Well Dragwyr, it looks like our hijack isn’t gonna take off. Sigh. If only one more person had joined in…
Ooh, wouldn’t it be a shame to see them getting some qorld wide grief. Although I’d miss the Sopranos.
Yup, I’m really looking forward to seeing just who’s going to define this new list of world terrorist organisations.
hangs head in shame
All right. I admit it.
I flinched. Twice.
I hope all right-thinking Americans can understand my weakness.
ashamedly walks away
Er…
Johnathon Chance? That made no sense…
I was talking about the pointlessness of terrorism, and relating that to fact that the threat of wiping out all life on Earth didn’t change our policy, but someone thinks setting off one bomb will…
Whether or not you personally flinch has frankly nothing to do with it…
I flinched too…everytime a person was kidnapped or killed…Everytime I looked at the world and wondered if it would be there tomarrow…
But my country didn’t…
Have you ever sighed that deep, heavy sigh?
You know the sort…the sort of sigh where you know a joke has just gone over someone’s head? The sort of sigh that sums up 6000 years of intellectual development wasted on a line that went nowhere?
You’re assuming there’s 6000 years of progress for everyone? 
Most people don’t seem to have made it far past the primordial ooze stage, IMO.
sorry, my mental agility seemed to be diminished do to years of ingestion of TV sit coms…
Excuse me for answering too. But, you don’t give money to the IRA, you give it to Sinn Fein (wackadoos who front for the IRA). Here is some info.
labradorian, I basically agree with you. But, I think you are jumping the gun. We have our whole military heading over to Afghanistan right now. Let’s do something there first. After we “win,” (declare victory and leave, lose, whatever) then bitch if we give up on “The War Against Terrorism.” (coming to a cable news channel near you)
P.S. We have had our share of homeland terrorism too, not just the WTC and Pentagon. Don’t believe our media–ever. It just sounds good to write “end of innocence” or “America awakens,” whatever. If America was asleep, it must be related to some narcotic, not for lack of terrorism.
I would not have thought the freezing of bank accounts which are used to provide funds for Sinn Fein, or the IRA, or any related organisation, is a complex task.
It demands no military effort, and Mr. Bush has already frozen 27 accounts, or thereabouts, which are thought to be related to terrorist activities.
Maybe there are not enough experienced financial people to do the necessary work in respect of accounts related to Sinn Fein, or the IRA, or maybe there is not the political will to do this work, or maybe the people who are responsible for getting the money to Sinn Fein, or the IRA, have sufficient influence in US governmental circles to stop this from happening.
There maybe a perfectly valid reason why investigations are not taking place, but what this reason is, I do not know.
I do know that, in the light of recent events, if the IRA was a threat to the US, such accounts would be searched out and frozen before you could say ‘Gerry Adams’.
No, I’m complaining that the US is trying to spearhead an effort against international terrorism THAT IS CAPABLE OF TARGETTING THE US. I would like to see this effort broadened to include terrorism that does not directly threaten US citizens or interests, such as the “Real IRA”, the Ulster paramilitaries, ETA, or the Tamil Tigers.
If the US wants other countries to make its problems theirs, then it should also be making other countries’ problems its own. We’re supposed to be in this together. I’d like reassurances that we are, but I’m not geting them yet.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Beagle *
**
I wonder how much of that show of force is actually designed to do something, anything, about the terrorist threat? I mean, what is left in Afghanistan worth bombing, and what would be the cost/benefit ratio and aftereffects of a conventional military response to an “unconventional” one?
**
So much for the war on drugs, eh?
I’m fairly media-skeptic already.
I’m not so sure that this is “perfectly legal”. 18 U.S.C. 2339B (“Providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations”) provides for penalties of up to 10 years in prison for any person who “knowingly provides material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization, or attempts or conspires to do so”. 8 U.S.C. 1189, which sets out the rules for “designating” “foreign terrorist organizations” for (among other things) the purposes of 18 U.S.C. 2339B does say that the terrorist activity in question must pose a threat to “the security of United States nationals or the national security of the United States.” Someone else will have to figure out where the Feds keep their Master List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations; I would certainly think the IRA (and its various offshoots) ought to be on that list, since a) the IRA poses a threat to the stability and security of the Government of the United Kingdom, an ally of the U.S., and hence poses a threat to the national security of the United States and b) the IRA surely has exposed assorted American tourists and businessmen to harm, hence posing a threat to the security of United States nationals. (Of course, I am not the United States Secretary of State, nor am I the Secretary of the Treasury or the Attorney General.)
It might help your case, labradorian if you read some of the posts in this thread which are not addressed to you directly.
If you did this, you may find that other posters have been supporting your proposition, and this would save you the trouble of repeating what they have already said.