Way off Topic!!!!!

[epsas at inflicted.net]

On Wed, Sep 12, 2001 at 12:59:37PM -0700, Dusty wrote:
> This is insane!!!!!  I can't believe that this country has gotten so full of wusses that three psychos with knives and box cutters can hijack an airplane full of people!!!  I would have kicked some dumb knife wielding mofo's ass if I was on one of those planes.

Yes, this was a horrible tragedy.  I do not, however, believe that ANY of us would have acted different from the passengers had acted.  Your statement, while probably sincere, is angry and thoughtless; an unintented insult to the innocent passengers who perished on those planes.  The hijackers had probably taken hostages at knife-point and made their demands with the threat of death.  In light of what the passengers and crew knew of at the time we would have capitulated to their demands- it was the sane thing to do.


> We need to let our intel agencies do their jobs over seas and not rope them in with bleeding heart crap!  They need to be able to infiltrate the enemy to find out what the enemy is doing.  To infiltrate you have to fit in and you can't be a school boy that follows the US Constitution and fit in with terrorist!!!!  Yes they will do things you won't like, but you don't have to do those things personally and they will hopefully protect you from this type of horror!  Remove the shackles and let our intel opertatives in foreign countries do what is needed to get the job done without repercussion.

Fighting terrorism is good.  Bringing those responsible for the attacks to justice is obviously the priority for our intelligence and law enforcement agencies.  "Removing the shackles" of the constitution, as you put it, is a big big mistake.  Some of the biggest tragedies of the past half-century were caused by CIA agents with large expense funds and permission to bend the law.  

Remember the School of the Americas?  The Contras?  Pinochet?  Marcos?  Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge?   Stepping off of our ethical foundation in order to attain an immediate goal will ultimately create a failure larger than the initial problem... and belittle the Constitution in the process.  There are reasons that half of the world hates the United States of America, and few of them have to do with the idiotic fatwas of Saudi Princes. 


> But DO NOT remove my civil rights!  Don't tell me I can't use crypto and hamper technology because the US has become too pussy to fight terrorism.  The only way to use a computer to stop a terrorist with a knife is to heat him about the head and shoulders with it!!!!  All the code breaking and information security in the world is not going to stop a low tech attack!

A regimine of US Sponsored infiltration, deception, cointelpro and assasination won't prevent our government from making insensitive foreign policy decisions either.  We'll be seeing more of these attacks in the future until we address the root of the issue.  

Remember, we trained Osama Bin Laden. 



peas,
Charles