Let’s Stop Panicking Over Half-Assed Terrorists Already

[n2doc]

By Spencer Ackerman December 2, 2010 | 7:00 am | Categories: Terrorists, Guerillas, Pirates

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab couldn’t manage to blow up a plane over Detroit last Christmas, kicking off a year’s worth of high-profile terror-fails. But that hasn’t stopped the U.S. government from freaking out — putting naked scanners in airports and groping passengers. Overreactions like that compelled one of its senior-most counterterrorism officials yesterday to implore the public not to hand al-Qaeda victories from the jaws of defeat.

“We aim for perfection,” Michael Leiter, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told the Center for Strategic and International Studies yesterday, but “perfection will not be achieved.” That’s perilous for a senior counterterrorism official to say, since, like terrorism, it’s easily demagogued. Leiter repeatedly stated that there’s no excuse for terrorism; that any successful attack is a tragedy; and that he’d welcome due oversight and criticism of his efforts if a terrorist pulls something off, just in case his admission seemed self-serving.

But in order not to make terrorists seem “ten feet tall” — in other words, inadvertently support their narrative that they’re world-historical forces on par with the U.S. — it might be time to publicly de-emphasize terrorism in the public discourse. “Sometimes we ought to just talk about this a lot less,” Leiter said. “We shouldn’t always be vocal, in my view, and visible about all the things we are doing in our society about counterterrorism.”

That’s difficult in a world of whole-body imaging at the airport — and, moreover, debate about the liberty-security balance. But to “hammer the counterterrorism drum over and over,” Leiter said, risks “glorif al-Qaeda, who are simply a bunch of murderous thugs.”

more
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/12/in-case-of-terror-attack-first-dont-panic/

Not that anyone will listen. And for those who squeal "But if we don't do everything then Obama will get blamed for the next attack", tough $$$$, he is going to get the blame no matter what he does if we have a successful terrorist attack.

[Glassunion]

1. What ever happened the the Security Alert side bar on the news stations?

oooooh... It's orange today. Better bring a hat.

What you don't like the "Everybody Fu%&#ng Panic" brodcasts on Fox?

:sarcasm:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. How does one say, "Mission Accomplished" in Arabic?

Osama and his pals have reduced this country to cringing chicken-littles willing to surrender their freedoms, their wealth, and their sanity at the drop of word.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” H.L. Mencken

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. You publish an online magazine in English to say it

From the airport pat downs in this country to a search for two suicide bombers believed to be at large in Germany, this is a tense time for U.S. and European security officials, who privately admit they are scrambling to stop an expected terror attack of some kind, somewhere. After first playing down the threat, officials in Germany are now at full alert. In Berlin, police were told to look for two suspected suicide bombers trained by Al Qaeda in Pakistan, and all weekend, German television provided a range of precise details. At the same time over the weekend, al Qaeda gloated over the disruptions being caused by its failed plot to blow up two cargo planes. In an on-line magazine, al Qaeda in Yemen said for an expenditure of just $4,200 it had forced the U.S. to spend hundreds of millions on extra security, measures, including the intrusive pat downs.

A special edition of Inspire magazine -- an English-language propaganda publication produced by AQAP -- gave a detailed description of how the attempted attack was conceived and produced. Calling it Operation Hemorrhage, the al Qaeda bomb makers promised similar operations to come.

"Two Nokia mobiles, $150 each, two HP printers, $300 each, plus shipping, transportation and other miscellaneous expenses add up to a total bill of $4,200," one article said. "That is all that Operation Hemorrhage cost us. In terms of time, it took us three months to plan and execute the operation from beginning to end."

The magazine also revealed the attack was not meant to kill more than the plane's pilot and co-pilot, and was meant to force the U.S. government to spend huge sums to defend itself. Success, it said was measured by economic harm, by "the spread of fear that would cause the West to invest billions of dollars in new security procedures."

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-european-officials-scramble-stop-expected-terror-attack/story?id=12208480

via http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4624727

[Drale]

3. Lets face it the terrorists have won

all because we allowed Bush to do what ever the fuck he wanted, and because we keep electing republicans.

[gateley]

5. You got that right -- Boehner could unknowingly bring in a briefcase bomb

and it would be Obama's fault.

[FLyellowdog]

6. Love the title to your post..."half -assed".

It reminds of the old (and tired) joke my daddy used to tell EVERY Christmas...He'd asked my mother where the saw was. She'd always say "I don't know. Why?" And he'd respond with "Well, it's about time to cut the toilet in two for all these half-assed relatives that are coming."

Sorry. Nostalgia got the best of me.

I miss them both. :hi:

[aikoaiko]

7. a couple of guys with box cutters talking down the twin towers probably would have seemed half assed

I've not been two impressed with the caught terrorists either, but I think history has shown that it doesn't take much to do a great deal of damage.

[n2doc]

9. And the present security would not have stopped them either before boarding

Others have posted at DU about how folks have gotten through the new security with razor blades. But the reinforced doors we have on all planes now would stop both attacks. Your next snarky comment?

[NuclearDem]

8. Whatever happened to just labeling terrorists as common criminals?

One of the best ways you can fight terrorism is to completely deny them the light of day. Publicity is one of the main reasons these organizations do what they do. Give them their due attention in the media, but don't go glorifying them as people who can "destroy our way of life" or "destroy our freedoms and liberties". They can't. Only we can.

[stray cat]

10. I agree - we should not worry about extremists killing doctors who perform abortions

[Nuclear Unicorn]

11. Or taking hostage at the Discovery Channel headquarters