Will terrorists try to disrupt election?
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Will terrorists try to disrupt election?
| Wed, 08-11-2004 - 2:51am |
There have been rumours that Al-Qaeda or some other group of Muslim terrorists will attempt to disrupt U.S. elections by doing a terrorist act in the U.S. right before the election.
It would be easy enough for them to do if they really wanted to, there are several million Muslims living in the U.S., the terrorists could easily hide in U.S. Muslim communities, much as they did before 9/11. And we have very poorly controlled borders and coasts, terrorists could sneak into the U.S. as well.
Do you believe that Muslim terrorists will, for whatever absurd reason, attempt to disrupt our U.S. elections?
It would be easy enough for them to do if they really wanted to, there are several million Muslims living in the U.S., the terrorists could easily hide in U.S. Muslim communities, much as they did before 9/11. And we have very poorly controlled borders and coasts, terrorists could sneak into the U.S. as well.
Do you believe that Muslim terrorists will, for whatever absurd reason, attempt to disrupt our U.S. elections?

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Bin Laden hints major assassination
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
U.S. intelligence officials say a high-profile political assassination, triggered by the public release of a new message from Osama bin Laden, will lead off the next major al Qaeda terrorist attack, The Washington Times has learned.
The assassination plan is among new details of al Qaeda plots disclosed by U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports who, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the killing could be carried out against a U.S. or foreign leader either in the United States or abroad.
The officials mentioned Saudi Arabia and Yemen, two nations that are working with the United States in the battle against al Qaeda, as likely locales for the opening assassination.
The planning for the attacks to follow involves "multiple targets in multiple venues" across the United States, one official said.
The new details of al Qaeda's plans were found on a laptop computer belonging to arrested al Qaeda operative Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan of Pakistan.
"We're talking about planning at the screwdriver level," one official said. "It is very detailed."
Khan was arrested July 13 in Lahore, Pakistan, along with Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian who was indicted in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa and was on the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorists.
U.S. and allied counterterrorism officials are pursuing leads on other terrorists based on the data from Khan's seized laptop. At least one arrest in Britain has been made so far, and others are expected, the officials said.
Additionally, U.S. intelligence officials said they think that several al Qaeda terrorists already in the United States are part of the plot, although their identities and locations are not known.
The targets, in addition to the financial institutions in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J., that have been the subject of public warnings, include such economic-related targets as oil and gas facilities with a view toward disrupting the November election.
"The goal of the next attack is twofold: to damage the U.S. economy and to undermine the U.S. election," the official said. "The view of al Qaeda is 'anybody but Bush.' "
The officials also said the terrorist group has begun using female members for preattack surveillance and possibly as suicide bombers, thinking that women will have an easier time getting past security checkpoints at airports, borders and ports.
The al Qaeda attack plans call for bombings using trucks and cars, and hijacked aircraft, including commercial airliners and helicopters.
"There is a particular concern that chemical trucks will be used," one official said.
Regarding the new bin Laden message, the officials said there are intelligence reports, some of them sketchy, that a new tape from the al Qaeda leader will surface soon.
In the past, video and audio messages by bin Laden or his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, were broadcast days or weeks before an attack, the officials said.
"The message likely will be the signal for the attack to be launched," one official said.
A second U.S. official said one intelligence agency was aware of unconfirmed reports of a new bin Laden tape.
"There may be such a tape, but it hasn't surfaced and we haven't seen it," this official said.
Bin Laden last released a taped message in April. The CIA said that the audiotape probably was the voice of bin Laden and that the mention of the March 11 Madrid train bombings shows that the tape was current.
That tape offered a "truce" for any European state that pledged to stop attacking Muslims and end cooperation with the United States.
Contrary to what some Democratic critics of the Bush administration have said, intelligence officials said the new details of al Qaeda planning were obtained from the Khan laptop. The terrorist group was in the process of updating older attack plans, the officials said.
On Aug. 2, the Bush administration raised the terrorism threat level from "elevated" to "high" for five finance-related sites in the District, New York and New Jersey, based on the intelligence in Khan's computer, as well as other intelligence.
Frances Townsend, a White House homeland-security adviser, said Sunday that the government has received a steady "stream" of intelligence indicating that an al Qaeda attack is planned.
"What we know now that we didn't know six months ago is that they've done a good deal of planning and surveillance work to accomplish that goal," she said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
It is infuriating how lax our borders and immigration policy is.
Even if Bush is defeated in the November election I believe that the terrorists will try and hit us. They hit U.S. interests during the Clinton administration as well.
As long as the U.S. is involved in the Middle East, America is under risk of attack.
I believe we should end Muslim immigration and tighten our borders.
I also believe we should do more to develop our own oil capacity, AND ESPECIALLY develop alternative fuels to be more energy independent.
We need to be more even-handed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well.
Eventually we should make ourselves as independent as possible of the Middle East, economically and politically.
It is an outrage that we are still dependent on the Mid-East for oil. That's a national disgrace, and allows us to be manipulated in ways that are not best for our country.
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Surfing the web, I came across this opinion on the bombings in Spain and the terrorists:
http://www.resurrectionsong.com/archives/002595.html
April 03, 2004
More Bombs in Spain
"Message to the rest of us: capitulation doesn't work. The bombs don't stop when you vote in a socialist government that pledges to remove itself from America's coalition in Iraq."
~An Islamic militant allegedly related to the March 11 train attacks threatened earlier to blow up the building.
Police had cordoned off the area and evacuated seven blocks around the building. Earlier, police had been conducting an anti-terrorist operation connected to the March 11 attack, which killed 191 people and injured more than 1,800, Interior Ministry spokesman Richard Ibanez (search) said. He could not say how many suspects there were, or their importance or connection to the attacks.~
I crave peace and a respite from this war just as much as any leftist, anti-war activist you can imagine. It breaks my heart every time I hear about another soldier fallen when a terrorist leaves a bomb at the side of a road. It aches when I think about the mothers and fathers and wives and children and friends that are left behind. I want peace, too.
But I won't delude myself into believing that terrorists can be negotiated with when you allow them the position of power and control. This isn't an ongoing war of choice or convenience, but of utter and complete necessity if we ever want to feel safe on airplanes and trains and in our places of business ever again. This is something that has to happen if we want our children to continue to argue over things like tax policy, same sex marriage, and online voting instead of living under the constant threat of 9/11.
Even under the insane belief that America and the rest of the world could leave the Middle East today, simply abandoning all of our interests and abandoning the Israeli Jews to the terrorists and bombers, does anyone really believe that we would be safe? Does anyone really believe that, suddenly, the terrorists would lose their interest in tearing down the institutions of the West? Of course not.
And even if you do believe that, there is no practical or ethical case to be made for abandoning those interests or abandoning those people who are trying to bring a new face of liberalism and civility to the Middle East. The tendrils of militant Islam are slipping through Africa, Eastern Europe, and Western Europe even now--and the cultural conflicts aren't simply going away because a country decides to abandon the rebuilding of Iraq.
We could take the path that Spain did, by demanding in no uncertain terms that our troops come home from Afghanistan and Iraq. We could elect only those politicians who would support that goal. We could fool ourselves into believing that it would make us safer and happier.
Then one morning we'll wake to another bomb at a nuclear facility or at the World Series. We will realize that we were wrong. All the work and effort that we had done, all of the momentum that we had built, would be lost. Every dead soldier and civilian from all of the countries that participated would have died in vain, their blood shed for a temporary respite at best.
I can't accept that."
I also believe it is in our best interests to be much more energy self-reliant.
How to deal with Iraq is up to debate, but to me controlling our immigration and borders and becoming more energy self-reliant isn't debatable. Any rational country would do it, and I am very disappointed in both of our major political parties in this regard. They are not doing anywhere near enough in these areas.
Well Kerry also as an officer in the Navy guard attended a meeting of anti-vietnam idiots who discussed assination of 8 US Senators as a way to change US policy by force and comfort an enemy.... personally I believe this is would qualify as sedition... it's documented in another thread on this forum .... but terrorists would love a guy who likes to at least plan to assinate elected US Senators as a means to an end ... hey, lets make Kerry commander in chief and highest judicial officer in the US with full power to pardon himself and anyone he conspires with... yup... great plan... PLEASE... we do not need Kerry in office. http://oregonmag.com/KerryVVAWPlot.htm
An excerpt regarding the meeting Kerry attended with his friends ... "“My plan was that, on the last day we would go into the offices we would schedule the most hardcore hawks for last — and we would shoot them all,” Mr. Camil told the Oral History interviewer. “I was serious.”
In a phone interview with the Sun this week, Mr. Camil did not dispute either the account in the Nicosia book or in the oral history.He said he plans to accept an offer by the Florida Kerry organization to become active in Mr. Kerry’s presidential campaign. Campaign aides to Mr. Kerry invited Mr.Camil to a meeting for the senator in Orlando last week, but they did not meet directly.
Mr. Camil was known to colleagues in the anti-war movement as “Scott the Assassin.” Mr. Camil told The New York Sun he got the name in Vietnam for “sneaking down to the Vietnamese villages at night and killing people.”
According to the Nicosia book and interviews with VVAW members who were involved, at theVietnamVeterans Against the War Kansas City leadership conference, Mr. Camil tried to put his plan into effect. He called together eight to 10 Marines to organize something he called “The Phoenix Project.” The original Phoenix Project during the Vietnam War was an attempt to destroy the Viet Cong leadership by assassination. Mr. Camil’s Phoenix Project planned to execute the Southern senatorial leadership that was financing the Vietnam War. Senators like John Stennis, Strom Thurmond, and John Tower were his targets, according to Mr. Camil. They were to be killed during the Senate Christmas recess the following month.
After an attempt to parcel out the hit jobs required to kill the senators, Mr. Camil’s plan was presented to all the chapter coordinators present and the VVAW leadership. Mr. Nicosia’s book recounts, “What Camil sketched was so explosive that the coordinators feared lest government agents even hear of it. So they decamped to a church on the outskirts of town with the intention of debating the plan in complete privacy.When they got to the church, however, they found that the government was already on to them; their ‘debugging expert’ uncovered microphones hidden all over the place. An instantaneous decision was made to move again to Common Ground, a Mennonite hall used by homeless vets as a ‘crash pad.’” "
<< to me controlling our immigration and borders and becoming more energy self-reliant isn't debatable. Any rational country would do it, and I am very disappointed in both of our major political parties in this regard. They are not doing anywhere near enough in these areas. >> True. We should be less dependent on foreign oil and tap our own resources in Alaska (Bush has at least talked about that, but hasn't gotten anywhere) and be working harder to find viable alternative energy sources. I've listened to various opinions on whether or not to use our military to help patrol our borders. I'm not sure.
<< How to deal with Iraq is up to debate >> That's why I posted that opinion on terrorists. I found it an unexpected view from someone who says he's a leftist, anti-war activist.
Let's pray nothing happens pre-election or otherwise, but I'm hoping against hope I think.
Blacks were rioting in the streets and being shot by police, college kids were rioting on campus, National Guardsmen were shooting peaceful protestors in both of those groups. Many non-violent people as well as violent ones were put under FBI surviellance, Klansmen were killing Blacks in the south. Asians like myself were referred to by the far right as "Gooks". It was a very nasty racist and warlike era....America was fast losing it's democracy under Nixon, thanks mainly to the Vietnam War and Nixon's totalitarian like survillance and oppresion of people.
America was completely torn apart during that era, a very bitterly divided public, much worse than today. Many wanted to overthrow Nixon's totalitarian-like government of that time, until Nixon self-destructed with his deceit and lies and was forced to resign and the Vietnam war finally ended.
Would I have been on the pro-Nixon or anti-Nixon side back then? I can't say since I am only 27 years old now and wasn't alive then. I know that people that didn't live through that era don't really fully understand it or the emotions of that era.
I have a tendancy to be conservative in my politics, but many of the conservative politicians of that era were despicable with racist and totalitarian mindsets. I'm not sure if I would have gone along with them, or the Vietnam War which dragged on for many years as a stalemate with neither the LBJ or Nixon administration fighting that war to win. It was a meat grinder killing and destroying Americans and Vietnamese alike.
My own belief is that any rational and patriotic American would have done what they could to end the war and get Nixon and the far right out of office.
Would I have behaved violently toward the government? I doubt it, but I would have been appalled by what was going on.
That's why it is important that Iraq not turn into another Vietnam, a war that goes on for a decade with tens of thousands of Americans killed, and hundereds of thousands crippled and seriously wounded.
America didn't tolerate it then, and they won't now either.
Most Americans believe in fighting terrorists and controlling our borders and immigration, but very few Americans would be willing to tolerate another ten year war with 58,000 Americans killed, and 500,000 seriously crippled and wounded. Iraq isn't worth that huge sacrifice to most people, especially since Iraq was not the center of Al-Qaeda terrorism.
The Vietnam War era is over. We are into a new era. People have changed over the years as they gain perspective on that era. Neither side of that generation is as radical.
One thing is for sure though, no one wants a repeat of the Vietnam War in the presentday Iraq War.
I wonder if there was another 9/11 type of attack with thousands more dead, if then, finally, the U.S. government would militarize the borders and have strict immigration control as other countries have been doing.
I don't know if Americans would tolerate another 9/11 type of attack. If our government didn't do certain things, like militarize our borders, and have stricter control over and more limited immigration, and possibly take stricter measures against Muslims raising money for terrorists, the American public might rebel against the U.S. government and maybe even overthrow it.
Why should we allow terrorists to kill potentially millions of us when our government lets the very terrorists that kill us into the country to begin with?
The U.S. government is amazingly irresponsible!
People say we can't change our way of life any, including immigration or border patrols, or the terrorists, in a way, win by changing us.
That is the most absurd argument of all. It means we have no right to adapt to changing world circumstances and no right to properly protect ourselves. Of course we need to change and adapt how we do things!
Edited 8/13/2004 8:51 pm ET ET by bridgettao
Edited 8/13/2004 8:54 pm ET ET by bridgettao
Edited 8/13/2004 8:56 pm ET ET by bridgettao
As to the Klan, it's been a part of the US for a long time.. the Democrats can tell you more about it, it rose under their nurture, and Senator Byrd was a recruiter for Klansman in West Virginia. You know Senator KKK Byrd, Democrat.
The war which Nixon inherited from JFK and Johnson wasn't winnable, as there was no will in congress to increase infantry to a sufficient strength to take North Vietnam (likely would have taken 2 million, and troop strength was limited to 600,000 more or less). Johnson and later Nixon had difficulty assessing the situation, the problem was more or less the Pentagon sat in the middle and constantly obfuscated the field situation. Today we have theatre commanders report directly to the President rather than to the Pentagon to avoid this problem.
Coupled with a bleak situation in Vietnam, the civil rights unrest was helping to change our society... later feminism would follow... some changes were long over due, most for the better, some not.
The charges against Nixon were unusually similar to the charges against Clinton, within a generation our culture changed such that a President would resign in the 70's when facing impeachment, and by the 90's a president would endure as would the country an impeachment. Ultimately Clinton knew party loyalty in the Senate would prevail and prevent his removal from office, Nixon being Republican didn't have that level of assurance.
Today, we don't appear to be in the situation of Vietnam... as our war in Iraq is indeed won. We are more in the situation of post WW II where denazification was in progress and at the time the papers ridiculed the government, many felt it would be impossible to change Germany or the hearts of the German people... much as the NY Times today denounces the rebuilding going on in Iraq, so was there denunciation of many aspects of the rebuilding of Germany post WW II.
As to referring to asians as gook, I believe the term gook was used at various times to refer to specific asians, asia being really very large and racially diverse :-) I recall mostly Gook referring to North Vietnameese in the early 70's, but believe it may have been used as a slur for Japaneese during WW II as well. Generally gook is a messy slime, propaganda seeks to dehumanize opponents during war to enable acts which would be unacceptable during peacetime. It should be noted, Japan was much better at atrocities than the US. After WW II China demonstrated a pretty good ability to do atrocities as well. Others states within asia have at various times demonstrated a generally great ability (better than the US) to commit atrocities (indonesia - east timor, north & south korea, the list goes on). Racial slurs against other cultures aren't unique to America and various asian civilizations, have a look at http://www.rsdb.org/ to get some additional background :-)
If you are learning about the history of America in a college today, likely you are being taught by someone with a political bias favoring the left, thus there is a tendency to color things differently than they were. Americans are generally willing to review their history, and are a more or less open society... thus for example slur terms and various embarassing aspects of hour history tend to be more accessable to us than similar aspects of other more closed cultures.
I hope this helped :-)
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