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.22 cal pistol compare to a miniture wargame rifle? Lets pistol duel...I take the .22 and you can have the mini wargame rifle....I even let you have first shot...

d-usa wrote:

SOFDC wrote:Ya know, there's a reason why I don't fly anymore, and it isn't because I'm deathly afraid someone on my plane might be a terrorist.

what If it was a gun and she Hijacked a plane?

Since most people in this country seem to equate "We've been hijacked" to "We gonna get rammed into a building!" since 2001? We'd probably see a hundred+ people rush her, stomp her half to death and chuck her out the door at 14,000 feet.

This is one of only two things that have made in impact on aviation security post 9/11 IMO.

The first is securing the cockpit.

The second is that passengers now know that they must stop any attack in progress or face death.

Just look at the sky marshal program and the attacks we have had since 9/11. Every on-the-plane attack has been stopped by passengers, not the sky-marshals. By the time they make it to the attacker they have already been neutralized by passengers and crew, all the marshal have done is put them in cuffs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_airline_bombings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Airlines_Flight_434

That's the kind of crap you need on the ground screening for; luckily Reed and the Underwear bomber were incompetent/ armed with old or crappy explosives which gave people a chance to do something.

I will be impressed when someone manages to make the apocalypse missile launcher fire real missiles.

Avatar 720 wrote:I will be impressed when someone manages to make the apocalypse missile launcher fire real missiles.

Do bottle rockets count?

Do bottle rockets count?

TSA probaly cavity search you for that.

Bromsy wrote:

d-usa wrote:

SOFDC wrote:Ya know, there's a reason why I don't fly anymore, and it isn't because I'm deathly afraid someone on my plane might be a terrorist.

what If it was a gun and she Hijacked a plane?

Since most people in this country seem to equate "We've been hijacked" to "We gonna get rammed into a building!" since 2001? We'd probably see a hundred+ people rush her, stomp her half to death and chuck her out the door at 14,000 feet.

This is one of only two things that have made in impact on aviation security post 9/11 IMO.

The first is securing the cockpit.

The second is that passengers now know that they must stop any attack in progress or face death.

Just look at the sky marshal program and the attacks we have had since 9/11. Every on-the-plane attack has been stopped by passengers, not the sky-marshals. By the time they make it to the attacker they have already been neutralized by passengers and crew, all the marshal have done is put them in cuffs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_airline_bombings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Airlines_Flight_434

That's the kind of crap you need on the ground screening for; luckily Reed and the Underwear bomber were incompetent/ armed with old or crappy explosives which gave people a chance to do something.

At least we are making sure to have hundreds of people bunched up in front of the nude-o-scope, so if they can't smuggle any bombs past security I guess that makes a nice place to detonate yourself. Having risk free air travel is an illusion, as is security theater.

Bomb in an airport versus crashing a plane into a large, occupied building... I think that they're looking a bit into greater good or just plain discouraging any kind of plot. If you know for a fact that you can't get a bomb past security then chances are you're going to look elsewhere for an attack. If airports were lucrative targets then I also think that they would have bombed one by now.

Also, just because it may be impossible to achieve a goal that doesn't mean we shouldn't try because sometimes you just get surprised. It would be like the Wright brothers going, "Eh we'll never achieve long flights so why bother.".

Of course you know that Terrorism has absolutely nothing to do with body counts.

By terrorist logic, every attack has been a success, and I would have to agree with them.

d-usa wrote:Of course you know that Terrorism has absolutely nothing to do with body counts.

By terrorist logic, every attack has been a success, and I would have to agree with them.

Its a good thing that most of them can't do one twice then. Like Carlos Mencia said "*middle eastern accent* We'll blow up your buildings.*/accent*", "Oh yeah, we blew up your country.". In all honesty if a terrorist's logic says that they have won anything and also dictates that its a good idea to strap explosives to your crotch, I would freely say that their logic is flawed.

What do you think is the goal of terrorism?

The principal stated aims of al-Qaeda are to drive Americans and American influence out of all Muslim nations, especially Saudi Arabia; destroy Israel; and topple pro-Western dictatorships around the Middle East. Bin Laden also said that he wishes to unite all Muslims and establish, by force if necessary, an Islamic nation adhering to the rule of the first Caliphs.

According to bin Laden's 1998 fatwa (religious decree), it is the duty of Muslims around the world to wage holy war on the U.S., American citizens, and Jews. Muslims who do not heed this call are declared apostates (people who have forsaken their faith).

Al-Qaeda's ideology, often referred to as "jihadism," is marked by a willingness to kill "apostate" —and Shiite—Muslims and an emphasis on jihad. Although "jihadism" is at odds with nearly all Islamic religious thought, it has its roots in the work of two modern Sunni Islamic thinkers: Mohammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Sayyid Qutb.

Al-Wahhab was an 18th-century reformer who claimed that Islam had been corrupted a generation or so after the death of Mohammed. He denounced any theology or customs developed after that as non-Islamic, including more than 1,000 years of religious scholarship. He and his supporters took over what is now Saudi Arabia, where Wahhabism remains the dominant school of religious thought.

Sayyid Qutb, a radical Egyptian scholar of the mid-20th century, declared Western civilization the enemy of Islam, denounced leaders of Muslim nations for not following Islam closely enough, and taught that jihad should be undertaken not just to defend Islam, but to purify it.

As far as I know, they've failed.

They may not have won, but that is far from saying that their attacks have not been successful.

The fact that TSA agents are conducting virtual strip searches, touching my balls when I fly, and making me throw away my overpriced airport coke are pretty good signs that even their failed attempts have been a success.

Heck, I consider the Patriot Act their biggest victory.

They're successful because they managed to inconvenience our lives? By that logic we're even more successful because they live in freakin' caves.

halonachos wrote:They're successful because they managed to inconvenience our lives? By that logic we're even more successful because they live in freakin' caves.

If they are willing to blow themselves up, they won't mind living in caves.

And yes, if we are willing to give up our freedoms for "safety" then they have been successful.

d-usa wrote:

halonachos wrote:They're successful because they managed to inconvenience our lives? By that logic we're even more successful because they live in freakin' caves.

If they are willing to blow themselves up, they won't mind living in caves.

And yes, if we are willing to give up our freedoms for "safety" then they have been successful.

Really, let me recap this for you just in case you haven't been paying attention.

-Since 9/11 there has yet to be a terror attack on as large a scale as 9/11 thanks to security efforts.
-Since 9/11 we have killed their clerical leaders and masterminds.
-The USA still has a massive presence in the Middle East.
-Saudi Arabia and the US have ties still.
-At the cost of certain freedoms we have been able to prevent certain attacks and can continuously do so.

Yet for some reason you believe that them strapping a bomb to their chest makes the fact that living in a cave is irrelevant. You think that they want to live in a cave, they don't. They haven't been successful because of the Patriot Act, they have been countered with things like the Patriot Act.

halonachos wrote:

d-usa wrote:

halonachos wrote:They're successful because they managed to inconvenience our lives? By that logic we're even more successful because they live in freakin' caves.

If they are willing to blow themselves up, they won't mind living in caves.

And yes, if we are willing to give up our freedoms for "safety" then they have been successful.

Really, let me recap this for you just in case you haven't been paying attention.

-Since 9/11 there has yet to be a terror attack on as large a scale as 9/11 thanks to security efforts.
-Since 9/11 we have killed their clerical leaders and masterminds.
-The USA still has a massive presence in the Middle East.
-Saudi Arabia and the US have ties still.
-At the cost of certain freedoms we have been able to prevent certain attacks and can continuously do so.

Yet for some reason you believe that them strapping a bomb to their chest makes the fact that living in a cave is irrelevant. You think that they want to live in a cave, they don't. They haven't been successful because of the Patriot Act, they have been countered with things like the Patriot Act.

Since 9/11:

I have to have by genitals handled by TSA employees and be viewed virtually naked when I want to fly.
Our government has wiretapped us without warrants.
Our government is attaching GPS devices on cars without warrants and obtaining GPS records from cell phone companies without warrants.
We have turned on our neighbors and vilify US citizens based solely on their religion.
Assassinated a US citizen without a trial.
How many of our soldiers have died seeking revenge for an attack that killed less people in 2001 than automobile accidents in 2001?

The goal of Terrorism is to terrorize. If we give up our freedoms because of what they did then they are successful terrorists. Sorry you don't see it the same way, but there is nothing I can do about that. I work with WW2 vets every single day and they are not happy to see that we are giving up freedoms that they fought and died for to bring to Europe.


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And we are probably not going to change each others minds on this, so we can probably go ahead and keep this from becoming the circular back and forth that just gets locked.

They managed to find a bomb in someone's underwear because they were checking genitals.
We haven't turned on our neighbors anymore than we have, check out the Race Riots.

halonachos wrote:
-Since 9/11 there has yet to be a terror attack on as large a scale as 9/11 thanks to security efforts.

That's not a very strong argument, as prior to 9/11 there had not been a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 despite the absence of current security measures.

Ugh.....there's like two parties in this. I'm a third party...I'm just a trigger puller

halonachos wrote:
Yet for some reason you believe that them strapping a bomb to their chest makes the fact that living in a cave is irrelevant.

Living in a cave, which is massive oversimplification, isn't relevant, just as no facet of the living conditions under which an opponent operates are relevant to the determination of whether or not they have been successful in achieving their goals (unless their goals explicitly entail the improvement of living conditions).

halonachos wrote:
You think that they want to live in a cave, they don't.

I assume you have arrived at this conclusion thanks to a careful, systematic survey of Muslim insurgent groups, or at the very least observational analysis of their behavior and are not merely attempting to apply your own sentiments to a group of people from a largely alien culture.

d-usa wrote:What do you think is the goal of terrorism?

The goal of terrorism is to seed terror, to use terror as a weapon past its initial use. If passengers' instinct is to rise against any threat on a plane, I'd say they do it out of fear or at the very least self-preservation. Any reaction to terrorism is proof that it has worked.

dogma wrote:

halonachos wrote:
You think that they want to live in a cave, they don't.

I assume you have arrived at this conclusion thanks to a careful, systematic survey of Muslim insurgent groups, or at the very least observational analysis of their behavior and are not merely attempting to apply your own sentiments to a group of people from a largely alien culture.

No, I'm sure he's come to that conclusion by way of common sense...Cultural and religious ramifications have nothing to do with not wanting to live in a hole in the ground with a group of other like minded men with little air circulation and no plumbing...that boils down to the fact that there is little chance there is a human being that actually desires to live like that...

as for the argument whether the terrorists have succeeded? If you measure success in the amount of paranoia that 9/11 has caused then sure it was a success...

But I consider it a victory for us that as a result of a single success, they have effectively negated their chance for a similar attack working for the forseeable future. I can understand beefed up security, I can understand things like the Patriot act and think that there are some situations that may require certain liberties to be taken by the state.

Now that's a whole other can of worms, we can argue all day about the ethics of that and how it leads down the road to tyranny but then again the US was founded on the belief that its citizens have a right to usurp tyrannical governments...it happened once...it's happened dozens of times since...it can happen again...

the matter here is unrelated to those arguments though...the matter here is that the TSA continue to make unnecessary mountains out of anthills...

WARORK93 wrote:
No, I'm sure he's come to that conclusion by way of common sense...

The argument from "common sense" is easily the least creative way to let everyone know you can't make an argument that is divorced from your own preferences.

WARORK93 wrote:
Cultural and religious ramifications have nothing to do with not wanting to live in a hole in the ground with a group of other like minded men with little air circulation and no plumbing...that boils down to the fact that there is little chance there is a human being that actually desires to live like that...

And yet people seem to actively choose that lifestyle, and not just in Afghanistan.. And that's before considering that cave dwelling has been a feature of life in Afghanistan for centuries, and was not some direct consequence of the coalition presence there.

WARORK93 wrote:
as for the argument whether the terrorists have succeeded? If you measure success in the amount of paranoia that 9/11 has caused then sure it was a success...

But I consider it a victory for us that as a result of a single success, they have effectively negated their chance for a similar attack working for the forseeable future. I can understand beefed up security, I can understand things like the Patriot act and think that there are some situations that may require certain liberties to be taken by the state.

I generally agree with that, though if we consider that the aim of Al-Qaeda was essentially getting the US out of the Muslim world, one might argue that instigating two unpopular wars that have renewed the American tendency towards isolationism isn't a bad start.

dogma wrote:

halonachos wrote:
-Since 9/11 there has yet to be a terror attack on as large a scale as 9/11 thanks to security efforts.

That's not a very strong argument, as prior to 9/11 there had not been a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 despite the absence of current security measures.

I will have to concede to that point there. There's a whole cause and effect sort of situation though so when you look at any attack that people react to then you can say that the other side was successful even if they weren't. Pearl Harbor is such an example; we have a group with a goal to attack the United States in order to get the US influence out of some area. Pearl Harbor instigated a response from the US in the form of revamped military spending and industry and also caused the government to imprison its own people and censor its own media. However Pearl Harbor was deemed a failure for not reaching their goals. They did not stop us or remove us from their sphere of influence and in fact it caused their downfall.

Al Qaeda had the goal of removing US influence from the Middle East and attacked us in order to do so. In response we retaliated in force and have yet to be removed from the area. Our influence can still be felt in the Middle East and of course our pal Israel is still going strong. Al Qaeda failed in their objectives similar to Japan and the government now has acted like the government then, censorship and using extreme means in order to achieve victory over an enemy.

I will use the comparison of Pearl Harbor and 9/11 due to the fact that they were both attacks on the US that elicited drastic and similar responses from the US. This has all been done before,

halonachos wrote:

dogma wrote:

halonachos wrote:
-Since 9/11 there has yet to be a terror attack on as large a scale as 9/11 thanks to security efforts.

That's not a very strong argument, as prior to 9/11 there had not been a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 despite the absence of current security measures.

I will have to concede to that point there. There's a whole cause and effect sort of situation though so when you look at any attack that people react to then you can say that the other side was successful even if they weren't. Pearl Harbor is such an example; we have a group with a goal to attack the United States in order to get the US influence out of some area. Pearl Harbor instigated a response from the US in the form of revamped military spending and industry and also caused the government to imprison its own people and censor its own media. However Pearl Harbor was deemed a failure for not reaching their goals. They did not stop us or remove us from their sphere of influence and in fact it caused their downfall.

Al Qaeda had the goal of removing US influence from the Middle East and attacked us in order to do so. In response we retaliated in force and have yet to be removed from the area. Our influence can still be felt in the Middle East and of course our pal Israel is still going strong. Al Qaeda failed in their objectives similar to Japan and the government now has acted like the government then, censorship and using extreme means in order to achieve victory over an enemy.

I will use the comparison of Pearl Harbor and 9/11 due to the fact that they were both attacks on the US that elicited drastic and similar responses from the US. This has all been done before,

The attack on Pearl Harbor was one army suprising another with an attack. 9/11 involved people taking over assets of America's international transportation system and used them to inflict massive casualties against civilians. The events have their similarities but are quite different. I have to say that I wasn't around during Pearl Harbor so my feelings about this may be different than someone who lived through that part of history.

dogma wrote:The argument from "common sense" is easily the least creative way to let everyone know you can't make an argument that is divorced from your own preferences.

That may be so but isn't the point of most arguments to stand on your own preferences or how you'd like to see things and either persuade others to join you or convince them of their validity anyway?

dogma wrote: And yet people seem to actively choose that lifestyle, and not just in Afghanistan.. And that's before considering that cave dwelling has been a feature of life in Afghanistan for centuries, and was not some direct consequence of the coalition presence there.

I will conceed that point based on the fact that the argument isn't supposed to be on whether the insurgents desire to live in caves or not rather it is used to make a statement of the colaition's superiority in that the insurgents are forced to move underground so as not to become targets.

dogma wrote:I generally agree with that, though if we consider that the aim of Al-Qaeda was essentially getting the US out of the Muslim world, one might argue that instigating two unpopular wars that have renewed the American tendency towards isolationism isn't a bad start.

While this is true to some extent, it could also be argued that the US's continued foreign relations with middle Eastern countries...continued alliance with Israel...and continued military actions in muslim countries such as Libya is indication of a somewhat limited success by such insurgent groups as Al Qaeda.

Squidmanlolz wrote:

The attack on Pearl Harbor was one army suprising another with an attack. 9/11 involved people taking over assets of America's international transportation system and used them to inflict massive casualties against civilians. The events have their similarities but are quite different. I have to say that I wasn't around during Pearl Harbor so my feelings about this may be different than someone who lived through that part of history.

Finally, it was meant to deliver a severe blow to American morale, one which would discourage Americans from committing to a war extending into the western Pacific Ocean and Dutch East Indies. To maximize the effect on morale, battleships were chosen as the main targets, since they were the prestige ships of any navy at the time. The overall intention was to enable Japan to conquer Southeast Asia without interference.

The goal of Pearl Harbor was a morale destroying attack similar to how the 9/11 attacks were aimed at our morale and getting us out of the Middle East. We responded similarly in both situations, censorship, government crackdown, and making villains out of a specific set of Americans. It just comes down to the question of state sponsored terrorism versus a grass-roots terrorist, the atomic bombs were acts of terrorism but they're accepted as the best alternative.

halonachos wrote:
Al Qaeda had the goal of removing US influence from the Middle East and attacked us in order to do so. In response we retaliated in force and have yet to be removed from the area. Our influence can still be felt in the Middle East and of course our pal Israel is still going strong. Al Qaeda failed in their objectives similar to Japan and the government now has acted like the government then, censorship and using extreme means in order to achieve victory over an enemy.

I wouldn't say they've failed, more that they haven't succeeded. Like most revolutionary movements Al-Qaeda plays the long game.

This is from Wikipedia, but its pretty good summary of what Al-Qaeda is about.

On March 11, 2005, Al-Quds Al-Arabi published extracts from Saif al-Adel's document "Al Quaeda's Strategy to the Year 2020".[53][54] Abdel Bari Atwan summarizes this strategy as comprising five stages to rid the Ummah from all forms of oppression:

Provoke the United States into invading a Muslim country.
Incite local resistance to occupying forces.
Expand the conflict to neighboring countries, and engage the U.S. in a long war of attrition.
Convert al-Qaeda into an ideology and set of operating principles that can be loosely franchised in other countries without requiring direct command and control, and via these franchises incite attacks against countries allied with the U.S. until they withdraw from the conflict, as happened with the 2004 Madrid train bombings, but which did not have the same effect with the July 7, 2005 London bombings.
The U.S. economy will finally collapse under the strain of multiple engagements in numerous places, making the worldwide economic system which is dependent on the U.S. also collapse leading to global political instability, which in turn leads to a global jihad led by Al-Qaeda and a Wahhabi Caliphate will then be installed across the world. Atwan also noted, regarding the collapse of the U.S., "If this sounds far-fetched, it is sobering to consider that this virtually describes the downfall of the Soviet Union."[53]

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WARORK93 wrote:
That may be so but isn't the point of most arguments to stand on your own preferences or how you'd like to see things and either persuade others to join you or convince them of their validity anyway?

Generally, but there's no reason that the content of those preferences extends to every detail on an argument.

WARORK93 wrote:
While this is true to some extent, it could also be argued that the US's continued foreign relations with middle Eastern countries...continued alliance with Israel...and continued military actions in muslim countries such as Libya is indication of a somewhat limited success by such insurgent groups as Al Qaeda.

I mean, it certainly hasn't be a resounding success, but as I had to halo, Al-Qaeda plays the long game.

When was that written? It could be that instead of actually starting out with those goals they are just writing it to seem like those were their goals from the start.

The US is already pulling out of those countries and the withdrawal has been known for some time.

The economic collapse may not be coming from America but instead from Europe.

halonachos wrote:When was that written? It could be that instead of actually starting out with those goals they are just writing it to seem like those were their goals from the start.

2005, but its consistent with much of what Bin Laden said about "bleeding war" prior to 9/11.

halonachos wrote:
The economic collapse may not be coming from America but instead from Europe.

And won't be connected directly to security expenses, though its certainly a minor factor in the budget debate in the US.