Scaremongering

Mexicola

George Bush wrote:

PRESIDENT bush revealed details yesterday of a foiled al-Qa'ida plot in which shoe bombers had planned to hijack a commercial airliner and fly it into the tallest building on America's West Coast.

The target of the plan, which Mr Bush said had been scheduled for 2002, not long after after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, was the Library Tower in Los Angeles - a 1,018ft, 73-storey skyscraper that has since been renamed the US Bank Tower.

Mr Bush said the plot had been set in motion in October 2001 by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, a month after the destruction of the Twin Towers and the assault on the Pentagon. Mohammed was captured in 2003.

But instead of using hijackers of Arab origin, the Los Angeles plot involved terrorists from al-Qa'ida's South-East Asia wing, Jemaah Islamiyah.

They were "young men from South-East Asia whom he believed would not arouse suspicion," Mr Bush said.

The plot was derailed in 2002 when a key al-Qa'ida operative was arrested.

Is this a case of more scaremongering?. Things have been a bit quiet lately so best to keep the American public on their toes. Keep the fear levels up and all that. Why do people need to know about this? We know that the threat of a 'terrorist' attack is ever-present these days, but as they say 'Mohammed was captured in 2003'...

Gaillimhtaibhse

Scare tactics? Believe this thread is already being discussed elsewhere?

In any case, I think that the big "scare" for the largest building on the west coast of the US is not a "suddenly altered flight plan," but rather the fact that this building is close to a major fault line. What will "all the king's horses and all the king's men" do for the occupants of this building if an 8-point earth quake strikes LA?

If they do no better than what they did for the flood victims of Louisana, then the people of LA should really be scared!

Siogfinsceal

as Micheal Moore explained in his films, Americans are controlled by fear and this allows the american government to control them. lets face it once 911 happened everyone was so afraid that George Bush could do no wrong - Ossama was the new common enemy. Geaorge could do what he wanted. So now we still have this constant scaremongering just to keep them all in check so the government have the power to do as they wish as usual

phantom_lord

Land of the Watched, Home of The Oppressed: The USA Patriot Act
by Plastic Glasses

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."- Benjamin Franklin

On October 26th, 2001, just 45 days after September 11th a panicked Congress passed, with little debate, the USA Patriot Act. The 342 page patriot act violates our 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th amendments, thus making it unconstitutional. I don't know why Congress passed this act, or how it got through the Supreme Court, but most people in Congress didn't even read the Patriot Act. I am sure that our founding fathers would not have wanted the Patriot Act. Just look at what Ben Franklin said, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." There was only one person in the senate that day that stood up for our Civil liberties, Russ Feingold (D-WI). He's a true "Patriot"

I'll start with a short summary of the Patriot Act.

Straight out of deranged John Ashcroft's mind came the Patriot Act. Contrary to popular belief, this doesn't make anyone in America the least bit safer. The overnight revision of the US surveillance laws expanded the government's ability to spy on US citizens and reduced checks and balances, judicial oversight, public accountability, and the ability to challenge government searches in court. It takes away many of our basic freedoms, even immigrants rights. With the Patriot Act America is no longer the "Land of the Free and the home of the Brave" It's more like "Land of the Concurred, Home Full of Hidden Cameras and Microphones". In the "new" America, where the Patriot Act is law, we loose our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

Govs constantly use scaremongering to obtain more control with emerency acts etc.