well say Truman who supported the creation of a Jewish state. Who then backed it with American dollars and weapons to ensure that it was safe from its neighboring Muslim and even Christian states. And every president ever since has continued to support Isreal with dollars and weapons. And Vietnam and the Iran-hostage situation didn't make the military out to be the right hand of God. And Carter kinda set the precdent that the US would be pushovers in regards to terrorists, Reagn was too intent on the Soviets, so that leaves Bush Sr and Clinton both of who were pushovers to an extent.

IMO its only a matter of time before Bush or the next president has Bin Laden either dead or in custody, but these things take time and 4 years isn't all that long of a time in the grand scale of things. Also nations tend to look the other way when a "bad guy" is annoying an enemy of theirs.

But I feel as if I'm rambling now so I'll shut the frell up.

 

I'm not sure that really adds up but I'll play along. I never said we should outlaw any group nor am I suggesting that all Middle Easterners are terrorists (read my post at the top of this page). But again the majority of them have been of Middle Eastern descent so it makes perfect sense.

If you look at history (WWII for example) we interned over 160,000 Japanese as well as some German sympathizers. Lincoln interned 38,000 whites in the Civil war. These tactics may not have the feel good sound but they save lives. The right to live supersedes all other IMO.

 

... did you just defend the Japanese internment camps of WWII?

 

If you look at history (WWII for example) we interned over 160,000 Japanese as well as some German sympathizers. Lincoln interned 38,000 whites in the Civil war. These tactics may not have the feel good sound but they save lives. The right to live supersedes all other IMO

Which if I'm not mistaken is something that the United States is ashamed of doing to the Japanese-Americans living in the Pacific. We acted just like the nazis and they lived in conditions that were only slightly better than the Jews, gays, gypsies, undeseriables that Hitler hated. The Japanese lost everything they had including their homes, jewelry, all they could keep were 2 suitcases and everything else was never seen from again. Also the US issued an apology years after the internment, (1990s IIRC) and all the survivors got a reimbursement check from the government.

I'm not really sure you wish to walk down that path again especially in the much more globalized and polarized world we find ourselves living in today. What the US did was flatout wrong. It even admits as such.

Those internment camps never should've occurred. FDR never should've signed that executive order that put it into effect. And I can only hope the US will never do that again.

Oh and they didn't save lives. I don't think they found a single Japanese collaberator in those camps. What they did find though were Japanese men willing to fight for the US to prove their loyalty.