Storm warning, but there's no fear
Posted on 06/26/2002 4:04:36 PM PDT by knighthawk
LONDON (Reuters) - Once an outlandish plot for Hollywood films, the idea of a pervasive enemy bent on the destruction of a people has become the spectre casting a pall over next week's U.S. Independence Day celebrations.
Government warnings to U.S. citizens abroad and reports the FBI is investigating potential threats at home, in the wake of the September 11 attacks, will dampen the Fourth of July festivities usually devoted to fireworks, feasts and unabashed flag-waving.
Some U.S. diplomatic missions abroad said they would tone down celebrations and the State Department has issued at least two "Worldwide Cautions" to Americans abroad, telling them to avoid schools, clubs, restaurants and places of worship where Americans are generally known to congregate.
In Vienna, the embassy said the U.S. State Department had asked its missions not to stage fireworks.
"Secretary (of State Colin) Powell doesn't want fireworks this year," an embassy official said, adding there would still be an Independence Day reception.
In the Pakistani capital Islamabad, an embassy spokesman said the mission would hold a "traditional but low-key" event for invited guests and a separate reception for U.S. citizens.
A notice on the embassy's Web site said the party was open only to U.S. nationals, who would have to register in advance, bring their passports, and undergo security checks at the gate.
Many Americans and other westerners have already left the country in line with advice from their governments in connection with tensions between Pakistan and India.
In the Middle East, where the Palestinian Authority is under pressure from the United States to dump Yasser Arafat as leader, celebrations were expected to be brief and tightly controlled.
A U.S. embassy source in Tel Aviv said the festivities would be conducted as in previous years, under heavy security.
PROTECTION OF LIBERTY
Perhaps celebrations in Philadelphia, the city where the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776, will provide the most telling evidence of change since suspected henchmen of Saudi-born Islamic militant Osama bin Laden crashed hijacked planes into American landmarks, killing 3,056 people.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell will receive Philadelphia's Liberty Medal behind a cordon of police, secret service agents and rooftop sharpshooters and only in front of a select group of pre-screened VIPs.
"It used to be that they'd hand out 6,000 tickets, set up a couple thousand chairs and then let members of the public in if the chairs didn't all get filled. We can't do that this year because that area will be secured," said U.S. National Park Service spokesman Frank Eidmann.
Despite U.S. President George W. Bush urging Americans to go on living their lives as normal, his "war on terror" has failed to capture al Qaeda's shadowy leader bin Laden. Frequent warnings from the FBI at home and the State Department keep anxieties high for U.S. citizens, even at the heart of America.
"I think everyone has a sense of vulnerability much more than before September 11," said Kerry Finnegan, a 25-year-old Washington legal assistant, who says even ordinary things now sometimes spark a menacing moment of fear.
"I work on the 11th floor of a building and sometimes when the air conditioning comes on with a bang, I wonder: What was that?" Finnegan said.
FEAR AND FIREWORKS
In New York, residents still haunted by missing friends, family members and the horrific images of the World Trade Centre's twin towers collapsing, will be allowed a fireworks display for the first time since the September 11 attacks.
The department store Macy's will present a huge fireworks show, dubbed "A Time for Heroes", from barges in the East River, not far from where the towers used to stand.
But security concerns continue to transform the landmarks Americans used to regard as symbols of strength and freedom into icons of fear.
The Federal Aviation Administration recently established a temporary "no fly" area above the Statue of Liberty and the FBI warned city officials that New York landmarks, like the Brooklyn Bridge, could be targets for attack.
But elsewhere there were still signs Fourth of July revellers would forge on in spite of fear.
In Beijing, celebrations were expected to be as wet and wild as they were last year with planned watergun fights.
"It (September 11) hasn't had any influence," said Maggie Ma, head of membership at the local American Club, which sponsors the community's main event.
Storm warning, but there's no fear
No. No one.
By the standards of the distance between Ground Zero and this moronic Swiss "reporter," perhaps. But in Manhattan terms, the Macy's fireworks barges are nowhere NEAR where the WTC used to be.
Take care,
Ruck
If New Yorkers aren't afraid, why should anyone else be?
But security concerns continue to transform the landmarks Americans used to regard as symbols of strength and freedom into icons of fear.
Nicely crafted sentence, but it was written to fill in empty space.
The Federal Aviation Administration recently established a temporary "no fly" area above the Statue of Liberty and the FBI warned city officials that New York landmarks, like the Brooklyn Bridge, could be targets for attack.
If they attack us again, they are going to be very sorry!
Mad? Sure... but fear?
Nope- our parents woke out of an agarian, isolationist slumber and turned the "Thousand-Year Reich" into a smouldering ash-heap.
Our enemies got too many phony impressions from our mass media, which is effette, elitist, self-worshipping and decadent... but "average America" isn't that way at all.
As they will find out soon enough...
These colors don't run!!!
November 30, 2001: Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) Soldiers Raise American Flag and New York City Flag at a Forward Base in Southern Afghanistan
In fact, everyone I've discussed this with thinks if the ragheads don't start something, they're a bunch of pantie waists; Don't have a pair, etc.
7/4 will be a test of the gov't warnings and media hysteria.
Oh, did I forget to mention that they all will be packin', law or no law.
"Want to go to Allah, goathumper?" "Be my guest!"
That is something that many of us do. And, here, it is legal.
We need (truly, deeply need) to identify an enemy and start making a real effort to eradicate that enemy.
Toning down celebrations is not a good idea. It smacks of not lighting the national Christmas tree to punish the Iranians for taking hostages...a flawed strategy if ever I saw one.
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