Post #18,220
11/14/01 9:35:06 AM
|
Your decided..
...lack of grounding in the reality of this situation notwithstanding... On the other hand, there was nothing preventing them from doing so. Yet no such measures were instated. Maybe because they were country sponsored, located in that country...and something along the lines of 6000 miles away. Don't let that bit of real-world information bother you. To put it another way, Germany had SPIES.
Germany had an EMBASSEY.
Germany had the finances of a COUNTRY.
We fought the Cold War for YEARS.
We know that US citizens were turned by the Soviets. Yes...we knew all these things...and we also knew that all of those US citizens turned by the Soviets were charged with keeping a low profile, gathering information and supplying that information back to the Soviets. Guess what..some of them were even successful. And NONE OF THEM ever got onto a plane and crashed it into a building. NONE OF THEM were charged with filling a semi full of nitrate based explosives and blowing up the Golden Gate Bridge. NONE of their brethren had been known to strap TNT onto themselves and walk into a pizza shop.... <sarcasm>But other than that...I guess the situation is the same.</sarcasm> You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! Laurie Anderson
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
|
Post #18,322
11/14/01 6:20:09 PM
|
Reality isn't your forte.
"Maybe because they were country sponsored, located in that country...and something along the lines of 6000 miles away. Don't let that bit of real-world information bother you."
And I assume the terrorist here were born here, raised by parents who were born here and so on?
I didn't think so.
If ObL can get an operative here, I'm sure the Germans could have also.
In fact, I >KNOW< the Russians had operatives here.
ALL THROUGHOUT THE COLD WAR.
Yet we still didn't have these laws passed.
"Yes...we knew all these things...and we also knew that all of those US citizens turned by the Soviets were charged with keeping a low profile, gathering information and supplying that information back to the Soviets."
???
Bullshit!
They sold whatever they could to the Russians. It is amazing that our people never suspected them. And we STILL won.
"And NONE OF THEM ever got onto a plane and crashed it into a building."
And this is relevent because?
"NONE OF THEM were charged with filling a semi full of nitrate based explosives and blowing up the Golden Gate Bridge."
And this is relevent because?
"NONE of their brethren had been known to strap TNT onto themselves and walk into a pizza shop...."
Okay, so you're fixated on individual acts of terrorism.
You don't understand that compromising our spy systems or weapons was more important than killing 5000 people (a fraction of the number that die on the roads every year).
Gee, because they didn't want to go from a Cold War to a Hot War?
Care to give me a fucking estimate of how many US Citizens were killed during WW2?
Then why don't you do the math and tell me how many WTC's would have to occure to match that number.
|
Post #18,395
11/15/01 9:02:42 AM
|
Never dealt in real estate, eh?
You keep ignoring the most important fact....
Location, Location, Location.
The only other "hot" war to hit US soil in the past 100 years was WW2. The Japanese hit Pearl Harbor.
Now do we need to review just how badly we treated Japanese Americans after that happened? Do you not think the measures were a tad draconian? But wait...we don't put Japanese_Americans in "encampments" anymore...hmmm...wonder if a parallel can be drawn...
And...how much impact would wiretapping law changes have really affected anything in ww1, ww2, korea or vietnam?
And this current situation is NOT a cold war...it is a hot war...and it was not only declared here, but over the course of at least 2 decades in places like London, Munich, Brussels, Paris...and finally New York.
But...you keep on believing that there's no difference between the current situation and any other we've faced before. If the death of 5000 civilians can't convince you of that, then you are a permanently lost cause.
You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! Laurie Anderson
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
|
Post #18,420
11/15/01 12:32:28 PM
|
Historical side note...
The Japanese did also take some islands up in Alaska, but very few people really noticed.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
|
Post #18,431
11/15/01 1:47:40 PM
|
And I'd bet...
...they didn't use landlines, cellphones or email to plan it either ;)
You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! Laurie Anderson
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
|
Post #18,433
11/15/01 1:53:01 PM
|
You got it.
I heard some of the Alaskans felt sorry for them, though, because they were just sitting their freezin' their asses off with nothing to do. So occasionally, they'd just sneak over to the island, fire a few rifle rounds over their heads, and run off laughing.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
|
Post #18,442
11/15/01 2:54:15 PM
|
Re: Historical side note...
Alaska and Hawaii weren't states then, are territories also considered US Soil?
-----
Steve
|
Post #18,459
11/15/01 5:43:48 PM
|
Why the switch?
So now you're saying that we didn't have those new laws in place because the US wasn't invaded?
Not because there weren't spies here. We know there were.
Not because US citizens weren't killed. We know they were.
But because no foreign agent destroyed a building in the US?
So, after surviving things like WWI and WWII and the Cold War and the resources of entire countries being brought against us, we have to start dismantelling our freedoms because some suicide terrorists take out the WTC?
That is the kind of logic that I expected.
We could handle the KGB.
But ObL is too much of a threat.
|
Post #18,463
11/15/01 6:00:35 PM
|
Are you really....
...this dense or do you just play that way for effect.
Please tell me what effectiveness wiretapping would have had against the Germans. Against the Vietnamese? Against the Koreans?
And...if you think these laws were followed in cases of espionage...do you >really< think that?
Anyway, my part in this discussion with you is over...
There is no war to compare this against. Just comparing it to other large scale conflicts is ludicrous. The fact that you don't see this...or refuse to acknowledge it...is well...your prerogative, I guess. I can see, however, that there will be nothing gained from this but right-shift
You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! Laurie Anderson
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
|
Post #18,483
11/15/01 8:23:51 PM
|
You left out a few.
"Please tell me what effectiveness wiretapping would have had against the Germans. Against the Vietnamese? Against the Koreans?"
None.
>IF< you only consider them, in their country.
By that same token, what use is wiretapping against Osama?
Against any of the countries that protect him?
Against any country that supports terrorism?
"There is no war to compare this against."
Why not? We've lost more US citizens in other wars. This is described as a "war".
"Just comparing it to other large scale conflicts is ludicrous."
Why?
"The fact that you don't see this...or refuse to acknowledge it...is well...your prerogative, I guess."
Just as it is your perogative to fail to see that measures we didn't use before are being advocated now when the threat is less than before.
And that is the truth of the matter.
More US citizens will have been killed in WWI or WWII or Korea or Vietnam than will be killed by terrorists.
Even when we ran the Japanese-Americans off to camps, we didn't pass laws to tap our own people. We never infringed upon the rights of the majority.
Bill says this is only because no one ever hit the continental US (except Japan).
Not that they wouldn't (look at Germany bombing England or any other European country).
But just because they didn't get around to doing it.
|
Post #18,484
11/15/01 8:27:01 PM
|
Wiretap Osama?
We have Echelon for that.
Oops, I forgot, Echelon doesn't exist. My bad.
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
-- Donald Knuth
|
Post #18,485
11/15/01 8:28:54 PM
|
Yawn
You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! Laurie Anderson
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
|
Post #19,057
11/20/01 9:57:22 PM
|
What a fscking stupid non-response
If you don't have anything to say, and can't just shut the fuck up, why don't *you* admit that you have no reasonable response, for once in a fucking while, BeeP?
A stupid "Yawn" certainly doesn't make you look any more right, when it's obvious that you're just plain fucking wrong, you know.
This may come as a shock to you, but this isn't the first time you've been wrong and Khasimioch right.
Christian R. Conrad
The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
|
Post #19,094
11/21/01 9:39:06 AM
|
To a continued
idiotic line of reasoning.
And the fact that you consider this situation in any way similar to WWI, II, Korea, or Vietnam...
Well, I guess some folks just don't get it.
You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! Laurie Anderson
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
|
Post #19,167
11/21/01 4:06:22 PM
|
C'mon BeeP - missing *all* the common denominators?
And the fact that you consider this situation in any way similar to WWI, II, Korea, or Vietnam...
Offhand I would say the common milieu for *any* State action transcends the always peculiar details of any next one:
At root: the bases for there *being* this particular State! Not merely the documents, Constitution and related - but our putative ethos? and the priorities which we preach at home and abroad (whether the preached-to think our sermons hypocritical? (sometimes) or merely sanctimonious! (often)).
We certainly cannot claim that ~we are inured to what others think of us (though many believe we Are inured to whatever it is - which others think, period). We live! to preach our magnificence and.. deem that our prosperity is related to Our Goodness. Est-ce que ce n'est pas vrai, mon cher?
Thus, all the above is mere rhetoric we amuse ourselves with, in strifeless intervals. It is in stressful periods ONLY - when we demonstrate what we Really believe. Like now.
Like Ashcroft and the hubris AND fearfulness in the now litany of new Official Laws for the Millennium: in form of dictats er Executive Orders - freed from those messy constraints, tiresome details like debate, public discussion, apprising of legislators, legislation by *Legislators* - opinion of judiciary. Etc.
Oh.. because we are in a hurry! Just as we were in a hurry, hours after after 12/7/41. Yet then, while we exaggerated the guesstimate of the loyalties of US Citizens of Japanese descent (also Italians, less so -oddly- Germans amongst us) -- at no time did we conceive of the Draconian hysterical mass of abortive intrusions into personal Rights, as are occurring in the present contretemps.
Common denominators? saboteurs (real and imagined) - looking Just Like Us\ufffd or.. different (too). Unknown 'plans', schemes, capacity! to commit nefarious deeds .. like maybe blowing up [all the same stuff as now]. Need more common denominators of all the past events and our responses?
{sheesh}
Yeah.. this one is *Different* all right: as are the wildest of imaginations, Each time. Only This time: we are willing to forget at lightning pace (da capo)
At root: the bases for there *being* this particular State! Kill Those to save That, but please to call it, "military necessity". Again.
A.
Imagine.. if Economics Principles finally ever won completely? over umm National Principles (if we still have any left next month). Imagine *that world*.
{shudder}
|
Post #19,169
11/21/01 4:16:29 PM
|
I can't help blindness.
Nor do I intend to carry this argument alot further.
If you cannot judge the differences in a) the perceived enemy and b) the extreme pervasiveness of wired/wireless communications as a support infrstructure for networked organizations....well theres not alot of point in discussing why monitoring capability is more important now than it was before.
You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! Laurie Anderson
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
|
Post #18,505
11/15/01 11:33:54 PM
|
actually...not that I care...
but wiretapping (and code breaking) was an integral part of WWII. Enigma, Flower Code, Navajo talkers and all that.
Of course, flip side is that this is not a declared war and WWII was. (I know, details, details)
|
Post #18,396
11/15/01 9:26:59 AM
|
FWIW
And I assume the terrorist here were born here, raised by parents who were born here and so on?
I don't have the cite, but at least one of the terrorists that has been mentioned in the news lately (I don't recall if he was on one of the planes, or just associated in another way) was born in Illinois. :-) Regards,
-scott anderson
|
