You’ve had them already. Besides if you’re informed enough to have an opinion then you know full well they are claiming ‘chatter’ alerted then and that Biden briefed Congress critters who them ran around the TV studios saying ‘see- see, the NSA Magic Rock saves us yet again’.
It’s all political bullshit scare-mongering to defend their mass surveillance program.
Terrorists? In the Yemen? Miffed with the USA your say? Hold the front page why don’t ya.
And yes, given the decade after decade of lies from the US Govt of any stripe - my default position is that any informed person should now be taking. Anything they say is at very best a half truth designed to forward their own agenda. And in this case the agenda is plain - defend a system that is under attack.
That’s sort of true, but not completely. You did cite Congressional representatives making those kinds of statements- but the embassy warnings came from the Obama administration, not Congress.
Unfortunately that’s not how skepticism really works. Skepticism is something that has to be used properly; otherwise it’s just going “yeah, right” whenever someone you don’t like says something you don’t want to hear.
Are you under some impression that I supported the war in Iraq? Well, I opposed the authorization for war, I opposed the war, I opposed Bush, and I believed that even if Iraq had WMD (like dozens of other countries that aren’t very friendly to us either) that it didn’t mean we had to start an unprovoked war because of that.
So, in short, there’s a big difference between “starting a reckless war for bad reasons” and “closing down office buildings for a few days.” I’m mystified why you would try to equate the two in any substantive way.
There are almost 300 US embassies and consulates around the world, filled with innocent Americans. All but 17 haven’t been closed. All those lives are being put to needless risk as we speak. At this very moment! How can you even sleep at night?
There’s been no disclosed threat to those. Do you believe that if the government claims that some embassies were threatened in a particular time frame, it has to close every embassy everywhere forever for consistency?
No, I don’t. That would be about as pointless as the old color coded rainbow of terror. I know this sounds crazy, but it almost seems like they did disclose this one because they took it more seriously than whatever standard level of background chatter and threats they see on a regular basis.
I’m getting whiplash from the criticism of the White House decision to close a limited number of embassies. One minute, the threat is bogus and no embassy should be closed. Now, threats are everywhere and all embassies should be closed. Are you suggesting that the Diplomatic Security Service is actually suffering from borderline personality disorder? “Let’s close all the embassies because there is no threat! I hate you, don’t leave me!”
Even if this were true – and I reject it as nonsense – what are you going to do about it? What do you replace government with? Some other form of government? What’s to guarantee the new form won’t be worse? Churchill knew what he was talking about.
Not only the DPS, but AQ as well, apparently. They’re smart enough not to lay out their plans on a conference call, but you expect me to believe we don’t know every detail of the plot? And they’re just a two-bit, defeated, fake organization that can strike anywhere at anytime when we finally re-open!
Heh - I’m used to people slinging false dilemmas here all the time, but I’m not sure I’ve actually seen a false monolemma before today: Al Qaida doesn’t exist anymore and it threatens all our diplomatic facilities everywhere, plus the International Space Station!
Where do you apply for an Al Queda franchise? What is the official body that recognizes and legitimizes local branches? Who do they report to? Who is their official spokesman? If all of the Al Queda members who were members ten years ago are dead or have moved on, how would anyone know?
Al Queda derives from a rabidly anti-Shia branch of Islam. There are no Shia terrorists, they all love us? They are definitely not Al Queda, does it make any real difference, so far as we are concerned? If they are sworn enemies of America and bent on terrorist attacks, who cares if they call themselves Kentucky Fried Goat Droppings? Or “Al Queda”?
Six assholes in Qatar could start calling themselves “Al Queda in Qatar”, who’s going to stop them? And why should we care?
You know what? I actually hope the conspiracy theorists are right. I hope this embassy closing is a Government Propaganda Campaign to convince the public that domestic surveillance is actually awesome.
Why do I hope this? Because as a propaganda campaign, it sucked. No one has been able to cite even a single instance of someone who was previously “anti-NSA” responding to the news by suddenly going “The NSA does valuable and important work to protect us from terrorists”, or even “You know, this ‘spying’ thing is more complex than I thought.” Not one.
So I hope, I really do, that this is the finest work of our Administration spin doctors. Because it would mean that those people are spectacularly, hilariously, shockingly incompetent. It would mean that they clearly have no experience whatsoever in influencing public opinion. It would mean that in the name of convincing the public, the Administration is willing to go to the terrible lengths of… giving a few office workers a short holiday.
I can understand why this would be a pleasant thing to believe. Especially if you think the Government always lies anyway. On the one hand, your leaders are lying to you. On the other hand, you knew that, and now you know they’re really, really bad at it.
’luci: I’m not sure if you’re asking those questions in jest or not, but the head of Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is a former confidant of bin Laden, and his leadership and affiliation with Al Qaida was publicly endorsed by Zawahiri. Other notable AQ affiliates pledged fealty to bin Laden and were also acknowledged as leaders of the AQ banner, like how Zarqawi was recognized by AQ leadership as the Emir of Al Qaida in Iraq.
So you, too, can join Al Qaida by committing acts of extreme violence, pledging to follow core AQ, and maybe sending in 100 box tops as proof of purchase of Nutball Salafi Cereal (certain boxes come with a special prize not detectable in x-ray machines!).
Consider how your street gang might become a “Crip” gang.
As a franchise, you’d be expected to provide some kind of service to the higher-ups, in exchange for some kind of benefit. For the Crips, you’d typically provide a cut of your criminal profits and use of your foot soldiers in inter-gang warfare. In exchange, you’d get support in maintaining a monopoly on criminal activity in an area, backup form other affiliated gangs when needed, and some level of management and strategic support. Al Qaeda affiliates are similar, but add terrorism on top of the ordinary criminality. So in addition to the criminal stuff, you might be expected to carry out terrorist attacks or contribute personnel and expertise to other affiliates planning said attacks, and in exchange you could expect support for your own attacks, help in recruiting, and that vision and leadership.
So how do you become a Crip leader? In most cases, your spin-off is going to be started by someone who is already affiliated with the Crips, just like people who have previous experience with Al Qaeda may try to open their own branch somewhere. Typically this would come when someone who’d like to advance and take on more management responsibilities spots an area with growth potential. Civil war and other disturbances have shown to be great opportunities. Spin-offs may also happen when the larger organization actively recruits independent (or otherwise affiliated) gangs who are in areas they would like to control. The Crips may try to sign up the local neighborhood gang through incentives or intimidation, just like Al Qaeda may try to recruit local political, criminal and social organizations in areas they are interested in. That’s basically what happened in Afghanistan.
Now and then you might get a purely local independent street gang who would like to affiliate with the Crips out of nowhere. If they make a nuisance of themselves, they are likely to face some retribution, though they might get away with it if they remain fairly isolated and don’t get in the way of business. In other cases, the street gang might get themselves welcomed in to the fold, especially if they’ve somehow proven their value through some notorious act. More likely, you’d find these street gangs being taken advantage of, being asked to carry out the responsibilities of a franchisee, without really receiving the benefits.
-Benghazi was a failure to act and there is no way to gloss that over. If that was an attack on the President then those in charge would be raked over the coals for such a useless response.
-The embassies in question were closed without direct threat and appear to have been closed based on nothing more than associations with predominately Islamic countries.
Closing the embassies did nothing in the way of preventing attacks as soon as they’re reopened. It reeks of a public show without actually doing anything.
What’s changed after the embassies reopen? The same traffic drives by every day. Do you think all the terrorists live in Yemen in a building clearly marked “CHAOS” on the roof and all we need to do is blow it up? We could have done that without closing anything.
I think it’s more likely that blowing up the building would incite riots across the Muslim region and that’s why the embassies were closed.