Official 9-11 Thread

This is the new official thread for September 11-based subjects. If something directly relates to the events of September 11, it goes in this thread.

 

I think 9/11 was an important day in American history. It led to new security policies. But am I the only one who thinks that after a few years, airport and airline security will be back to where it once was? Everyone I talk to about this subject agrees. People are fed up with long delays from security checks. Metal detectors will still be there obviously, but other policies will probably be eliminated.

I went to Florida a few weeks ago, and at the airport they asked me to remove my hat. I think to myself, "Fine, they might think I have a gun or something in it." I give the woman my hat and she checks every inch of it, running her hands all over it. For what? Did she think there were anthrax spores in it or something? Good god, things have gotten ridiculous. I am your average 18 year old white male, I look nothing like a terrorist.

Things will be back to normal in a few years. Just watch.

 

Quote:

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I am your average 18 year old white male, I look nothing like a terrorist.
[hr][/blockquote]
And what, pray tell, does a terrorist look like?

 

Well, considering that all 19(?) terrorists that acted on 9-11 were young middle eastern decent men, I would say the terrorists we are after are young to middle aged middle eastern men. I see no reason to randomly search 80 year old grandma's and nuns. Also, unless the pilot is drunk, there isn't much point of searching him as he will be flying the plane and certainly wouldn't need a weapon to make the plane crash as he would be at the helm.

 

Security checked this old blind guy on my plane last week. Poor guy could barely breathe, let alone get out of the Airport provided wheelchair for them to search him.

 

So far a terrorist does not look (to the general public eye) like your average 18 year old white male. That doesn't mean terrorists aren't your average 18 year old white male. It just means that the average 18 year old white male who is a terrorist has not committed any overt acts yet to incriminate average 18 year old white males so that they are profiled as terrorists. Once an A18YOWM does something incriminating, then we will lump an A18YOWM as looking like a terrorist, and profile against them.

That is what he is saying. I think.

Also, DM, they can't just thoroughly check people who fit the profile. They must(should) do it to most everyone, just in case. It follows the principle that 'it is better to be safe than sorry'. For example: A chemist (should) always wears goggles, even if he is performing an experiment that doesn't have any chemicals harmful to the eyes.

I hope that makes sense.

Edit: little bit of grammar and poor choice of words,

 

I totally disagree. We know what we need to look for, why then must we look around everywhere? Looking around everywhere only decreases the chance we will find what we are looking for.

 

It's ridiculous how they're searching older people who are obviously sickly and can't even walk. How cruel.

 

Although the events of September 11 were perpetrated by young men of middle eastern descent, the previous largest terrorist attack in the United States was caused by a young white man, Timothy McVeigh.

Always beware of stereotypes. And recall that people might resort to desperate measures...using the elderly and children, as they have been known to do in drug smuggling.

 

Rebecca191
"It's ridiculous how they're searching older people who are obviously sickly and can't even walk. How cruel. "

Do you favor some kind of profiling, then?

 

Yes. People who are so disabled they can't do anything for themselves obviously aren't going to take out a knife and run around stabbing people. I think people who are clearly completely helpless should be exempt.

 

I agree with Jedi_Master on a lot of what was said. You can't just sit there and profile one group of people. Profiling is something that should be looked on as something negative. You know what, they should be checking every single person that comes into that airport. Hey, it may take a lot longer but, like Jedi_Master said, it's better to be safe then sorry. The reason I say this is just because it was a young-middle aged middle easter group of people that did this, doesn't mean they are the only terrorist in the world. Have you forgot that it was a Caucasian U.S Citizen that was a soldier for the Talaban. For all you know, he could've been the next one to destroy something, but no one would have suspected him because people are so hung up on profiling people.

You profile a group of people and devote all your time on that one race of people, for all you know, a Hispanic or Caucasian or someone else of race will blow something up or destroy something................then what, are we to only check middle easterns and Caucasians, or Hispanics. Where does it end????? It doesn't.

All it creates is more fear then what we already have. You'll have people scared of each others race because you don't know who is a terrorist. This is just my opinion. You know, its hard to see security hassle some old guy or old granny at the security check in, but I rather have them check everyone that comes through, then hear over the news a 75 year old man that was secretly undercover for the Talaban, blew up a plane this morning.

If you profile, then you just create more racial problems then there already are and leave more room open for others to do acts of terrorism. Because they will figure they won't check me because I'm not a middle eastern. Trust me, I'm sure there are some psycho's out there that are thinking it already. Instead of bringing this down to a race issue, an issue of check only middle aged middle eastern men, lets check all of those that step through the door because you never know who is dangerous, and thats something that you can't tell by a persons race.

May The Force Be With You,
Obi-HaCoR

 

Amen to that Hacor,

"Yes. People who are so disabled they can't do anything for themselves obviously aren't going to take out a knife and run around stabbing people. I think people who are clearly completely helpless should be exempt. "

People who are clearly completely helpless are the ones who definitely should not be exempt.
!!Speculation!!
If I was a terrorist I would use the most anonymous and most innocent looking person as my next agent of attack. They would be the ones that would naturally not be looked for. Who would guess a sickly decrepit old man would cause an act of violence? Very few, so why don't we use one next?

"Better safe than sorry"
We would like to think terrorists stupid or that they follow some moral code that would make them hesitate to use 'innocent looking' people.
They don't, they will use whatever and whoever they can to destroy that which they believe is evil, or threatening to their way of life...namely us.

That is the rationale of people who are fanatically devoted to a belief that is based in pride, i.e. the idea that one is better than everyone else, that a certain type of person is the best, and anything else is inferior. This can lead to the idea that suffering, dilemma, whatever, in the world is caused by those who are inferior. Eliminate the inferior, only the best are left, and there would be no cause for 'trouble' in the world.

I hope that makes sense!

 

The real danger to profiling is also an often-overlooked aspect of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.

During the attacks, the terrorists used our own security paradigms against us. We became so confident in our profile of how a terrorist acts (terrorists always want to negotiate for the hostages, etc.), that we became blind to other options. If we start profiling for young, middle-eastern men, they will also try to use that against us.

Bin Laden does have a lot of contacts in Africa, for example. He also has supporters in the Phillipines and southeast Asia. Those are just two other groups of people he could use with very little work. If we start saying "this group of people is no threat", he will try to make it a threat.

Kimball Kinnison

 

This is *Official* thread overkill. There is a point where *Officia thread*'s destroy all fresh and separate conversations. The Senate is really becoming a place to avoid as of late...

 

My goal is to allow a subject that has grown beyond the boundaries of a direct 9-11 discussion to have its own thread. Flexibility is important.

 

Bah, official threads are about as good as polls.

 

As to the subject itself, Kimball makes a good point. Bin Laden is very intelligent and will use our system against us in any way if he sees an advantage.

 

You profile a group of people and devote all your time on that one race of people, for all you know, a Hispanic or Caucasian or someone else of race will blow something up or destroy something................then what, are we to only check middle easterns and Caucasians, or Hispanics. Where does it end????? It doesn't

Would you comfortably get on an airplane with 5 or 6 young middle eastern men?

 

Would you comfortably get on an airplane with 5 or 6 young middle eastern men?

Considering that I don't usually look too much at other passengers (other than my seat mates), I'd have no problem. But then, considering that I have been known to dislike flying (in some cases), I wouldn't use the word comfortably.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Civil Liberties
February 22, 2002

Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but due to the ongoing war against terrorism, Civil Liberties in this country are becoming more carefully scrutinized than the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in the men's room of a fertility clinic.

The balance between a free society and a safe society is a difficult one. If you come down too heavily on the side of freedom, you risk handicapping the police, letting criminals run rampant. Come down too heavily on the side of security, and you risk adding eight to ten minutes to my wait to get onto an airplane. Hmm...

I'm in favor of the government taking any measure it feels would make us more secure, with one condition: that it not upset our democracy's time-honored system of checks-and-balances, whereby the executive branch promotes it, the judiciary branch confirms its constitutionality, and the legistlative branch is paid off to quietly kill it.

The Bush administration has given almost carte blanche to the FBI in way of wiretaps and reading e-mails all under the age old rubric that anyone who isn't doing anything wrong should have nothing to hide. OK, then how's about Vice President Cheney turn over those minutes from that meeting with Enron executives instead of making the General Accounting Office pry them away from him like they were Jack Nicholson's Lakers tickets?

Advocate of law and order though I am, I have to admit that there's something kind of creepy about having the hand on the on-off switch of civil liberties belong to John Ashcroft. Do you really want the decisions about how much freedom is too much being made by a guy who refers to dancing as "Satan's palsy"? This guy makes Jesse Helms look like Freddy Mercury.

We as a nation need to know that some one is in charge of our safety. And that man is Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. Tom's job is to put us in a perpetual state of heightened alert by issuing a string of terrorist warnings that are more vague than the plot of David Lynch's film Mullholland Drive.

Helping Ridge out was the passage of the USA PATRIOT Bill, which actually stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. You know, if Congress wasn't spending so much time inventing clever acronyms, we might have Osama bin Laden's lifeless husk on display at the Smithsonian by now.

You notice the one group that isn't complaining about the new government power to eavesdrop on attorney-client conversations is the lawyers. They just see it as an opportunity to double-bill because now they're talking with two people instead of one.

Currently the ACLU is upset because Arabs and Muslims are being unfairly profiled. Unfairly? You always hear that the majority of Muslims and Arabs are law-abiding. Hey, the majority of any group is law-abiding. But you don't leave your front door wide open at night just because the odds are in your favor.

While I think some sort of profiling is necessary, I am troubled by the way it's being interpreted by the irresponsible. For example, there was Louisiana Representative John Cooksey, who called on police to pull over anyone wearing, quote, "a diaper on his head and a fan belt around it." You hear how ignorant that is? Completely overlooks the threat posed by people with a parachute around their nipples and a lemon zester dangling from their Adam's apples.

Now human rights advocates are up in non-arms about our indefinite detention of suspected terrorists. You think it's inhumane to detain them here? If we really wanted to screw 'em over, we'd send em back to Afghanistan.

So, fine, round up whoever you need to, but if it turns out they're innocent, at least send them out with a washer/dryer, some rice-a-roni, and "Open-Ended Detention Without Trial: The Home Game" to make sure there's no hard feelings.

There's a lot of squawking about us someday being forced to carry a national ID card. What's the fuss? My only problem with a National I.D. is that everyone who gets their p

 

Have We Really Changed?
February 1, 2002

Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but for me, there is no more reassuring proof that America has not fundamentally changed since September 11th than the stirring sight of a shiny-suited executive simultaneously screaming into his cell phone, flipping me off, and screeching through an 80-mile-per-hour left turn through a red light in his black, sperm-whale-sized S.U.V. sporting two tiny American flags. It all makes me wonder. Was the "we have changed" mood of the country after September 11th more a figment of our imagination than John Nash's friends at high tea? Immediately following September 11th everyone entered a sort of undeniable and palpable state of shock. Daily life was suddenly and utterly disrupted, priorities shifted drastically convenience evaporated security tightened, "Access Hollywood" began playing the serious music.Many of you tried to find safety and refuge in your homes, seeking the solace and security of being among family and friends, while others of you were simply too afraid or depressed to go anywhere outside or stop watching television. And what you saw on the television caused you to be completely enraged and horrified by humanity. You became tri-multaneously terrified, racked with guilt, and suspicious of everything and everyone. In other words, you became me.I remember my reaction after September 11th. I immediately began viewing my fellow citizens as though they were cherished family members, unless ofcourse I didn't trust their looks. And by the way, if anybody who resembles that goofy freak with the shoe bomb ever sits down next to me on a plane,I'm gonna call the stewardess over and say, "Hey, unless this jerk is the harmonica player for J. Geils, get him off the plane." I never enjoyed air flight, but now I don't board a plane without taking a moment to shoot myself in the thigh with a tranquilizer dart. As a matter of fact, I don't get on until my blood is coursing with enough thorazine to drop an epileptic rhino. Let's see What else has has changed? Certainly Afghanistan has. Now that the Taliban has become the Right Said Fred of governing bodies, Afghanistan actually has a ministry of women's affairs, headed by a woman. Christ,America doesn't have a ministry of women's affairs, unless you count the delightfully sassy women of The View. They always tell it like it is. You go, girls! You have to admit phone sex has gotten a lot hotter in recent months.There's just something spicy about knowing that John Ashcroft might be listening in. As for what many are calling racial profiling in the aftermath of September 11th, well, get ready to be pissed off, you ACLU-Morons, we're dealing with a massive threat and limited manpower, so, you want them to check everybody out equally? Sure, fine okay, but let's at least compromise and put the Swedish dwarf a little further down the list than the Iraqi explosives expert carrying a Belgian passport with more eraser marks on it than Kid Rock's trig final. Hey, by the way, to the parents of John Walker Lindh . When your kid comes home with the Giovanni Ribisi facial hair, sporting a desert beanie and referring to the Mrs. as an "Unclean Whore," it might be time to step up with a little tough love. What else has happened since 9/11? Well, we1ve changed the way we look at our public officials, Cheney is no longer a heart attack joke, but a cagey domestic leader who sidesteps the limelight so that the country can focus on the man at the top: Donald Rumsfeld. Just kidding, Georgie. You da man. Americans now place so much trust in George W. Bush, think so highly of his skills, respect him on such a deep level as a leader, that you1d think he had broken his marriage vows with a 21-year-old intern. As the president said in his speech on Tuesday, the war against terror is just beginning, and our success will depend in part on our attitude towards it. We need to re-evaluate who our friends really are. All 19 hijackers were from the Middle East, and yet many of our so-called allies from that part of the worl

 

I am a college instructor, and I comfortably interact with middle eastern young men everyday. How could I conduct my daily life if I allowed stereotypes to rule me?

Recall that there is an alleged Al Quaida sympathizer of Hispanic descent in custody currently. John Walker Lindh worked with the Taliban and is caucasian.

Vigilance is important now, as ever. But racial profiling is not the answer.

 

Vigilance is important now, as ever. But racial profiling is not the answer.

Profiling is the answer, but the key is that racial profiling will not work. Instead, behavioral profiling is what we need. Keep an eye out for someone of any race who sets off warning bells for terrorism (such as buying tickets same-day with cash, using new ID or other suspicious behavior).

If you use race as the basis (unless you have reports of a specific person, with a description involving race) you are blinding yourself to too many potential threats.

Kimball Kinnison