How will the public act after the next attack?
 

I can't stop thinking about Uryoces' statement in the other thread that "...the 9/11 terrorist attacks were a fluke due to disintegrating relations between the FBI and the CIA". That may be - I dunno - but if the real reason for the attack is that law enforcement can't do what it needs to do in order to prevent one, then another attack is inevitable. If it CAN be done, it probably WILL be done.

Law enforcement's attitude will be a reflection of the public's desires, and if the public believes it is safe, enforcement will relax accordingly. It has to; if politics between government organizations is more important than protection, inevitably that condition will be allowed to occur.

The question then is what the public reaction will be to the second attack. Historically the reaction has been to fight back with enormous resolve, but I don't understand people, and don't know what they'll do. The resolve after 9/11 fell away pretty damn fast and now anti-terror is lower on the list of public priorities. How long will the resolve last next time? What will it demand?

Re: How will the public act after the next attack?
 

It will demand the excision of all boobies and talk thereof from TV, radio, print media, and the Internet. This is a Christian nation, a nation of high moral character, and the American people are sick and tired. Sick of being forced to watch indecent and obscene programming that is forced down their throats by the perverted minions of the Blue State liberal media. Tired of being metaphorically strapped down and forced to listen to Bubba the Love Sponge, Howard Stern, and their ilk.

It will demand a return to good, honest, American values. Values of innocence and purity, values of reverence for God and for our country and its government. Americans--true Americans--will no longer tolerate the constant carping and criticism of this great nation by the nay-sayers and liberals who own the political discourse.

It will demand a return to the wholesome, tradtional, Christian values that made this country great, the values that, if we had not been forced to turn our backs on them by the Godless media, would have protected our nation and prevented such tragedies from occurring.

That's what it will demand.




Pay no attention to that Osama behind the curtain.

I just got a great idea for the book club! :cool:

Re: Re: How will the public act after the next attack?
 

you're kidding, i hope.


don;t confuse the total bullshit that you see on tv news with what america actually wants. If america DIDN'T want programs like Howard Stern and all of these reality shows, they would't get the ratings that they get. What the hell is so wholesome about "christian values"? please tell me you were being sarcastic, steve.

Re: Re: Re: How will the public act after the next attack?
 

Only my hairdresser knows, whale;boy!

Sadly we'll freak out even more, bitch about whatever current administration didn't do to stop it pre-emptively (sp?), the economy will tank again. And there will be another attack. In my opinion many, many people forgot all about 9/11 and what we face way fast.

The question then is what the public reaction will be to the second attack.

I was planning on selling all of my stock in a total panic, cancelling my travel plans, and buying lots more little plastic American flags to stick in my lawn and fly from my car. And then, when things were seemingly at their lowest point, I'd start getting angry and begin complaining that we need to heavily review everyone in the US that might have a Middle Eastern or Indian background which would be quickly followed up by my outrage at the system and people who have rights that might allow them to plan or carry out terrorist activities. I'd agree with talk radio hosts and demand mandatory deportation of suspicious individuals who are not citizens, a full border lockdown, and I'd even advocate a huge listing of really opressive laws because someone said supporting them was the patriotic thing to do.

In celebration of the accomplishments of my country for providing the illusion of security, I'd take the date of the attacks and make that number so well known that it could never possibly evade anyone's memory. I'd make a fortune selling stickers with that number on it, followed by the text "never forget" set on a background of a big American flag and an eagle crying.

sorry, that's already taken. you'll have to think of something else.

I'll have a bag packed in the event that I get called to the scene of whatever disaster to provide CISM services.

I'll have a different bag packed in the event that I have to fend off raging mobs here at home.

Most likely I'll just go to work like nothing happened and watch news reports on TV all night, just like 9-11.

Re: Re: Re: How will the public act after the next attack?
 

Don't confuse "what America really wants" with what a dedicated, organized, frightening minority wants America to be like, which is "Leave It To Beaver" with more crosses and Bibles.

A moral crusade may not be a particularly rational response to terrorism, but the civil unrest caused by terrorism provides opportunistic crusaders with plenty of opportunities to get their "None of this would have happened if our COUNTRY wasn't so CORRUPT and IMMORAL and if BILL CLINTON hadn't SCHTUPPED AN INTERN" message across, and sometimes sneak things through Congress while everyone else is worried about more important things.

Remember, we have people in this country who _seriously believe_ that the reason that 9/11 happened is because America became so immoral that God removed His "protective seal" from around His Nation. And people like that vote.

Also, don't imagine that it takes anywhere near a majority of Americans to remove "offensive" programming from the airwaves. A handful of dedicated prudes or an angry religious group acting in concert is all it takes to get the FCC's attention.

After the next attack, the general public will see the light and realize that you just can't beat the terrorists. So the US will give in to it. The Constitution will be amended to make Islam the official state religion, and the bin Laden dynasty (descended from Osama, not those ungrateful brothers of his) will rule as monarchs.

Wolf, you're awesome. You are the only person I know who can both suppress a riot, and then counsel the people you had to shoot in order to suppress it! :D

undertoad:
Bank robberies, kidnappings, murders, etc., of a non-terrorist nature occur a hundred times a day in this country - and how many more would happen if the perpetrators didn't care whether or not they got caught? The police, not to mention intelligence services can only do so much - they're not psychic. I have to sincerely hope that I'm wrong, but I would not be surprised to hear that there was a suicide bombing in this country before the election.
Unfortunately, even if it doesn't make any sense, or is designed only to quell the public's collective paranoia without actually doing anything tangible. Are they still making pilots (you know, the guys who are actually going to be at the controls of the planes in a couple of hours) take off their shoes at Security?

blue58:
I think there's a difference between 'remembering' something, and letting it affect your decision making in an irrational way; Afghanistan was attacked because they wouldn't give up the leaders of the group who planned 9/11, and the core of the organization was killed, dispersed or imprisoned - fine, that makes some kind of sense. That was the public, sexy, give-em-Hell reaction, which was also probably the right and only thing to do.

What logically follows, though, has not been public or 'sexy' - the ferreting out of Al Quaida cells throughout the World by intelligence services and the police. A large segment of the American public, I believe, won't believe that our government is really 'protecting us' unless they see bombs falling on the six o'clock news and armed soldiers at the airports.

Whether it's a War of Opportunity in Iraq or some security guy confiscating your water bottle before you go into the ballpark, 99.9% of what the authorities have done, are doing, or will do in the future, has absolutely nothing to do with terrorism or public safety.

vsp:
Scarier than that - they breed.

I don't know which is more frightening: the people who attribute our vulnerability to attack by foreign terrorists to America's "immorality", or those who buy the "they just hate us because we're free" line. God forbid we should actually have to think about and address their real concerns and grievances.

I value versatility.

Those same people never learned that Muslim Brotherhood has existed since the 1600s. Brotherhood attacks those who interfere - classic of domestic violence. Today's spin doctors would rather have us *forget* that Al Qaeda is nothing more than the Muslim Brotherhood who attack anything deemed a threat to Islamic fundamentals. Al Qaeda is not a recent creation of Osama bin Laden. Al Qaeda is simply another branch of Muslim Brotherhood.

Muslim Brotherhood hate secularism which is why, for example, the Muslim Brotherhood was able murder Sadat. Muslim Brotherhood was able to subvert some of the world's best security to murder Sadat - because it (now too often confused with Al Qaeda) is that deeply embedded throughout the Muslim world.

How to avoid terrorism - Muslim Brotherhood style? Stay out of these domestic conflicts. Unfortunately America did not do that. American military did not leave. America lied which is enough to justify Muslim Brotherhood attacks.

When did the world change? Not on 11 September. The world changed on 1 Aug 1990. That begins a story that marks end of the Cold War and that eventually made America target of Islamic terrorists.

tw....

We sometimes hear that Islamic fundamentalism is "inconsistant with democracy".

In your judgment, how true would that statement be?

In America, we observe the conflict between the highly vocal (but normally not physically violent) Christian fundamentalists and the attempts of others to maintain a democracy, where no one's strictly religious beliefs are forced on others, and that situation is problematic enough.

Anytime religious values are justification for morality, government action, or laws, then we have corruption. That is corruption by American standards and not necessary by other local standards. Religion was good in its time; the only basis for civilization. That time has long since past in the first world. Trend probably first started when Socrates so successfully used logic to expose the contradictions of religion.

Islamic fundamentalism is based upon the principles of religion. Those principles are ordered by 'interpretation' of clerics and by the 'emotion' on which religion is based. Islamic fundamentalism was as good for government as a Kingwas good for government. Some (religions and dictatorships) do good for people and culture; others are destructive. Since then we have advanced to a better 'inferior' system of government. Democracy can work when religion is removed from the process. Democray based upon religion is the unstable situation in Iran; where democracy really does not exist. Government only by religion and dictators is the unstable situation in Saudia Arabia (unstable but not in the form so often believed by Americans).

And so we again have the real purpose of any religion. A relationship between you and your god (period). Once your religious beliefs are imposed upon others, then we have 'religion gone wild' - and the resulting videos if they can be leaked out.

Lets keep something in perspective. Not all people want democracy. If not obvious from the interviews by BBC et al; almost no one in Iraq even knows what democracy is (except in Kurdish areas). How could they want something that they don't even understand? The current administration says Iraqis want democracy while Iraqis in the street think democracy means a dictator government that does not torture. Democracy means the people must take responsibility - still a foreign concept to many people. This requirement still is not understood in many parts of the world where government and religion are considered same.

IOW first the people must learn what democracy is; that government and religion are two separate entities. Such concepts are completely foreign in a large part of the third world.

Just like those dirty Japs. Warlike, religious, completely foreign to western Democracy. Why it has never taken anywhere in that area of the world.

tw wrote:
This brings to mind the way in which many former Soviet citizens have become, and remain, disgruntled at the way their new government is no longer as intimately involved in all of their personal decision-making as the previous one was. Collectivism - like any 'good' religion - had all of the answers, even if it did tend to treat people like ignorant children.

I have always maintained that members of the human race, generally, are motivated by a desire for simple, authoritative answers, and it really doesn't matter all that much who is providing them. We tend to like it when there's a written 'handbook' to which we can always refer, or a spokesman who can come out and explain how we should be feeling or thinking about any given subject.

Given that, and especially combined with a tradition that has really known and taught nothing else, I can see where the idea of a truly secular government might be anathema to many people...and I'm speaking of people in America pretty nearly to the same extent as those in Iraq.

Having just read the last line of my previous post, I was suddenly struck by the irony of the government of the United States being currently focused on two major efforts - the installation of a secular democracy in Iraq, and the nationwide codification of laws prohibiting gay marriage.

Wow!

You may be on to something there, UT. There are many parallels between the Iraquie and Japanese cultures, so all we have to do is nuke 'em into complete submission and start from the bottom up building a democracy.
Hey, it worked before.;)

Damn good point UT.

From my modicum of understanding the issue is that the only real authority is meant to be god, therefore man made governments are somehow unholy. I'm not sure how it all works in practice or in places like Iran.

The bigger issue in Iraq is the extremeist external elements that are stirring up trouble along the lines that divide the different sects of Islam. Kind of like the catholics and protastants killing each other. Unless those rifts can be healed there will never be a stable democratic government. That takes decades of peace, at least. It took Switzerland centuries.

And for fucks sake, make a goddamn Kurdistan already, you'll solve about 3 conflicts in one.

I was under the impression, Turkey strongly objects to a Kurdistan.

Hard to say why. I suspect that if there were a Kurdistan, Turkey might be able to get rid of their Kurds. But maybe they're worried that they'd take their land with them.

Yeah, now I remember. They don't want a Kurdistan that's contiguous with their border.