Clearly, if any group were to use perfect tradecraft and communications, it would be much more difficult - if not impossible - to catch.
But perfection doesn't come easily. Look at how many CIA, KGB, MI6, DGSE and other intelligence agencies' officers have been caught because of screw-ups. These are people trained for long period of time - often years - to accomplish their jobs, yet even among their ranks screw-ups occur.
Terrorists, such as those caught in the UK, don't have such training. While they use many sophisticated (and many simple) means to avoid detection, they often lack the discipline to use them all the time and, in the case of Al Qaeda, often operate in such large groups as to make security hap hazard at best.
Consider Thursday's group and Al Qaeda's MO. A group that size had probably been in the planning and recruitment phase for several months if not several years. A group of that size needed large amounts (by terrorist standards) of outside funding, training, and support. They needed to move lots of information, stay in contact with each other, all while maintaining an outward appearance of normalcy (which they also apparently failed at, as a human intelligence source played a major part in busting the plot as well). A group of 24 - some say as big as 50 - quickly becomes unwieldy, and establishing perfect discipline amongst its often panicked members can be quite difficult.
Al Qaeda's biggest strength, and its biggest weakness, is the size of its attacks. The 9/11 attack was astounding, winning the group recognition worldwide, but it required a very large group to plan and execute. If the planned airline bombings had taken place, the result would have been perhaps equally astounding, but Al Qaeda's eyes are much bigger than its stomach - if it had targeted only one, perhaps two airliners and kept the groups small, tight, and using foreigners instead of UK citizens, it probably could have pulled it off. Look at the "shoe bomber" - he was stopped only by passengers, and his plot was unknown to counter-terrorist officials beforehand. If he'd had the smarts to try and pull it off in the airplane's bathroom, one would assume he'd have been much more successful.
Even if the group keeps 95% of its communications perfectly secure, that 5% slip can be enough to get them. Using that pre-paid cell too many times, forgetting to encrypt a chat just once, slipping up and paying with a credit card, not properly casing a facility, failing to use proper cut-outs to wire cash, etc. Insecure communications are far more efficient and, when one is panicked or when one becomes too confident, are often opted for, which is the key to getting people. By keeping the pressure up and making these groups feel nervous, most are bound to screw up in one way or another, helping them get caught.
While perfectly secure means of communication may well exist, the human element is what will always screw it up. Think about it this way - how easy is it to commit a "perfect murder", one that that leaves you with practically no chance of getting caught? If properly planned, not too hard, right? Yet most murderers are eventually caught. Why? They get lazy. They screw up. All too often it is the stupidity, poor planning, lack of discipline, panic, or overconfidence that gets them caught. Terrorists - who generally operate in sizable groups - often fall to the same problems.
Sadly, I have no time to respond to the above points at the moment, but I lived in Argentina for two years (and picked up one serious porteño accent) and got so used to being called that I figured, "hey, why not use it for a handle online?"
Thus I became Che Pibe. In any case, it was better than some of the more colorful porteño options... I spent a lot of time in the villas...
What's your relation to Argentina?
An investigation that likely involved hundreds, perhaps as many as a thousand people, with no leaks claiming otherwise, a martyrdom video made by one of the participants, explosives, etc.
Do you trust the sources?
Sure. You obviously don't, but as one who has at least some exposure to work in government, I have come to the realization that the government is indeed made of human beings. This bust, after all, was carried out by bureaucrats, not politicians.
Why would the bad guys NOT do a dramatic diversionary action, or even feign one? While really going for something else?
An interesting point, but one must consider their limited size and operating capacity. Very limited central control and the "cell" system further complicates the matter. Too many people would be aware of the main plot and the feint - it's safer, cheaper, quicker, and easier to plan just one operation.
Why does nobody with media clout ask the tough questions?
Watch a White House press briefing. You'll hear all kind of nonsense questions like the above batted around, but generally ignored because they are just that - nonsense.
(Usually anything controversial and with political overtones about the US or Israel is moderated down on Slashdot. Maybe this will be the exception?)
That seems to depend on which side you take. Generally, the further to the left you are, the more points you're modded up, although there are certainly exceptions to this rule. Oh, and you get bonus points for demanding that the time for revolution has come or arguing that preventing citizens from bringing toothpaste on a plane has somehow allowed the terrorists to win. Extra bonus if you can somehow tie Big Brother or DRM into those... hmmm.... DRM toothpaste...
After coming back from Paris, I found myself in that 2% of airline travellers who ends up in a different place than their luggage - I was in Salt Lake, my luggage was in Spokane. Interestingly, my wife and I each lost only one suitcase - of course, our most vital suitcases.
After going to my in-laws place for the evening and being forced to use some of my father-in-laws toiletries (ah... nothing like old-man dandruff shampoo and Old Spice... at least I had some clothes...), I came up with a solution:
You get frequent flier miles when your baggage goes cross country without you. It's a fair way for the airline to pay you back for the inconvenience, I think, and encourages them to pay closer attention to where they route your baggage. Luckily, nothing too bad has ever happened to me (my great-aunt had her baggage on a London to Atlanta flight shipped to Berlin on accident, where it sat for a few days), but it's still a big inconvenience when it does happen.
So, I say let our baggage earn frequent flier miles. When my things don't meet me at the airport, and when it's obviously not my fault, I should receive some kind of compensation - miles are a fair way of handling this, I think.
So, the least reliable sources are also in the best position to know what really happened? You base your entire argument on that?
Why would the Arab Mujahadeen lie about it now? Why not gloat in their success at having used the Americans to arm themselves? Suddenly, the wealth of bin Laden that we've all heard about for some time now is useless and he wouldn't have spent his own money? Why? Why were other countries contributing huge sums of money - matching sums, even - to the war in Afghanistan if not to arm the Arab Mujahadeen on their own terms?
Your argument amounts to simple conspiracy theory and a poor attempt to relate two items - U.S. pouring funds into the Afghan Mujahadeen = U.S. obviously helped non-Afghan Arabs (who had significant financial resources of their own and desired complete freedom of action, AND fought against the Afghan Arabs frequently to accomplish their own goals and create an Islamic state in Afghanistan). Forgive me, but the relation is weak at best and you've yet to prove causation other than using an ad-hominem attack against the forces involved while ignoring logic and reports from those who saw the action.
Yet State is at best a secondary source citing several primary sources. Do you dispute the quality of the primary sources - including Mujahadeen themselves, noted experts, CIA officers on the ground, etc. - who deny that any such exchange took place simply because State cites them?
"While the charges that the CIA was responsible for the rise of the Afghan Arabs [bin Laden's group being a part of these foreign Arabs] might make good copy, they don't make good history."
Next you'll be telling me that Fidel Castro wasn't created by the CIA. Just because the CIA doesn't keep hold of the monsters it creates doesn't deny that they created them.
Unless you can post more conclusive evidence than a editorial from the Guardian, I sure could.
One hears this tossed around a lot, but never with concrete evidence, only with the vague idea that since the CIA was spending a great deal of money in the area, some of that most have been given to Bin Laden, etc., etc.
Yet there's no evidence to support a direct link, and the fact is that money was funnelled into Afghanistan by many groups with goals that were quite distinct from each other and, from time to time, fought each other more than the Soviets, including targeted assassinations against other groups' leaders.
Bin Laden was in Afghanistan as a funder himself - remember that vast family fortune we always hear about him having? He was pushing his own side with different goals. The U.S. policy was, without a doubt, short-sighted - the goal was to get the Soviets and their puppet government out of Afghanistant, but little to no planning went into what to do with the vacuum we hoped to create. But to claim that the U.S. "created" bin Laden is quite ridiculous - he had been "created" long before then in the Jihadi sense, only the Soviets helped create a battlefield for him and the U.S. threw its weight behind the resistance to the Soviet occupation.
Don't believe me? Educate yourself. Put down the mouse, get off the conspiracy sites, and pick up a copy of Steve Coll's Pulitzer-winning book Ghost Wars. Do some serious research before simply repeating conspiracy theorist talking points.
Funny that the Taliban were a lot more effective than the USA in their respective "wars against drugs".
When the punishment for essentially anything involves dismemberment or death at the hand of Jihadis (rarely pleasent, to say the least), sure, I'd say they're more "effective".
Are you recommending that the West adopt a similar stance?
These photos are the latest chapter in a long-running problem of the press... and I think it's time for the American press to finally come out and say what it is - biased. ALL press is biased, period. But only here in the U.S. do we all happily assume that, somehow, our press holds itself to its lofty goals.
Almost all of the European press is up front about its bias - left, right, or otherwise. It's liberating, it's informing, it's better for consumers. If I want to read the French press and see what's going on in the right, I read Liberation, the far-left (communist), L'Humanite, the right, Le Figaro, a center-left, Le Monde. By reading articles from each newspaper on a subject, you can hear what all sides are saying quickly and get much more information.
But here in the U.S., such a bias is reviled. Fox News, for example, is looked down on for its conservative bias. I look down on them as well - not because they have a bias, at least they're more open about it - but because they try to conform to the American press ideal of supposedly unbiased reporting by claiming they're "fair and balanced". Just come out and say it!
I don't care if the NY Times is left-leaning, either. That's fine. But they should at least ADMIT it.
Americans, journalists in particular, need to embrace their biases. Let us know where you're coming from so we CAN get the message from both sides, not some filtered down, biased report passing itself off as "both" sides of the story.
Oh, believe me. I've done my fair share of foreign travel and seen the corruption you speak of firsthand.
Why compare the U.S. to the rest of the world? It's a government, so it makes sense to see how well it does in relation to other governments. Decisions are based on comparing what is "better" and what isn't.
Also, you're entirely correct about the overwhelming power of foreign bureacracies, especially in Latin America. Some are absurdly corrupt (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, etc.) while others are much less corrupt, but very inefficient (Chile, built on the pondering German model of the late 19th century, in particular comes to mind).
I'm not saying that all bureaucracy and red tape needs to be done away with - by no means. I'm just saying that a balancing point exists. Red tape is designed to handle corruption (discourage rather than allow it in most cases), but there comes a time when discouraging corruption costs much, much more than allowing a little bit of cronyism to take place. It's a delicate balance, to be sure, but sometimes I wonder if allowing a little of it to go on and giving up some control on the system would give the tax payer a net savings - less money spent on paperwork, more on getting the job done. Greased palms would, of course, be attached to hands giving out the money for work more often, but at least the work would be done.
In that it corrects some of my mistakes, and I appreciate your comments.
I neglected to mention that my particular experience was in an embassy. Most of the administrative personnel are not American citizens, which means the USG is a bit leary about handing out cards to them. There were only a handful of American personnel running the Foreign Service Nationals (FSNs), and these Americans were very busy in other areas and weren't the type of personnel you ask to make small purchases.
Regarding GSA - we made big orders through them, but only once every quarter/six months or so (don't recall specifics). Shipping big pallets like that from the U.S. can get expensive, and between time it takes to make the purchase order, assemble the pallet, ship it to post, clear customs, etc. it can take months.
My experience will obviously vary from that of many federal employees.
No, seriously. As someone who has worked in government procurement before, you would be absolutely amazed to see all of the nonsense the USG must go through - according to law - to purchase anything beyond small office supplies (and heaven help you if you need to purchase those in bulk).
A few examples: - It took one month to have a lock changed. Not a lock at a secure facility or anything of the sort, mind you, and preparing the paperwork to create the order form and see that it had all the necessary approvals cost more than changing the stupid lock. But don't worry - that lock was changed without any corruption at all.
- Time to wait for a request for most small items (purchases below $2,500) is at least a month, usually 6 weeks. If it is above $2,500 (and, no, you cannot purchase items individually if it's above that amount - they all have to be on the same PO), at least three bids must be made from different companies and if it is a piece of technical equipment, committees must be formed so that everyone can sit around and argue about what their requirements are for a few months rather than making the process quick. If you're buying a lot of new computers, expect a lag of several months - or a year.
- Let's not even get into the various acts that, on top of that, prevent the government from buying from certain entities, encourage it to purchase from others (minorities, women owned businesses, etc.), and the other groups the government creates to "streamline" ordering that do nothing more than add an additional step to the process.
(Above was with the State dept. - your mileage may vary)
The simple fact is that the government cannot act like an efficient, effective corporation and simply purchase stuff because it has been buried in red tape. Why is it buried? "We" buried it. By "we", I mean American citizens, but especially their elected officials.
Americans taxpayers, reasonably, don't want to pay taxes into a government that is corrupt and practices cronyism. This makes sense and, in spite of all the cynical things you hear on Slashdot, it must be noted that the U.S. government has very low corruption levels when compared to others, and we generally do hold those who break the law accountable for it. However, this (very) relatively corruption-free government comes at a high price - efficiency. An honest employee who needs to get his or her hands on equipment quickly simply can't do it - it must be passed through miles and miles of red tape first. Legislators always love to jump on these little matters when they com up, pound their desks, and demand something be done to stop it, which leads to yet more red tape.
It's a sad, sad day when a purchase must pass through the hands of at least 5 very busy people (and often pass through their hands more than once) to get approval. But that's what I saw.
I left asking myself - is it worth allowing a little corruption to avoid wasting billions a year in administrative fees? I'm not sure I could give that question a qualified "yes", but sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease.
**** NOT opening a can of beans here, so don't even start **** After seeing how the government does things with purchasing as an intern, I can almost understand the no-bid contracts with Haliburton. Just the bidding process on these contracts would've taken YEARS, and not met the policymakers' desired timeline (which you can see as right or wrong). **** NOT opening a can of beans here, so don't even start ****
Well, before the Mormon/BYU jokes start coming out or someone makes a strange accusation about Mormons and the medical sciences regarding this article, it should be pointed out that Russel M. Nelson, a member of the second highest governing body in the Mormon church, is a noteworthy heart surgeon, who has served as chairman of the Council on Cardiovascular Surgery for the American Heart Association and received a Citation for International Service from that same organization.
People expect technology to just work, with no effort on their part...
Yes, they do. This is called "good design". I shouldn't have to make a huge effort to get a computer to do what I want it to do - it should do it with a minimal effort on my part. A computer should work like a car (well... not my poor, beat up, old car... it should run reliably) - I should hop in, be able to quickly adjust it to my preferences, turn the key, and be on my way like it were second nature. I don't need to know and I don't care to know what happens under the hood, just what will happen when I press my foot down on the gas (which isn't too reliable in my car either, but I digress...)....and any failure in the execution of technology MUST be on the part of the technologist or the tool, never the user.
Now this I can agree with, but it goes far beyond the days of the computer - people complained about poorly made tools long before the tool of choice was a laptop. Then again, from time to time, it is the designer's screw up and the tool's fault.
The able must serve the unable in our culture, so where's the benefit to being one of the able?
If you step down from your high horse for a moment, it's generally a bigger paycheck, a nicer house, and a life of some fulfillment beyond reality TV and alcohol or your preferred narcotic.
Perhaps a bigger problem, a bigger source of whining, can be found here on/. and other sites.
I don't know how better to put it than this - The fact that you can install Linux and consider yourself to be "smart" does not make you an expert worth listening to on any other subject. Look around at some of the infantile political bantering you find on both sides of the aisle at slashdot, as people glory in their intelligence over "normal" humans because, by golly, they know how to install a router so they must have the solution to the Middle East's problems. The same people who would despise "noobs" that won't read the manual and figure it out themselves blather on and on about topics - particularly those dealing with politics - without so much as a basic understanding of history, international relations, or domestic politics. Just look at all of the "omg Big Brother!" comments, which display as little understanding of government and private sector actions as they do of Orwell's classic.
One of the greatest failures of all civilization is an inability to admit we don't know something about a particular subject. We're driven to come up with opinions on everything - as soon as the matter is raised, no less - rather than allowed or encouraged to think about it, mull it over, and consider all sides. I believe that it is in denying this urge for instant gratification of opinion - being able to hold off, think, listen, and ponder we can get along much better. Of course, there are matters which deserve instant condemnation or praise - we cannot wring our hands over every little thing, and there needs to be some sense of "right and wrong" in a society.
But you're forgetting about the principle of sunk cost.
Hypothetically, if we've spent $700 million to upgrade a facility in the past, this is no reason to spend much more to maintain that facility in the future when cheaper alternatives exist now. I can imagine that keeping Cheyenne properly stocked is an expensive proposal when compared with the new plan. If a cheaper proposal exists that suffices present needs, then it should reasonably be used.
In any case, Cheyenne is not entirely deactivated, just temporarily moth-balled against future needs. We can't get back the $700 million already spent on upgrades, so why should we continue to pay more into the future simply because we've made an investment?
I'd agree that Russia is not completely out of the picture, however the odds of a Russian missile launch now are much lower when compared with other threats. In any case, one could reasonbly assume that a political development of the type you describe would occur with enough time to anticipate the potential problem and reactivate Cheyenne. From a brief look around, it does not appear that ABMs are controlled from Cheyenne, either, although their forward control is listed as being in Colorado Springs (near Cheyenne).
In any case, thanks for pointing out some faults in my original post. I failed to elaborate.
Cheyenne was built for a massive nuclear exchange between powers - when one could rely on most of the U.S. being wiped off the earth and the U.S. needed to maintain the capability to strike back in that event as a deterrent.
Present threats - including those that you describe - do not have that capability. They have the ability to destroy a handful of cities at most, and a response is ensured through other means, without having to rely on this particular base any longer.
The threat has changed - the U.S. is adapting to threats armed with only a handful of nukes rather than enough to kill us all.
The difficulty with this is I can see some reasons for a cop to arrest or otherwise detain someone without a legal reason to do so, yet still be more or less in the "right".
Let's say you're visiting a buddy at his apartment and chilling out in the living room. Unbeknownst to you and your buddy, your buddy's roommate happens to be a fugitive from the law for some very serious offenses (let's say armed bank robbery, child molestation, murder, etc.).
The police show up (probably in the form of a SWAT team), knock down the door, and immediately detain everyone in the apartment. They know what their suspect looks like, but in a situation like this the cops aren't exactly going to go around politely asking for ID from everyone and they don't know if you're helping protect the guy. They start pointing guns, demand everyone get down on the floor immediately, and detain everyone there until they can determine that they have their man and you are not a threat.
If you choose to resist in this situation, a police officer would have every reason to detain you and harrass you for a bit and could reasonably mistake you for someone helping to give refuge to a criminal when you had no idea what was going on. You may be arrested for further scrutinization or, if you choose to resist in a way that the police officer feels is a threat to his well-being (by pulling a knife or firearm), you could be killed.
A situation like this actually happened to a buddy of mine once. A new roommate had moved in to replace his old one (he barely knew the guy), and about a week later the cops came, knocked down the door, and grabbed the guy (who was wanted for a brutal domestic assault and was known to have more than a few firearms), and detained my friend temporarily until they could determine what was going on and that he was not their man. After all was said and done, they released him (he cooperated fully), apologized for the inconvenience, and acted very professionally, making sure he was not hurt in the process, offering him medical help, and explaining to him why they had entered as they did and what my friend's then ex-roommate had done. My friend was actually pretty happy with the whole experience - the police got rid of a potential threat to his life (the guy had a long, violent record) and he walked away without a scratch and a good story to tell.
While the parent is most likely wrong as to the ethnicity of the activists, particularly if he is speaking of Chile, it should be noted that there is a significant Syrian and Lebanese Arab population can be found in Argentina, many of which are practicing Muslims. Other pockets exist throughout South America.
Not everyone in South America is a Mestizo, you know.
I know, I know, "lobbyist" is a dirty word. Many people are turned off by the idea of organized groups attempting to influence politics, yet the legislative process was never meant to take place in a bubble - it's designed (or at least intended) to respond to the people's needs, and one way of expressing those needs is through lobbying - getting out there, meeting with and educating law makers, persuading them, and sure, perhaps supporting those that support your views financially.
Slashdotters, et al, shouldn't be too surprised that their views aren't effectively represented in legislation - they are effectively making them known, aren't effectively organizing, and aren't working to acheive their goals. Much of this is obviouisly due to the lack of organization that exists amongs the tech savvy - which is certainly not a monolithic group - but I would also argue that much of it has to do with an intense dislike for lobbyists and the perception that, somehow, "interfering" in the legislative process is dirty. Well, it's not. It's a part of the process that's always been around, always will be around, and people ignore at their own peril.
I agree with most that this legislation - while perhaps having good "protect the children" intentions - is ineffective and more than a bit ridiculous. But simply e-mailing your congressman isn't really going to be effective. A group needs to be formed that handles these matters before and as they arise. I would also argue that this group would not only be used to block ineffective legislation, but to propose and promote ideas that could actually help protect children from material inappropriate for their age and, more importantly, those who would prey on children on the internet.
That won't happen until some group of tech-savvy people with both the background and demeanor required for lobbying steps up and takes action. It also wouldn't hurt if the perception of lobbyists as a necessary part of the process rather than simply evil (well, ok, lots of them are "evil") changed in the tech world.
There are dozens of groups out there lobbying against what the techies want - the techies should make their voice heard in that forum effectively or quit complaining.
Slashdot Mirror
Clearly, if any group were to use perfect tradecraft and communications, it would be much more difficult - if not impossible - to catch.
But perfection doesn't come easily. Look at how many CIA, KGB, MI6, DGSE and other intelligence agencies' officers have been caught because of screw-ups. These are people trained for long period of time - often years - to accomplish their jobs, yet even among their ranks screw-ups occur.
Terrorists, such as those caught in the UK, don't have such training. While they use many sophisticated (and many simple) means to avoid detection, they often lack the discipline to use them all the time and, in the case of Al Qaeda, often operate in such large groups as to make security hap hazard at best.
Consider Thursday's group and Al Qaeda's MO. A group that size had probably been in the planning and recruitment phase for several months if not several years. A group of that size needed large amounts (by terrorist standards) of outside funding, training, and support. They needed to move lots of information, stay in contact with each other, all while maintaining an outward appearance of normalcy (which they also apparently failed at, as a human intelligence source played a major part in busting the plot as well). A group of 24 - some say as big as 50 - quickly becomes unwieldy, and establishing perfect discipline amongst its often panicked members can be quite difficult.
Al Qaeda's biggest strength, and its biggest weakness, is the size of its attacks. The 9/11 attack was astounding, winning the group recognition worldwide, but it required a very large group to plan and execute. If the planned airline bombings had taken place, the result would have been perhaps equally astounding, but Al Qaeda's eyes are much bigger than its stomach - if it had targeted only one, perhaps two airliners and kept the groups small, tight, and using foreigners instead of UK citizens, it probably could have pulled it off. Look at the "shoe bomber" - he was stopped only by passengers, and his plot was unknown to counter-terrorist officials beforehand. If he'd had the smarts to try and pull it off in the airplane's bathroom, one would assume he'd have been much more successful.
Even if the group keeps 95% of its communications perfectly secure, that 5% slip can be enough to get them. Using that pre-paid cell too many times, forgetting to encrypt a chat just once, slipping up and paying with a credit card, not properly casing a facility, failing to use proper cut-outs to wire cash, etc. Insecure communications are far more efficient and, when one is panicked or when one becomes too confident, are often opted for, which is the key to getting people. By keeping the pressure up and making these groups feel nervous, most are bound to screw up in one way or another, helping them get caught.
While perfectly secure means of communication may well exist, the human element is what will always screw it up. Think about it this way - how easy is it to commit a "perfect murder", one that that leaves you with practically no chance of getting caught? If properly planned, not too hard, right? Yet most murderers are eventually caught. Why? They get lazy. They screw up. All too often it is the stupidity, poor planning, lack of discipline, panic, or overconfidence that gets them caught. Terrorists - who generally operate in sizable groups - often fall to the same problems.
Sadly, I have no time to respond to the above points at the moment, but I lived in Argentina for two years (and picked up one serious porteño accent) and got so used to being called that I figured, "hey, why not use it for a handle online?" Thus I became Che Pibe. In any case, it was better than some of the more colorful porteño options... I spent a lot of time in the villas... What's your relation to Argentina?
Where is the evidence?
An investigation that likely involved hundreds, perhaps as many as a thousand people, with no leaks claiming otherwise, a martyrdom video made by one of the participants, explosives, etc.
Do you trust the sources?
Sure. You obviously don't, but as one who has at least some exposure to work in government, I have come to the realization that the government is indeed made of human beings. This bust, after all, was carried out by bureaucrats, not politicians.
Why would the bad guys NOT do a dramatic diversionary action, or even feign one? While really going for something else?
An interesting point, but one must consider their limited size and operating capacity. Very limited central control and the "cell" system further complicates the matter. Too many people would be aware of the main plot and the feint - it's safer, cheaper, quicker, and easier to plan just one operation.
Why does nobody with media clout ask the tough questions?
Watch a White House press briefing. You'll hear all kind of nonsense questions like the above batted around, but generally ignored because they are just that - nonsense.
(Usually anything controversial and with political overtones about the US or Israel is moderated down on Slashdot. Maybe this will be the exception?)
That seems to depend on which side you take. Generally, the further to the left you are, the more points you're modded up, although there are certainly exceptions to this rule. Oh, and you get bonus points for demanding that the time for revolution has come or arguing that preventing citizens from bringing toothpaste on a plane has somehow allowed the terrorists to win. Extra bonus if you can somehow tie Big Brother or DRM into those... hmmm.... DRM toothpaste...
There just might be a third option somewhere, don't you think?
After coming back from Paris, I found myself in that 2% of airline travellers who ends up in a different place than their luggage - I was in Salt Lake, my luggage was in Spokane. Interestingly, my wife and I each lost only one suitcase - of course, our most vital suitcases.
After going to my in-laws place for the evening and being forced to use some of my father-in-laws toiletries (ah... nothing like old-man dandruff shampoo and Old Spice... at least I had some clothes...), I came up with a solution:
You get frequent flier miles when your baggage goes cross country without you. It's a fair way for the airline to pay you back for the inconvenience, I think, and encourages them to pay closer attention to where they route your baggage. Luckily, nothing too bad has ever happened to me (my great-aunt had her baggage on a London to Atlanta flight shipped to Berlin on accident, where it sat for a few days), but it's still a big inconvenience when it does happen.
So, I say let our baggage earn frequent flier miles. When my things don't meet me at the airport, and when it's obviously not my fault, I should receive some kind of compensation - miles are a fair way of handling this, I think.
So, the least reliable sources are also in the best position to know what really happened? You base your entire argument on that?
Why would the Arab Mujahadeen lie about it now? Why not gloat in their success at having used the Americans to arm themselves? Suddenly, the wealth of bin Laden that we've all heard about for some time now is useless and he wouldn't have spent his own money? Why? Why were other countries contributing huge sums of money - matching sums, even - to the war in Afghanistan if not to arm the Arab Mujahadeen on their own terms?
Your argument amounts to simple conspiracy theory and a poor attempt to relate two items - U.S. pouring funds into the Afghan Mujahadeen = U.S. obviously helped non-Afghan Arabs (who had significant financial resources of their own and desired complete freedom of action, AND fought against the Afghan Arabs frequently to accomplish their own goals and create an Islamic state in Afghanistan). Forgive me, but the relation is weak at best and you've yet to prove causation other than using an ad-hominem attack against the forces involved while ignoring logic and reports from those who saw the action.
Tell me, who caused 9/11?
Yet State is at best a secondary source citing several primary sources. Do you dispute the quality of the primary sources - including Mujahadeen themselves, noted experts, CIA officers on the ground, etc. - who deny that any such exchange took place simply because State cites them?
Forgive me if I fail to see your logic.
Of course, there's plenty of documentation to support the other argument (from your own search):
- 318760.html
http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jan/24
And you've yet to respond to Steve Coll's book.
As Peter Bergen puts it in the above link:
"While the charges that the CIA was responsible for the rise of the Afghan Arabs [bin Laden's group being a part of these foreign Arabs] might make good copy, they don't make good history."
Read on.
Next you'll be telling me that Fidel Castro wasn't created by the CIA. Just because the CIA doesn't keep hold of the monsters it creates doesn't deny that they created them.
Unless you can post more conclusive evidence than a editorial from the Guardian, I sure could.
the CIA that also created Osama bin Laden?
One hears this tossed around a lot, but never with concrete evidence, only with the vague idea that since the CIA was spending a great deal of money in the area, some of that most have been given to Bin Laden, etc., etc.
Yet there's no evidence to support a direct link, and the fact is that money was funnelled into Afghanistan by many groups with goals that were quite distinct from each other and, from time to time, fought each other more than the Soviets, including targeted assassinations against other groups' leaders.
Bin Laden was in Afghanistan as a funder himself - remember that vast family fortune we always hear about him having? He was pushing his own side with different goals. The U.S. policy was, without a doubt, short-sighted - the goal was to get the Soviets and their puppet government out of Afghanistant, but little to no planning went into what to do with the vacuum we hoped to create. But to claim that the U.S. "created" bin Laden is quite ridiculous - he had been "created" long before then in the Jihadi sense, only the Soviets helped create a battlefield for him and the U.S. threw its weight behind the resistance to the Soviet occupation.
Don't believe me? Educate yourself. Put down the mouse, get off the conspiracy sites, and pick up a copy of Steve Coll's Pulitzer-winning book Ghost Wars. Do some serious research before simply repeating conspiracy theorist talking points.
Now, mod me down like you know you want to.
Funny that the Taliban were a lot more effective than the USA in their respective "wars against drugs".
When the punishment for essentially anything involves dismemberment or death at the hand of Jihadis (rarely pleasent, to say the least), sure, I'd say they're more "effective".
Are you recommending that the West adopt a similar stance?
Reuters head office is in the UK.
That I did not know. Guess I should spend some more time on Wikipedia.
Reuters' product in the U.S. is generally treated as on par with the associated press in the U.S., though.
I understand the difference... but bias is a driving factor for much of the deception going on.
These photos are the latest chapter in a long-running problem of the press... and I think it's time for the American press to finally come out and say what it is - biased. ALL press is biased, period. But only here in the U.S. do we all happily assume that, somehow, our press holds itself to its lofty goals.
Almost all of the European press is up front about its bias - left, right, or otherwise. It's liberating, it's informing, it's better for consumers. If I want to read the French press and see what's going on in the right, I read Liberation, the far-left (communist), L'Humanite, the right, Le Figaro, a center-left, Le Monde. By reading articles from each newspaper on a subject, you can hear what all sides are saying quickly and get much more information.
But here in the U.S., such a bias is reviled. Fox News, for example, is looked down on for its conservative bias. I look down on them as well - not because they have a bias, at least they're more open about it - but because they try to conform to the American press ideal of supposedly unbiased reporting by claiming they're "fair and balanced". Just come out and say it!
I don't care if the NY Times is left-leaning, either. That's fine. But they should at least ADMIT it.
Americans, journalists in particular, need to embrace their biases. Let us know where you're coming from so we CAN get the message from both sides, not some filtered down, biased report passing itself off as "both" sides of the story.
Oh, believe me. I've done my fair share of foreign travel and seen the corruption you speak of firsthand.
Why compare the U.S. to the rest of the world? It's a government, so it makes sense to see how well it does in relation to other governments. Decisions are based on comparing what is "better" and what isn't.
Also, you're entirely correct about the overwhelming power of foreign bureacracies, especially in Latin America. Some are absurdly corrupt (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, etc.) while others are much less corrupt, but very inefficient (Chile, built on the pondering German model of the late 19th century, in particular comes to mind).
I'm not saying that all bureaucracy and red tape needs to be done away with - by no means. I'm just saying that a balancing point exists. Red tape is designed to handle corruption (discourage rather than allow it in most cases), but there comes a time when discouraging corruption costs much, much more than allowing a little bit of cronyism to take place. It's a delicate balance, to be sure, but sometimes I wonder if allowing a little of it to go on and giving up some control on the system would give the tax payer a net savings - less money spent on paperwork, more on getting the job done. Greased palms would, of course, be attached to hands giving out the money for work more often, but at least the work would be done.
In that it corrects some of my mistakes, and I appreciate your comments.
I neglected to mention that my particular experience was in an embassy. Most of the administrative personnel are not American citizens, which means the USG is a bit leary about handing out cards to them. There were only a handful of American personnel running the Foreign Service Nationals (FSNs), and these Americans were very busy in other areas and weren't the type of personnel you ask to make small purchases.
Regarding GSA - we made big orders through them, but only once every quarter/six months or so (don't recall specifics). Shipping big pallets like that from the U.S. can get expensive, and between time it takes to make the purchase order, assemble the pallet, ship it to post, clear customs, etc. it can take months.
My experience will obviously vary from that of many federal employees.
"We" want a corruption free, fair government.
No, seriously. As someone who has worked in government procurement before, you would be absolutely amazed to see all of the nonsense the USG must go through - according to law - to purchase anything beyond small office supplies (and heaven help you if you need to purchase those in bulk).
A few examples:
- It took one month to have a lock changed. Not a lock at a secure facility or anything of the sort, mind you, and preparing the paperwork to create the order form and see that it had all the necessary approvals cost more than changing the stupid lock. But don't worry - that lock was changed without any corruption at all.
- Time to wait for a request for most small items (purchases below $2,500) is at least a month, usually 6 weeks. If it is above $2,500 (and, no, you cannot purchase items individually if it's above that amount - they all have to be on the same PO), at least three bids must be made from different companies and if it is a piece of technical equipment, committees must be formed so that everyone can sit around and argue about what their requirements are for a few months rather than making the process quick. If you're buying a lot of new computers, expect a lag of several months - or a year.
- Let's not even get into the various acts that, on top of that, prevent the government from buying from certain entities, encourage it to purchase from others (minorities, women owned businesses, etc.), and the other groups the government creates to "streamline" ordering that do nothing more than add an additional step to the process.
(Above was with the State dept. - your mileage may vary)
The simple fact is that the government cannot act like an efficient, effective corporation and simply purchase stuff because it has been buried in red tape. Why is it buried? "We" buried it. By "we", I mean American citizens, but especially their elected officials.
Americans taxpayers, reasonably, don't want to pay taxes into a government that is corrupt and practices cronyism. This makes sense and, in spite of all the cynical things you hear on Slashdot, it must be noted that the U.S. government has very low corruption levels when compared to others, and we generally do hold those who break the law accountable for it. However, this (very) relatively corruption-free government comes at a high price - efficiency. An honest employee who needs to get his or her hands on equipment quickly simply can't do it - it must be passed through miles and miles of red tape first. Legislators always love to jump on these little matters when they com up, pound their desks, and demand something be done to stop it, which leads to yet more red tape.
It's a sad, sad day when a purchase must pass through the hands of at least 5 very busy people (and often pass through their hands more than once) to get approval. But that's what I saw.
I left asking myself - is it worth allowing a little corruption to avoid wasting billions a year in administrative fees? I'm not sure I could give that question a qualified "yes", but sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease.
**** NOT opening a can of beans here, so don't even start ****
After seeing how the government does things with purchasing as an intern, I can almost understand the no-bid contracts with Haliburton. Just the bidding process on these contracts would've taken YEARS, and not met the policymakers' desired timeline (which you can see as right or wrong).
**** NOT opening a can of beans here, so don't even start ****
Well, before the Mormon/BYU jokes start coming out or someone makes a strange accusation about Mormons and the medical sciences regarding this article, it should be pointed out that Russel M. Nelson, a member of the second highest governing body in the Mormon church, is a noteworthy heart surgeon, who has served as chairman of the Council on Cardiovascular Surgery for the American Heart Association and received a Citation for International Service from that same organization.
People expect technology to just work, with no effort on their part...
...and any failure in the execution of technology MUST be on the part of the technologist or the tool, never the user.
/. and other sites.
Yes, they do. This is called "good design". I shouldn't have to make a huge effort to get a computer to do what I want it to do - it should do it with a minimal effort on my part. A computer should work like a car (well... not my poor, beat up, old car... it should run reliably) - I should hop in, be able to quickly adjust it to my preferences, turn the key, and be on my way like it were second nature. I don't need to know and I don't care to know what happens under the hood, just what will happen when I press my foot down on the gas (which isn't too reliable in my car either, but I digress...).
Now this I can agree with, but it goes far beyond the days of the computer - people complained about poorly made tools long before the tool of choice was a laptop. Then again, from time to time, it is the designer's screw up and the tool's fault.
The able must serve the unable in our culture, so where's the benefit to being one of the able?
If you step down from your high horse for a moment, it's generally a bigger paycheck, a nicer house, and a life of some fulfillment beyond reality TV and alcohol or your preferred narcotic.
Perhaps a bigger problem, a bigger source of whining, can be found here on
I don't know how better to put it than this - The fact that you can install Linux and consider yourself to be "smart" does not make you an expert worth listening to on any other subject. Look around at some of the infantile political bantering you find on both sides of the aisle at slashdot, as people glory in their intelligence over "normal" humans because, by golly, they know how to install a router so they must have the solution to the Middle East's problems. The same people who would despise "noobs" that won't read the manual and figure it out themselves blather on and on about topics - particularly those dealing with politics - without so much as a basic understanding of history, international relations, or domestic politics. Just look at all of the "omg Big Brother!" comments, which display as little understanding of government and private sector actions as they do of Orwell's classic.
One of the greatest failures of all civilization is an inability to admit we don't know something about a particular subject. We're driven to come up with opinions on everything - as soon as the matter is raised, no less - rather than allowed or encouraged to think about it, mull it over, and consider all sides. I believe that it is in denying this urge for instant gratification of opinion - being able to hold off, think, listen, and ponder we can get along much better. Of course, there are matters which deserve instant condemnation or praise - we cannot wring our hands over every little thing, and there needs to be some sense of "right and wrong" in a society.
But you're forgetting about the principle of sunk cost.
Hypothetically, if we've spent $700 million to upgrade a facility in the past, this is no reason to spend much more to maintain that facility in the future when cheaper alternatives exist now. I can imagine that keeping Cheyenne properly stocked is an expensive proposal when compared with the new plan. If a cheaper proposal exists that suffices present needs, then it should reasonably be used.
In any case, Cheyenne is not entirely deactivated, just temporarily moth-balled against future needs. We can't get back the $700 million already spent on upgrades, so why should we continue to pay more into the future simply because we've made an investment?
I'd agree that Russia is not completely out of the picture, however the odds of a Russian missile launch now are much lower when compared with other threats. In any case, one could reasonbly assume that a political development of the type you describe would occur with enough time to anticipate the potential problem and reactivate Cheyenne. From a brief look around, it does not appear that ABMs are controlled from Cheyenne, either, although their forward control is listed as being in Colorado Springs (near Cheyenne).
In any case, thanks for pointing out some faults in my original post. I failed to elaborate.
Cheyenne was built for a massive nuclear exchange between powers - when one could rely on most of the U.S. being wiped off the earth and the U.S. needed to maintain the capability to strike back in that event as a deterrent.
Present threats - including those that you describe - do not have that capability. They have the ability to destroy a handful of cities at most, and a response is ensured through other means, without having to rely on this particular base any longer.
The threat has changed - the U.S. is adapting to threats armed with only a handful of nukes rather than enough to kill us all.
The difficulty with this is I can see some reasons for a cop to arrest or otherwise detain someone without a legal reason to do so, yet still be more or less in the "right".
Let's say you're visiting a buddy at his apartment and chilling out in the living room. Unbeknownst to you and your buddy, your buddy's roommate happens to be a fugitive from the law for some very serious offenses (let's say armed bank robbery, child molestation, murder, etc.).
The police show up (probably in the form of a SWAT team), knock down the door, and immediately detain everyone in the apartment. They know what their suspect looks like, but in a situation like this the cops aren't exactly going to go around politely asking for ID from everyone and they don't know if you're helping protect the guy. They start pointing guns, demand everyone get down on the floor immediately, and detain everyone there until they can determine that they have their man and you are not a threat.
If you choose to resist in this situation, a police officer would have every reason to detain you and harrass you for a bit and could reasonably mistake you for someone helping to give refuge to a criminal when you had no idea what was going on. You may be arrested for further scrutinization or, if you choose to resist in a way that the police officer feels is a threat to his well-being (by pulling a knife or firearm), you could be killed.
A situation like this actually happened to a buddy of mine once. A new roommate had moved in to replace his old one (he barely knew the guy), and about a week later the cops came, knocked down the door, and grabbed the guy (who was wanted for a brutal domestic assault and was known to have more than a few firearms), and detained my friend temporarily until they could determine what was going on and that he was not their man. After all was said and done, they released him (he cooperated fully), apologized for the inconvenience, and acted very professionally, making sure he was not hurt in the process, offering him medical help, and explaining to him why they had entered as they did and what my friend's then ex-roommate had done. My friend was actually pretty happy with the whole experience - the police got rid of a potential threat to his life (the guy had a long, violent record) and he walked away without a scratch and a good story to tell.
While the parent is most likely wrong as to the ethnicity of the activists, particularly if he is speaking of Chile, it should be noted that there is a significant Syrian and Lebanese Arab population can be found in Argentina, many of which are practicing Muslims. Other pockets exist throughout South America.
Not everyone in South America is a Mestizo, you know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Argentina
double the niece's killers select all delete DIE!
I know, I know, "lobbyist" is a dirty word. Many people are turned off by the idea of organized groups attempting to influence politics, yet the legislative process was never meant to take place in a bubble - it's designed (or at least intended) to respond to the people's needs, and one way of expressing those needs is through lobbying - getting out there, meeting with and educating law makers, persuading them, and sure, perhaps supporting those that support your views financially.
Slashdotters, et al, shouldn't be too surprised that their views aren't effectively represented in legislation - they are effectively making them known, aren't effectively organizing, and aren't working to acheive their goals. Much of this is obviouisly due to the lack of organization that exists amongs the tech savvy - which is certainly not a monolithic group - but I would also argue that much of it has to do with an intense dislike for lobbyists and the perception that, somehow, "interfering" in the legislative process is dirty. Well, it's not. It's a part of the process that's always been around, always will be around, and people ignore at their own peril.
I agree with most that this legislation - while perhaps having good "protect the children" intentions - is ineffective and more than a bit ridiculous. But simply e-mailing your congressman isn't really going to be effective. A group needs to be formed that handles these matters before and as they arise. I would also argue that this group would not only be used to block ineffective legislation, but to propose and promote ideas that could actually help protect children from material inappropriate for their age and, more importantly, those who would prey on children on the internet.
That won't happen until some group of tech-savvy people with both the background and demeanor required for lobbying steps up and takes action. It also wouldn't hurt if the perception of lobbyists as a necessary part of the process rather than simply evil (well, ok, lots of them are "evil") changed in the tech world.
There are dozens of groups out there lobbying against what the techies want - the techies should make their voice heard in that forum effectively or quit complaining.