(no subject)
OK, so this bomb plot. Obiously, it is good that it was stopped. That goes without saying. But I'm being driven slowly insane by two different things right now:
Firstly, people who are complaining that this was either a setup, or current security precautions are silly and over the top. I mean, really, what do they expect airport security to do? Sit on their collective asses and wait to see if they got all the bombs? And if they didn't, apologise and say they didn't want to disrupt people's travel plans? Really, has it always been this quick for the conspiracy theories to spread and become (relatively) mainstream?
Secondly, it's absolutely maddening that both British and American leaders seem to think the best way to deal with this problem is massacre as many Arabs as possible, or something. Nearly 1,000,000 Lebanese refugees who've lost everything (this in a country whose population only numbers 3,870,000), and both our governments giving the Israeli offensive the green light. It's that sort of thing which is coming back to bite us all in the ass. We're making the problem worse, not better, and yet Bush and Blair seem oblivious to it. It's going to take decades to fix this mess, if we can ever do it at all.
Other, connected thought: over the last few days, Bush has started to use the term "Islamic Fascist," in speeches. Apart from being a stupid term, the switch from "terrorist," to "fascist," worries me enormously, because it's more easily applied to state actors. The more I watch what's happening in the middle east, the more it feels like there is a concerted effort to get into a war with Iran and/or Syria.
[edit] Let me just copy and paste from Daily Kos:Here's some basic facts that some people seem to be having trouble dealing with regarding this morning's news of a thwarted terrorist attack. If you wrote a diary or comment this morning about how bullshit these latest threats are, please print this out and tape it to your monitor.
1) Terrorists genuinely exist and are trying to kill innocent people, regardless of anything done by George W Bush.
2) Not all reporting done on terrorist attacks is produced in order to cover up something else.
3) Not all reporting about terrorism designed to keep people scared.
4) The thwarting of a major attack is genuinely newsworthy.
Firstly, people who are complaining that this was either a setup, or current security precautions are silly and over the top. I mean, really, what do they expect airport security to do? Sit on their collective asses and wait to see if they got all the bombs? And if they didn't, apologise and say they didn't want to disrupt people's travel plans? Really, has it always been this quick for the conspiracy theories to spread and become (relatively) mainstream?
Secondly, it's absolutely maddening that both British and American leaders seem to think the best way to deal with this problem is massacre as many Arabs as possible, or something. Nearly 1,000,000 Lebanese refugees who've lost everything (this in a country whose population only numbers 3,870,000), and both our governments giving the Israeli offensive the green light. It's that sort of thing which is coming back to bite us all in the ass. We're making the problem worse, not better, and yet Bush and Blair seem oblivious to it. It's going to take decades to fix this mess, if we can ever do it at all.
Other, connected thought: over the last few days, Bush has started to use the term "Islamic Fascist," in speeches. Apart from being a stupid term, the switch from "terrorist," to "fascist," worries me enormously, because it's more easily applied to state actors. The more I watch what's happening in the middle east, the more it feels like there is a concerted effort to get into a war with Iran and/or Syria.
[edit] Let me just copy and paste from Daily Kos:Here's some basic facts that some people seem to be having trouble dealing with regarding this morning's news of a thwarted terrorist attack. If you wrote a diary or comment this morning about how bullshit these latest threats are, please print this out and tape it to your monitor.
1) Terrorists genuinely exist and are trying to kill innocent people, regardless of anything done by George W Bush.
2) Not all reporting done on terrorist attacks is produced in order to cover up something else.
3) Not all reporting about terrorism designed to keep people scared.
4) The thwarting of a major attack is genuinely newsworthy.