2006-10-12

FEAR FACTORY on 10/11: Do We Feel Any Safer?

10-11crash.ap.jpgAdmit it… Everyone in America had the same thought…

When we heard the news that a plane hit a building in New York City, we were all waiting for the second plane or the explosion, or something else to happen because we were afraid that Manhattan was under attack again.

CNN covered the incident as if this was a new terror strike because frankly none of us knew that it wasn’t. Anderson Cooper reported from the scene and Wolf Blitzer stood in front of the blue screen speaking in that ominous tone of voice.

The fifth anniversary of 911 received a lot of fanfare, but the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan came and went a couple of weeks ago with barely a whisper. George Bush has made the world hate the United States even more than we were hated before September 2001, and the government and media FEAR FACTORY has US citizens on pins and needles.

Two Questions: From the security gauntlet at airports to our wars in the Middle East, from North Korean nuclear tests to our worries over a small plane crash on 10/11 -

Is America safer than it was five years ago?

Do you feel safer?

10 comments:

Paul Hue said...

Would we feel safer if Bush hadn't attacked Afghanistan or Iraq? We the US "safer" in 1941 than the day after Pearn Harbor?

Is France safer for having opposed the Iraq invasion? Or Spain?

Nadir said...

You're answering my question with questions.

Bush's wars were supposed to make America safer. That's what he told us.

DO YOU FEEL SAFER??

Paul Hue said...

Bush promised that his war would make the US safer, but he has not yet won his war. No, I do not believe that the murderous, tyranical retards are any less likely now then then to attack the US. But I do not consider that to be evidence against the wisdom, and certainly not the genuine aims, of the invasion.

I assumed that by now all of Iraq would be like Kurdistan; it is not. But I also assumed that by now the muslim crusaders would have hit the US just as regularly as they do Isreal; they have not.

So in terms of domestic safety, things are much better than I thought they would be, though I cannot attribute that to the Iraq war. But in terms of Iraqi reconstruction and US GI casualties, things are much worse than I thought in 2/3 of that nation.

Paul Hue said...

I think it is possible that the islamic crusaders have not re-hit the US simply because they are far less of a threat than the 911 attack indicated. However, Spain and Britain since suffered a similar attack. Thus unlike Nadir, I am unsure.

Nadir: Back to the Bush/Cheney/Rove conspiracies.

1. Did they also orchestrate those attacks in Britain and Spain?

2. Why don't they make some more attacks in the US, since those attacks always help the republicans in the polls?

3. Since the Foley page-boy scandal broke, why doesn't the Bush-Cheney-Rove cartel dial-down the petro prices some more, to offset the electoral effects of the page-boy scandal? Why not just dial them back to levels that helped Clinton's economic record, and his reelection? (And why didn't they dial them way down to help BushI?).

Nadir said...

"Bush promised that his war would make the US safer, but he has not yet won his war."

In fact, his intention is to have the US in a perpetual state of war because now we are at war with a tactic, not a country. A tactic that may never be fully eliminated.

"1. Did they also orchestrate those attacks in Britain and Spain?"

I don't have information on the Madrid bombings, but there is evidence that white (European) men recruited Muslim men for a "terror drill" the week of the London 7/7 attacks. Those men were told to show up and pick up packs and not tell anyone in their families about it. Just like Bush, Blair has refused to launch an inquiry.

Here is a blog with unanswered questions about the Londong bombings:

http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2006/05/london-bombs-unanswered-questions.html

"2. Why don't they make some more attacks in the US, since those attacks always help the republicans in the polls?"

You are spreading disinformation again. I never said Bush/Cheney/Rove or some neocon cabal was responsible for the attacks for certain. I said there are unanswered questions that they refuse to answer.

But to answer your question directly, it is still October.

"3. Since the Foley page-boy scandal broke, why doesn't the Bush-Cheney-Rove cartel dial-down the petro prices some more, to offset the electoral effects of the page-boy scandal? Why not just dial them back to levels that helped Clinton's economic record, and his reelection? (And why didn't they dial them way down to help BushI?)."

They dialed them down before the Foley scandal broke. Perhaps they weren't expecting the Foley October surprise or the North Korea October surprise or the 655,000 Iraqi death report.

Americans are angry about the torture, they are angry about being spied on, they are angry about the failure of the war in Iraq, they are angry about the failure of the war in Afghanistan, they are angry that jobs are still being lost, and they are angry about Republican hypocrisy in the Foley scandal.

Gas prices dropping can't help them much when so many of their other policies are failing.

But don't worry. They have already rigged the voting machines and the electoral process. (I have no doubts about that conspiracy.) They could come out of this as winners after all...

Nadir said...

"So in terms of domestic safety, things are much better than I thought they would be, though I cannot attribute that to the Iraq war."

You're still not answering the question.

You are safer than you thought you would be, but is the country actually safer than it was five years ago?

Do you feel safe?

Nadir said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Nadir said...

"I think it is possible that the islamic crusaders have not re-hit the US simply because they are far less of a threat than the 911 attack indicated."

Don't your fears from 10/11 when you heard a plane hit a building in NYC refute this claim?

If the pilot had been a Muslim American businessman instead of a white New York Yankees pitcher, everyone would claim this was a terror attack, though no evidence suggests that Liddle's accident WASN'T a failed terror attack. It is merely assumed that he lost control of the plane.

The same thing happened to the pilot of an Egyptian airliner and it was assumed that he was a terrorist. Why not Liddle? Was he despondent over the Yankees' defeat by the Tigers in a game that he personally lost? So despondent that he decided to take out a Manhattan apartment building and himself?

I'm not making light of the man's death, but why is this any less plausible than an Egyptian family man trying to commit suicide with an airliner?

Paul Hue said...

If Liddle was a muslim, then surely people would suspect terror, since there is a strong international phenomenon of muslims committing such acts; there is no such phenomenon from non-muslims.

Do I feel safer today than the day after 911? Yes, I do. I thought then that we were entering a period of regular terror strikes within the US. But I concede to you that I cannot directly attribute Bush's actions in Afgahnistan, Iraq, or anywhere else to this lack of further attacks. I am uncertain, and open to a few possibilities, one of which is simply that the threat was never very high to begin with.

It would not surprise me if another terror attack occured. The last time a plane flew into a NYC building it was a terror attack. Regardless of how well Bush's war was doing, another plane flying into an NYC building would cause people to immediately fear that another such attack had occured. If another incident occurs, this instant fear will be reduced I believe because now we all have two memories of such an incident, and the most recent one was a genuine accident.

If another terror attack occurs in the US, this will not provide evidence against the effectiveness of Bush's response. If you do interpret it that way, then you must also logically interpret the lack of terror attacks since 911 as evidence for the effectiveness of Bush's response...

...except for your belief that Bush orchestrated 911 (or, more accurately, your lack of certainty that he didn't). If Bush did orchestrate 911, then your interpretation of the national fear shouldn't matter, should it? You would then be asserting that Bush implimented 911, then when and implimented a war to make us safer against something that didn't even happen, and then when the fear doesn't subside, you claim that his war failed. Uh?

Nadir said...

"If Bush did orchestrate 911, then your interpretation of the national fear shouldn't matter, should it? You would then be asserting that Bush implimented 911, then when and implimented a war to make us safer against something that didn't even happen, and then when the fear doesn't subside, you claim that his war failed. Uh?"

Not even close. If a neocon kabal orchestrated 911 it was a false flag operation designed to justify the invasion of Afghanistan. Bush then used his "political capital" to push for an invasion of Iraq for monetary and strategic military gain. His attempt to sell the second invasion as part of the "war on terra" is a sham.

Never was it Bush's intention to make the American people feel safer, but in every way to make the American people more fearful so they would cling to his administration for safety.