Let's not overstate the problem. As many die in UK traffic accidents every week as died in the London suicide bombs. What's in your PSK to protect against traffic?

you basically proved my point for me -- government mandates seat belt laws, airbags, etc -- yet people still die in traffic accidents. it is up to the individual to drive as defensively as possible, to protect yourself as well as you can.

Vince, I think a lot of you, bro, but I really believe that you are being naive re. the interdiction of potential terrorist threats by LE. If that were so, they would be crowing about, as they were the possible attacks upon LAX.

If there is a message as to why there has not been more 'homeland' [god, how I hate that term] in-security, I belive it is only attributable to environment. But as our social clusters become more decentalized and less cohesive, the environment becomes more and more ripe.

Now, if you want to look at a very strange (sciologically) model, look at Israel, where the vast majority of the populace has done military service, and is either armed or is qualified to be so on short notice. Their crime model, IIRC, is about that of Britain. They have a divese society, with many languages and many more politcal positions thann you can count. But, by god, when it comes to threats to existence, they are cohesive.

Alas law enforcement is reactive for the most part. I guess that I'm spoiled living in a rural area where the local population is known. We get a fair amout of tourist influx and as such try to look for trouble. However it is true that you are responsible for your own safety. Which is why many peace officers support right to carry legislation, because we can only be one place at a time. Under my shirt is kevlar not a red "S" and cape.

My point was to provide some calm not eliminate all concerns.


"Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't meant their not out to get me!

I would agree in the ideal sense that we are better prepared and vigilant now than we were prior to 9-11. My experience tells me that the reality of the situation makes it inevitable that something more will be done, something much worse than what we have yet seen, if for no other reason than by the mere fact that we can see the obvious holes and gaps in our coverage, by virtue of those same freedoms which we are allowed to govern our own affairs by. All too easily, I have been able to walk freely and unchallenged into schools, during lunch hour no less, right into the cafeteria, without even being challenged. Even if the challenge comes, it is going to be by one unarmed, unprepared person. Imagine a coordinated assault on all the schools in a given metropolitan area, carried out by a small number of suicide bombers, and multiply that by 10 or 12 cities, and you can see where we are so vulnerable and helpless.

Now I have trod where I did not want to go. Considering the level of security we are maintaining here, and the amount of effort being put into actively pursuing the bad guys, pressing all our intelligence and interdiction efforts possible, and yet daily we still have attacks, if we cannot back home even consider the plausibility of stopping illegal drugs from entering our borders, how then could anyone assume that much more harmful stuff is not being brought in, or as is the case with meth, that much more destructive material is not being produced in our own neighborhoods. We are in a police state here, and we cannot stop it.

I think the FBI and all the other agencies we have are doing the best they can hope for, but it will not stop people who are quite willing to die to kill others. Recognizing the threat is only the beginning, how do you stop them? The answer is you don't. Suicide bombers are driving into heavily armed soldiers here and killing the soldiers by the dozen, soldiers who are everywhere here, much better armed than any permit holding American citizen, (I don't recall seeing anyone driving around town in an Amtrack last time I was home), How will you stop the attacks that are sure to come? Discounting the suiciders, how do you stop 50 armed thugs from invading your home one day while you are at work and your wife and kids are busy cleaning house (that is how they do it here)?

It may be tranquil back home for now, but I don't see how it can stay that way for long. The likelihood that the bad guys are already there, already armed, and only awaiting the opportunity is very high, it is expectable.

There I went and did it. I didn't want to, but I guess I had to say something. Sorry. As with here, the terror of the thing is much worse than the reality. Statiscically, the losses incurred by insurgent attacks relative to the general population are quite low here. To have lost less than 3,000 Americans and less than 25,000 Iraqis so far, after two years of conflict, seems negligible compared to the conflicts of our past. Doubltess any losses incurred back home should something bad happen will seem considerably worse than they relatively would be, mainly because of the hype and the coverage. Still, it will bring a change to our lives, our perceptions. People will have to deal with the reality that we are not able to defend ourselves 100%, although we can do better than anyone else on the planet I think. How we use this new awareness will determine many things about our country, our society, our future. What I expect is that for many of us, we shall assume a greater level of accountability for our lives and our actions.

Believe me, I do not say this to be argumentative with anyone. I would like nothing more than to be proven totally amiss. My responses here are given solemnly, with the hope that maybe, through my experience here, some of you will think about the situation in ways you might not have otherwise considered, and be able to utilize that knowledge to your benefit and those for whom you care. There are Iraqis here, like my friend, who can and do function in this hostile environment with their eyes open and facing reality full on. I would have him be an example for us all, that far and away, the best survival tool we have in any situation is the endowment of intelligence, which encompasses knowledge, wisdom and reason. Is that not our mantra, our caveat, the purpose behind this entire forum? Whether it is terrorism, or finding ourselves off the beaten trail, or stuck in traffic on the way home, semper peratis.

Because "Chance favors the prepared mind".

Here's a good quote that I scrounged up that pretty much gets right to it:
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To use fear as the friend it is, we must retrain and reprogram ourselves...We must persistently and convincingly tell ourselves that the fear is here--with its gift of energy and heightened awareness--so we can do our best and learn the most in the new situation.
Peter McWilliams, Life 101
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"If that were so, they would be crowing about, as they were the possible attacks upon LAX."

Actually, I think foreign nationals who are here illegally and are suspected of being terrorists get a (mostly) one-way ticket to Gitmo, and a quiet one at that. You definately want as little publicity as possible, at least if you want the information you wring out of them to have any value.

As far as Israel goes, I agree. But they are facing a threat several orders of magnitude greater than what we are. If they are cohesive as a society, it's because they had better be. Their survival as a nation depends on it. We are not in the same situation--at least not yet.

Regards, Vince