Good Afternoon Jim,

According to the news, a terror suspect, tarek Mehanna has been arrested in Boston.

>>"A man has been charged with terrorism-related offences that include plotting to kill people in a US shopping centre, the US Justice Department says."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8318708.stm

Apparently two other alleged co-conspirators are involved according to authorities.

It confirms my suspicions that we need to look closer to home rather than thousands of miles away.  Mr. Mehanna is a US citizen.

Clem

Good Morning Jim,

Certainly we do. That does not excuse our efforts off shore. Here law enforcement is charged with the responsibility. Off shore it falls to the military and CIA.

But it goes back to my belief of where the greatest danger is to our country. With unprotected borders, we stand a much greater chance of a catastrophe from within than from someone in Afghanistan who can't read or write and hasn't got two nickels to rub together. In case of domestic terror via sleeper cells, the authorities can't be everywhere at once and all it takes is one miss.

The other aspect of course are treasonable activities by ideologues or people driven by greed in this country who transfer classified information to other countries which over the long term can do much more damage than one terrorist act in isolation.

What I don't understand is, why it takes sometimes years to bring charges against suspected traitors.

Clem

Good Morning Jim,

Yes, Clemmy. And do not believe for one minute that we would already have been hit again if we were not doing the job here and taking it to them where they train. 

We've had this aspect of the discussion before when you say, 'where they train'. I disagree especially if you refer to Afghanistan. Invading an entire country and raining bombs on the civilian population because of people training at assorted terrorist camps smacks of 'collective punishment' no different than what the Israelis served up to the Gazans during Cast lead, only on a much smaller scale.

I'm not OK with going after the civilian population ever.

The other aspect of course are treasonable activities by ideologues or people driven by greed in this country who transfer classified information to other countries which over the long term can do much more damage than one terrorist act in isolation.

And we spy on them too. Failure to do so can often result in catastrohpy..

I don't disagree. All nations do it to. Apparently, according to an article today, we have been keeping close surveillance on Pakistan's nuclear activities since at least 2003, which, given the current instability in that country, is a good thing.

Here's the difference. These are not foreign spies but US citizens spying and passing classified information to a foreign entity, the damage of which can result in US deaths and the damage done by information transfer can last for years. The death penalty should be on the table anytime a US citizen commits treason.

Clem

What I don't understand is, why it takes sometimes years to bring charges against suspected traitors.

Depends on the case. Why did it take so long to get Scarface and then only for tax evasion. Why did it take so long to stop the mafia? Oh! Wait! They are still operating.

Good Morning Jim,

We have not done that since WW2 Clemmy. If we were of a mind to do that at any time since we would have simply nuked em.

Using nukes would contaminate the area for years, making it uninhabitable and destroy the resources. Much better to go in with conventional weapons, and to quote one Neocon who allegedly said,  "Invade the country, kill the leaders and convert them to Christianity."

To get back to your contention that the US hasn't killed civilians since WWII, one example would be the carpet bombing  between 1969-1973 in Cambodia. According to my research, 3 million tons of ordnance was dropped in 230,000 sorties although as I mentioned before, the neutrality of Cambodia had been guaranteed by the Geneva Accords of 1954.

I've done more research and according to one site, it listed 37 countries in which the US was involved in specific 'Operations' with alphabet soup names. These operations weren't called wars but the site listed the number of people killed for each operation in a specific country.

"War is hell" and you can stretch it anyway you like.

It depends how you want to define "war" and whether it's legal or justified. Killing vast numbers of civilians to get to the prize is never justified. That's not called a war, that's called a war crime.

Clem

Good Evening Jim,

We did not carpet bomb them like we did Dresden either Clemmy but then the only thing the world gets from Afghanistan is fruit of the poppy. If we were of a mind to kill a large number of them nukes would not do commerce harm. 

I went back and looked at my notes and apparently 500,000 Cambodians were killed with those bombing runs. That's a half million people. And it said we dropped more bombs on Cambodia than we did during WWII. It also said that bombs meant to go to Vietnam were secretly sent to Cambodia with the full knowledge of the US embassy and the pilots.

 We would not have turned the Afghanistan war over to the Northern tribes and let them pacify their nations capital. Remember? <

No, I don't remember that??   

http://www.legion.org/magazine/2951/how-prevent-genocide  And they had an een better article in the mag this month but they do not put all of them on line.<

Yes, that was an interesting article.

That is why we did not kill "vast numbers of civilians" in any of the operations since Dresden, Tokyo, Nagasaki and Hiroshima

From what I've read, I'm gonna have to disagree. Vietnam, Iraq, definitely qualify and there might be others on that list, especially among the South American countries. 

Clem 

Good Morning Jim,

What city in Iraq or Afghanistan disappeared like Nagasaki<

We're not talking about cities in Afghanistan, but I did read where in one instance 20 villages were destroyed. Afghanistan only has about 10 large cities. Not the same thing but when you destroy entire villages, I think there is a major problem. I read somewhere that for every militant killed extra judicially, about 49 civilians lose their lives.

Think about it in terms if Mexico sent drones into small town USA and killed every man, woman and child.

There was also an article in the newspaper that the US has been warned by UN investigators I think, that sending drones into Afghanistan and Pakistan for extra judicial killings may be a violation of international law and human rights law.

Perhaps we'll see whether the US has the right to send UAV's into Pakistan for example  killing civilians and whether those ordering the UAV's and carrying out those orders is legal under international law.

Clem

Good Morning Jim,

Yes think about it. Mexico could not afford that many drones. Either could Afghanistan so the militants commandered our own civilian aircraft and used them as bombs. 

Perhaps not the government of Mexico, but the drug lords and people smugglers certainly can. I bookmarked an article a few days ago about the Zeta. I'd never heard of them but I got interested because of the Mexican/Cuban Floridian connection of smuggling  illegals into the US.

 >>>"Mendez reported that the Mexican Attorney General’s office–the PGR–had evidence  that the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) had been in a business  relationship with Los Zetas/Gulf cartel for at least three years in order to smuggle Cubans across the Gulf to Central America and Qunitana Roo and then north across the border into the US."

http://narcoguerratimes.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/zetas-the-cuban-american-terrorist-connection-part-1/

That may be true but after all, if the government is working with the US on the Q.T. but manages to be complicit in killing it's own people by allowing US drones to do extra-judicial killings, they may still be held accountable. It's the population who is becoming vocal and anti-US. Read the articles in the Pakistani Times.  

The Pakistani government wants US Dollars because they are broke so they don't care how many drones are sent in, if they can continue to line their pockets.

Clem      

Good Evening Jim,

 I suspect that the Drug lords would rather send drugs on drones though Clemmy. They do not want a war with the source of their income.

Good point. Well, OK, how about if the Canadians sent drones over the border.( Sheesh, I was trying to give an example here!) 

If they wanted our money so bad why did they initially refuse to enforce the law i the territories?

You'd have to ask Musharraf because for many years, he was both Chief of the Military and head of the Pakistani Government and supposedly our best friend until very recently.

Clem

Good Morning Jim,

That is called creating a "Strawman"

Since I wrote that on Halloween, don't you think that was entirely appropriate.<s>

..."but if the Canadians were sending drones and hitting Mafia houses that we were not able to bring down do you suppose we weould go to war with them? Build a strong Strawman.<<

The trouble is, we're not just hitting 'mafia houses' we're hitting entire villages and even if we were, there are civilians living there. Calling extra judicial killings justified also leaves me speechless because it assumes someone is automatically guilty without benefit of a trial. Illegal both by entering a sovereign country and no different than terrorists blowing up innocents via IED's.

Also, a recent report said that at least 49 civilians are murdered, and we are talking here of men, women and children, for every alleged terrorist hit and even then, some reported deaths of these so-called terrorists are innacurate and premature.

So if you think it's OK to murder 49 civilians to get to one alleged terrorist, I wish you'd explain your reasoning to their grieving families.

I like quoting Pete Seger in one of his songs,

 " If you love this land of the free, bring 'em home, bring 'em home..."

Clem

Good Morning Jim,

Yes M'am. The sure way to peace is to surrender. They might kill some of ours then but they can never say we killed any of theirs.

Actually you're misstating my POV. The difference between your POV and mine is that I don't buy the canard that we have to go over there to 'protect us here'.

If you followed the news recently you can see the disasterous consequences of that when, even after 9/11, we have had two incidences of airplanes, one in NY and one recently that went off line and the military were not alerted in the second case until about an hour later.

It shows that our much vaunted Homeland Security doesn't have its act together and that the agencies have an incoherent policy and that there is a lack of protection at home, despite the billions we spend on defense.

My point has always been ensure security at home. The reason for going on foreign adventures are not those given on Fox News.

Protect our shores, our airspace and concentrate on possible domestic terrorists slipping into the country. That's where the focus should be if you want to protect US citizens.

Clem