FREEPER MASTER THREAD: Report what schools are doing to prepare for "The Perfect Day" attack

Glenn Beck show ^ | 9-11-07 | dfu

[papertyger]

If you want to know what our enemies are counting on, it’s “moderating” voices like yours.

Hey, you're kinda cute for a newbie ;o)

[papertyger]

Soft targets... I think the rags have proven they much prefer soft targets that don't fight back.

It's an honored mohammedian tradition when one continuously loses: look at the palis.

[doug from upland]

Great, thanks for posting.

[Snardius]

I would be nice if all of you would read what I wrote instead of interpreting my point as you would want it to be.

MY POINT IS that we should fight the enemy that is fighting us, RADICAL ISLAM, and to do that SUCCESSFULLY, IMHO, you use overwhelming force. No where in any rational battle plan does it recommend that you attack in a way that encourages others to join the enemy against us. It seems to me that the rational approach would be first you take down those who are shooting at you, then you can take down those who were supporting them.

My post about "not understanding the gravity of the situation" was meant as a joke, hence the "LOL" at the end.

I've been a member of this forum for a long time and I don't think I've ever been so misunderstood or attacked in such a vicious manner.

I'll consider all of your attacks on my character, integrity, religious persuasion, and patriotism as a clear misunderstanding.

Have a swell day.

[Excellence]

It will happen here eventually. You can't stop it. You can't mitigate it. All you can do is survive it and mourn it. To think otherwise is to have a God complex. There are tens of thousands of possible targets and a trillion scenarios. To worry over each one of them is a complete waste of life.

I did a little math, and dividing a trillion scenarios by tens of thousands of possible targets (there are 14,000 school districts in the United States) equals 100,000 scenarios per target. That seems a little excessively overstated for effect.

Can it be stopped completely? Probably not. Can it be mitigated? To say no is to say there is no such thing a perimeter fencing. Just by tightening control of ingress and egress to schools mitigates the possibility of an attack at any given school. In the end, the decision must be made to make that investment in security.

As for it being a waste of life to worry about it, I suppose that would depend on my sense of value of my life and the life of my child. Any given parent can say, "Well, it's just not worth worrying over." What they are really saying is "Well, my child's life isn't worth my wasting my life worrying over that life." I do not consider it a waste of my life to worry over the lives of my children, which is why I educated them at home. I understand not everyone can do that, but they can go to their children's school and demand to know what their situational contingency plans are.

Again, it depends on the value one assigns to one's children weighed against the value of one's life, which is really to say "How much am I willing to be inconvenienced to save the life of my child?"

Glenn, your response sounds fatalistic, something like, "An accident is going to happen anyway, so why bother wearing a seat belt?" By driving cautiously, I not only saved my own life last night, but the life of the idiot behind the wheel of a Honda who passed me on the right only to find a stalled van dead ahead in the road. By using common sense precautions, we can mitigate the possibility of any one scenario occurring at any one target. Every precaution implemented further reduces that possibility.

I assert that we not lie down and give up. I encourage you, Gleen, to use your creative imagination to think of as many scenarios happening to as many targets as possible, and then think of ways to mitigate the damage. I think that you will find that the solutions are not out of the realm of possibility, nor even terribly impractical.

Most of all, let us realize that no effort made in securing the lives of our children is ever a waste of our own lives. Certainly I do not consider it a waste of mine.

Best wishes to both of you,

Excellence

[papertyger]

It seems to me that the rational approach would be first you take down those who are shooting at you, then you can take down those who were supporting them.

Since when is it "rational" to take out an enemy combat force, THEN take out the logistics train?

No where in any rational battle plan does it recommend that you attack in a way that encourages others to join the enemy against us.

If your attack encourages others to join the enemy, you didn't attack correctly.

What makes you so sure you're being misunderstood? I think we all know it's perfectly rational to run the other way when you see a dangerous enemy.

[papertyger]

Again, it depends on the value one assigns to one's children weighed against the value of one's life, which is really to say "How much am I willing to be inconvenienced to save the life of my child?"

Another painful truth...on par with the fact ultimate responsibility for obtaining an abortion lies with the woman, alone.

[cinives]

I’m a working single parent and I homeschooled my one for 6 years, until she graduated this year and is now in college.

If you have 10 or so hours a week - after dinner, weekends, etc - you can easily homeschool, and you will accomplish more in 10 hours than your kid(s) will in any school, public or private..

[Rick.Donaldson]

Excellence, thank you for the well-thought out "thinking" experiment. I guess you said pretty much what I was getting at. I work in... an industry where security is paramount. "Security is everyone's responsibility" -- not just the cops, or the guys who guard us. It's everyone's responsibility to pay attention to things. Can a terrorist get to me at my job? No. He can't. One or two. A whole platoon might have a chance, but they have to go through many levels of security to get to me and others. In the "real world" that 98% of us live in outside of this particular environment I'm speaking about, we don't have multiple levels of security. In fact, not one school here in Colorado Springs has "multiple levels" of security. They have doors that might be locked. And you have to report to the office when you go to visit the schools. However, that's only if you're inclined to do so, because I've walked through several of the schools here without being stopped over the years (I ran for school board a couple times, and put five children through public schools. I now have 11 grand children headed into schools).

Basically, I take offense to "Glenn's" attitude, because while it might be good for him to live like that, it is not good for all of us, and most of us DO realize that mitigation of every single incident is impossible IF you sit on your rump and expect the worst.

I'm not, as Glenn called me "An Internet Warrior". I'm a REAL warrior. I've been there, done that, and Rambo was a wuss compared to the men (and some women) with whom I've worked over the years. I have visited 44 countries in the past 30 years, and I have seen the unmitigated hatred for Americans all over the world, and I've personally dealt with terrorists (in Germany twice, and once in another country I won't mention).

I have taught survivalism from a purely PERSONAL perspective to people who now work for Homeland Security, police departments and even lawyers. So, I come at this from a PRACTICAL perspective, not some wild-assed "thinking exercise". Thinking exercises, such as this one however, are IMPORTANT. They DO give people an insight as to how others think, and we should all be considering even the most outlandish, unthinkable schemes that might be used against us, so that at the VERY LEAST, we're not surprised again.

Thanks again for your post. -- Rick

[Rick.Donaldson]

The war on terrorism was a multifaceted attack, on the terrorists themselves, their training camps and the funding machines found here in the US and in other countries. It is LOGICAL to go after the logistics as well as the enemy!

[Lurker]

I think they would sacrifice anything to get the Christian world at war with Muslims

It already is.

L

[Lurker]

And after you blow up Mecca and Medina, what are you going to hold over their heads next?

Qom, Damascus, and Riyadh.

L

[cyborg]

I think it’s negative thinking hysterics.

[PapaBear3625]

I suspect we'd be better off not inflaming a billion muslim army or you'd better have a lot of canned goods and ammunition.

Considering how fast we got thru Sadaams army, we only have to worry about a billion man army if we intend to take prisoners. If not, we only have to worry about getting the construction equipment to make the holes to bury them

[papertyger]

It is LOGICAL to go after the logistics as well as the enemy!

That's not what he wrote.

[ctdonath2]

Not gonna happen anywhere close to enough numbers soon enough. They’re not talking a long-term hypothetical, they’re talking dots connecting soon.

To reverse your comment, however, fits:
This problem will help more homeschooling.

[achilles2000]

“But, maybe it would just be better to pretend it could never happen and not ask a single question of our children’s schools about preparation...”

It’s fine to ask the questions, but no “preparedness plan” will do anything much to secure a school from a Beslan-type attack. In fact, it is unlikely that any preparations will do much to protect against even smaller, less carefully planned attacks. The “preparedness plans” will make parents feel better - that’s all. Moreover, having a “plan” doesn’t mean that it will be executed intelligently or even at all. New Orleans, after all, had an evacuation plan. The data available indicate that he average school administrator is probably no smarter than Ray Nagin.

IMHO, you are right to point out that the scenarios should be taken seriously. I just don’t think that school terrorist response plans should be taken seriously. I suspect most government school parents simply figure that the odds of something happening to their children are insignificant. There are roughly 100,000 k-12 schools, and even if Muslims attacked 20-50 schools, I think most parents see that the odds of their children’s school being attacked are small. So, they are willing to roll the dice. Of course, wagers are not valued just by the probability of an event, but also by the “utility” of the event.

The interesting question is whether the Muslim terrorists would limit themselves to Beslan-type attacks. For example, some anthrax quietly dumped into school air intakes by the nice man from Your Local Muslim HVAC Company would be far more devastating than Beslan and could be replicated widely long before anyone figures out what is going on.

We are going to have to hope that feds will be able to continue to stop or disrupt the activities of domestic terrorists.

[Rick.Donaldson]

I know. Thats what *I* wrote. Good grief.

[doug from upland]

You can’t create public awareness until the public realizes a possible scenario. That is the point of all this -— to make everyone more vigilant. Someone might see something important that, with other things reported, may connect the dots.

[achilles2000]

Agreed. Emphatically.