Politics: J'accuse!

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Slave is also working on posts condemning Poland, Switzerland, Belgium and Malta, but cut him some slack -- he's busy today.

decent joke ruined by limitations of the display software. Ty. can I claim a win if no one sees the post but me?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Not Me
She needs to be under oath testifying before the fucking 9/11 commission, not on the commission.

Get her the fuck off the commission and before the commission under oath. Let her explain why she did what she did!

She was so fucking concerned about the appearance of impropriety when she set up the wall. Funny, she isn't concerned about the appearance of impropriety now that she is on the 9/11 commission.

Vomit.

The Republican head of the commission appears to disagree with you.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
In any event, Reid doesn't strike me as a particularly good example of the "profiling arabs wouldn't have caught this one" argument, because I, frankly, thought he was a Briton of Pakistani descent on seeing his mug shot.

Your point makes sense only if you read "profiling Arabs" to mean "profiling people who look like people who are sort of like Arabs."

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
He was the chief counterterrorism official. If you read his book or Sacred Terror, you see that he was agitating for change -- money and attitudes -- throughout the late 90s, with great success. Sacred Terror points out that spending on counterterrorism soared during that time, in an era of flat budgets.

"I'm talking herion with the President. He says the problem's solved cuz the money's spent"

He thought people would fly airplanes into things. Why didn't they change air security? We know clinton spent money- he shot 10 cruise missiles- thats some serious green- but what "great sucess" did he have with getting air security improved?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
Naw, he was saying Reid wasn't cleaned up, and if he had a brain in his head he would have been. He did look like a freakin' psycho, though I've known lots of college students who look as bad on a regular basis.

I believe the pics of Reid that we all saw were after he'd been roughed up by some passengers and tied to his chair for a 10-hour flight. Not to say he was pretty before, but it's possible that his hair was combed and he didn't have that Manson-look when he got on the plane.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone_Slothrop
Slave is also working on posts condemning Poland, Switzerland, Belgium and Malta, but cut him some slack -- he's busy today.

This just in:

"...Luxembourg and Liechtenstein have joined SEATO..."

[SlaveNoMore]

Did you just call me Coltrane?
I don't get it.

So what the fuck else is new.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
So what the fuck else is new.

Oooh what's next? The French are surrender monkeys?!! Yeah!

Would you like some Freedom Fries with that?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
"I'm talking herion with the President. He says the problem's solved cuz the money's spent"

He thought people would fly airplanes into things. Why didn't they change air security? We know clinton spent money- he shot 10 cruise missiles- thats some serious green- but what "great sucess" did he have with getting air security improved?

They got the car going from 0 to 60 in pretty good time, and you want to know why they weren't going 90? He thought money should be spent on all sorts of things, but a Republican Congress often disagreed.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
It seems to me that measures taken to protect against straight hijacking would be the same as those taken to protect against the "missile" situation (with the possible exception being the adoption of military rules of engagement relating to a hijacked passenger aircraft that we knew was being used as a missile). So the comments that we "just couldn't have predicted this" ring a little hollow for me.

That's not really true. The accepted wisdom was that the passengers and crew should cooperate (so no one got hurt), and let authorities on the ground decide whether to comply with the hijackers' demands or stage an assault when the plane was grounded. There was some discussion after 9/11 that this is why four guys armed only with knives were able to take over planes with dozens of crew and passengers.

And, of course, no one would ever have proposed shooting down a hijacked commercial airliner in the "non-missile" scenario.


ETA STP

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
They got the car going from 0 to 60 in pretty good time, and you want to know why they weren't going 90? He thought money should be spent on all sorts of things, but a Republican Congress often disagreed.

Fuck! Maybe Clinotn should have made HIM co-president!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
That's not really true. The accepted wisdom was that the passengers and crew should cooperate (so no one got hurt), and let authorities on the ground decide whether to comply with the hijackers' demands or stage an assault when the plane was grounded. There was some discussion after 9/11 that this is why four guys armed only with knives were able to take over planes with dozens of crew and passengers.

I feel relatively safe flying now only because everyone thinks differently. I don't trust the morons employed by TSA to keep a hijacker from getting onto a plane, but I do trust my fellow passengers to do everything possibly to beat the crap of anyone who tries anything.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
... the French government fiddles and tries to decide whether to accept OBL's offer or to merely withdraw from the EU entirely and become part of Africa or Asia


From AP

"A man identifying himself as Osama bin Laden offered a "truce" to European countries that do not attack Muslims, saying it would begin when their soldiers leave Islamic nations, according to a recording broadcast Thursday on Arab satellite networks. Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain [emphasis added] quickly spurned what appeared to be an attempt to drive a wedge between Europe and America. The tape, which ran in full at more than seven minutes, also vowed revenge against America for the Israeli assassination of Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin and denounced the United States as using the Iraq war for corporate profiteering."

According to CNN, France was right there with the countries you mentioned. "French President Jacques Chirac, during a visit to Algeria, said: 'There can be no possible bargaining with terrorists.'"

Follow Bush's example: Don't admit a mistake -- use this as the springboard to mock the French again.

eta: Take a tip from Donald Rumsfeld.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
Oooh what's next? The French are surrender monkeys?!! Yeah!

Dude, it's "cheese eating surrender monkeys." Sheesh.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone_Slothrop
According to CNN, France was right there with the countries you mentioned. "French President Jacques Chirac, during a visit to Algeria, said: 'There can be no possible bargaining with terrorists.'"

You deliberately left off the next line:

"Reuters also quoted Chirac as reiterating that there would be no French military involvement in Iraq"

Or in other words, "please please please please please don't hurt us, we hate the US too"