I recently was watching John Mueller, Professor of Political Science, at Ohio State University (on Cspan). He was promoting his book:Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them. http://psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/jmueller/ John Mueller in his presentation reviews circumstances and data. Displaying a rather large number of Americans were still scared of a new 9/11, but asserting the actual threat wasn't equalized with the reaction ie we are overcommitted. He agreed that such action as seeking out terrorists cells were appropriate and that watching over nucleur material was of interest...but he felt that the overall chance of being a victim were statistically rare in comparison to other physical threats. I found it held it's weight in it's own way. There's only a handful of ways that terrorists could really threaten America in a large scale. Without certain abilities to do such, the chances are infinitely smaller to harm society on a large scale. Yet by and large the popular belief is that we have to worry. Now I have my own questions to him, that I'll probably be emailing concerning threats he didn't seem to believe (or perhaps didn't think of). I do think a jet airliner must maintain some degree of security, as having a jet fly into a nucleur plant could really cause havoc in America...and has been suggested to be a plan of terrorists. There are things that could cause damage that are worth the investment of prevention, but I don't believe we need a barrage of changes to effectively nullify most threats. If you've heard the presentation it was kind-of simple to see he didn't like the current administration, but that doesn't necessarily void what he said as overly bias (because he wasn't...in that presentation atleast). I felt it was a rather interesting way of looking at it...beyond the common feeling of the general public. And believe me...historically the public is wrong often. My personal opinion is that some threats are overly exaggerated, while others must be reviewed with general interest. We do have to know what can truely threaten us on large scales and even small, but we must weigh a certain level of prudence in our choses made abroad, domestically, and fiscally.
Most of them are overblown Rick, it's all part of the plan to keep people in line through fear. It's the oldest trick in the book. The biggest one of this year (2k6) was the complete bullshit "Liquid Bomb Plot." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_transatlantic_aircraft_plot http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4801183.stm Many of the suspects didn't even have passports and the plot was unfeasible anyway: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/17/flying_toilet_terror_labs/ As usual there is no evidence and charges are dropped http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6175427.stm This is a very good article Rick and well worth a read: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug06/Petras25.htm
You mean the 'liquid bomb plot' was a load of garbage? Who knew? Oh! Wait! Everyone knew it was a pile of invented crap to keep the headlines filled with the 'terror' word. With all the 'security' controls largely still in place at UK airports, thank goodness they weren't checking for, oh, say, radioactivity and it's still easy enough to smuggle Polonium-210 onto a plane without too much difficulty if you have a defector or two to bump off. Traces of a radioactive substance are found on two British Airways planes at Heathrow Airport. The Boeing 767s, plus a third in Moscow, are to be tested and BA says it plans to contact the thousands of passengers who travelled on the European flights affected, including the London to Moscow route.
Indeed mcfox, and have you noticed most of these fear inducing fabricated lies like the Liquid Bomb Plot get blanket media coverage for days on end but we rarely hear anything after by way of a follow-up. Because they are usually dropped due to a lack of evidence. But by then it doesn't matter, because the sheeple have already absorbed the thing as truth due to the blanket coverage the story gets, whether it is true or not is irrelevant, the seed has already been sown in the sheeples mind. It is mainline media mind control at it's finest.