Terror Alerts Just to Scare Us?

[parky76]

I hate to say it, but I do believe that there is a chance that the Bush administration picks and chooses when to release "terror alerts" at politically oportune times. It always seems like when things get hot in Iraq, or when the Democrats threaten to stop some Bush legislation..we hear about some new plot here or there.

Case in point. Two weeks ago we heard about possibly dry runs by terrorists who were supposedly trying to slip various liquids and other substances through airport security. It was a biiiggg story...but it turns out that all the suspicous packages used as examples of these possible dry runs, all turned out to have benign purposes.

Did Homeland Security know this? And if so..why scare the American people if they KNEW that the threat was bogus?

I don't think Bush did 9-11...but I do honestly believe that he feels the best way he can get support for his policies and agenda..is through fear.

Without fear of terror..without fear of the Al Qaeda boogy man...what does Bush have? Nothing.

[Reality Believer]

....
I don't think Bush did 9-11...but I do honestly believe that he feels the best way he can get support for his policies and agenda..is through fear.


Agreed on that. Look at the description of the scale of the alert system. Even the lowest level (green) still has the words TERRORIST ATTACK. The alert system must be just the very top of the actual scale of 1 to 10 of security and general well being. Red = 10, Orange = 9.9, Yellow = 9.8, Blue - 9.7, Green = 9.6.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f3/Hsas-chart.jpg

[defaultdotxbe]

ive always figured the art of taking advantage of peoples fears is about 30 seconds younger than fear itself, it happens all the time, everywhere, its certainly not something bush, neocons, or even the republican invented

think about that when they are hauling you off to the fema death camps

(ok, so there are no death camps, but at least think about it when your calculating your annual carbon dioxide output ;))

[latent aaaack]

Remember 'the summer of the shark' in the summer of 2001? Fear has become a resource to be mined like any other by anyone who can benefit from it. This is something America is very naive at and unprepared for and what's making it so 'good to be the king' today and why the president always looks so happy and healthy.

[Viper Daimao]

This is all kinda second guessing isn't it? I mean we rightly harp on administrations past and present for not connecting the dots and doing more to stop terror attacks, and now here you are harping on them for attempting to do just that.

If you have a problem, what should have been done instead? Think about if they had done this pre-9/11. How fanciful would the plot have seemed?

[Kage]

Has there been a terror alert that had any real substance to it? The only one I can think of is the liquid explosives plot, and we didn't hear about it until after they guys were captured (and captured at the behest of the Bush admin). Keith Olberman does a decent piece on how terror alerts com out at opportune times.

Believing this makes the CTers claims less likely by the way, because a Bush Administration capable of masterminding 9/11 and not being caught would not have to resort to color coded terror alerts for political gain. Just doesn't make sense.

[gumboot]

Case in point. Two weeks ago we heard about possibly dry runs by terrorists who were supposedly trying to slip various liquids and other substances through airport security. It was a biiiggg story...but it turns out that all the suspicous packages used as examples of these possible dry runs, all turned out to have benign purposes.

Did Homeland Security know this? And if so..why scare the American people if they KNEW that the threat was bogus?



You should probably pay more attention to where your information is coming from. The suspicious liquids "scare" was not a Homeland Security security announcement, it was an internal memo to Airport staff to be on the look out for suspect packages. It was never intended for the public, and it was at most a very general and low key notice. Someone leaked it to the media, and the media beat it up.

As always happens.

I constantly hear Americans (and non-Americans) talking about what their government did, when it's the MEDIA doing it. The Media are the ones beating up the terrorist threat, and they're doing it because it SELLS. The government tend to be very cautious and low key about their alerts, unless the threat is very credible like the Airliner Bombing Plot that was broken up a while back. Why do garbage magazines make up pointless stuff about what Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan did on the weekend? Because us moronic people buy that garbage by the millions. Same with the "terrorist scares" and "global warming scares" and "Iraq in chaos" scares and "crazy murderer" scares and "I had my identity stolen scares" and every other piece of muck-raking semi-factual pointless pile of steaming bat leavings which fills the newspapers and tv programs and magazines that claim to be offering "news".

If Americans want this sort of thing changed you need to put pressure on your media to stop sensationalising every single event, and you need to collectively stop swallowing their BS hook line and sinker.

When it comes down to it, there's more similarities between PrisonPlanet and the New York Times than there is differences.

-Gumboot

[leftysergeant]

Right, then, like it was "the liberal media" who revealed what Valerie Plame and Brewster Jennings were really doing.

Bush needs us to be more afraid of an outside threat while he diddles our ecconomy to the advantage of the investor class and the war profiteers, all to little, if any, tactical or strategic advantage in a fight against a small-cell force like al Qaeda.

[gumboot]

Right, then, like it was "the liberal media" who revealed what Valerie Plame and Brewster Jennings were really doing.

Bush needs us to be more afraid of an outside threat while he diddles our ecconomy to the advantage of the investor class and the war profiteers, all to little, if any, tactical or strategic advantage in a fight against a small-cell force like al Qaeda.



Liberal media, conservative media, terrorist media, freedom media, rabid facist media, violent communist media, moonbat crazy media, gutter media, Paris Hilton's breasts media... they're all as bad as each other.

-Gumboot

[lkhllywd]

This is all kinda second guessing isn't it? I mean we rightly harp on administrations past and present for not connecting the dots and doing more to stop terror attacks, and now here you are harping on them for attempting to do just that.

If you have a problem, what should have been done instead? Think about if they had done this pre-9/11. How fanciful would the plot have seemed?


Exactly.

When it comes down to it, I would much rather be over-warned than under-warned.

[DGM]

Exactly.

When it comes down to it, I would much rather be over-warned than under-warned.
You have to remember that if there's too many warnings people will start to ignore them. "Boy that cried wolf". This was a problem with tsunami warnings at one time, every earthquake would set one off, they quickly became ignored. Warnings to the public run a very fine line. Unless the threat is specific the warning is useless and often harmful.

[Big Les]

I tend to think that the official alerts and over-eggings of the threat pudding by government are not done to "keep us afraid" so much as to be seen to be doing something - the "phew, that was a close one! Good thing you voted us in to protect you!" factor. The fear part is primarily the media jumping on the back of these and milking them for every last bit of news and sensationalism they possibly can; the "OMFG!!!11 terrsts EVERWHERE!!!1 Buy our paper to find out how to save yourself" aspect.

The combined effect of the two is what leads us to suspect that we are being manipulated. That's because we are being; just not in the organised and nefarious way the tin-foil hatters want you to believe.

[Peephole]

This is all kinda second guessing isn't it? I mean we rightly harp on administrations past and present for not connecting the dots and doing more to stop terror attacks, and now here you are harping on them for attempting to do just that.

If you have a problem, what should have been done instead? Think about if they had done this pre-9/11. How fanciful would the plot have seemed?
Well I guess there's two possibilites:

Either Bush is actively using terror to manipulate his electorate or homeland security is grossly incompetent and can't distinguish between real and obviously fake terrorist threats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Brahm).

[DGM]

Well I guess there's two possibilites:

Either Bush is actively using terror to manipulate his electorate or homeland security is grossly incompetent and can't distinguish between real and obviously fake terrorist threats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Brahm).
Although doubting the credibility of the threat, the DHS warned the National Football League (NFL) of this threat via a memo which was later leaked to the press.

Damn press again.

[Par]

Well I guess there's two possibilites:

Either Bush is actively using terror to manipulate his electorate or homeland security is grossly incompetent and can't distinguish between real and obviously fake terrorist threats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Brahm).



Unless I’ve missed something, some guy makes a rather matter-of-factly worded fake bomb threat on a message board, the text itself gets passed around and eventually reported and then the authorities arrest and ultimately release the guy in question. I’m not sure what’s wrong with that, to be honest.