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Scouting Jetliners For New Attacks


Guest obby

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Guest endymion

The airlines are the least of our problems now. I wouldn't be surprised if the disposable cells that they are using to test airline security are just a feint designed to distract us from the much more serious reasons why we are not safe.

Bush keeps beating the phrase "America is safer" into our heads. He repeats it endlessly to make us believe it just because he's saying so. I don't see any reason to believe that we are safer now. I personally see the probably of a catastrophic terrorist attack on US soil before the election as a 100 percent certainty. When it happens we'll look back to books like Flynn's and we'll say "well if this was so obvious then why were we spending our money in Iraq instead of working to protect all of those people in that subway in NYC?"

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Guest saintjohn

the mysterious group of 14 syrians mentioned in the washington times article actually appear to have been legit:

Well, I am nominally the "news director" for Stanford University's student radio station, KZSU, and I figured I'd help the Times out. There aren't that many casinos in southern California, so I had my research assistant, Mr. Google, take a look at some. An hour later I was talking to the nice folks at Sycuan Casino & Resort, near San Diego. Unlike most casinos where it's all Elvis impersonators, Paul Anka, and Linda Ronstadt — oh, wait, scratch that last one — Sycuan books the occasional "ethnic music" show, too. In August, for example, they'll have a Vietnamese night.

"Oh, do you mean Arab music?" inquired Angie, who answered Sycuan's phone. Yes, they had had an Arab act perform on July 1, an artist named Nour Mehana. Terry, Angie's supervisor at Sycuan, confirmed that he was there and that there was probably a backup band brought in, since there's no house band at Sycuan. In fractions of a second, Mr. Google found a website for Sycuan's event promoters, Anthem Artists, whose archive confirms Nour Mehana performed at Sycuan on 7/01/04.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/taylor200407211921.asp

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Guest obby

Dude, I have to disagree with you. I work for a software development company that is directly connected to US Customs and you can not imagine how many restrictions have been added regarding imports and exports of good from and to the United States. The new Patriot act has caused us to make hundreds of changes to our software in order to reflect the new laws which the Patriot Act is now enforcing. All security data bases such as the CIA, FBI, FDA, ect ect are now one entity compared to the past when they where considered competitors.

Ask any immigrant that is trying to become a US citizen or resident how difficult the process has become. They may hate/blame Bush and the Patriot Act for this but it tells me as an American born citizen that we are doing something right.

THE PATRIOT ACT !!!!!!!!

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Guest saintjohn

one of the real problems with airline security is the way the federal air marshal program is being run. from the new york times:

WASHINGTON, July 16 - Beards are out. So are jeans and athletic shoes. Suit coats are in, even on the steamiest summer days.

That dress code, imposed by the Department of Homeland Security, makes federal air marshals uneasy - and not just because casual clothes are more comfortable in cramped airline seats. The marshals fear that their appearance makes it easier for terrorists to identify them, according to a professional group representing more than 1,300 air marshals.

"If a 12-year-old can pick them out, a trained terrorist has no problem picking them out," said John D. Amat, a spokesman for the group, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association.

Documents and memorandums issued by the Department of Homeland Security and field offices of the Federal Air Marshal Service say air marshals must "present a professional image" and "blend unnoticed into their environment." Some air marshals have argued that the two requirements are contradictory.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/17/politics/17marshals.html?pagewanted=print&position=

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Guest endymion

Obby, those restrictions aren't stopping shipping containers. Most of them are never inspected and we just trust the importers to tell us what's inside. Most shipping containers are never run through any sort of radiation scanner and there is only a 10% chance of catching a Russian surplus nuke in a container if one does happen to get scanned.

What we do have is lots of highly visible security measures like beefed up airport security and immigration controls. That would be nice if that were our only point of weakness. The ports are our Achilles heel. Tom Ridge will give speeches all day long talking about airport security but he has no interest discussing security for those containers that you see stacked up at the port of Miami. There is a reason for that.

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Guest endymion

The new port rules still don't result in those containers getting inspected. There are too many containers. It would take massive amounts of money to truly secure the ports.

Like, oh, say $120,000,000,000.

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The new port rules still don't result in those containers getting inspected. There are too many containers. It would take massive amounts of money to truly secure the ports.

Like, oh, say $120,000,000,000.

hmm...where have i seen that number before??? ;)

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The new port rules still don't result in those containers getting inspected. There are too many containers. It would take massive amounts of money to truly secure the ports.

Like, oh, say $120,000,000,000.

no amount of money can inspect even 50% of those containers. now you are just being childish...

we can't be a society of 80% goverment jobs.

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Guest saintjohn

shipping containers are a major concern, but our borders are so insecure it's tough to say where we should start allocating available resources. i went for a boat ride up the miami river last month - despite all of the new and improved security measures, the river is still pretty much the same as it ever was (talking heads reference). there used to be five separate law enforcement agencies operating on the river - i have no idea what the situation is now, but searching all of those rusty freighters overloaded with bikes, cars, mattresses, trucks, buses, spare tires, and (yes) kitchen sinks just isn't feasible, even given the combined resources of customs, the border patrol, the florida marine patrol, and the coast guard. obviously, we're willing to accept a certain amount of risk for relatively free trading conditions. people were pretty happy about the perceived level of airline security on september 10, 2001, too, but that didn't mean there wasn't a problem. parking a speedboat with flashing blue lights out in the channel by the cruise ships in the port of miami might make the tourists feel safe®, but it's not going to stop a terrorist attack. making tourists comfortable is a worthy goal, but i'd prefer to concentrate on more (ahem) pro-active efforts.

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Guest endymion

Saint John, that link about the Syrian musicians was pretty entertaining. I just had a chance to go back and read it, thanks for posting that.

It appears to me that Saleen and St John, you guys are both saying that you think that our ports are a big problem that are not being addressed. Seems oddly like a couple of conservatives disagreeing with the "America is safer" party line.

If we believe Saleen and Saint John that there is no way to protect the ports, and we also believe Tom Ridge that terrorists are planning a major attack within the US, then we must therefore believe that we're in for another big attack and that we're not going to be able to defend against it.

"terrorists are plotting an attack" + "we can't defend the ports" =

"america is not safer"

Our administration is feeding us contradictory propaganda. Are we safer now after producing all of those dead bodies in Iraq or not? It looks an awful lot to me like "not". It looks an awful lot to me like we poured over a hundred billion dollars and thousands of lives down the toilet and the end result is that we have not put sufficient safeguards on any of the critical domestic infrastructures that we have reason to expect to be attacked.

Here's a simple scenario: surplus Soviet-era nuke gets purchased by Islamist fundamentalists in a former Soviet state like Georgia or the Ukraine, or maybe a place nearby with lots of Muslims like Kazakhstan or Turkmenistan. Smuggled into Turkey across open borders, then into the Mediterranean and by sea into a 'trusted' country like Greece. Loaded into a container along with a bunch of rugs or ball bearings or something, consolidated with other shipments. Comes across the sea on a cargo freighter to the Port of Miami. Container is never inspected or scanned for radioactive material since we don't do that cause we can't afford it. (Spent $120,000,000,000 on something else instead) Loaded onto a semi and driven up 75 and then onto I-10 and sent to a populous city like, oh, say Dallas, Tx.

Our only chance to stop that nuke is the Port of Miami. We aren't putting any effort at all into doing that. By alienating people all over the world through Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, the Afghan prisons and the careless widespread killings of Iraqi civilians we are increasing the chances of the nuke being sold to Islamists. We are increasing the chances that importers can be enlisted to assist terrorists in importing containers. We are making our biggest opening even bigger. Not smaller.

In 2001 we all could say "Wow, didn't see that one coming", and we were all telling the truth. In 2004 we do not have that crutch. It is obvious that terrorists will use shipping containers to import materials and/or people to carry out attacks inside of the US. We know this. We are fighting an optional war with unknown benefits rather than addressing that problem.

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Guest saintjohn
It appears to me that Saleen and St John, you guys are both saying that you think that our ports are a big problem that are not being addressed. Seems oddly like a couple of conservatives disagreeing with the "America is safer" party line.

me? conservative? whatever gave you that idea?

seriously, though, i'm not a fan of "party lines." i have problems with both of our dominant political parties (and their respective presidential candidates). we all spend too much time and energy defining our differences - we should be joining together to fight common enemies like apathy, ignorance, and intolerance. petty partisan politics isn't going to save the world. we have an opportunity and a responsibility to do better.

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Guest JMT

other people who were on these flights have come forward to say what they saw.

someone forwarded me this story just last week....

http://womenswallstreet.com/WWS/article_landing.aspx?titleid=1&articleid=711

Terror in the Skies, Again?

By Annie Jacobsen

A WWS Exclusive Article

Note from the E-ditors: You are about to read an account of what happened during a domestic flight that one of our writers, Annie Jacobsen, took from Detroit to Los Angeles. The WWS Editorial Team debated long and hard about how to handle this information and ultimately we decided it was something that should be shared. What does it have to do with finances? Nothing, and everything. Here is Annie's story...

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Guest saintjohn

this story just keeps getting stranger. can someone please explain why an american casino would hire "the syrian wayne newton" to sing songs glorifying suicide bombings?

from the washington times:

The Syrian singer of a band that was detained by the FBI's Terrorism Task Force for suspicious activity during a recent flight to Los Angeles has written about the "glorification" of suicide bombers to liberate Palestine.

Singer Nour Mehana's latest album includes the song "Um El Shaheed," or "Mother of a Martyr," said Aluma Dankowitz of the Middle East Media Research Institute.

The song tells the story of a woman who mourned her son's death until she realized that "he died for a good cause and he should be glorified for what he did," said Miss Dankowitz, who translated the song for The Washington Times.

Mr. Mehana, widely known as the Syrian Wayne Newton, sings to the mother that her son's goals are heroic and she should be happy he is dead.

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040728-111758-3815r.htm

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Guest endymion

can someone please explain why an american casino would hire "the syrian wayne newton" to sing songs glorifying suicide bombings?

Looks to me like he's singing those songs in Arabic. He could be singing about the Great Turtle that swam the world here from the Other Place for all that casino entertainment manager knows.

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Guest saintjohn

true, but i still don't understand why someone would go to all of that trouble to hire an obscure "world music" band to play a casino. the musicians were travelling with syrian passports, and supposedly their visas were expired. were the local elvis impersonators too expensive?

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Guest endymion

And I'm the conspiracy theorist? Occam's Razor says: It's Vegas, ethnic is hip.

I would think that if there was one real feint designed to divert attention and confuse law enforcement then there would be lots of them at the same time. Partly to freak people out and partly to strain law enforcement. Then while those cells are all blocking some Ricky Williams terrorist cells are going to poke in and do some real damage.

But if that play were happening then there would be lots of sacrificial cells doing little freakout psy ops all over the place. I only see a handful of maybes. The freaky shit starts to escalate and then you have to expect a real attack somewhere.

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Guest saintjohn

actually, the casino isn't in vegas. it's closer to san diego, but i get your point. i was really thinking the episode was more weird than worrying at this point.

conspiracy theorist? it takes one to know one.

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