Speed boat attacks

According to www.foxnews.com the FBI is concerned about possible attacks using speed boats, although no specific information has been obtained. Is this another case of covering thier bases in a what if scenario?

Originally posted by jeeze louise
According to www.foxnews.com the FBI is concerned about possible attacks using speed boats, although no specific information has been obtained. Is this another case of covering thier bases in a what if scenario?

Someone need to run over to the FBI and read them the story about the "Boy that Cried Wolf" I realize that they feel they should keep us in the know, but, its human nature that we will begin to just ignore the warnings because there are so many of them. The speedboat thing has been around since the USS Cole

Originally posted by FredT

Originally posted by jeeze louise
According to www.foxnews.com the FBI is concerned about possible attacks using speed boats, although no specific information has been obtained. Is this another case of covering thier bases in a what if scenario?

Someone need to run over to the FBI and read them the story about the "Boy that Cried Wolf" I realize that they feel they should keep us in the know, but, its human nature that we will begin to just ignore the warnings because there are so many of them. The speedboat thing has been around since the USS Cole

Here Here

I agree if there is no new information available we shouild not be overly concerned. I believe 99% of our population has thier eyes out as this is war time.

NOT VERY

After 9/11 the administration has been criticized heavily for not responding to "obvious clues" that an attack was about to take place. Perhaps the FBI has obtained similar information about a boat attack - perhaps boat driver's school has been inundated with people with links to some terrorist group.

I dont see how you can criticize both the pre-911 lack of warning about potential threats and then turn around and criticize this. Its what everyone asked for.

Its not so much a critisim, it more of a case of releasing information with nothing to back it up.If that is the case almost anything out there could be a "possible" terror warning, I can think of a lease 20 different ways a terrorist could attack something, but without information to back it up it is almost pointless, just another way to make everyone nervous and on edge.

Originally posted by PB
I dont see how you can criticize both the pre-911 lack of warning about potential threats and then turn around and criticize this. Its what everyone asked for.

Not sure I agree with you. There is a difference between warning the public and ignoring information. I believe the latter is what people are most upset about. The FBI had multiple clues and did not act on any of them . Or worse the ignored the people who did bring it up. As I pointed out in my earlier post. this constant state of warnings will only serve to dull any reaction the public will have. Already the Threat Level is a joke to most people. Next people will simply not pay any attention to the warnings. They will simply become background noise. Im not saying its right, but it will happen

I don't think they are ignoring information, I don't think they ever have, but the problem comes in on what to do with the information they recieve, how to determine what is crediable and what is not, if there is not enough information to prove something is going to happen or possibly happen it should not be released, we are getting to complacent with all the warnings where nothing happens.

Originally posted by jeeze louise
I don't think they are ignoring information, I don't think they ever have,

What about the field agent in Buffalo NY who was centured by her supervisors for pressing them on details about people in flight schools that were suspicious? What about the ignored warnings from the CIA about some of the 911 hijackers were in the country?

How do we know what was ignored and what wasn't, I am from the Buffalo area and remember that well, I think it may be more of a case of information getting to the wrong people at the wrong time, I think they are trying to rectify that but it takes time to change 50 years of doing something the wrong way

How do we know what was ignored and what wasn't, I am from the Buffalo area and remember that well, I think it may be more of a case of information getting to the wrong people at the wrong time, I think they are trying to rectify that but it takes time to change 50 years of doing something the wrong way

I find it quite odd that we have been inundated with these �alerts� since 9-11, yet nothing has happened. You may try to tell me our CIA and FBI have prevented any further attacks with their quality work and I would say, �Yeah, right!�

We also keep hearing about these various terrorist groups who were either started by our own CIA or a scapegoat with a name invented for public consumption. According to the powers that be, America is full of terrorist just waiting to hit us.

Anyone with even rudimentary special ops skills, motivation, and average abilities, could take down this country with 100 fellow travelers equally dedicated. You can take several items found in most homes in America and build an incendiary device that will spontaneously ignite depending on humidity and ambient temperature. There are two other items, one a liquid, one a solid you could put in baggies separately, hide them easily on your body, enter into a large high rise office complex, make your way to a return air duct, mix the two together and no one would get out alive. It makes a very deadly gas.

There are also a variety of household and/or garden items, which can be used to make explosive devices, some of which can have about 65% of the power of military C-4. There are two common products you can mix together, strain through a coffee filter, and when dry, it will blow up violently with the touch of a feather�good to paint on car door handles or your front porch welcome mat. It is good to trigger an explosion of home made C-4 also.

What if 100 dedicated terrorists traveled our highways and threw out common roadside flares in sparsely populated areas heavily forested. The hundreds of forest fires raging would be impossible to fight. We have neither the trained manpower nor recourses to fight that many fires.

A terrorist could buy military surplus items such as a spent rocket, make explosives and something to propel the rocket from the common household products, and blow up enough power related equipment, it would take years to repair it all. Our entire power grid could be made totally useless for such a long period of time, it would financially crush us, not to mention the death toll from starvation, the heat, the cold, and ensuing riots, which would happen.

So, where are all of these terrorists who supposedly want to destroy America? Why haven�t they hit us? If there were 10, 100, or 1000 men who were not afraid of death and wanted to meet Allah, there is nothing to stop them from doing their evil deeds. By the time authorities were alerted to what was going on, it would be too late. If I know all this, then rest assured, trained terrorist know this and much more.

Ghostwolfemoon

I agree with you, and with all your knowledge I am glad you are on our side!

I am skeptical of suggestions that the government deliberatly ignores or did ignore intelligence that would have prevented terrorist attacks. Perhaps I am misguided in beleiving that at least one person somewheer along the line hasnt been consumed by the giant conspiracy to perpetrate terror attacks on the homeland.

All that aside, we know nothing of either a) the intelligence leading up to these recent terror alert bulletins or b) the pre-911 intelligence. Sure, we saw the public inquiry, but of course thats not the whole story. Perhaps it was mentioned to Bush that there was credible intelligence that the WTC would be hit. And on the same day perhpas they had the same intel on 5 other sites. We just dont know.

I would like to know what alternate policy there should be. Should the public be kept completely in the dark about possible threats? Or should every peice of intel be put on the internet and be fully accessable to the public so they can draw their own conclusions? What we have now is a blend of the two, where information is released on a case by case basis with some beaurecrat deciding what is important and whats not. Is your arguement then that this person is being too liberal in what is released? If they didnt release it and someone did attack somewhere with a boat, would you be on your soapbox calling for the heads of the CIA and FBI to resign?

Something to think about.

I don't know what alternate policy is possible because we don't know now what thier policy in releasing this information is, I just think when they give us these warnings they should be more specific on what they are based on, otherwise they come off as general and half informational unless they are more specific, more and more people will ignore them completley as they are starting to do now.

I would suggest that releasing more information than that could compromise the sources of the intelligence. The US is a very large country, and is hated by large groups of people all over the world. I dont find it hard to beleive that new threats are discovered daily. Even a small suitcase bomb that rattles a few doors would be front page news.