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Biden: ‘Terrorism Is Not An Existential Threat’ to America
Cybercast News Service ^ | August 23, 2016 | 2:58 PM EDT | Lauretta Brown

Posted on 08/24/2016 5:29:02 AM PDT by Olog-hai

Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview with the Atlantic on Monday that while “terrorism is a real threat … it’s not an existential threat to the existence of the democratic country of the United States of America.” […]

“My dad used to say to me, ‘Champ, if everything is equally important to you, nothing is important to you,’” Biden said. “So the hardest thing to do, I’ve found in 44 years, is to prioritize what really are the most consequential threats and concerns, and allocate resources relative to the nature of the threat.”

Biden characterized his system of thought on this as “proportionality.” …

(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: biden; bidenquote; bidenterror; existentialthreat; plugs; rop; terrorism
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To: sockhead

Should’ve been “chimp”


21 posted on 08/24/2016 6:13:59 AM PDT by progunner (no compromise)
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To: RayChuang88

“Really? Tell that to the victims of the San Bernardino and Orlando, FL massacres”


In Biden’s view, livestock, not the real America, which resides in the elite,well protected by armed guards. What’s to worry?


22 posted on 08/24/2016 6:16:40 AM PDT by Marylander (Hope and fear.)
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To: Olog-hai

“terrorism is a real threat … it’s not an existential threat to the existence of the democratic country of the United States of America.”

Guess he didn’t live through 911. That terrorist event changed our country.


23 posted on 08/24/2016 6:18:57 AM PDT by Harpotoo
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To: Olog-hai

Biden and Obama refuse to call it terrorism so they can say there’s no such thing as terrorism. Using silly labels like “workplace violence” and “hate crimes” let them deny the obvious, while the media aides and abets the fraud.


24 posted on 08/24/2016 6:25:51 AM PDT by Spok ("What're you going to believe-me or your own eyes?" -Marx (Groucho))
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To: dp0622

“terrorism is not an existential threat”

No, but it’s a cut and if we die it’ll be by “a thousand cuts”.


25 posted on 08/24/2016 6:26:34 AM PDT by cymbeline
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To: Olog-hai
Hillary campaigner sez Terrorism is not a threat!
26 posted on 08/24/2016 6:27:17 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
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To: cymbeline

how hard is this nuke business. Tons of material have been stolen.

How hard to set one off my home, NYC?

Easy? hard? possible? Impossible? Definitely be caught beforehand?


27 posted on 08/24/2016 6:28:07 AM PDT by dp0622 (The only thing an upper crust conservative hates more than a liberal is a middle class conservative)
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To: ETL

Stand up Chuck!


28 posted on 08/24/2016 6:28:35 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$ (Poo poo the polls at Trump's peril.)
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To: progunner

Or “Chump”.


29 posted on 08/24/2016 6:33:15 AM PDT by ETL (God PLEASE help America...ASAP)
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To: Olog-hai

Yeah, Joe, if they get their hands on nukes or large quantities of chemical and/or biological WMDs, they may “only” wipe out a few million Americans in one shot, depending on the locations they hit.


30 posted on 08/24/2016 6:35:36 AM PDT by ETL (God PLEASE help America...ASAP)
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To: Little Ray

You are correct. There have been very few existential threats to the US in our history, and terrorism certainly is not one. IMO, there has only been one since the end of the Civil War, namely the threat of a Soviet nuclear attack. The Nazis (in hindsight) were not an existential threat. They were unable to conquer the Soviets who were much closer and did not require an amphibious invasion, let alone the logistical nightmare of supplying an occupation force across the ocean. Certainly Japan, militarily weaker than Nazi Germany and more remotely located, was not an existential threat. It’s hard to envision any real existential threats to the US today barring a threat with access to a massive nuclear weapon supply. Of course that doesn’t mean that terrorists are not a threat that should be dealt with. They just do not rise to the level of an existential threat.


31 posted on 08/24/2016 6:44:12 AM PDT by stremba
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To: Olog-hai

Poor dumb Joe. First, terrorism is a threat to us and, second, this country is not a democracy, it is a republic!


32 posted on 08/24/2016 6:45:16 AM PDT by jch10 (Stand strong! we have a country to save!)
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To: Kudsman

That would be capital D Democrats who are America’s biggest threat.


33 posted on 08/24/2016 6:48:24 AM PDT by jch10 (Stand strong! we have a country to save!)
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To: Kudsman

That would be capital D Democrats who are America’s biggest threat.


34 posted on 08/24/2016 6:48:25 AM PDT by jch10 (Stand strong! we have a country to save!)
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To: cyclotic
That’s because his father, Gordon Kinnock was too busy in the coal mines to remember his real name.

Good one!

35 posted on 08/24/2016 6:53:32 AM PDT by sockhead
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To: Harpotoo

Like the proverbial stopped clock on two daily occasions, Biden is right. An existential threat is one that, by definition, could cause the nation to cease to exist. I am not downplaying the impact of 9/11, but do you seriously believe that another 9/11-type attack would lead to the complete elimination of the US as a nation? 9/11 didn’t do it obviously, so why would a future attack do so?

Now if terrorists went nuclear that might change things. Even then it would take massive stocks of nukes to make the threat existential. A nuke detonated in NYC would be a disaster killing millions of people, but the country would still exist in the aftermath of such an attack.

I think the problem is that we tend to exaggerate and misuse the term existential to refer to threats that are serious threats, but not truly existential. It doean’t mean we shouldn’t do everything possible to combat terrorism; it just means that terrorism is not a threat to the existence of our nation.


36 posted on 08/24/2016 6:59:03 AM PDT by stremba
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To: progunner
Should’ve been “chimp”

Or chump.

37 posted on 08/24/2016 7:00:13 AM PDT by sockhead
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To: stremba
I think the problem is that we tend to exaggerate and misuse the term existential to refer to threats that are serious threats, but not truly existential. It doean’t mean we shouldn’t do everything possible to combat terrorism; it just means that terrorism is not a threat to the existence of our nation.

It could potentially get to the point where it makes our 'existence' pretty crappy, particularly for those in the main target areas.

38 posted on 08/24/2016 7:13:43 AM PDT by ETL (God PLEASE help America...ASAP)
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To: dp0622

“how hard is this nuke business. Tons of material have been stolen.”

I think a small atomic bomb is likely to be snuck into a city somewhere. It will make a mess of at least a part of the city. If it’s in the US we’ll clean it up, retaliate, and our existence won’t be threatened. Countries that host terrorists might be the big losers.


39 posted on 08/24/2016 7:17:43 AM PDT by cymbeline
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To: Olog-hai

Nobody can be this stupid. Joe is just lying.


40 posted on 08/24/2016 7:25:28 AM PDT by Gritty (Although the mouth belongs to Hillary Clinton, the voice belongs to George Soros-Viktor Orban)
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