I’ll speak for here in the US. Three quick things we should do immediately.
Fight Muslim terrorists by looking at Muslims. Yes, I mean the horrible word: PROFILE.
Change the ridiculous law that airlines cannot give extra scrutiny to more than two people of middle eastern descent on any one flight. “What’s that, three tickets for Washington, DC, Muhammad?”
Close our borders, which is what you have to do before you can control them.
I would add that we need to deal with the mosques. We should ask for their cooperation in looking over their membership and their accounting. Those who are the side of peace should welcome this as the FBI might be able to see things that the leaders do not. If they decide they do not want to cooperate, close it.
My husband called this morning to tell me about the attacks. Then he said “of course it’s only a matter of time before the U.S. is blamed for it.” I argued with him about that.
Again with my husband: he came home from work on 9/11 to tell me what had happened. My immediate response was: “Oh God help us, we are at war. The borders are probably being closed as we speak.”
“No,” he said. “That would make too much sense.”
:smack:
I’m not calling for an indiscriminante act of revenge. I would add my vote to those who are calling for requiring mosques and Imam’s to cooperate with security personnel or close. Political correctness is an intellectual luxury in the face of what we are facing. Shockingly enough, the people that are doing this acts are Muslims. We need to face up to that fact and act accordingly.
And before someone accuses me of calling for interrment camps, settle down. I’m not. But Muslims have only their own to blame for the additional scutiny. They need to get onboard in fighting terrorism as well.
This is absolutely correct. They may not all be geniuses, but it won’t take them long to figure out how to manipulate us into doing X by pressing for “the opposite of X”. That may work with six-year-olds. We should not allow it to work with us.
Who has claimed the Madrid attacks “had no imact whatsoever” on the electorates decision to oust the incumbent party? It, and the government’s handling of it, was obviously a key issue.
If we’re going into “unintended consequences” or “facts on the ground” mode then we may as well say 9/11 was a success because it led to the withdrawl of US troops from Saudi Arabia. Are we in the “unintended consequences” realm? If so then I’d agree bin Laden was probably pleased at the withdrawl of US troops from Saudi and ambivalent about the Spanish government change. Had Spain adopted a fundamentalist Islamic form of government I think he would have been pleased, but the incoming government won on a pledge to oppose terrorism and Al Qaeda and I don’t see him being happy about it.
Point 1. Spanish involvement in the “Coalition of the Willing” was highly upopoular even before the Madrid attacks. The incumbent party was going to maintain that involvement, the opponents were going to decrease or end it.
Point 2. Massive attacks against civilians as a direct result of Spain’s involvement in Iraq were laid at the feet of the government for getting Spain involved, against the will of her people, in the first place.
Point 3. The incumbent government strongly denied the attacks being a result of their unpopular decision, even attempting to spin and manipulate the investigation’s findings.
The analysis I have seen and the first-hand communication I have had with Spanish citizens who voted in the election leads me to believe the motive for ousting the incumbent government was their untrustworthiness and continued committment to a very unpopular war. Like I said earlier, in a “unintended consequences” way the vote may have had other effects, but I don’t doubt the intentions and courage of the Spanish people in the face of terror.
I’m not blaming the US for it. I’m just trying to express my opinion that previous responses to such acts have not worked. I am trying to pre-empt people who will use this attack to justify our current stance, while i believe it the opposite.
America, the UK et al (+Poland) are most definitely not to blame. I also, however, don’t believe that their current actions are helping things.
Well, what would you suggest we do? Anything differetn that we have been doing?
I might be wrong, but what I read into your statement is paralysis. That any action that might, even by accident, might imply that Buss/Blair are doing the right thing is off the table.Whether the war is the best course of action or not, we must finally muster the will to make our homelands safe. That is the first charge of any governement.
I might be reading what you are saying wrong, but I get the strong impression you think that these attacks are because of Englands participation in Iraq…I should say, you seem to think its SOLELY because of Englands participation in Iraq. However, IF the AQ statement posted earlier in this thread is accurate (and IF it was even AQ that did this…or even an Islamic terrorist group and not some anti-G8 nutball group), then Iraq was only part of the excuse…Afghanistan was also mentioned.
Its all smoke and bullshit anyway. Its just the same old game…an attempt to scare off a western power so they will leave the ME region alone, giving the folks there who want to do their own thing a free hand. And playing the ‘you invaded Iraq’ guilt card…as if AQ REALLY give a flying fuck about the plight of the poor Iraqi people. All this is not to say that Iraq was a good thing, that it was right and proper, blah blah blah…but to say that London was bombed for a myriad of reasons, none of which, IMHO, have anything to do with the UK’s participation in Iraq.
I’ve already called several of my friends who live in the area and all are fine thank the gods. All of them are pretty shaken…and several of them are pretty pissed off, though they have no idea how things will fall out. One of my friends, Mary, is quite convinced it wasn’t AQ at all but that this is all related to either the G8 summit or to the Olympics somehow. I’d say wait on tossing around blame or piling on the guilt about how this all relates to Iraq until some actual facts come out…and even then, take what those cowardly fucks at AQ say with a grain of salt when they play their guilt card about Iraq.
As other have said, my heart goes out to you guys (especially my friends John, Mary and Dave who I know lurk this board). Be safe and know a lot of our hearts and thoughts are with you on this…even if we’ve tended to piss you off a bit lately with our antics.
Based on my communication with Spanish voters, reading interviews with the Spanish “man on the street”, photographs of anti-incumbent protests pre-election, and comments by Spaniards on the topic I believe this is exactly what Spain did. They decided to bring the percieved manipulations and lies of the current leadership to an end and to elect leadership who would end their involvement in a grossly unpopular war. If this had the unintended consequence of bolstering bin Laden(which I doubt as he is on record as saying he sees all non-Islamist governments as the enemy and the Spanish certainly did not elect Islamists) then so be it.
Wonderful. Had we followed this excellent advice on September 12, 2001, we would not have had any more attacks on U.S. soil at merely the cost of depriving a large number of citizens of their rights while trashing the economy in a way to make the Great Depression look like an upturn.
Oh, wait. We haven’t had any subsequent attacks on U.S. soil. So just how safe was this really going to make us? Driving the entire world into poverty (the U.S. is still the single large economic engine) would defeat the terrorists in what way? It would make whom safer?
It seems that fear is a more successful tactic than actual invasion.
Okey-doke. But wouldn’t membership of a terrorist organisation be more accurate and less of a brush tarring exercise? How do you know they’re member of a terrorist organisation? Good question. Wait a minute… how do you know they’re Muslim?
That’s Mr Muhammad to you, or do we also decide that all people with darker complexions first get insulted by the airlines before they accept their custom? But what the heck, let’s just ban them from from flying, (like, what do they want with flying anyway??)
And the terrorists will have won. The US retreats to the barracade and peers over it with a parnoid glint.
Well, I’m just speechless on this one. “Ask” them that the FBI should take over running them, or close them? Civil Rights anyone?? Do you honestly think this would achieve anything except stigmatise and penalise innocent people, while the guilty simply meet someplace else.
It looks to me that your “what needs to be done” involves taking away from people what we’re supposed to be defending.
Funny, I thought the first amendment was about freedom of expression and such.
Look, I don’t disagree with you on protection. But to think that the borders of the US could be sealed is naive. We’re talking about something like 8000 linear miles of border and coastline just for the contiguous 48 states. There’s not enough manpower or dollars available for such an enterprise. Even to attempt it is foolish.
The simple fact is that one of the costs of a free society (one with freedom of expression, freedom of movement, economic freedom, and so forth) is a willingness to accept that terrorist attacks cannot be 100% preventable. All the band-aids applied by homeland security won’t be effective at it. I could come up with several ways to do it myself right now if I wished. Either bombing or disruption or economic dislocation.
The things you’re advocating, magellan01 will fall into the category of ‘lost freedom for little gain’. And it’s exactly the sort of thing that Franklin warned us about.
There’s no way to prevent it completely. We can just make it more difficult and learn to live with the occasional attack.
Cheap, easy and overused imagery in addition to being an intellectual non-response.
Shockingly enough, those who are participating in Islamic terror activities are, in fact, Islamic. I would think that those Muslims who decry the activities of the radicals would be happy to cooperate in rooting them out.
This attack, the Spain attack, and other attacks which do not have a large loss of life will probably be the norm for a little while yet. The response to these smaller attacks is usually to pursue the people who immediately planned it, with a half-hearted attempt to bring down the organizations who are the real problem. These organizations always stay in the shadows, and will often hide behind “legitamate” entities like “sovereign nations”.
Here in the US even the “peace and understanding” crowd had to keep their peace when 9/11 happened and a foreign government was toppled in Afghanistan.
Bush tried to spread the feeling to cover the Iraq action… and while those on the right were happy and the left screamed (and were nearly all secretly relieved as well)… I don’t think Blair has the political strength to do anything break the “legitamate” shields which will be hiding the cockroaches who probably funded this attack.
