Secret FBI Report: Al'Qaeda may not be a threat after all.

According a recently uncovered FBI Secret-level report, Al'Qaeda cells have not only not been found in the U.S., but there is even doubt as to their ability to launch an attack against the U.S.

This means acts such as Patriot, Patriot II, and Homeland Security have either been extremely effective, extremely ineffective, or completely unneccesary. Is Al'Qaeda simply well hidden, or well stomped?



There is no question among the intelligence community that Al'Qaeda would like to attack the U.S., but to date, no evidence of cells, or their capability to do so, has been found. This seems in direct conflict with other reports by congress, who have released no evidence, and with other news agencies, such as this CNN news report.



The FBI report is apparently also casts new light on earlier reports, such as this one:



This now brings up a whole new range of questions, such as:

• Is Al'Qaeda really just a bogeyman used by Congress to pass favorable acts?
  
• or, Is Al'Qaeda really so deep and entrenched that they cannot be discovered within the U.S.?
  
• or, are Al'Qaeda cells not being used, but rather mercenaries working for Al'Qaeda?
  
• Were they once a threat, and now aren't?
  
• or Were they ever really a threat at all? (9/11 not withstanding).
  

The questions go on, but at least there is now one very large grain of salt to take with any reports of impending Al'Qaeda threats in the future. That is, if you're not already so desensitized to the cries of "Wolf!" that you don't even hear them anymore...

the scariest part in this al-qaeda "monkey business" is this quote:



"sleepers"?
now that really scares me.



i wonder who founded those sleeper cells?
and where are they "in place"?
and how much really means "several"?


[edit on 10-3-2005 by Souljah]

I am mixed on the effectiveness of these programs. Its a certainty that its ALOT HARDER for terrorists to plan/execute attacks against Americans now. The awareness alone makes it more difficult. But the doubts I have is how much did/do we need to do to continue to make it tougher? Have we done enough? Or are we doing too much for the same results?

For certain Id rather error on the "too much" side than not enough.

I really wish we could have spent that $400billion we have spent on Iraq on securing up our borders though....

I'd say that it is more likely that the cells just have not been discovered, rather than they are non existent.

Yep. Thank you George W Bush. I'm glad it was you
in the White House on 9/11 and not Al Gore.
He would have had us all singing songs and trying to hold hands
with the terrorists in a Chinese Buddhist temple surrounded
by trees or something like that.

Also I agree with Skippy ... our borders are a serious threat
to National Security. Stop sending all that foreign aid, and spend
it on US. Beef up our borders and update our infrastructure.

What cries of wolf? Those are for election cycles. I haven't heard a "peep" since Osama did that election eve campaign spot for W. And I'm not suprised it's being "leaked" there's no threat now. We learn alot after the fact, like no WMD's don't we? Ah, but the timing of it all. There's the high art.

Thanks you Ronnie Reagan for the public acceptance of election psy-ops. What a clever government we have.

I tell you what since 9/11 for some reason I always has felt that we are and will not be in any danger after that.

That was an isolated incident to cause exactly what it has cause so far after it.

The excused, for..............

A big spending budget, a bigger government and new ways to play with our constitutional rights.

Yes 9/11 was everything Bush wanted to have and more.............

[edit on 10-3-2005 by marg6043]

Or maybe Gore would have not spent half of his first 9 months on vacation, or read the August memo saying the air attack on the WTC was coming, or not been so busy planning an Iraqi regime change he'd have opened the door when Richard Clarke was banging it down.

But you cling to whatever fantastical justification for Bush's 9/11 failure and response you can. I understand.

Yeah! The Iraqis have health care! Do you? I don't.

To say the least, my feelings on the whole subject are mixed.

Near the beginning of his reign, I was a strong Bush supporter. Then I was rather p-o'd that he quashed stem-cell research because of his religious beliefs. His initial reaction to 9/11 garnered my respect, though his limp, lukewarm speech to the nation made me wish we had someone with a little backbone. Then he suddenly shows his backbone and attacks Iraq, which at first, I supported.

Then it dragged on, it ceased to be exciting. That's not what killed my support, what killed it is that while things were going slow, I began looking into everything going on. I became more and more suspicious that something wasn't right, and the more I looked into it, the less I liked it.

Then Farenheit 9/11 came out, and I was so ticked off I felt like...well, I felt damned ashamed to have ever supported Bush. I felt dirty, like I needed a shower.

Then it turned out that F9/11 was a bit tweaked, so some of it was valid, some wasn't, and most of it was spin. Still, my faith in Bush was completely gone. All I could do was have faith in my Government and Country to make it through to better times.

Then more controversy, and I actually became anti-Bush. In fact, it's about the only reason I voted for Kerry (well, that and Kerry's better economic policies).

And I sat and hated Bush for a long time...

...then the elections happened in Iraq. Things have quieted down a bit. It seems that the insurgents are beginning to lose heart.

...then Egypt holds a free election...

...then Lebanon wants to become a democracy...

...I realize that no attacks have been made on U.S. soil since 9/11...

Pretty much, aside from a few third world countries that (let's be honest) no one cared about pre-9/11, the world has pretty much gone on the same as it did before.

And a very treacherous part of my mind thinks "Huh... maybe Bush was right, after all."

Then the devious part of my mind thinks "Anyone could have been right when they invented the bogeyman."

The rational part of me says "I can't judge. I'm not there. I'm not a terrorist, so I don't know their views or abilities, and I'm not the President, so I don't know what he knows."

The kid in me says "I like the frosted side." Which is absolutely no help at all.

No. I got it right. Gore would have talked it to death
and we would have been up to our eyeballs in terrorist
attacks here at home by now. The 'let's all get warm
and fuzzy and chat' technique ... all the while (or AL the
while) the enemy would have been planning and carrying
out deadly attacks. Thankfully, Al wasn't elected and we
didn't have to find out just how bad it would have been
under him.

The response to 9/11 was just fine. No failure there.
And I don't buy that Clintons administration pushed that
UBL was a threat. Nope. He's just doing the ol' CYA.
If Clinton thought UBL was such a big threat, he wouldn't
have tossed missiles at asprin factories and empty tents
every time he got Lewinskied. The Cole and Towers attacks
would have been given a strong answer as well.

Don't you have a job? Doesn't your employer
pay for at least part of it? Or are you a student
and you need your parents insurance? (If that's the
case, I understand and you don't need to go into
that. Sincerely.).

Back to the subject - The FBI must not have asked the cops
in the UK what they thought and what they knew. If they had,
they would have read this ...

news.bbc.co.uk...

Yeah, that's it. Everyone in America is either employed by a wonderfully generous corporation that takes care of you (like WalMart ) or are a student and there's no healthcare crisis, no working poor, and the 45 million Americans (as of 2003) without insurance are a myth.

The "real crisis" in healthcare are all those nasty lawsuits. Yeah. Now you're talking. It's the doctors and pharmco's in trouble here. Not the people. Not ours anyway. Iraqi's? Definitely. But us Americans, we're just fine. Osama's on the run. Still. So America must be safe for capitalism and nation building.

OR

Are they simply lumping various splinter cell groups under the umbrella of "Al-Queda" with loose connections. Regardless, there are LOTS of whackos out there looking to outdo the 9/11 tragedy, no matter what name they wish to go by....and we've caught many of these nutjobs, whether it's taking photos of the subway layouts, the bridges, nuclear plants, etc. Whether they call themselves "Al Queda", "Hammas", "Islamic Jihad", "Black Widows", etc. there are plenty of groups out there wanting us just plain dead.

Now RANT... I was being sincere. But nevermind.

Back to the subject at hand ...
IF Al-Qaeda isn't a threat, then it's because
of the measures we have taken. That's my
belief and I'll leave that as my final word.
I'm outta' here. *sigh*

[edit on 3/10/2005 by FlyersFan]

Question:

If the FBI believes that there may be no sleeper cells in the USA, what's with the Color-Coded Danger Levels?

"We have intercepted chatter and we have reason to believe that there is an attack imminent so we are raising the threat level."

So, um, if the FBI says that they have NO evidence of Al Qaeda operating in the United States, where exactly are they intercepting this "chatter"?



jako

Damn this pisses me off. When is the public going to realize they are being played for fools? They'll probably say there is no threat and we'll end up getting nuked and then Martial Law is declared and then we are fuxor3d!

In a way its the old 'elephant repellent' deal.

I wear elephant repellent. It works really well, there are no elephants around me.


On the other hand, if I had been stomped on by elephants on three seperate occasions (embassies, cole, 911), I probably would be using elephant repellent, and the lack of elephants would indicate that its working.

But with the ultimate leadership of al qaida still not confirmed as dead, and major state sponsors of terrorism around, its simply not yet time to undo the terror provisions.

Do you think perhaps it could be, oh, I don't know, outside the US?

If you haven't caught any cells in the US, but you intercept transmissions from north africa between terror cells along the lines of 'the cells in the US are ready', would you say 'well, there are no cells caught in the US, therefore they don't exist'.?

The threat is real...as to the LEVEL of that threat? Well, that's another story.... Still, the downside is that the threat is destined to increase, as nukes and other WMD get older and thus more widely available, and as we continue to stomp around the middle east and ratchet up our rhetoric at nations such as Iran and Syria, whom are known terror supporters.

If you would have told me ten years ago that Pakistan and India would be nuclear powers in 2005, I'd have thought you were ready for the loony bin... Unfortunately, in 2008, we'll probably be thinking the same about Iran, Syria, and Jordan, etc. And with nukes on BOTH sides of the equation, renewed warfare with Israel is almost guaranteed, as it's enemies will hope that MAD will keep nukes out of the game from both sides.

Nygdan:

Um, rrright. So they intercept chatter from outside the U.S. and they raise the threat level IN the U.S....

So, if they intercept "chatter" from North Africa about a possible attack on the USA, they raise the threat level?

How come they rarely catch these people, if ever?

A message goes FROM someone TO another person. So if it's from Morocco to Australia, it's still valid enough to raise the threat level?

I guess I just don't understand what the whole Threat Level hilarity is all about.

I notice it has never been at Green, though, which is a little odd.


jako