Failed terrorist attack in Detroit

[Texsox]

That all goes back to how much is a life actually worth. Where is your point of diminishing returns? You can also get into the how many freedoms are you willing to give up argument, or are you willing to accept that people will die because our rights give us a wide berth.

 

We give our respects for those that died in our military to protect our rights. Perhaps we will one day be giving our respects to civilians that died to protect our rights.

[Balta1701]

Here is where we have bases

 

Before we get into specifics, at most bases, the soldiers are allowed to leave the base, so their presence is felt in the surrounding areas. I imagine having a large group of foreign soldiers in your neighborhood could be an issue. Also, in the interest if good will, they do conduct humanitarian missions and offer other aid to the local government. It is the "other aid" that sometimes results in ill will with local residents.

 

We also have situations where out military has behaved badly while on official training missions. Ten years ago we had the Cavalese cable car disaster when Air Force pilots, f***ing around, buzzed an aerial tram and caused the deaths of 20 people. So here is evidence that military training goes beyond the base. That certainly would feel like patrolling local neighborhoods.

 

We've had several cases of US soldiers raping local women and children. Okanawa is the one I remember the best.

 

To keep US soldiers in line, the military police are often times sent outside the base. This may also give the appearance of "patrolling foreign streets".

IIRC, in Saudi Arabia, because of the local situation, when we had forces there they were pretty much confined to bases except when delivering that "Other aid" to the local government. In that case, the "Other aid" was assistance to the Saudi military and law enforcement, to the point where there would be joint operations conducted (someone correct me if I'm wrong there, that's all from memory and all the documents are pre-Google).

[Texsox]

It seems whenever I post "IIRC" I am usually wrong but IIRC, you are correct. Additionally, and again iirc, the "other aid" was basically to keep down anti-government groups.

[NorthSideSox72]

So I was reading this article about the new security measures, and was surprised to see this:

 

People who are from or traveling from or through these countries are supposed to have full-body pat-downs and have their carryon luggage checked: Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Yemen.

 

The U.S. has designated Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria to be state sponsors of terrorism. The other 10 countries are considered "of interest," based on the latest terrorism intelligence. People from those countries or traveling through them could also be subject to full-body scanning and explosive detection technology as part of their screening.

 

Cuba? State sponsor of terrorism?

 

[Balta1701]

Cuba? State sponsor of terrorism?

Yeah. We politicize even that. They don't really sponsor terrorists, we just need an excuse to keep the embargo going. Gotta defeat Castro.

[JorgeFabregas]

I was trying to figure out the justification for that as well. All that comes to mind is that they've been victims of state-sponsored terror.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubana_Flight_455

 

Here is a page on the subject from the Council on Foreign Relations:

http://www.cfr.org/publication/9359/state_sponsors.html

[Texsox]

So I was reading this article about the new security measures, and was surprised to see this:

 

 

 

Cuba? State sponsor of terrorism?

 

Yet anyone from Cuba who "touches the sand" is automatically welcome here. Doesn't make sense.

[Texsox]

I was trying to figure out the justification for that as well. All that comes to mind is that they've been victims of state-sponsored terror.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubana_Flight_455

 

Here is a page on the subject from the Council on Foreign Relations:

http://www.cfr.org/publication/9359/state_sponsors.html

 

Fascinating reading. And just to get a few people here excited

Freed from Venezuelan charges, Bosch went to the United States, assisted by US Ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich; there, he was ultimately arrested for a parole violation. Bosch was pardoned of all American charges by President George H.W. Bush on July 18, 1990 at the request of his son Jeb Bush, who later became Governor of Florida; this pardon came despite objections by the then President's own defense department that Bosch was one of the most deadly terrorists working "within the hemisphere."^[4] "Although many countries seek Bosch's extradition he remains free in the United States. The political pressure to grant Bosch a pardon was begun during the congressional campaign run by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, herself a Cuban American, and overseen by her campaign manager Jeb Bush.

 

I thought only Clinton pardoned criminals As Kap would say "They all do it".

[lostfan]

For a long time in Saudi Arabia, yes we were. That was one of Bin Laden's complaints prior to the 9/11 attacks; the U.S. left a large contingent of troops there after the gulf war. They pulled out at the start of the Iraq war when we found a new base to move them to.

We weren't patrolling neighborhoods, we were just kind of there.

[lostfan]

So I was reading this article about the new security measures, and was surprised to see this:

 

 

 

Cuba? State sponsor of terrorism?

Yeah, that's much ado about nothing. The idea of state sponsors of terrorism and the policies that come from it is really half-assed and contradictory and probably creates more problems than it solves.

[Balta1701]

Not sure how to interpret it, but frankly it's a good point; these scanners may violate child porn laws, at least in the UK. The celebrity issue is another one. Those are the type of images that people might well try to steal/take out of that room.

The rapid introduction of full body scanners at British airports threatens to breach child protection laws which ban the creation of indecent images of children, the Guardian has learned.

 

Privacy campaigners claim the images created by the machines are so graphic they amount to "virtual strip-searching" and have called for safeguards to protect the privacy of passengers involved.

 

Ministers now face having to exempt under 18s from the scans or face the delays of introducing new legislation to ensure airport security staff do not commit offences under child pornography laws.

 

They also face demands from civil liberties groups for safeguards to ensure that images from the £80,000 scanners, including those of celebrities, do not end up on the internet. The Department for Transport confirmed that the "child porn" problem was among the "legal and operational issues" now under discussion in Whitehall after Gordon Brown's announcement on Sunday that he wanted to see their "gradual" introduction at British airports.

[Texsox]

You have to get undressed and shower to swim in a public pool, why not to get on a plane? If it saves just one life . . .

[Balta1701]

Here's an argument by a Swedish professor that I find intriguing.

Think about it. One angry young man with about three ounces (around 80 grams) of explosive material, $2,000, and a pair of specially tailored underwear has completely disrupted the US aviation system.

 

It does not even matter that he failed to blow up the plane.

 

The costs associated with preventing the next attack from succeeding will measure in the tens of billions of dollars - new technologies, added law enforcement and security personnel on and off planes, lost revenues for airline companies and more expensive plane tickets, and of course, the expansion of the 'war on terror' full on to yet another country, Yemen.

 

And what happens when the next attacker turns out to have received ideological or logistical training in yet another country? Perhaps in Nigeria, which is home to a strong and violent Salafi movement, or anyone of a dozen other African, Gulf, Middle Eastern or South East Asian countries where al-Qaeda has set up shop?

 

Will the US ramp up its efforts in a new country each time there is an attempted attack, putting US "boots on the ground" against an enemy that is impossible to defeat?

 

Such a policy would fulfill al-Qaeda's wildest dreams, as the US suffers death by a thousand cuts, bleeding out in an ever wider web of interconnected and unsustainable global conflicts.

[Rex Kickass]

Here's an argument by a Swedish professor that I find intriguing.

 

You could make the argument that although its a short term disruption, this attempted attack will only make things better for fliers. Sometimes it takes a shock to put in better technology than what we have previous.

[southsider2k5]

Here's an argument by a Swedish professor that I find intriguing.

 

The funny part, besides it being Al-Jazeera, is that the argument would be pretty vilified if health care were substituted for security in that article.

[Texsox]

The funny part, besides it being Al-Jazeera, is that the argument would be pretty vilified if health care were substituted for security in that article.

 

That sounds like a Tex stretch between two points

[Balta1701]

The funny part, besides it being Al-Jazeera, is that the argument would be pretty vilified if health care were substituted for security in that article.

Not sure i get the comparison. For that to be hitting health care reform, the extra tens of billions of dollars a year would have to go to prevention of a very uncommon occurrence. People going without health care because of costs is a very, very, very common occurrence. And then we get into all the other discussions of how this actually helps prevent cost growth by allowing better preventative care and so forth.

[southsider2k5]

Not sure i get the comparison. For that to be hitting health care reform, the extra tens of billions of dollars a year would have to go to prevention of a very uncommon occurrence. People going without health care because of costs is a very, very, very common occurrence. And then we get into all the other discussions of how this actually helps prevent cost growth by allowing better preventative care and so forth.

 

Trillions of dollars going to something that is always going to happen (sick and dying people) with a very large diminishing marginal return? That is exactly why you have been arguing that extra security precautions are worthless.

[Balta1701]

Trillions of dollars going to something that is always going to happen (sick and dying people) with a very large diminishing marginal return? That is exactly why you have been arguing that extra security precautions are worthless.

As I just noted though...the marginal return there is much, much, much higher.

[Texsox]

Isn't spending money on something that is going to happen smarter than spending money on something that may never happen again?

[southsider2k5]

Isn't spending money on something that is going to happen smarter than spending money on something that may never happen again?

 

The one way to make sure it happens again is to not spend money to prevent it.

[Balta1701]

The one way to make sure it happens again is to not spend money to prevent it.

So, you bring the health care debate into this, then argue for spending money on prevention because of the benefits it provides?

 

(walks away slowly)

[southsider2k5]

So, you bring the health care debate into this, then argue for spending money on prevention because of the benefits it provides?

 

(walks away slowly)

 

I never said preventative medicine was bad, just that the diminishing marginal returns argument you were using was the exact opposite of what you were just saying else where.

[Balta1701]

I never said preventative medicine was bad, just that the diminishing marginal returns argument you were using was the exact opposite of what you were just saying else where.

So, your argument is that providing even basic health care for the lowest wage earners in society is too expensive, and furthermore is somehow more expensive than providing health care for others, such that expanding the health care system to include them somehow falls into the diminshing marginal returns category?

[NorthSideSox72]

Adding yet another point to the "we got very lucky" column about this incident... the bomber apparently provided "actionable intelligence" in the hours after his arrest.