Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Is Anyone Who Terrorizes Americans, Exempt from being Labeled a Terrorist?

host · 08-12-2006, 11:05 AM

This is America. Is it appropriate for our national leaders to terrorize the public in reaction to an election or primary result that they perceive has gone against them and their agenda?

When they use the influence of their office; a "bully pulpit", to officially proclaim that by voting for a certain candidate, or by questioning or disagreeing with their policies, are our leaders acting like terrorists? Aren't terrorists anyone who engage in an agenda or conspiracy to make us fearful; to behave in ways that benefit those who terrorize us.....in ways other than how we would prefer to behave (i.e. vote), if the "terror tactics" weren't being deployed to control us?

There was a successful attempt in the last thread that I started on this subject, to "shout me down". I believe that I am asking questions about a crisis of leadership in the US. I believe that there is no more important political discussion that I can initiate and engage in, than on the issue of whether it is appropriate for the POTUS, the V.P., the White House press secretary, or candidates running for congress, or members of congress, to react to the outcome of a political contest, by reminding voters that,

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060809-2.html
August 9, 2006

Interview of the Vice President by Wire Service Reporters
Via Telephone
Jackson, Wyoming

I was -- obviously, we're all interested in this year's election campaign.....And as I look at what happened yesterday, it strikes me that it's a perhaps unfortunate and significant development from the standpoint of the Democratic Party, that what it says about the direction the party appears to be heading in when they, in effect, purge a man like Joe Lieberman, who was just six years ago their nominee for Vice President, is of concern, especially over the issue of Joe's support with respect to national efforts in the global war on terror.

The thing that's partly disturbing about it is the fact that, the standpoint of our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the al Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task........

........So it's an unfortunate development, I think, from the standpoint of the Democratic Party to see a man like Lieberman pushed aside because of his willingness to support an aggressive posture in terms of our national security strategy........

........But clearly within the Democratic Party, it would appear to be that there are deep divisions. I think there's a significant body of opinion that wants to go back -- I guess the way I would describe it is sort of the pre-9/11 mind set, in terms of how we deal with the world we live in.......

White House press corps asks questions about the controversy:

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060811-1.html

.....Q The Democrats are yelling that you're trying to play politics with our security. And I'm just looking at a Harry Reid letter here in which he's pointing out a Dick Cheney comment, <b>that victory would embolden the al Qaeda types.</b>

MR. SNOW: That's true. I don't know how that's politicizing it. It sounds to me like Senator Reid is trying to accuse us of politicizing while he, himself, is politicizing the issue. I think the most important thing to do here is, rather than trying to play politics with it, and to try to see some sort of advantage or try to cast doubts on either the President or members of the other party, let's just ask a simple question: What's the best way to win the war on terror? The goal is to win the war on terror, and what are the consequences of losing. ........

Quote:

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news...,1762486.story
Independent Lieberman kicks off revamped campaign in Waterbury
Associated Press
Published August 10 2006

......... "I'm worried that too many people, both in politics and out, don't appreciate the seriousness of the threat to American security and the evil of the enemy that faces us - more evil or as evil as Nazism and probably more dangerous that the Soviet Communists we fought during the long Cold War," Lieberman said.

"If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England. It will strengthen them and they will strike again."..........

When the following is considered, do the comments of Cheney and Lieberman, presumably, IMO, intended to scare (terrorize) the electorate into voting "their way".....make any fucking sense?

Quote:

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/americaa..._war_on_terror
Not Good For War on Terror

........At the core of the administrations’ war on terror are two strategies, neither of which appear to be particularly relevant in this particular case. One is the notion that we can best win the war on the offense — that should “fight them over there so we don’t need to fight them over here.” That’s what the Iraq War, and Bush’s support for Israel’s fight against Hizbollah, are all about.

But as far as we know, the plotters in the UK were homegrown — all were British citizens. Taking the offense in this war — by which the administration means using military force — is worse then useless. For who are you going to bomb? Safe houses in High Wycombe or Birmingham?.......

Quote:

http://www.amhersttimes.com/index.ph...2403&Itemid=27
THE LIQUID BOMB THREAT
Written by NYTimes Editorial
Saturday, 12 August 2006

The most frightening thing about the foiled plot to use liquid explosives to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic is that both the government and the aviation industry have been aware of the liquid bomb threat for years but have done little to prepare for it. What saved everyone was apparently superb intelligence work by the British, who apprehended the terrorists before they could carry out their scheme. It is unlikely that any of the scanning machines or screening personnel deployed at airports would have detected the potentially destructive materials before they could be carried aboard.

The plot apparently called for the terrorists to carry explosive ingredients disguised as beverages, and detonators made from common electronic devices like cellphones or music players. One theory is that they planned to use chemicals that are innocuous when carried separately but could be combined into an explosive mixture on board.

Unfortunately, the aviation security system is virtually defenseless against such an attack. The X-ray machines and metal detectors at airports can’t identify liquid explosives. Officials have been fretting over this weakness off and on but have done little to develop and deploy technologies to block the threat. The government has been slow to buy so-called puffer machines that blow air on passengers to look for traces of explosive materials, and it has severely cut its budget for research on new detection methods. A few promising technologies are in the wings, but none seem ready to be rolled out quickly.

<b>It is distressing that, after all the billions of dollars spent on bolstering aviation security, such gaping holes remain. Yet no matter what technologies are deployed, there is always a good chance that future terrorists will find a way to evade detection.

That makes us wonder if aviation authorities may have inadvertently hit on the wisest approach in their stopgap response to this latest plot.</b> The Transportation Security Administration banned virtually all liquids and gels from carry-on luggage. That includes beverages, shampoos, toothpaste and other common items — everything but baby formula and medicines, and those have to be inspected.

Some passengers have complained about the inconvenience, and many more might complain if they were not allowed to keep their iPods, cellphones or laptops with them. <b>But forcing passengers to check most of their items and bring very little aboard with them might be the surest and cheapest route to greater security.</b>

<b>The "War on Terror", was launched in response to the 9/11 attacks which involved the hijacking of domestic airliners by "suicide terrorists", who then flew them into prominent national landmarks and the HQ of the U.S. DOD.

The U.S. response included the invasions and occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq, two "missions" which have now directly cost over $400 billion, the lives of over 2500 of our sons and daughters serving in the military,
more than 20,000 of the same, wounded, and immeasurable damage to pre-9/11 alliances with other nations, as well as to the worldwide reputation of the U.S., which was at it's zenith on 9/12/2001. I have not even described the casualty counts of innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor the damage to the infrastructure in those countries. Our military is also trapped, with a strong presence in both countries, and no progress in securing those countries "from terrorists", can be credibly claimed, today. Our treasury continues to bleed money and our soldiers' blood in these two places.......

Yet.....the highest "terror alert", issued in the U.S., since 9/11, came this week, at our airports....because the effort, research, funding, and policy focus was never committed to fully minimizing the "gap" in national security that allowed the 9/11 attacks to proceed; the screening of passengers who attempt to board airliners. The risk of explosive liquids being smuggled onto airliners was known by the government for at least ten years, and there was no major funding to develop technology to screen for these substances at airports, and no policy to ban possession of liquids as "carry on" articles.

IMO, the comments above, by Cheney and Lieberman, when it is considered that their goal is to "scare out the vote", taken in the context of what actually should have happened to "fight terrorism" after 9/11....and what our government actually has done, instead.....are "terrorist like" comments, from both of them!</b>
<h3>Background:</h3>

This link has a thorough timeline, with links, concerning the timeframe of the "terror like" propaganda campaign that was disseminated by U.S. government and republican party officials after Joe Lieberman lost the Aug 8 senate primary: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa...r_b_27085.html

Quote:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14303119/
Updated: 11:40 a.m. ET Aug. 11, 2006
'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for August 10

.........BUSH: It is a mistake to believe there is no threat to the United States of America.</h3>

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Now, where would anybody have gotten such an idea? And as the time line of the revelation of the purported liquid explosives airline plot becomes clearer, the political facts are underscored. You can say, without fear of contradiction that there is a political component to all this. <b>The president had the details from London no later than Sunday, so when Republican Committee Chair Ken Mehlman and Vice President Dick Cheney eviscerated Connecticut Democrats for choosing Ned Lamont over Senator Joe Lieberman and brought al Qaeda into the equation they, at minimum, knew a terror act would be breaking shortly.</b> Did the press secretary know it when he threw the president‘s own father under the wheels of the bus of history, last night?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

<h3>TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN: The real question for the American people to ask themselves is: Do you take the war on terror seriously? With all the developments going on around the world, and if so, how do you fight it to win? There seem to be two approaches, and in the Connecticut race one of the approaches is ignore the difficulties and walk away.</h3> Now, when the United States walked away, in the opinion of the—of Osama bin Laden in 1991, bin Laden drew from that the conclusion that Americans were weak and wouldn‘t stay the course and that led to September 11.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Not surprisingly, today Mr. Snow was asked off camera, “Did you all know that this was going to break today, yesterday, when there was this massive response to the Connecticut primary, discussion of terrorism, al Qaeda?” A yes or no question. Mr. Snow‘s answer was neither, “I don‘t want to get into operational details. This was not—however, it was not explicit—let me put it this way, I don‘t want to encourage that line of thought. I don‘t think it‘s fully accurate, but I also don‘t want—I know it‘s frustrating, but we really don‘t want to get too much into who knew what, where, when.”

<h3>About a minute later, responding to a nonpolitical question, Mr. Snow let slip that Mr. Bush approved the red-alert status yesterday.</h3> ("host"adds....that would be on Aug. 9...)

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060811-1.html
August 11, 2006

Press Gaggle by Tony Snow
Crawford Middle School
Crawford, Texas

......Q Tony, could you give us a little more of a tick-tock about the White House's role in monitoring the investigation in Britain? I mean, I know you talked some about the President yesterday, but what about the NSC and some other --

MR. SNOW: I really don't -- I don't think it's appropriate to tick-tock all the things. I think it's safe to say -- and I'll go back to reiterate what I said yesterday, Mike, which is that in terms of detail, you've got to keep in mind, every day the President, as part of the PDB, gets many threat assessments and constantly receives threat assessments. And it's important for security and operational reasons not to go into who knows what, when, where, and why.

But we do feel comfortable in saying that there have been detailed briefings of the President about an impending operation in Great Britain, and those began Friday, continued through the weekend and continued on through the day before yesterday, when, in sort of mid- to late afternoon, the President was advised that the operation was going to move forward.....

....Q How much detail did the Vice President have about the timing of what was going to happen in Britain on Wednesday, when he did that conference call with reporters?

MR. SNOW: He did not know.

Q He didn't know anything? Or he didn't --

MR. SNOW: He did not know that there was an operation that was to take place. There was no anticipation of an operation that day.

It's important to recognize that the comments that were made after the Connecticut primary were in response to the Connecticut primary, and they were not in anticipation of a British action. I can say that with absolute assurance not only with regard to me, but also the Vice President. That's why I mentioned the notifications took place after he had done his phone conference.

Q -- did say that he had been part of the briefings over the weekend.

MR. SNOW: Yes, but the briefings gave nothing about timing. They were general discussions of threat. There were -- well, I don't want to go into it, but let me just say that he had no reason to believe, I don't think -- and this is based on my conversations -- there was no strong reason, at any rate, to believe that something was imminent. And, therefore, that was -- again, for me, it wasn't part of my comments, and I strongly suspect it is the same. The email traffic I've seen with Leanne McBride backs that up, but you may want to call her just to get an accurate readout, because I don't want to put words in her or his mouth.....

Joining us now to help us measure the political element here that we mentioned, Jonathan Alter, NBC political analyst, also of “Newsweek,” also the author of “The Defining Moment: FDR‘s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope.”

Jonathan, good evening.

JONATHAN ALTER, NBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Good evening, Keith.

OLBERMANN: <b>Let us start with the strange statement from the president of making the mistake of thinking there‘s no threat against us. Who is he saying made that mistake? And at what point did they make it?</b>

ALTER: Well, it‘s innuendo, you know, he‘s trying to implying that people who disagree with this policy on Iraq are somehow soft on terrorism. That‘s their game. That‘s the only card, politically, that they have to play. They play it extremely well. It did extremely well for them in both the 2002 and 2004 elections and they‘re going to play it again hard this year.....

......OLBERMANN: But, Roger Cressey put this neatly earlier and he‘s far less prone to calling a foul on this than am I. This administration has set the bar so low when it comes to trumpeting its terror arrests, he said, so we have a bit of a credibility gap here. This is the greatest threat since 9/11, the discovery of the recon photos of the financial buildings in New York and D.C. that was the greatest threat since 9/11, the rock-hard evidence of flights from Europe that were to be crashed into Vegas at Christmas time 2003, that was the greatest threat since 9/11. Is there a point at which most people start doubting the idea that no government would ever dream of scaring its own people unnecessarily?

ALTER: Well, you know, you mentioned my FDR book. I mean, I sometimes think the motto that these folks have is the only thing we have to “use” is fear itself. It works well for them. And yes, they do exploit it. You didn‘t even mention all the cases—you had John Ashcroft in Moscow at one point, I believe in 2002, you know, trumping something up from thousands of miles away.

OLBERMANN: The arrest of Padilla, yes.

ALTER: Yeah, so you‘ve got a whole series of events, but you know, in the same way that even paranoids have real enemies, even people who are exploiting things politically are still confronting a serious terrorism threat, and if Democrats don‘t want to be thrown into the briar patch on this issue again, they will be very careful to make sure that they don‘t, in the interest of scoring political points, forget that there are people out there who want to kill us and we‘ve got to keep that in mind.

OLBERMANN: So, let‘s also point one last finger here towards the media, ourselves, buying into the whole thing whole-hog, terror in the skies on the graphics on TV, but the Web sites and the newspapers have not been far behind. What about the role of the media in authenticating that for which we have only the word of two governments and no other evidence of our own?

ALTER: Well, I think at a certain level, the media always has to give the government, in this kind of case, the benefit of the doubt at first, then go back and ask a lot of hard questions, which you‘ve started quite appropriately to do here tonight, but to assume from the get go that the government is lying about security matters I think would be an excessively cynical posture, so that the key thing for the media is to perform that accountability function, so for instance, I don‘t know how many people, you know, know this, but air cargo—in other words, the cargo that‘s beneath everybody when they‘re on a plane is not checked in the united—less than 10 percent of it is checked, so we have these other huge security gaps, and it‘s the media‘s jobs to ask all the tough questions on all these issues.

OLBERMANN: Skeptical, not cynical.

ALTER: Exactly.

OLBERMANN: We‘ll try. Jonathan Alter of “Newsweek” and NBC NEWS, great thanks for your time, sir.

ALTER: Thanks, Keith.

Quote:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...ack=crosspromo
AIR THREAT INVESTIGATION
Democrats Go on Offense in Latest Terror Case
Looking to the past for lessons, they respond fast and sharply, saying Bush 'mismanagement' fed the threat and the GOP is playing politics.
By Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writer
August 12, 2006

........The new strategy, spearheaded largely by the Senate Democratic leadership, is a direct response to <b>surveys showing that Republicans hold only a marginal lead over Democrats when voters are asked whom they trust to keep the country safer.</b>

But Republicans believe episodes like the alleged British terrorism plot play to their favor.

"If the Republican Party thinks that this is going to be a good political issue for them, they're mistaken," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of the committee that sets Democratic strategy for Senate campaigns. "We are going to answer them immediately."

Schumer's committee issued a blistering memo Friday that, among other things, said Vice President Dick Cheney knew of the alleged terrorism plot when he conducted a rare conference call with reporters Wednesday in which he suggested that "Al Qaeda types" would be emboldened by this week's Connecticut Democratic primary victory by political newcomer Ned Lamont, an opponent of the Iraq war seeking a Senate seat.

The White House said Friday that Cheney was aware of a plot when he made his call but did not know the timing of the impending British arrests.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called it "disgraceful" that Cheney used such rhetoric while knowing what was about to transpire in Britain.

"There are simply no boundaries for these people," Reid said in an e-mail to supporters and activists.

"In their minds, our national security and their continued hold on power are one and the same. And they will stop at nothing to keep it that way."

Reid's note went on to say he'd had it with the Republicans' "cruel joke" on the politics of terrorism.

"During the 2002 and 2004 elections, Republicans tried to sow fear in the American public by claiming that they were the only ones who could keep America safe," Reid wrote. "This from the same crowd that has driven Iraq to the brink of disaster, left Osama bin Laden on the loose to attack again, and continues to ignore our security needs at home. Ask any foreign policy pro, and they'll tell you we're less safe now than we were five years ago — and that the Bush crowd is largely responsible."

And Schumer criticized a Republican National Committee fundraising appeal from former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani that, coming the same day that the alleged plot dominated the news, declared: "In the middle of a war on terror, we need to remain focused on furthering Republican ideas more than ever before."

The GOP committee called the e-mail a mistake and halted it before it was sent to all recipients.

Democratic strategists said Friday that their party's reaction to the British case reflected a doctrine that had been taking hold over the last few months, starting with some Senate and House races in battleground states.

One example came in Ohio. When Republican Sen. Mike DeWine, following the GOP script, accused his challenger, U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), of being soft on crime, Brown struck back almost immediately with piercing rhetoric. A television ad by the state Democratic Party accused DeWine of "failing us" as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee when it came to claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

"That's not protecting Ohio," an announcer said.

In some ways, the aggressive response this week reflected Democrats' concern that Lamont's win in Connecticut over Sen. Joe Lieberman, an Iraq war supporter, was giving the White House an easy way to paint Democrats as weak on national defense. That comes as Democrats have been unable to craft a unified message on Iraq, with some calling for a fast drawdown of troops and others taking a more cautious approach.
...........

The preceding article has it wrong.....polls have shown for several months that American opinion has shifted to trusting demcrats more to manage national security, than they trust republicans.
http://www.pollingreport.com/terror.htm#USA

The question of what U.S. officials who linked a vote against Lieberman, with a mindset of being "soft on the War on Terror", knew when they were making those statements, with regard to the impending "code red" terror alert release approved by president Bush, before they made those statements, is an interesting indicator of how far these officials are willing to push their own "terror campaign", which was cemented into the minds of many Americans, when the "official terrorists" used the advantage of the inside information that Bush's "red alert" would be announced while the target audience was still reading the <i>vote against Lieberman, with a mindset of being "soft on the War on Terror"</i>,......is being asked by the white house press. That never would have even happened, in the recent past.

In order to believe that Cheney's Aug. 9, comments to the press, were not part of an integral, politcal terror campaign, you have to support as fact, the scenario that Cheney did not know that Bush had authorized release of the first color code red, terror alert, in the post 9/11 period. IMO, that would be a "fringe" opinion.

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Sep7.html
Cheney: Kerry Victory Is Risky
Democrats Decry Talk as Scare Tactic

By Dana Milbank and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 8, 2004; Page A01

COLUMBIA, Mo., Sept. 7 -- Vice President Cheney warned on Tuesday that if John F. Kerry is elected, "the danger is that we'll get hit again" by terrorists, as the Bush campaign escalated a furious assault on the Democratic presidential nominee that has kept Kerry from gaining control of the election debate.

In Des Moines, Cheney went beyond previous restraints to suggest that the country would be more vulnerable to attack under Kerry. "It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again," the vice president said, "that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind-set, if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts and that we are not really at war."......

<b>IMO, the now two year old, terrorize the voters campaign, is a Psy-Op waged against the Amercian people, to compensate for the deficiencies in the way that they officials who are waging the Psy-Op, have waged their "War on Terror". The lack of results these officials are able to show for their "war" efforts.....the Dubai port security fiasco, the still, fatally flawed airport screening policies, and the decent into civil war in Iraq, after the botched occupation/resconstruction, the deterioration of security in Afghanistan, aggravated by no plan to prevent the ressurgence of opium farming there, and the response to Katrina with the exposure of how FEMA was destroyed by cronyism, and the secrecy and avoidance of congressional inquiry by politcal allies, have taken a toll on the ruling party members, in the polls. This make it necessary to make the "terrorism scare message" ever more shrill......hence the first "red alert" ever issued.</b>.....and it's gonna get worse folks, until at least the mid-term election in november.

This Psy-Op would be terrorism, even if those waging it had a successful track record in their "WoT". We wouldn't experience it if that were the case, though....because then they caould win election campaigns on their accomplishments, not by fucking with the voters' emotions.....

Refusal to examine and discuss what happened here, and to "shout down" those who attempt to discuss it, is also "fringe" behavior.