Originally Posted by GUWonder
No, it couldn't have been published then and there. And and it wouldn't have had the same arguments from the same author either.
Yes it would have. I've now put as much analysis into this branch as you have.
His argument is that we've been looking like crazy and haven't found any, therefore they must not be there. Unfortunately, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If the cells are just "sitting tight", then it would be extremely difficult to find them, no matter how intrusive the search.
Why aren't they attacking us here? None of us can know. But we do know that they continue to attack around the world, and that they've already attacked us here. So the prudent think to do is to put as many safeguards into place as we reasonably can.
An interesting part of the article was the comparison to the 20 ft tall Japanese after Pearl Harbor. Perhaps they exaggerated the power of Japan, but that certainly didn't mean we didn't need to do anything about it.
That's barking up the wrong tree. The "Lakawanna Six" were never plotting a terrorist attack, and certainly not one in the US. They don't even qualify for consideration as part of hardcore Al-Qaeda types -- especially since being on good terms with Yemeni shias, as they were, would have ruled them out from any meaningful Al-Qaeda terrorist acts and would do no more than result in being sent as cannon fodder against the proto-"Northern Alliance".
And "the cell in Lodi" wasn't much of an Al-Qaeda cell either.
Had the FBI rolled up the 9/11 cells before the attacks the liberal press would have been outraged about how they hadn't done anything more than attended terrorist training camps, learned to fly, and taken a few flights. Mohammed Atta would have been called "not much of a terrorist" and the Florida cell would have been called not "much of an Al-Qaeda cell either."
If there is an attack in the US, I doubt very much that the people on the other side of this argument will apologize to the victims for spreading the idea that we didn't need to do everything we reasonably could to prevent it. I predict they will have plenty of blame for the government for not doing enough.
So few "foreign terrorists" in the US and so much monitoring of foreign -- and domestic
-- calls is exactly why there is all the "hubbub" about the NSA's activities within the US (and through offshore facilities as well).
Please provide the cite for the NSA's activities regarding purely domestic calls. Calls between foreign and domestic and foreign only calls, yes, they've been doing that and the government openly admits it (now that the NYT has outed them). I think you're trying to muddy and perhaps overreach here.
Either way, there was enough activity there that it created an outcry. Given that, you can't conclude that there is no domestic threat. The foreign AQs were talking to
somebody...
Is this off-topic reference meant to smear the writer of an article so that you don't have to address the on-topic article's merits (diminishing as they are given our government's strategic follies)?
Off topic? The article was offered to provide interesting ideas, so the qualifications and history of the author are relevant.