From Time, an excerpt from a new book by Ron Suskind:
Al-Qaeda terrorists came within 45 days of attacking the New York subway system with a lethal gas similar to that used in Nazi death camps. They were stopped not by any intelligence breakthrough, but by an order from Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman Zawahiri. And the U.S. learned of the plot from a CIA mole inside al-Qaeda. These are some of the more startling revelations by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind, whose new book The One Percent Doctrine is excerpted in the forthcoming issue of TIME. It will appear on Time.com early Sunday morning.
U.S. intelligence got its first inkling of the plot from the contents of a laptop computer belonging to a Bahraini jihadist captured in Saudi Arabia early in 2003. It contained plans for a gas-dispersal system dubbed “the mubtakkar” (Arabic for inventive). Fearing that al-Qaeda’s engineers had achieved the holy grail of terror R&D  a device to effectively distribute hydrogen-cyanide gas, which is deadly when inhaled  the CIA immediately set about building a prototype based on the captured design, which comprised two separate chambers for sodium cyanide and a stable source of hydrogen, such as hydrochloric acid. A seal between the two could be broken by a remote trigger, producing the gas for dispersal. The prototype confirmed their worst fears: “In the world of terrorist weaponry,” writes Suskind, “this was the equivalent of splitting the atom. Obtain a few widely available chemicals, and you could construct it with a trip to Home Depot – and then kill everyone in the store.”
The device was shown to President Bush and Vice President Cheney the following morning, prompting the President to order that alerts be sent through all levels of the U.S. government. Easily constructed and concealed, mass casualties were inevitable if it could be triggered in any enclosed public space.
Having discovered the device, exposing the plot in which it might be used became a matter of extreme urgency. Although the Saudis were cooperating more than ever before in efforts to track down al-Qaeda operatives in the kingdom, the interrogations of suspects connected with the Bahraini on whose computer the Mubtakkar was discovered were going nowhere. The U.S. would have to look elsewhere.
Conventional wisdom has long held that the U.S. has no human intelligence assets inside al Qaeda. “That is not true,” writes Suskind. Over the previous six months, U.S. agents had been receiving accurate tips from a man the writer identifies simply as “Ali,” a management-level al-Qaeda operative who believed his leaders had erred in attacking the U.S. directly. “The group was now dispersed,” writes Suskind. “A few of its leaders and many foot soldiers were captured or dead. As with any organization, time passed and second-guessing began.”
And when asked about the Mubtakkar and the names of the men arrested in Saudi Arabia, Ali was aware of the plot. He identified the key man as Bin Laden’s top operative on the Arabian Peninsula, Yusuf al Ayeri, a.k.a. “Swift Sword,” who had been released days earlier by Saudi authorities, unaware that al-Ayeri was bin Laden’s point man in the kingdom.
Ali revealed that Ayeri had visited Ayman Zawahiri in January 2003, to inform him of a plot to attack the New York City subway system using cyanide gas. Several mubtakkars were to be placed in subway cars and other strategic locations. This was not simply a proposal; the plot was well under way. In fact, zero-hour was only 45 days away. But then, for reasons still debated by U.S. intelligence officials, Zawahiri called off the attack. “Ali did not know the precise explanation why. He just knew that Zawahiri had called them off.”
The news left administration officials gathered in the White House with more questions than answers. Why was Ali cooperating? Why had Zawahiri called off the strike? Were the operatives planning to carry out the attack still in New York? “The CIA analysts attempted answers. Many of the questions were simply unanswerable.”
One man who could answer them was al-Ayeri  but he was killed in a gun battle between Saudi security forces and al Qaeda militants, who had launched a mini insurrection to coincide with the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Suskind quotes a CIA operative as questioning whether it was an accident that the Saudis had killed the kingpin who could expose a cell planning a chemical weapons attack inside the U.S. “The Saudis just shrugged,” the source tells Suskind. “They said their people got a little overzealous.”
I’ve said before that the US has to make it perfectly clear that any attacks on US citizens using chemical and biological weapons will be met with swift, severe, and lethal retaliation—and that the US will take absolutely no military options off the table in preparing its plan for countermeasures.
Certainly, the international left, various human rights groups, and our own home-grown apologists would do everything in their power to try to weaken US moral authority to strike back with the force and severity US policy dictates—and at times, one suspects al Qaeda even counts on this internal western friction to keep the US from retaliating in a way that matches our official posture.
Still, why Zawahiri called off the attack remains a mystery: was he aware that the US had received word of the attack? Was he worried that an attack using poison gas would cross some invisible line that would almost inevitably cause the US to redouble its offensive efforts against al Qaeda and perhaps regain a good deal of international support? Or was the plan simply a ruse to smoke out a potential mole within al Qaeda?
No one seems to know. And indeed, some folks are already beginning to question why this information has been made public at all.
Others, however, are taking away a different message.
My preliminary thoughts are these: whatever you happen to feel about George Bush, one thing is clear: when it comes to defending the homeland against al Qaeda, he has not hesitated to act in a decisively proactive way once he and his advisors have settled on what they believe is the proper course of action. To that end, he has proven himself unafraid to use substantive military force and has proven himself largely immune to the opinions of both the western media and international elites.
Whether or not any of this factored into Zawahiri’s thinking is dubious, I realize; but I have long suspected that one of the reasons we haven’t seen the kind of attacks on US soil that we see in, say, Israel, is that the US, should it ever decide to go on full offensive, simply cannot be effectively restrained, particularly if public opinion shifts toward a desire to see the enemy eradicated—and even if doing so requires a shift in the collective moral calculus of the nation.
And poison gas on the subway has a way of creating moral pragmatists, I’d venture.
First.
Who pulled the plug on this one?
Tha Saudis. Mass casualty poison gas attacks in NYC and there would be alot of voices for tipping the entire apple cart in the middle east, consequences be damned. The House of Saud would not stand for long, so they just won’t let things get that far.
Strange that NYC has never voted for Bush.
Curious,
I’m sure Ward Churchill can explain it to us, he’ll have plenty of time to do so in the near future.
“Strange that NYC has never voted for Bush.”
You dolt, don’t you GET it!?
Bush is the whole reason that terrorism exists.
Some background on Ron Suskind from MacRanger. The Cyanide story doesn’t make sense in a couple of ways. I don’t think we’re getting anywhere near the whole story on this.
Dudes, you misunderstand me! I’m puzzled that those ungrateful New Yorkers don’t appreciate all that Our Leader has been trying to do for them by, for example, failing to create port security, trying to sell port security to Saudi Arabia, and sending all of NYC’s Homeland Security funding to North Carolina or someplace. Those New York bastards! Don’t they understand that Bush is just trying to protect them?
It’s not that they’re “ungrateful,” curious, it’s just that they’re all dead from the repeated terrorist attacks that have hit NY since 9/11.
Oh, wait…
Sorry for calling you a dolt curious, I guess you do “get it”.
That’s another thing. Those damn New Yorkers are probably ungrateful because of that stupid “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US” memo that Bush ignored, resulting in the September 11 attack. Everybody knows that was just an historical document.
Wingnuts, do you ever notice that Ground Zero hates Bush? Do you make anything of that fact?
I’ve long advocated taking out the entire Saudi royal family and taking over the oil wells. Set up a multi-national corporation for the free flow of oil at fair market prices. That would end terrorism quick.
And by the way, the port “security” deal wasn’t Suadi, but what the hell, all those people look the same, right?
No, I haven’t noticed that. Do tell.
As we’ve been told ever since the first Red vs. Blue maps hit the Internet in 2000, real estate doesn’t vote.
Pablo, you dolt, don’t you know even the ground hates Bush!? check out the last hourly poll.
No, lee, you don’t get it. Tag.
And by the way, the port “security†deal wasn’t Suadi, but what the hell, all those people look the same, right?
Lee, the Republic of Dubai, same difference.
This is particularly funny coming from a site that calls for the free expression of “Hadji Girl,” notwithstanding its offensiveness to the Iraqis whose Freedom and Democracy we are supposedly defending every day.
Anyway, life is too short to spend it arguing with the mentally ill. Toodles, and don’t let Jeff beat you too badly with his cock. Pablo, I’m looking at YOU (see Sadly, No!).
We understand you perfectly well.
Idiot.
Anyway, life is too short to spend it arguing with the mentally ill.
I agree, but that doesn’t stop them from wandering in here.
I just love how curious equates support of the First Amendment to mental illness.
“Lee, the Republic of Dubai, same difference.”
Exactly!
And it wasn’t about security either, but, you know, same difference.
Charlie: Saturday is visitors’ day.
Conventional wisdom has long held that the U.S. has no human intelligence assets inside al Qaeda. “That is not true,†writes Suskind.
That’s why I’ve usually (to be honest) been reluctant to accuse Clinton of having done nothing against Islamic terrorism during his time. I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff that happened that we won’t hear about for decades.
Whatever he did wasn’t ultimately good enough, of course. If Operation Sapphire was as tough on terrorists as The Big He ever got, then 9/11 was inevitable.
Try Emirate, dumbass.
Still stuck on the man meat, are you?
Pull your pants up, cretin.
Yeah, huh! It was all about Bush selling security. To the Saudis. For um, Halliburton.
This plan appears less deadly than 9/11. I suppose the answer to that met your description. What’s after afghanistan? Somalia? They’re allowing the world cup to be watched there. So it can’t be THAT bad.
I’d venture to guess that we have about a 50/50 chance of finding out the answer to the latter question as early as spring 2009. They may want to check the next POTUS out…..see if he’s a strong horse or not.
Wanna see 9/11?
Maybe al Qaeda is waiting for Bush to leave office, hoping that his successor will be more susceptible to public opinion.
None of you rednecks have responded to the basic question: why doesn’t NYC, Ground Zero, the site of the actual Al Qaeda attack on September 11, vote for Bush? Why is that, anyway?
I mean, if Al Qaeda bombed Little Rock, or Jackson, or Denver, I could understand your lunacy. But I don’t see where the Ay-rabbs have hit any little places like that. So why do you crackers live in such constant fear of terrorism? Believe me, the evil Islamofascists don’t give a shit asbout the hick towns where you live. So relax and enjoy life.
Maybe for the same reason “ground zero” spends $8 for a pack of smokes?
Who knows? Who cares? What do you think your point is?
I’ve got to agree that this is most curious behavior. I mean, calling off an attack on the Great Satan? What was Zawahiri thinking?
The thought also crossed my mind that he remembered the good ol’ days before 9/11 when he wasn’t living in a cave, and paused to consider if things might get even hotter for al Qaeda if they gas a bunch of people in the NYC subway.
Sign me up on the side of the folks who’d rather not have found out that we have a mole in al Qaeda.. Unless of course we don’t have a mole in al Qaeda, in which case releasing the info is a stroke of evil genius.
They probably abandoned the attack because someone told them about Aum Shinryo Kyo, who pulled the same stunt in Japan with fairly few casualties. In fact, that Japanese cult of terrorists played with chemical warfare a number of times, with mostly harmless results. “The poor man’s atom bomb” usually fizzles; the reason poison gas wasn’t extensively used in WWII was that it wasn’t all that effective (except psychologically) in WWI.
>>That’s why I’ve usually (to be honest) been reluctant to accuse Clinton of having done nothing against Islamic terrorism during his time. I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff that happened that we won’t hear about for decades.
Whatever he did wasn’t ultimately good enough, of course. If Operation Sapphire was as tough on terrorists as The Big He ever got, then 9/11 was inevitable.<<
By 9/11/2001, Clinton had been out of office for many months. Keep on blaming the Clenis, however; it’s good red meat.
Hmm.. Yeah, the more I think about it the better I like it: What if there is no mole? About the time every guy in al Qaeda named Ali gets offed, Suskind’s informant can slap his forehead and tell him ‘Geez I’ve got a bad memory! The mole’s name is actually Abu.’ I’m sure Suskind and Time would be pleased to publish a correction.
Doc that was Sarin( sp?) gas. Is that a comparable composite?
Swen LOL, Did I say Ali? I meant Abu or as someone else said, (maybe at Ace) Mohamed.
This is the first time I’ve ever heard that former wrestler Jodie “Chyna” Laurer was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. I mean, she’s the only person I’ve ever heard of who has a “clenis”.
By the way, those links are Not Safe For Work–especially the second one. Actually, they’re Not Safe For Any Living Thing.
Al-Sharq al-Awsat ^ | 04 June 03 | Muhammad al-Shafi’i
A fundamentalist in London who asked to remain unidentified said that Al-Ayiri was very close to Bin Ladin during his presence in Afghanistan. He added that he used a laptop to talk to al-Qa’ida’s leaders in Iran and Pakistan and was the “real link between Bin Ladin and the fundamentalist leaders in the Arab Gulf region and that US intelligence was hunting him.”
He pointed out that Al-Ayiri was one of five persons who traveled in 1992 aboard Bin Ladin’s plane from Afghanistan to Sudan together with al-Qa’ida’s leader and Abu-Hafs al-Masri (Muhammad Atif), the organization’s military commander who was killed in Kandahar in October 2001.
Also, Ayeri was the webmaster of alneda.com which the late Jon Messner hacked in 2002.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,54455,00.html
Extreme awareness of vulnerability by Liberals -> denial -> displacement -> BDS duh
Unprovoked, maximally cowardly attack on America/Americans+death worshipping, sadomasochistic m.o. and ethic + declaration of war + “die or be enslaved” = attack on me + war to death -> desire to kill them all + need to survive + preserve freedoms and free thought -> Bush Doctrine -> world wot = Bring it on, we want to kill you worse = you lose
Cqi, by your logic you are the one who should be terrorized and responding as we are. You are instead complaining about our responses. You are therefore the one terrorized continually, and to inaction, save complaining about your sad state as alleged “sole” victim target. You are one with BDS.
Or perhaps you are right and al Qaeda wants to kill Liberals first, for obvious reasons.
H/T Ann Coulter
Sean M: good thing it’s anchored on. The first one must have fallen off.
Creating hydrogen cyanide from sodium cyanide is somehow analagous to splitting the atom?
Because Bush is a Republican.
Or is that not nuanced enough for a non-redneck like you?
I suppose I could be mistaken, but I’m going to venture a guess that the people who worked in the WTC liked tax cuts, by and large.
Cantor Fitzgerald and “I voted for Dukakis” really don’t go hand in hand. More likely evil capitalists, or “Little Eichmanns” in the leftist parlance.
Forest–
Comparable in how they diffuse in a closed space, and comparable in how they are absorbed. Actually, sarin’s the bigger threat; it’s absorbed by contact, and HCN’s not.
Maor–
“The poor man’s atom bomb” is a reference to a book on poison gas and chemical warfare, and specifically its use by poorer states and non-state actors (“terrorists”, to differentiate between those who kill civilians with bombs placed in cars rather than dropped from B-52s).
Sean M.–
Having briefly lived in NYC, I can tell you that there were many larger worries than terrorism on my mind. I was a lot more likely to be killed by a suburban driver than by a terrorist. (Still true here in San Francisco.)
Sorry:
In the foregoing post, that last comment was directed to J. Peden.
The comment for Sean M.: Thank you for broadening my horizons.
Yep.
>> Believe me, the Democrats don’t give a shit about the hick towns where you live.<<
And we city-dwellers are aware that the feeling is mutual.
So why do you crackers live in such constant fear of terrorism?
So I guess there’s no middle option between being terrified of Islamists and being oblivious to their repeatedly demonstrated murderous intent.
Why should we be terrified by a bunch of technically incompetent warriors (suicide!?!) motivated by religious fanaticism? Why should we ignore them?
The answer to both questions is obviously: We shouldn’t.
So, why are you leftist freaks so terrified of George Bush?
Think of how it would broaden your horizons to admit you don’t know what you are talking about.
You are more likely to be killed by an automobile than by a criminal, fire or disease, also. Do you think the police department, fire department and medical professions are foolish wastes of time? And how do you deal with the piss stains in you pants everytime you try to cross the street?
Sorry, that was for the good doctor. Amazing!
How much of that post 9/11 charity came out of red states? How about post-Katrina relief for Democrat New Orleans?
Remember, conservatives like charity. Leftists like taxes and government. It doesn’t express intent when you have your cash taken away from you and given to others. Charitable giving, otoh, clearly expresses intent.
No, we love your self righteous whining. Please give us more.
tw – table
Now that just makes no sense. Is this thing on?
As far as real or imagined fears go, how many times does this happen and I don’t happen to stumble across it with my Sunday morning coffee?
Bu, but the Democrats said we had nothing to fear in our hick towns.
BTY, Maryland does have the death penalty for first degree murder. I hope Mujtaba Rabbani Jabbar receives justice for his crime. But OJ Simpson walked, didn’t he?
We are concerned with terrorism because it is the language of Islamo-fascism and Shari’a, both of which are making alarming inroads in Europe. And Europe is the canary in the coal mine.
We are also concerned with terrorism because Islamists led by bin Laden declared war on the United States in 1998–or hadn’t you noticed? Unbeknowst to ourselves, we’ve been at war with these guys for years and their attacks have grown bolder and bolder. We can no longer afford to ignore them unless we want to see western civilization descend into another dark age. Incidentally, followers of your stupid political philosophy would be among its first victims.
We are also fighting terrorism because it seems to piss stupid Marxists like you–I won’t use the word, ‘liberal’–off.
Mujtaba Rabbani Jabbar’s family are saying he’s mentall ill. Which he could very well be.
This is one of the scariest things I’ve read in a while. My sis lives in NYC and takes the subway to work everyday.
I want to apologize to Jeff Goldstein for calling him a pseudo-intellectual. I really didnt have any basis for saying that.
I am beginning to find some of the arguments on this blog and Jawa Report more convincing than the bitching and moaning on alternet.org, but I still don’t approve of racism against Arabs that I have found on Jawa.
Actually, all of those characters appear to be mentally ill; I’m inclined to doubt it. Where do we draw the line?
AR—Jawa Report’s been down all weekend. When were you reading it?
Thats why they touted rural electrification. So the citizens can tune in to hear Rush Limbaugh rail against big government.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
The savage wars of peace–
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
I’m puzzled that those ungrateful New Yorkers don’t appreciate all that Our Leader has been trying to do for them by, for example, failing to create port security,
How does one ‘create’ port security?
Is this a suggestion there are no port security efforts at this time?
trying to sell port security to Saudi Arabia
Source that claim, dumbass.
I DARE YOU TO
and sending all of NYC’s Homeland Security funding to North Carolina or someplace
Source that claim, dumbass.
I DARE YOU TO
Oh, I see your ignorance has been discovered by even you:
Lee, the Republic of Dubai, same difference
Because you say so, right?
Those damn New Yorkers are probably ungrateful because of that stupid “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US†memo that Bush ignored, resulting in the September 11 attack.
Um, dipshit, given the intel in that memo went back to 1997, why didn’t President Clinton do anything about it?
And while you’re furrowing your brow over that one, name a single thing Bush could have done in a month to protect America from this attack.
Just one, moron. Please.
Further, I bet you would have supported whatever Bush had done, right?
do you ever notice that Ground Zero hates Bush? Do you make anything of that fact?
They do?
Can you be bothered to back this with some evidence?
Wut, u dun think us cuntry folk shud be able to vote? elctrications for city slikers only huh? Hoo put the pissen cloreen in the water, wut i wan to no.
“I am beginning to find some of the arguments on this blog and Jawa Report more convincing than the bitching and moaning on alternet.org,….”
A progressive/liberal/Democrat with an open mind? Well, Saints be praised!
Oh dear god no. The liberal progressive project is for all. Marches on through the south and onto the middle east.
Actus, rural electrification was a Democrat plank at the same time as Jim Crow.
But, hey, same party, same philosophies, right?
I’m still snickering over how Curious refers to people—you know, actual living, breathing, loving, dreaming fellow human beings—by calling them “Ground Zero.”
Strikes me as vaguely … dehumanizing. Especially of the 3,000 who were snuffed out by Islamofascists right there at Ground Zero.
And somehow we “rightards” have no compassion.
I have been reading the Jawa Report for about three months now. A few comments, not by Rusty or the others who post but by readers of the blog advocate exterminating Arab men, women, and children.
Coming from someone who said “American women are whores”, “America, you lose!”, and on, consider me sceptical. Hatchet remains buried though, for now.
I mean, if Al Qaeda bombed Little Rock, or Jackson, or Denver, I could understand your lunacy. But I don’t see where the Ay-rabbs have hit any little places like that. So why do you crackers live in such constant fear of terrorism? Believe me, the evil Islamofascists don’t give a shit asbout the hick towns where you live. So relax and enjoy life.
Whenever possible always assume the gun is unloaded. yeah. That’s it.
Doc that was Sarin( sp?) gas. Is that a comparable composite?
I believe that sarin has a shelf life of hours in the atmosphere whereas cynide can last for years before it degrades.Cyanide isn’t as temperature sensitive as well.And cheap.
On the off chance that you are serious, America Rules, read this.
It is a piece that Mr. Ric Locke penned that should be mandantory reading for everybody in this country with an [<- enter] button, I think it will clear up some things for you.
Well, if by same you mean one is conservative while the other is liberal.
Please IGNORE ACTHOLE.
This has been a public service announcement for the commenters at PW>
As an historic side note, we hicks had radios long before the REA came along. Ever hear of batteries? It’s a handy way to date trash dumps from the first half of the 1900s—they’re chock full ‘o radio batteries*. Rush wasn’t around yet, so they must have been listening to NPR. [I should put a ‘winkie’ here for anyone inclined to take the NPR remark seriously.]
Thanks J. Peden, I’ll be chuckling all day. But I’ve a feeling that we’re all way too liberal for the Islamokazis. I mean! Letting our wymen run around without a bag over their heads? And we don’t beat ‘em near enough, Ann Coulter being a case in point.
*They’re also full of kerosene cans and oil lamp parts. It really sucks to read by the light of an oil lamp which, growing up on an electrified farm, leaves my libertarian soul a bit ambivalent about the REA.
Anyone espousing the extermination of all Arab men, women and children is a lunatic and finds no sympathethic ear around here. You have to remember that blogs are largely places people go to vent. Some of you–irritating though you seem–are probably great folks to go out and have a beer with. I doubt many of the morons posting at DU or Kos are really as evil as they seem–at least, I hope not. Perhaps some of them are venting, too.
You should also bear in mind that many of the people who support the current administration are either 1) genuine liberals disgusted by the blatant marxism of the current left; or 2) were leftist sympathizers in our tender, idealistic youth but wisened up. You can too.
Muhahahahahahahahhahahahahahahaha…so I was reading this book about FDR and his hiring policies for public works…care to comment on the conservative FDR, actus?
Care to compare notes with the percentage of Republican votes for Civil Rights and Democrat, and that was in the 1960s?
I’m channeling a name–someone light the incense–Bull, Bull-sh, Bull-shit, Bull Conner?
Actus, you truly are the World’s Most Fucking Stupidest Commenter. I know, I know, rls, I know exactly how engaging with the Typing Telephone Pole will end; same as the last one hundred times.
Public Service Announcement: Ignore actus. The above was for instructional purposes only.
I don’t think there’s any room for question here. They definitely count on the radical left as allies here to make their work easier and retaliation less or meaningless. The extreme left has demonstrated almost weekly that they are not against war, they’re for the other side.
I’m telling you, Verc, actus is a performance artist, and his posts here have been one long skein of High Art, played to a rapt audience.
Folks, this is a clear cut example on why we should not to take The Retarded Telephone Pole™ seriously. Rural electrification in the US started in 1936; Rush’s show didn’t start until 1988.
If actus is serious, the lad needs to learn history; if actus is snarking, said snarking misses the mark.
I know, Slart, watching Actus is like watching a Russian Bear tightrope walk, and then do a death-defying triple axel and land on a rope twenty feet parallel.
Except he does not so much land it, as fall between the cracks.
How untenable CAN you get? The Democratic party was once a bastion of Conservatives (was the Republican party once Liberal?) but then THEY kicked all of their conservatives out AND STILL RETAINED THE MAJORITY!
It fits the leftist skein for purges, but the purges never actually happened (Robert ‘Sheets’ Byrd, anyone?). And let’s not confuse Left with Liberal; the word Liberty is not in vogue with the Democrats except if the issue concerns vaginas, and maybe dueling cocks (for Andrew Sullivan and Jeff “The Pasty Cock” Goldstein.
).
Vercingetorix, I was channeling Moussaui. sort of like method acting, but of less quality.
Personally, I love American women. The only problem is that they always tease and cuckold me.
Iceberg, Goldberg, same difference.
TW: appear. It would appear that tranzis really are dumber than a box of rocks.
Lots of labels and name calling are obscuring coherent debate here.
For example, anybody who has read anything I’ve written here would certainly peg me as being somewhat to the right of Attila the Hun on foreign policy.
On social issues I mostly disagree with what I’ll call the Conservative Christians. The war on drugs, for example, is an abject failure. I’d rather see decriminalization, and the money spent keeping people off drugs. I want to kill the drug trade by taking the profit out of it. I despise the erosion of liberty in the name of the war on drugs. I don’t use them and don’t want them around, but the Rockefeller drug laws didn’t work in NY. The Federal policies don’t work either. We’ve tried for decades. Can anyone argue that they might work if we only gave it more time? Spent more money? Conducted more no-knock raids?
Does that make me a liberal? pragmatist? libertarian? Do those labels convey any meaning anymore? I’ll bet nobody ever changed their position because they were insulted. So why do we see so much of it?
Use the war on terror as an analog. What went on from the Iranian embassy fiasco to 9-11 was the law enforcement approach to WOT. If I weren’t lazy, I could reel off more but WTC I, Khobar Towers, USS Cole, Afreican embassy bombings, leading up to 9-11 were decades of a failed approach. The jury’s still out on Iraq and Afghanistan, but: we haven’t been attacked in the US, and we seem to be discouraging new ones. Is this tack cheap, easy, or error-free? Heck no. So far, it appears to be working better than the previous approach.
Sadly, JFK and Truman wouldn’t recognize the Democrat party anymore.
Recall JFK’s inagural address:
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.”
When did the Democrats decide that helping to create liberty around the globe was no longer an admirable idea?
Today’s Democrats call themselves “progressives” because they know that they’re not “liberals” anymore. To wit; Liberalism – a political and social philosophy advocating INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM,
protection of civil rights, etc…
The Democrats today are actually isolationists.
Re: al-Qactus
Meet the new dross…
same as the old dross.
Heh, yeah, God Bless those little whores
Most oddly of all, the Democrats of today follow the same policies as the Democrats of the Jim Crow era; they’ve just flipped the colors around and renamed it “affirmative action”.
Mark,
I say legalize drugs. Release drug offenders (no physical violence offenders), use the money saved from incarceration on job training/education. Tax and distribute and control drugs much like alcohol is controlled today. Make room in prisons for people who do bad things to other people.
Replace the income tax with a consumption tax and bring the “underground economy” into the tax base – even ill gotten gains are spent.
Reduce federal spending by eliminating many social programs and concentrate resources on protecting the country.
Prosecute the GWOT “all out”. Use Jeff’s cock or Cheney’s cock if necessary to “slap some cooperation” into waffling terror abetting countries. Let it be known that if we find out that your nation does not prosecute the GWOT with the same vigor as we – that your little hovel is in deep doo doo.
Tackle the “immigration problem” by enforcing existing laws and stiffen penalties against employers that hire “illegal aliens”.
Secure the borders, not for immigration reasons, but for national security reasons.
What’s all that make me? I’ll tell you, a minority of one. Ain’t no single candidate going to hit all of my hot buttons. So I have to select those candidates that either hit the majority of those buttons or that one most important button. For me, right now, it is the national security issue. I figure at least with that as a priority, I may be around long enough to work on the others.
Fuck. That wasn’t as clear as I wanted it to be: affirmative action is nothing like Jim Crow. Rather, the philosophy behind both is the same.
Charlie: Saturday is visitors’ day.
Do they have to let them out, then? Aren’t they supposed to be supervised or something?
At the risk of spinning the thread completely off-topic, I think you have to compare with what the situation would be if crack and heroin were sold next to the Snickers bars at 7-11 to make this statement.
Yes, the war on drugs has failed (and will continue to fail) to eradicate drug abuse, and is arguably responsible for a lot of associated criminality. But to extrapolate from that to asserting that we would be better off as a society if drugs were cheap and easily available to anyone who wanted them strikes me as ignoring a lot of other salient considerations.
BTW, before anyone accuses me, I am not a “Conservative Christian” either (Conservative, yes, Christian, no). But several of my relatives have destroyed their lives with drug (and alcohol) abuse.
How have your liberties been eroded in the name of the war on drugs?
No, I think the argument is that more lives would be endangered, and more social ills would result, if addictive drugs were cheap and easily available.
I am not dismissing the argument for decriminalization, I am just saying that it would be a very risky social experiment whose full implications are rarely addressed to extent needed to take it seriously as a policy alternative.
They aren’t teasing you, they’re ignoring you.
There’s a difference.
I cannot abide by that. I’ve used the cigaweed, and all of that; but I lost my best friend and a fiancee to cocaine abuse. Moreover, I grew up in a UAW town, where drugs were rampant (I mean, come on, it’s Flint) and my father was a drug abuse counselor for most of his life.
Drugs are a mistake, one I made and thankfully avoided hurting over. But just the recreational use has hurt an incredible number of people that I love, and by extension, me vicariously.
They’re bad, m’kay.
If the choice is between mandatory minimums for drug abusers guilty of no other crime and letting car thieves, murderers, rapists and child molesters go free, that’s an easy choice. On the other hand, the therapeutic approach is not necessarily great either. And legalizing might open drug abuse to an even larger segment of society; you run the risk of creating a somewhat better regime (therapy or other drugs, which is NOT cheap and has recidivism rates as poor as any other) but diffusing the problem.
And it is not suburban kids that will feel the heat from this. They’ll take a couple of hits, do a couple lines, pop a couple tabs, puff a couple of penners, on the way to college, marriage and 2.4 kids. It will redestroy the black ‘family’, which now is even more vulnerable to alcohol and tobacco and drug abuse.
What happens when cocaine comes as cheap as weed? Or heroine as cheap as a 24 pack and as easy to get? It was the brave “Murphy Brown”-like take on the alternative family, free from the father, that deprived the very poorest and least educated Americans of fathers and so doubled the workload on single-mothers while pushing them into poverty.
Legal drugs will go over swimmingly in suburbia, even as it adds another super-addictive substance to smother another hundred thousand kids from LA to New York.
Keep the sanctions. Legalization has its own costs, which you gentlemen are ignoring.
Respectfully,
Vercingetorix, Chief of the Averni, Lover, Fighter, with a kick-ass mustache.
For anyone trying to look for information, that’s “aum shin rikyo” オウム真ç†教.
Besides your poor Japanese, though, you’re neglecting a few other points:
– “fairly few casualties” was 12 dead and thousands injured;
– Sarin is a different agent (C4 H10 FO2 P) with a molecular weight of over 140, compared to HCN with a molecular weight of 27; it’s heavier than air, diffuses much more slowly, is harder to make and lots more “noticable” since it requires lots of special reagents, while HCN is practically a drugstore item;
– people in Tokyo stayed away from the subways in droves after the attack; the economic cost of such an attack in New York would be immense.
Another cretin who thinks the threat from al Qaeda, and the planning for 9/11, started in January 2001.
Monica? Is that you?
And CJI is a fucking pussy too. Come talk that redneck talk to some actual rednecks cocksucker.
Iceberg, Goldberg, same difference.
Not true: ever try to buy a head of Goldberg lettuce?
Quoth the “liberal”?
My white ancestors hung around northern Georgia for three hundred years waiting for someone to invent the trailer, so I suspect I qualify as a “redneck”. But I was working in the WTC three weeks before 9/11, and had friends and acquaintances who were working in it on the day: I take that attack somewhat personally.
Beyond that, however, I take any attack on any Americans somewhat personally.
At the risk of spinning the thread completely off-topic, I think you have to compare with what the situation would be if crack and heroin were sold next to the Snickers bars at 7-11 to make this statement.
Which is why the situation was so much worse than today when Heroin and cocaine and laudanum were sold over the counter next to the candy bars of the time.
LagunaDave sez:
You can buy $20 crack all over America. And it’s easier for an underage person to get a bag of weed than it is a case of beer becuse people who sell weed don’t check ID’s. But at the same time, alcohol is cheap, legal, addictive and a drug.
Shouldn’t it also be illegal then?
Remember, when we say legalize drugs, we mean let the government take the drug business out of the hands of private enterprise and run it themselves. Does it make more sense if put in those terms?