World News: Dec 2, 2010

Thursday, December 2, 2010

JP A Sad Joke Or Reality

Sad and difficult to read, but true!...



 Three Worst Men:
 There were three men competing to see who the worst
 one in the world is.

 The first one attacked a woman, beat her until her
 teeth fell out and she bled from her nose and ears. He beat her so
 savagely that she fainted.
 He turned to the others and said, "I am the worst one of all."

 The second man stepped up to rape her and beat her
 further until she was almost dead.
 He turned to the others and said, "No one can be
 worse than me."

 The third one stepped up, smiled coldly, and said,
 "No, I am the worst one,
 even though I just stood by and watched, because this woman is my sister.

 The woman is Lebanon and Palestine.
 The first man is Israel.
 The second is America.
 The third is the Arab world that stood by and did nothing.

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JP "Employment Opportunity"

Greetings!!!

Please find attached file containing information related to latest employment positions vacant in different cities of Pakistan.

Kindly forward this precious information to persons, in need and, whom are searching for employment.

Note: The purpose of this mail is to serve the Pakistan.

Thanks.

Re: Federal Employment Up 10 Percent Since Jan 2008

How did you conclude that "unemployment was at 0% in Jan 08"?

On 12/2/2010 9:35 AM, GregfromBoston wrote:

Interesting article, but I have a REAL hard time buying that unemployment was at 0% in Jan 08 - or EVER for that matter (sans WWII)  On Dec 2, 12:26 pm, Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashle...@lavabit.com> wrote:

Federal Employment Up 10 Percent Since Jan 2008http://patriotpost.us/alexander/2010/12/02/who-got-stimulated/ -- *"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover of law, and with the colors of justice ..." - U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982)  "If Americans wish to be free of judicial tyranny, they must at least develop basic knowledge of the judicial role in our republican government. The present state of affairs is a direct result of our collective ignorance." - Ron Paul*  *Our courts will never be fair and just again until we force the courts to follow their own rules. Do not allow yourself to be ruled by tyrants. Learn how to control corrupt judges and crooked lawyers <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004> so you can get Justice! Learn to litigate: Buy and Study JURISDICTIONARY <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004>. The best course available for Pro Se and Pro Per litigants.*  *I Refuse To Comply With The Unconstitutional Demands Of The Federal Government*http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html  *"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe*  *Government is only as strong as those who allow themselves to be governed are weak.*  *"We have plenty of rights in this country, provided you don't get caught exercising them." - Terry Mitchell  "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects something that cannot be." - Thomas Jefferson***

--
"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover of law, and with the colors of justice ..."
- U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982)

"If Americans wish to be free of judicial tyranny, they must at least develop basic knowledge of the judicial role in our republican government. The present state of affairs is a direct result of our collective ignorance."
- Ron Paul

Our courts will never be fair and just again until we force the courts to follow their own rules. Do not allow yourself to be ruled by tyrants. Learn how to control corrupt judges and crooked lawyers so you can get Justice! Learn to litigate: Buy and Study JURISDICTIONARY. The best course available for Pro Se and Pro Per litigants.

I Refuse To Comply With The Unconstitutional Demands Of The Federal Government
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Government is only as strong as those who allow themselves to be governed are weak.

"We have plenty of rights in this country, provided you don't get caught exercising them."
- Terry Mitchell

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects something that cannot be."
- Thomas Jefferson

Re: Federal Employment Up 10 Percent Since Jan 2008

Interesting article, but I have a REAL hard time buying that
unemployment was at 0% in Jan 08 - or EVER for that matter (sans WWII)

On Dec 2, 12:26 pm, Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashle...@lavabit.com>
wrote:
> Federal Employment Up 10 Percent Since Jan 2008http://patriotpost.us/alexander/2010/12/02/who-got-stimulated/
> --
> *"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover
> of law, and with the colors of justice ..."
> - U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982)
>
> "If Americans wish to be free of judicial tyranny, they must at least
> develop basic knowledge of the judicial role in our republican
> government. The present state of affairs is a direct result of our
> collective ignorance."
> - Ron Paul*
>
> *Our courts will never be fair and just again until we force the courts
> to follow their own rules. Do not allow yourself to be ruled by tyrants.
> Learn how to control corrupt judges and crooked lawyers
> <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004> so you can get
> Justice! Learn to litigate: Buy and Study JURISDICTIONARY
> <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004>. The best course
> available for Pro Se and Pro Per litigants.*
>
> *I Refuse To Comply With The Unconstitutional Demands Of The Federal
> Government*http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html
>
> *"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they
> are free."
> - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe*
>
> *Government is only as strong as those who allow themselves to be
> governed are weak.*
>
> *"We have plenty of rights in this country, provided you don't get
> caught exercising them."
> - Terry Mitchell
>
> "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects something that
> cannot be."
> - Thomas Jefferson***

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Wikileaks and the New Global Order

Wikileaks and the New Global Order
http://counterpunch.org/cook11302010.html

"Underlying the gossip and analysis sent back to Washington is an awareness from many US officials stationed abroad of quite how ineffective -- and often counter-productive -- much US foreign policy is."

Federal Employment Up 10 Percent Since Jan 2008

Federal Employment Up 10 Percent Since Jan 2008
http://patriotpost.us/alexander/2010/12/02/who-got-stimulated/

Nigeria to Charge Dick Cheney in Pipeline Bribery Case

Nigeria to Charge Dick Cheney in Pipeline Bribery Case
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-12-01/nigeria-to-charge-dick-cheney-in-pipeline-bribery-case.html

Re: And They Say Canadians Don't Brag...

Canada has the largest French population*
*that never surrendered to Germany. **

Now THATS a good one!

But, I was handing out Smarties on Halloween and have been for
decades.

I once had an idiot tell me that Canuck was a derogatory term for
Canadians. I politely told him a couple million hockey fans in the
Vancouver area disagree.

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JP the better of the two

JOIN AASHIQAN-E-RASOOL
CLICK HERE

Abu Ayyub Al-Ansari (May Allah be pleased with him) said:
The Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) said,
"It is not lawful for a Muslim to desert (stop talking to)
his brother beyond three nights,
the one turning one way and the other turning
to the other way when they meet,
the better of the two is one
who is the first to greet the other.''
[Al-Bukhari and Muslim].

And They Say Canadians Don't Brag...

Just a little humour from The Great White North.

While it still is.

Bear

...

So,
What do we Canadians
Have to be Proud of?
1. Smarties (not sold in the USA)
2. Crispy Crunch, Coffee Crisp
(not sold in the USA)
3. The size of our footballs fields, one less
down, and bigger balls.
4. Baseball is Canadian - 1st game
June 4, 1838 - Ingersoll, ON
5. Lacrosse is Canadian

6. Hockey is Canadian

7. Basketball is Canadian

8. Apple pie is Canadian

9. Mr. Dress-up beats Mr. Rogers

10. Tim Hortons beats Dunkin' Donuts

11. In the war of 1812, started by America , Canadians pushed the Americans back past
their White House. Then we burned it, and
most of Washington ...
We got bored because they ran away.
Then, we came home and partied.....
Go figure.

12. Canada has the largest French population
that never surrendered to Germany.

13. We have the largest English population
that never Ever surrendered or withdrew
during any war to anyone, anywhere. EVER!
(We got clobbered in the odd battle but
prevailed in ALL the wars)

14. Our civil war was fought in a bar and
lasted a little over an hour.

15. The only person who was arrested in our
civil war was an American mercenary, he
slept in and missed the whole thing.
He showed up just in time to get caught.

16. A Canadian invented Standard Time.

17. The Hudsons Bay Company once owned
over 10% of the earth's surface and is still
around as the world's oldest company.

18. The average dog sled team can kill and
devour a full grown human in under 3 minutes.
(That's more information than I need!)

19. We know what to do with the parts
of a buffalo.

20. We don't marry our kin-folk...

21. We invented ski-doos, jet-skis, Velcro,
zippers, insulin, penicillin and the telephone.
Also short wave radios which save countless
lives each year.

22. We have ALL frozen our tongues to
something metal and lived to tell about it.

23. A Canadian invented Superman.
24. We have coloured money.
25. Our beer advertisements kick ass
(Incidently... so does our beer)

BUT MOST IMPORTANT !

The handles on our beer cases are big enough to fit your hands in with mitts on.

OOOoohhhhh..... Canada !!

Oh yeah... And our elections only take one day!

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JP very important

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

Re: From Slashdot about Sarah Palin and Wikileaks

I'm way ahead of ya mate. Here's my one punch. Should kill her in a
primary debate.

Mrs Palin, the last time you held executive office, you quit half way
through. Why should we expect anything different now?

Now she could play the I left because of the distraction of lawsuits,
but that would get every media outlet in the world to resurrect all
the lawsuits - aka - suicide.

Of course, I'm keeping her TV ad explicitly stating she has no
interest in holding a, "stuffy political office", in the wings.

I think she'd make a good RNC chair, but thats as far as I'll (and
she'll) go.

On Dec 2, 10:28 am, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> <Grin>!
>
> Hey Greg!
>
> I bet a dollar and a beer that Palin doesn't run, and if she does, she won't
> win the Republican National Primary.
>
> Sarah is an asset to the conservative movement and to the Republican Party
> in general. Sarah needs to "stay the course"; and I feel confident that
> her advisors are telling her pretty much the same thing I am telling her!
>
> On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 8:01 AM, GregfromBoston <greg.vinc...@yahoo.com>wrote:
>
>
>
> > Sarah Palin, who is widely tipped as a possible
> > Republican candidate for president in 2012
> > -----------------------------
>
> > Maybe to the cupcakes at slashdot.
>
> > I can take her out with one punch, and I ain't running
>
> > --
> > Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
> > For options & help seehttp://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>
> > * Visit our other community athttp://www.PoliticalForum.com/<http://www.politicalforum.com/>
> > * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
> > * Read the latest breaking news, and more.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

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Re: TSA Intrusion Is One Price of Empire

Whaddaya Know!

I'm actually on the same page as Young Sheldon this morning.....

On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 8:57 AM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:

TSA Intrusion Is One Price of Empire
by Sheldon Richman, December 1, 2010

How gratifying to see Americans increasingly angry at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for using offensive full-body scans and frisks in its latest production of what security expert Bruce Schneier calls "security theater."

The government would have us believe these measures are safe and effective, but its record for veracity is, to put it mildly, disgraceful. Meanwhile Schneier, an independent voice who makes it his business to check this stuff out, doesn't believe the scanners would have caught even the would-be underwear bomber: "The guys who make the machines have said, 'We wouldn't have caught that.'" Maybe a full frisk indistinguishable from a sexual assault would have found the potential explosive, but that wouldn't have caught the guy in Saudi Arabia who tried to hide one in a body cavity. Is the TSA going to introduce cavity searches next?

Let's remember that the TSA has been incompetent from the beginning. No one can name a single plot it thwarted, but over the years we have seen many stories of TSA inspectors failing tests announced in advance. We can be sure that countless forbidden items carried by innocents have passed through security. One person unknowingly carried a full 9mm pistol magazine through security in a carryon bag. While some TSA agents are missing contraband they are supposed to be looking for, others have pilfered things from people's checked luggage. Flying is anything but secure; the main problem, however, is not terrorism.

So let's hope the anti-TSA anger builds, but let's also be aware of the risks. I'm referring to the risk from right-wingers, such as Ann Coulter and Charles Krauthammer. The conservative critics of body scans and frisks have not hidden their agenda. They've made clear their hope that joining the civil libertarians might get them what they have long wanted: ethnic, national, and religious profiling of airline passengers. Why frisk a grandma from Minnesota or a child from Vermont, they say, when "we know" whom to target?

Here's how Coulter put it: "Is there any question that we'd be looking for Swedes if the 9/11 terrorists, the shoe bomber, the diaper bomber and the printer cartridge bomber had all been Swedish?.... Only because the terrorists are Muslims do we pretend not to notice who keeps trying to blow up our planes.... Swarthy foreigners stand out like a sore thumb in an airport. The American domestic flying population is remarkably homogeneous. An airport is not a Sears department store."

And Krauthammer: "[The] entire apparatus of the security line is a national homage to political correctness.... The only reason we continue to do this is that people are too cowed to even question the absurd taboo against profiling when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow, concrete, uniquely definable and universally known. So instead of seeking out terrorists, we seek out tubes of gel in stroller pouches."

I concede there is surface logic here. The profile of those who wish us harm is fairly narrow, although profiling would undoubtedly prompt a revision in tactics. But in a way, the profile is even more narrow than Coulter and Krauthammer would care to admit. At the top of the list of likely attackers are people with ties to countries the U.S. military and CIA are currently brutalizing with drone-launched Hellfire missiles, cluster bombs, and assassination teams. All the would-be bombers fit that profile, and when they have spoken in court they have said they wanted revenge for America's war on their people. Even the Nigerian-born underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, spent time in Yemen, where the U.S. government conducts a bombing campaign. (By the way, Abdulmutallab, a black man, doesn't look like an Arab. Would the profilers have netted him? The authorities were alerted by his father, and he still got through.)

If the truest profile marker is a link to a Muslim country that the U.S. empire is occupying or bombing, that indicates there's a better way than profiling to secure American lives: Dismantle the empire. It's worth a try.

http://www.fff.org/comment/com1012a.asp

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Re: How the US media is dumping on WikiLeaks - and censoring the cable disclosures

I have found it extremely difficult to target or pull up any specific document on the WikiLeaks site.

Just as important, the writer is incorrect. There was indisputable evidence that the Iranians had in fact purchased long range and medium range missiles from North Korea. I recall seeing the evidence several years ago. It was discussed here as a matter of fact.

On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 9:20 AM, GregfromBoston <greg.vincent@yahoo.com> wrote:

Censorship seems kinda dumb when you can just go to wikileaks.org

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Re: From Slashdot about Sarah Palin and Wikileaks

<Grin>!

Hey Greg!

I bet a dollar and a beer that Palin doesn't run, and if she does, she won't win the Republican National Primary.

Sarah is an asset to the conservative movement and to the Republican Party in general. Sarah needs to "stay the course"; and I feel confident that her advisors are telling her pretty much the same thing I am telling her!

On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 8:01 AM, GregfromBoston <greg.vincent@yahoo.com> wrote:

Sarah Palin, who is widely tipped as a possible
Republican candidate for president in 2012
-----------------------------

Maybe to the cupcakes at slashdot.

I can take her out with one punch, and I ain't running

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Re: The United States of Fear

Tom Engelhardt blaming Bush.

Fucking hilarious!

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Re: How the US media is dumping on WikiLeaks - and censoring the cable disclosures

Censorship seems kinda dumb when you can just go to wikileaks.org

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JP Middle East Jobs

The United States of Fear

The United States of Fear
by Tom Engelhardt

The National Security State Cops a Feel: Taking Off the Gloves (and Then Everything Else)

It's finally coming into focus, and it's not even a difficult equation to grasp. It goes like this: take a country in the grips of an expanding national security state and sooner or later your "safety" will mean your humiliation, your degradation. And by the way, it will mean the degradation of your country, too.

Just ask Rolando Negrin, a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screener who passed through one of those new "whole body image" scanners last May as part of his training for airport security. His co-workers claimed to have gotten a look at his "junk" and mocked him mercilessly, evidently repeatedly asking, "What size are you?" and referring to him as "little angry man." In the end, calling it "psychological torture," he insisted that he snapped, which in his case meant that he went after a co-worker, baton first, demanding an apology.

Consider that a little parable about just how low this country has sunk, how psychologically insecure we've become while supposedly guarding ourselves against global danger. There is no question that, at the height of Cold War hysteria, when superpower nuclear arsenals were out of this world and the planet seemed a hair-trigger from destruction, big and small penises were in play, symbolically speaking. Only now, however, facing a ragtag set of fanatics and terrorists – not a mighty nation but a puny crew – are those penises perfectly real and, potentially, completely humiliating.

Failed Bombs Do the Job

We live, it seems, in a national security "homeland" of little angry bureaucrats who couldn't be happier to define what "safety" means for you and big self-satisfied officials who can duck the application of those safety methods. Your government can now come up with any wacky solution to American "security" and you'll pay the price. One guy brings a failed shoe bomb on an airplane, and you're suddenly in your socks. Word has it that bombs can be mixed from liquids in airplane bathrooms, and there go your bottled drinks. A youthful idiot flies toward Detroit with an ill-constructed bomb in his underwear, and suddenly they're taking naked scans of you or threatening to grope your junk.

Two bombs don't go off in the cargo holds of two planes and all of a sudden sending things around the world threatens to become more problematic and expensive. Each time, the price of "safety" rises and some set of lucky corporations, along with the lobbyists and politicians that support them, get a windfall. In each case, the terror tactic (at least in the normal sense) failed; in each case, the already draconian standards for our security were ratcheted up, while yet more money was poured into new technology and human reinforcements, which may, in the end, cause more disruption than any successful terror attack.

Directly or indirectly, you pay for the screeners and scanners and a labyrinthine intelligence bureaucracy that officially wields an $80 billion budget, and all the lobbyists and shysters and pitchmen who accompany our burgeoning homeland-security complex. And by the way, no one's the slightest bit nice about it either, which isn't surprising since it's a national security state we're talking about, which means its mentality is punitive. It wants to lock you down, quietly and with full acquiescence if possible. Offer some trouble, though, or step out of line, and you'll be hit with a $10,000 fine or maybe put in cuffs. It's all for your safety, and fortunately they have a set of the most inept terror plots in history to prove their point.

By now, who hasn't written about the airport "porno-scans," the crotch gropes and breast jobs, the "don't touch my junk" uproar, the growing lines, and the exceedingly modest protests on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, not to speak of the indignity of it all?

Totally been there, completely done that; totally written about, fully read. Shouldn't we move on?

Taking Off the Gloves (and Then Everything Else)

And yet there are a few dots that still need to be connected. After all, since the beginning of George W. Bush's second term, Americans have been remarkably quiet when it comes to the national security disasters being perpetuated in their name. America's wars, its soaring Pentagon budgets, its billion-dollar military bases, its giant new citadels still called embassies but actually regional command centers, its ever-escalating CIA drone war along the Pakistani tribal borderlands, the ever-expanding surveillance at home, and the incessant "night raids" and home razings thousands of miles away in Afghanistan, not to speak of Washington's stimulus-package spending in its war zones have caused no more than the mildest ripple of protest, much less genuine indignation, in this country in years.

American "safety" has, in every case, trumped outrage. Now, for the first time in years, the oppressiveness of a national security state bent on locking down American life has actually gotten to some Americans. No flags are yet flying over mass protests with "Don't Scan on Me" emblazoned on them. Still, the idea that air travel may now mean a choice between a spritz of radiation and a sorta naked snapshot or – thrilling option B – having some overworked, overaggressive TSA agent grope you has caused outrage, at least among a minority of Americans, amid administration confusion. (If you want evidence that Hillary Clinton is considering a run for president in 2012, check out what she had to say about her lack of eagerness to be patted down at the airport.)

Local authorities have threatened to bring sexual battery charges against TSA agents who step over the line in pat-downs. Some legislators are denouncing the TSA's new security plans. Ron Paul has introduced the American Travel Dignity Act. And good for them all.

But here's the thing: in our deluded state, Americans don't tend to connect what we're doing to others abroad and what we're doing to ourselves at home. We refuse to see that the trillion or more dollars that continue to go into the Pentagon, the U.S. Intelligence Community, and the national security state yearly, as well as the stalemated or losing wars Washington insists on fighting in distant lands, have anything to do with the near collapse of the American economy, job-devastation at home, or any of the other disasters of our American age.

As a result, those porno-scanners and enhanced pat-downs are indignities without a cause – except, of course, for those terrorists who keep launching their bizarre plots to take down our planes. And yet whatever inconvenience, embarrassment, or humiliation you suffer in an airport shouldn't be thought of as something the terrorists have done to us. It's what the American national security state that we've quietly accepted demands of its subjects, based on the idea that no degree of danger from a terrorist attack, however infinitesimal, is acceptable. (When it comes to genuine safety, anything close to that principle is absent from other aspects of American life where – from eating to driving, to drinking, to working – genuine danger exists and genuine damage is regularly done.)

We now live not just with all the usual fears that life has to offer, but in something like a United States of Fear.

So think of it as an irony that, when George W. Bush and his cronies decided to sally forth and smite the Greater Middle East, they exulted that they were finally " taking the gloves off." And so they were: aggressive war, torture, abuse, secret imprisonment, souped-up surveillance, slaughter, drone wars, there was no end to it. When those gloves came off, other people suffered first. But wasn't it predictable – since unsuccessful wars have a nasty habit of coming home – that, in the end, other things would come off, and sooner or later they would be on you: your hat, your shoes, your belt, your clothes, and of course, your job, your world?

And don't for a second think that it's going to end here. What happens when the first terrorist with a suppository bomb is found aboard one of our planes? After all, such weapons already exist. In the meantime, the imposition of more draconian safety and security methods is, of course, being considered for buses, trains, and boats. Can trucks, taxis, cars, and bikes be far behind? After all, once begun, there can, by definition, be no end to the search for perfect security.

You Wanna Be Safer? Really?

You must have a friend who's extremely critical of everyone else but utterly opaque when it comes to himself. Well, that's this country, too.

Here's a singular fact to absorb: we now know that a bunch of Yemeni al-Qaeda adherents have a far better hit on just who we are, psychologically speaking, and what makes us tick than we do. Imagine that. They have a more accurate profile of us than our leading intelligence profilers undoubtedly do of them.

Recently, they released an online magazine laying out just how much the two U.S.-bound cargo-bay bombs that caused panic cost them: a mere $4,200 and the efforts of "less than six brothers" over three months. They even gave their plot a name, Operation Hemorrhage (and what they imagined hemorrhaging, it seems, was not American blood, but treasure).

Now, they're laughing at us for claiming the operation failed because – thanks reportedly to a tip from Saudi intelligence – those bombs didn't go off. "This supposedly 'foiled plot,'" they wrote, "will without a doubt cost America and other Western countries billions of dollars in new security measures. That is what we call leverage."

They are, they claim, planning to use the "security phobia that is sweeping America" not to cause major casualties, but to blow a hole in the U.S. economy. "We knew that cargo planes are staffed by only a pilot and a co-pilot, so our objective was not to cause maximum casualties but to cause maximum losses to the American economy" via the multi-billion-dollar U.S. freight industry.

This is a new definition of asymmetrical warfare. The terrorists never have to strike an actual target. It's not even incumbent upon them to build a bomb that works. Just about anything will do. To be successful, they just have to repeatedly send things in our direction, inciting the expectable Pavlovian reaction from the U.S. national security state, causing it to further tighten its grip (grope?) at yet greater taxpayer expense.

In a sense, both the American national security state and al-Qaeda are building their strength and prestige as our lives grow more constrained and our treasure vanishes.

So you wanna be safer? I mean, actually safer? Here's a simple formula for beginning to improve American safety and security at every level. End our trillion dollar wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; set our military to defending our own borders (and no, projecting power abroad does not normally qualify as a defense of the United States); begin to shut down our global empire of bases; stop building grotesque embassy-citadels abroad (one even has a decorative moat, for god's sake!); end our overseas war stimulus packages and bring some of that money home. In short, stop going out of our way to tick off foreigners and then pouring our treasure into an American war machine intent on pursuing a generational global war against them.

Of course, the U.S. national security state has quite a different formula for engendering safety in America: fight the Afghan War until hell freezes over; keep the odd base or two in Iraq; dig into the Persian Gulf region; send U.S. Special Operations troops into any country where a terrorist might possibly lurk; and make sure the drones aren't far behind. In other words, reinforce our war state by ensuring that we're eternally in a state of war, and then scare the hell out of Americans by repeatedly insisting that we're in imminent danger, that shoe, underwear, and someday butt bombers will destroy our country, our lives, and our civilization. Insist that a single percent of risk is 1% too much when it comes to terror and American lives, and then demand that those who feel otherwise be dealt with punitively, if they won't shut up.

It's a formula for leaving you naked in airports, while increasing the oppressive power of the state. And here's the dirty, little, distinctly Orwellian secret: the national security state can't do without those Yemeni terrorists (and vice versa), as well as our homegrown variety. All of them profit from a world of war. You don't – and on that score, what happens in an airport line should be the least of your worries.

The national security state is eager to cop a feel. As long as Americans don't grasp the connections between our war state and our "safety," things will only get worse and, in the end, our world will genuinely be in danger.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/engelhardt/engelhardt411.html