posted on October 15, 2001 06:38:13 PM new
From CNN:
Ninety offices of Planned Parenthood and at least 80 clinics of the National Abortion Federation across the United States have received envelopes containing unidentified powdery substances and letters with threatening language, according to spokesmen for the groups. Both groups support abortion rights and provide abortions in at least some of their offices.
Something tells me the terrorists couldn't care less about Planned Parenthood and abortion clinics and that this is just some right-wing sickos using the scares to further their own agenda.
Regardless of which side of the abortion debate you are on, this just makes me sick.
posted on October 15, 2001 06:53:58 PM new
Look at the bright side, Barry: the massive attention law enforcement and the FBI are now devoting to investigating these threats -- and with 170 new threats specifically targeting family planning clinics -- maybe they'll finally be able to round up some of our homegrown wackos and prosecute them as the terrorists they are -- and have always been...
posted on October 15, 2001 07:14:41 PM new
I saw on CNN's scroll where an Ohio glassworker was arrested for putting an envelope containing white powder on his supervisor's desk.
He was charged with creating, or trying to create, a panic.
posted on October 15, 2001 07:19:20 PM new
"He was charged with creating, or trying to create, a panic."
I am sure going to be disappointed if threats of this nature receive nothing more than the slap-on-the-wrist you posted above, Femme. What that fellow did was like yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater...
posted on October 15, 2001 07:22:45 PM new
Like I said...get a friggin' rope and find a nearby tree. This is bullsh!t. We have enough to contend with without those who reap the benefits of being American betraying their own kind just because they are pissed at a boss, the system, etc. Its time to stop slapping wrists and get down to the nitty gritty.
posted on October 15, 2001 07:28:01 PM new
The Anthrax scare is world wide now.
German, Argentina, France, Britian, Australia, Canada, Belgium, Austria, even Switzerland are having incidents they are taking serious.
There are two positive things about this Anthrax scare. First is isn't a very effective weapon except for the fear it can generate in some. Second I think the odds of having world support against terrorists are very high now.
posted on October 16, 2001 04:49:35 AM new
This wouldn't be the first attempt by homegrown extremists to use biological terrorism. A recent Washington Post article detailed how lab requirements were tightened after Larry Wayne Harris, an Ohio state University student and Aryan Nations member,ordered some nasties (plague) from a local type culture collection.
posted on October 16, 2001 06:02:01 AM new
German, Argentina, France, Britian, Australia, Canada, Belgium, Austria, even Switzerland are having incidents they are taking serious.
I thought these people were stupid to piss off America - but if they get the Swiss riled up against them they are messing with folks that even Hitler and the Russians swallowed their pride and put a smilly face on for.
posted on October 16, 2001 07:40:39 AM new
Back in the late-60's I read a book, I believe "So Human an Animal" by Rene Dubois, in which the author was trying to game-plan the coming effects on human societies from such problems as nukes, overpopulation, pollution, species extinctions, etc.. all the usual, ya know? His warning was one that I haven't seen repeated or debated since... that humanity is TOO ADAPTABLE relative to the very real severity of the problems bearing down on it. He argued that we would have too much of a tendency to just get used to problems that even a few years earlier, if postulated, would have seemed utterly impossible to live with.
So in the 30 years since... populations overwhelming resources, new diseases, terrorism, threat of miniature nukes in terrorists' hands... all the old problems are pretty much still with us, just part of the background noise that we ignore. Remember HIV/AIDS? Same hysteria ten years ago that white powders generate now, but we've adapted to the virus as something almost routine.
Now... the argument would be that we might "adapt" to ongoing terrorism now, too. "Oh, dear, look, we lost a skyscraper in Des Moines yesterday." That we, in effect, have a gradual national failure of nerve, ceasing to perceive outrageous events as requiring continuous possibly extreme responses. Eventually, of course, nukes get into the picture, the use of which in a large city or say on a dam or nuclear power plant, make recent fatalities pale in comparison; or perhaps a state-sponsored hacker attack closes down much of the internet and our financial systems....
At those points, I think, we could reach a world-wide flash point from which "human adaptability" would be powerless to deal with snowballing disasters. CAN we cut this process off with Israeli-level ruthless and rapid true war against various terrorist elements and leaders? Half-measures, I fear, might just generate new terrorist leaders and suicide-bomber recruits.
What do I see as "full measures"? Well, look at the Israeli action a day or two ago.. Hamas leader steps out of an office and walks down the street, unfortunately for him past a car packed with explosives by the Israelis who had military observers watching from a distance. Boom. Another terrorist top leader gone. If WE truly have the stomach for this level of necessity, I would suggest we should, right NOW, be sending special ops into Afghan cities, looking like unsuccessful attempts to raid obvious Taliban and al Queda structures, but which actually leave miniaturized cameras/microphones and explosives hidden in a few key places. Then hope Mullah Omar, etc, have another staff meeting in a familiar room when things seem quiet again.... Think like the Trojans did, be sneaky, think like the Israelis did a couple years ago and put plastique in a cell phone a terrorist was likely to hold up against his ear in a couple days...
Do we have the national will to do this stuff, quickly, bloodily, and with overwhelming effect? Will it even work, given the creation of martyrs it will engender? I think we must try, but my attitude is one of desperation rather than in any way optimism.
