Posted on 08/31/2006 6:22:33 PM PDT by wittyone
THE MYTH OF THE OMNIPRESENT ENEMY
For the past five years, Americans have been regularly regaled with dire predictions of another major al Qaeda attack in the United States. In 2003, a group of 200 senior government officials and business executives, many of them specialists in security and terrorism, pronounced it likely that a terrorist strike more devastating than 9/11 -- possibly involving weapons of mass destruction -- would occur before the end of 2004. In May 2004, Attorney General John Ashcroft warned that al Qaeda could "hit hard" in the next few months and said that 90 percent of the arrangements for an attack on U.S. soil were complete. That fall, Newsweek reported that it was "practically an article of faith among counterterrorism officials" that al Qaeda would strike in the run-up to the November 2004 election. When that "October surprise" failed to materialize, the focus shifted: a taped encyclical from Osama bin Laden, it was said, demonstrated that he was too weak to attack before the election but was marshalling his resources to do so months after it.
….snip….
One reasonable explanation is that almost no terrorists exist in the United States and few have the means or the inclination to strike from abroad. But this explanation is rarely offered.
….big snip….
Although it remains heretical to say so, the evidence so far suggests that fears of the omnipotent terrorist …snip… may have been overblown, the threat presented within the United States by al Qaeda greatly exaggerated. The massive and expensive homeland security apparatus erected since 9/11 may be persecuting some, spying on many, inconveniencing most, and taxing all to defend the United States against an enemy that scarcely exists.
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignaffairs.org ...
Well, perhaps not shay enough... -grin-
Seriously, though, I believe it's the America-hating Democrats being referenced, not the America-inhibiting bureaucrats...
Remember those young men and womem fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan & around the world are products of our educational system.
I've heard Rush talk about this as a function of a new generation of Rush babies coming of age... and children of those who came of age as part of the Reagan Revolution (like me).
I guess we'll have to wait and see. There seems to be a lot more students speaking up these days, as well as more and more rebel professors (on our side, in other words).
This idiot lives in his own little elitist delusional world.
Unfortunately, it's not just his own. There are far too many out there who share it.
Yes, they are. Meaning what? In another decade or two, it is going to be even harder to find young people with the educational skills to run our high tech miltary.
Are you kidding?? With the level of proficiency today's youth demonstrates in video game playing, I have no worries about that whatsoever.
My closeup dealings with the school system were at the HS and below levels. And that was dealing with the administrators and teachers. I really had no empirical knowledge of the student's political and/or social leanings.
By the time my kid went to college she could hold her own with any student or professor.
Rush has good instincts, which gives me hope. I'm in my mid 50s, so it had better happen soon.
Great! I was worried that your despair was complete.
I'm in my mid 50s, so it had better happen soon.
Be patient (and live into your 80's), things will be fine.
I liken that skill to idiot savant. I don't think it is much foundation for electrical engineering. Or much of anything else that requires proficiency in math or the hard sciences. Not everyone in the military plays with joysticks shooting laser guided weaponry or aircraft. Great video game players that can't do long division aren't going to be of great value in keeping the military machine running.
I say the same thing about the 9/11 Commission Report...with the same results. :)
I was half kidding, though our children are, as a rule, considerably more tech-savvy, across the board, than we are - and in most cases, by far.
Nevertheless, I understand your concern... however, my faith is also in the fact that America has always come through when a threat becomes significant (we always seem to wait until it's hitting us in the face). I'm confident that we will succeed in the future, as we always have in the past.
No, it's not complete, but I still find it hard to believe how stupid and biased so many of the people are that operate the schools. And having a brilliant child only made their mediocrity even more glaring. After homeschooling, by age 12, she was capable of graduating from HS, by current standards anyway.
It must really suck to have such low self-esteem that you feel obliged to choose such an obviously self-aggrandizing names for yourself.
I only clicked on this thread to see what fool had the vacuousness to posit such a thing. Glad you snipped the majority of the fools assertions out.
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