Why are hearing so much detail on the latest terror attempt?

There was once a time, prior to Bush, when government activities didn’t have to be a secret.

I think we should fling vinyl records at those awful terrorists. That’ll show ‘em.

Because it’s there. Often it takes a long time to gather the information, in this case there is a lot of it available right now. And I expect that there is a definite difference in the philosophy of the administration with regard to the release of information.

This is a case of Obama throwing his people under the bus.

@frdelrosario lol! I didn’t see that one coming. Now to find some terrorist.

@CyanoticWasp How do you figure?

@Snarp, he’s been in office for over a year now, and failures of intel, planning and strategy are his failures. But he’s not saying that, is he? What he’s saying is that “other people should not have made mistakes” and “ignored information”. (Not to mention that the feds are drowning in the information they collect, and they can’t filter it fast enough.)

Those “other people” are his people. Will he resign over this failure of his? Of course not! Will he expect Janet Napolitano to resign? Unlikely (but possible). What it will come down to is some TSA clerk and supervisor who will be publicly excoriated and probably fired, and then all will be well again in Obamaland.

@CyanoticWasp So the president is now responsible for the behavior of every single individual in the entire government, directly? Seems to me that this is how these things work, in business as in government, when something screws up you figure out what went wrong. If some individual was clearly directly responsible, then that individual pays the price. Very rarely is that individual the chief executive. While this is sometimes an injustice, it is also often appropriate. If some TSA clerk and supervisor screwed up, they pay the price, the President does not resign because some bureaucrat screwed up. If they did the Bush administration would have lasted about eight months, tops.

@CyanoticWasp Are we to understand that you think president Obama should become the second president in history to resign his post, because an individual outsmarted the security norms established by the previous president? Cogent and thoughtful as usual.

It was a slow news week.

A man who burns his trousers with a 321 banger is hardly a terror attack.
But its keeps 911 fresh in everyones mind. Fear is a great motivator for terror legislation

I do find it interesting how there is no international definition for ‘terror’. Leaving it wide open to interpretation.

@Pazza I’ve never heard the term 321 banger? I’m assuming I can guess what it means but do mind telling me. Also, where did you hear it or did you make it up? Thanks!

Actually, let me start over – Obama hasn’t actually blamed anyone, and the fact that actual facts related to the event are made public has nothing to do with who is or is not blamed. The real question should not be whether you think Obama will throw people under the bus, or whether blaming low level bureaucrats is right or wrong, but rather how providing the American people with the facts surrounding an attempted terrorist attack equates with throwing people under the bus.

People like to read exciting things. Why else do rags like the National Enquirer exist? The only part that I find really disturbing is the way that Dutch passenger was hounded for his story. I would have done the same as he, but told the news media to “fuck off”.

@Snarp, yes, as a matter of fact the president is responsible for the behavior of the people and agencies in the Executive Branch. That’s part of the job. So for him to have said (if he would or could) that ”we” made mistakes or omissions and ”we” need to correct those mistakes, then he’d be doing his job.

As for “wealth of detail”, the only details we’re likely to hear are those that originate elsewhere, such as Yemen, Nigeria, Amsterdam and other places. You won’t hear much about the thought processes and strategies in the TSA and in Washington.

@pdworkin, you really need to work on your reading comprehension, or give up the pretense altogether.

I never suggested that Obama should resign over something so petty as this. But he needs to be responsible for his administration. Or is everything that happens still Bush’s fault? Or Reagan’s?

My thoughts exactly, @ChazMaz.

@CyanoticWasp Responsible employees punish people who screw up, unless it was your direct instruction or policy that was in error, that is being responsible for your administration.

@limeaide
Sorry that was me trying to be light-hearted, ‘3–2-1-bang’.
I’d heard from English msm that he had stitched fireworks into his underpants. If that was the case, the best thing I think he could have accomplished was to start a localised fire and burnt is credentials.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7c5_1262175943

1 question I would ask after watching the above link is, why would the Indian man film the attempt if it was to bring down the aircraft?

@limeaide
Ps. We used to get fireworks from the local shop when we were kids called ‘3–2-1 bangers’ as you used to get three seconds after lighting before they went pop.

@Pazza I haven’t looked into this story in great detail, because sensationalism and the horror of 300 deaths had the attack succeeded tend to trump the fact that a successful terrorist attack on a plane is statistically less likely than the plane crashing through mechanical failure or pilot error, which is not likely at all. So I really don’t think it’s that important a story, but, I had heard that he had some pretty significant explosives, not just store bought firecrackers, and that he could well have brought down the plane had he succeeded.

@Snarp
Fair point, but I think my question still stands about the Indian man.

Personaly I think the msm is instructed to sensationalise every terror attack to keep the fear factor alive and give justification for increasing levels of government and legislation.

Also I would have thought a sniffer dog at every plane boarding gate would suffice.

@Snarp, responsible executives take responsibility instead of deflecting it.

I really should let this go, but one parting shot is in order @CyanoticWasp, would you say that Bush took responsibility for the many failures that occurred during his administration, including but not limited to September 11th, the response to hurricane Katrina, the failure to capture Bin Laden, the intelligence “failures” that led to the Iraq war, and the prosecution of Scooter Libby, which even Cheney said was throwing him under the bus?

@Snarp, no, he surely didn’t. (On the other hand, for some weird reason he thought his head of FEMA was doing a great job after Katrina. He was even more clueless than Obama in that regard. And several others.)

@CyanoticWasp Unless I heard wrong Obama pretty much accepted blame in an off handed manner. He said that this isn’t right, something went wrong, and then launched a full scale investigation into the cause of it so it can be fixed.

Not to mention the system that failed was the one put in place by Bush.

The 16 year old was apparently let on the plane without a passport.
How is this possible?

@CyanoticWasp
In England we pretty much just have the Left-right paradigm of conservative and labour, whoever is in office always blames the other for failings. It was never their fault because the previous government put the legislation in.

Well all legislation has to go before the house of lords who then vote. In the case of America, I take that would be the house of representatives?

So who is really to blame, or are they all just puppets to the shadow cabinets?

People like hearing about the bad things, not the good.

If it bleeds, it leads…

@Pazza, here in the US we have more or less done away with passing laws. It’s so tedious and archaic, having to work a bill through both houses of Congress (Senate and House of So-Called Representatives) and then getting the President to sign it. So we do things now by Executive Agency. Congress passes “enabling legislation” to, say, “regulate pollution”, which we generally think is a good idea. Then the Executive establishes the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which makes and enforces its own regulations. (Including the upcoming regulation which will make it mandatory to track and control CO2 emissions—so no more heavy breathing will be allowed, one presumes.)

At one time we had an extraordinarily quaint legal document called, I think, the “Constitution”, if I recall my history correctly, upon which our laws were supposedly based. I don’t know how we’re justifying things now, other than by wagging our index fingers forcefully, lowering our brows and saying, “It’s for the children.”

But other than that, our fingers work mighty good at pointing at “the other guy” and saying, “It’s all his fault, and we’re going to hell unless you give me more money and power to save us.” Please save me from salvation, is all I ask.

My thoughts exactly, @Dr_Dredd.

I agree with @ChazMaz slow news week.

Also, anything to do with flying freaks people out more than say a bomb in front of an American Embassy in a foreign country or foiling a car bombing scheme in NYC, which both had almost no press when they happened relatively recently. I have heard lots about the bomb, the screening at the airport, even that his father tried to alert authorities, but very little about how this kid was pursuaded and became radicalized. I would be interested in that. Seems he was studying in the UK when he started to get more extreme in his thinking.

Maybe it’s nice to know that most of the suicide murders are idiots and the passengers got a chance to kick the shit out of him. I think that he should have been held at the exit gate so that the passengers that didn’t get a chance to beat on him have an opportunity to smack him around a little. I think it is good idea to show would be murders just what people think of them.

After all, there leaders keep telling the that they are brave and doing god’s work. They need a reality check. I notice, from the guy’s picture, he looks unmarked. I would have hoped that the passengers had a better chance to beat on him before the police got to him.

@Ron_C I never thought of having the opportunity to beat the shit out of the guy. If it makes you feel better he did suffer bad burns. Burns are much more painful typically than a few bruises from a hit. I think if passengers had beaten him up other terrorists would not give a damn, I don;t think it would accomplish what you seek, except that people who want to release some anger through physical violence might feel a little better.

Best way to keep people’s minds off their lack of employment, lack of health care,lack of a home since foreclosure, lack of medical care, lack of groceries and lack of gas is to bombard them with news of “real scary shit”.

Like starving to death or losing your home or getting sick while uninsured isn’t the real scary shit.

Sadly recent history has show them that the “hey, look, isn’t that a terrorist?” method of distraction works pretty damn well.

@JLeslie I’m not sure that pictures of captured terrorists beaten by ordinary citizens is a useless gesture. If the kids that are victims of brainwashing understand the contempt people feel towards them, maybe they would rethink their position. Their form of religion is really a suicide cult. Maybe they would ask themselves why so many of their compatriots have died but not any of their leaders. Saving even one from the grip of these madmen would be a step in the right direction. Maybe even a public stripping and flogging would be the proper punishment for attempted mass murder.

@Ron_C My point of view on this would be to compare the images and videos of Somali’s dragging dead GIs through their streets did that make me think “gosh, they don’t want us there, we should pull out”, no it made me think they were barbaric and I wanted to punish them. Now we did pull out but I think most Americans disagreed. I also think that your comment about the religion of islam being a suicide cult is severely inappropriate. And your example of having their compatriots die and not one of their leaders sounds good on the surface but if you think about it a little more you could also say that about the US military. Why doesn’t the president go to war? I’m not siding with terrorist, just with rational well thought out arguments.

I think @Ron_C has a point, but it’s not seeing that a beating or some other punishment has been delivered that will dissuade terrorists. Being beaten or tortured makes them seem almost as much of a martyr as dying. Better then to show them like this fellow, sad, confused, stopped without excessive violence by ordinary people. A failure, unable to kill or to be martyred, to be stuck in a prison with a bunch of infidels and left to rot there.

@Snarp I agree with that, at least to a point, I’m not sure there is anything better we can do.

@limeaide @Snarp You both bring up good points. I likes snarp’s comment about showing those losers for what they are.
On the other point Limaide made about me calling Islam a suicide cult. I believe you misread that. I said that “Their form of religion is really a suicide cult”. The implication is the terrorist justification version of Islam, not the whole religion. Christians have similar branches, remember McVeigh?

I probably went overboard about showing pictures of them being beat up. The appropriate punishment would be life without parole and no contact with isolation from other radicals.

I would agree these people are part of a suicide colt, not to be confused with Muslims in general.

Sometimes I think we should take our billioins of dollars spent on the war and build these people infastructure and nice places to live, and employ them, not bring over our own contractors to build things for them, help them become prosperous and educated and grateful to the western world rather than trying to blow them up while they blow us up.

Back to the terror attempt. I think there is an argument to be made that the terror attemt was successful. They did terrorize us, even if they did not kill anyone. We now know you can get through security with a bomb in your underwear and there is probably little chance it will be detected, and that intelligence info does slip through the cracks.

@JLeslie It always bothered me that instead of hiring local labor in Iraq and Afghanistan, they brought in foreign nationals from the Philippines and India, in fact any country that had a population willing to work cheap. We lost our fund of good will in those countries by acting like an occupying foreign army rather than a country willing to help another.

The original invasions were horrendous crimes, subsequent actions were also terrible.

Just think, how well off we would be if we spent half of that money for building and educational supplies and the other half for our own national health care.

I guess instead of taking off just our shoes, we will now have to go through security in just our underwear. Well, didn’t you mother always tell you to wear clean underwear?

@Ron_C I guess I misunderstood what you were getting at. I’ve heard the generalization before so I assumed that’s what you meant. Thanks for the clarification! Thanks for answering!

@limeaide I am happy to answer and clarify. Please be aware, I try my best, never to use generalizations. When I insult someone or group I like to be specific so that they understand what I’m saying. Some of the groups I insult (with good reason) aren’t smart enough to understand subtlety.