h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'll agree with you, TBTPM.....as bad as I hate to.

*as thoughts of the Salem Witch Trials dance thru my head....(no, wait a minute....those weren't jury trials!!!)*

My take on why this happened and why no group has claimed responsibility?....Simple enough.

The US was overdue for another terrorist attack..... the WTC was the target once before, and makes a very good international symbolic point. The Pentagon takes it home to us "infidels".

This plan was well thought out and well executed....Like "Jessies' Pup".....a little TOO good. It went so well that NO-ONE in their right mind would claim to be behind it. These guys are nuts, not stupid!

As far as an investigation, I'm afraid I have to trust our agencies to find out, as I cannot afford my own personal "CIA".

NM

Well, we have to depend on the professionals that we hire to do that. I think we're probably depending more on the FBI. They're the lead agency in terrorist investigations. Although, I don't much care for the FBI.

I've become more concerned about the possible scale of the operation. Now, there are concerns about possible further attacks, and a prolonged series of attacks. I don't know if that's paranoia after we've been bloodied. If it is real, then I'd be very concerned about who could be behind this. Maybe a nation is behind it.

That will lead to very real war of the conventional sort.

Conventional war won't work. I just wish that more of our own would realise that.

I hate wasting money....and I hate wasting lives even more. Conventional attacks will do both.

NM

An unbiased trial would seem unlikely. However I must agree that in spite of some odd cases, the system generally works. But what actual justice could match this particular set of crimes? I'd really hate to be trying to select that jury!!

And for Two Bit Pistol Pumping Moron-great name, my Uncle John from Valdosta used to love that phrase. Generally reserved for a particular neighbor- anyway I digress, no cops, lawyers wives, legal secretaries none of those ever see the jury box. Really! I wouldn't make it up.

Bush has just sent 100 warships complete with jet fighters and stealth bombers to the Gulf. Anyone else thinking that things seem to be falling into place far too easily for America? To scramble that many troops ready for battle usually takes months of planning, even under emergency orders you would expect preparations to take longer than 1 week - seeing as for the first 3 days after the attack it was all speculation as to where the terrorists had come from. Then they focus on Bin Laden without any solid proof that he was involved who has always declared responsibility for his attacks with delight when they succeed in hurting Americans. Why is he denying it this time - it doesn't follow what is known about him.

Hi!

In fact, preparing an operation on this scale (provided that massive field actions are really planned) takes from 2 to 5 months. So, the preparations must have been started some 2 months ago the latest. Any sign of military acitvity around that time?

Osama bin Laden is just another scapegoat.

Let's make a rather unconventional tour of the post-war history.

There is an opinion in a respected minority that:

- Korea sits there keeping Japan, China, and Russia on red alert; Americans have a free base in Asia.

- Vietnam was stricken because lots of oil was supposed to be in its coastal area. Once it was clear that that was a mistake, the South Vietnam was sold off.

- Afganistan became the last proxy ground to let the stupid Soviet leaders blood their weak economy to death. Once that was accomplished, everybody left 'em fighting each other alone.

- Yugoslavia was the last possible strategical ally of Russia in Europe. It was put down using nationality quarrels. Macedonia is just the last fragment of the same puzzle.

- Israel is life supported to keep Arabs buying weapons and pump oil when asked to.

- Pakistan was invented by Brits to counterbalance India.

- Northern Ireland does just the same about Ireland.

- Basques and Corsicans allow more strictures to be applied to the ordinary people and keep antiterrorist budget respectable.

- Kurds live in an area where uran is presumed. They won't have their land left in peace until this is proved false.

- Chechens happen to occupy the shortest pipeline route.

But now tell me what do those poor Afgans got left?

Best regards.

Alexander

Planning a military operation of any size only takes months if you don't already have military operations going on.

The USA and UK have been keeping an ongoing operation in the Gulf for some time. All the US have done is step up the replacement schedule.

Something else to consider is that the US has been recalling reservists and moving people to front line duties for about a week. Right now, the US military is the best organised entity in the world and it has very, very little standing in it's way as far as organisation goes. After all...who wants to be seen as unpatriotic right now?

Please folks, stop seeing patterns that aren't there. All you are witnessing is the world's most powerful military flexing it's muscles.

If that scares you...well, it should.

Alexander - Northern Ireland was "set up" after a referendum showed that the majority of people in that general area wished to remain a part of the United Kingdom. England doesn't need a buffer zone between it and Eire...that's what the Irish Sea is for.

What scares me more is that the Americans are well known for having a well equipped, extremely powerful army and a gung ho attitude. Out of all the military forces in the world America has got the worst record for putting its own men and allies under friendly fire. It seems that once they have weapons they just have to fire them no matter who the target is. Remember the Gulf? the British lost over 100 men due to the Americans lack of map reading ability. Vietnam - thousands of Americans killed by friendly fire. Just because you are strong does not necessarily mean you have the ability to use that strength wisely, it just means that if someone hurts you, you can resort to bully boy tactics. True wisdom comes from knowing when to deploy your strength and when to use other means. To take out one man does not take an entire army - a covert Seals or SAS mission could have eliminated Bin Laden a long time ago without risking too many other lives. The more men you send, the more likely something is going to go wrong - the bigger the operation, the larger the margin for error. As for troops being ready in a week, it doesn't happen. You need to issue orders to the commanding officers who then have to relay it to the troops, many of whom would have been on leave and it takes at least a few days to recall that many men and brief them. While this is going on you also need to look at ammunition supplies, rations, transportation, organise bases inside friendly countries to send your men to as well as view intelligence reports to find out the best place to deploy your men. All this cannot happen within a few days. When we officially declared war on Iraq it took 2 weeks to send troops in and that was something we were expecting to have to do - never mind a response to an unexpected attack. WWII took even longer to send men in, but that was due to the technology of the time. Almost overnight mobilisation of an entire army just does not happen unless you were expecting to need it.

Hi!

> If that scares you...well, it should.

Sorry, it should scare you just as much, if not more. If you missed this, there's no point in reading any further.

Best regards.

Alexander

Someone may want to notice the fact that we aren't sending troops anywhere yet.

It doesn't take much for the Navy to be udner way. They spend a substantioal amount of time afloat anyway. We already have air bases in the region (unlike during the Gulf War) so it's not like its that hard to send war planes. The whole reason we have those bases is to have a jumping off point.

Even the Marine Corps has one or two brigades afloat at any given time.

The thing that takes time, is moving the Army. It took us less than a week to have our tanks loaded up on ships for transportation to Saudi Arabia.

There's nothing all that surprising about the time table. Moving troops into position, doesn't mean that we're going to attack. It means that we're getting ready so that we can attack sooner rather than later.

Perosnally, I think we've been too slow in activating and redeploying troops. I think we need to have a National Guard Division activated so that it can begin its 45 day train up to combat readiness. I think we should be deploying some of our lighter forces to locations like Saudi Arabia. The Chief of Staff has been talking about these new motorized forces he wants to play with; lets send them to the Middle East to train up and be ready in case of action.

Actually, we do have troops preparing for Bright Star in Egypt next month. That's usually just a Brigade or two though.

Beeblebrux, Bush did not just send 100 warships, he sent 100 warplanes, most of which are on a single aircraft carrier - the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

Wait. I thought we were sending Air Force planes. What's the point of the press reporting that we're sending war planes, if we're sending them on an aircraft carrier. They always have planes on them.

Besides, the press was talking about air bridges and stuff with in-flight refueling and all that.

I'm presuming the USAF is sending some planes as the Roosevelt 'only' carries 75, but whatever the case even Dubya's not going to send 100 warships to attack a landlocked country.

ROFLMAO

Just a little thought that's been floating around my head: I wonder if the attack went better than expected. I've been wondering if the towers were meant to collapse within an hour? My scenario goes 'Fly planes in high, kill people above the impact, everybody else gets out, buildings burn for days as symbol of what we can do'. If I was going for the 'Kill all capitalist infidels' scenario, I wouldn't have aimed my planes as they did: callous as it is, the pilots were obviously skilled enough to hit the buildings where they wanted, so why not hit them lower and bring them down before anyone got out.
I have no idea about the logistics of the NY skyline, so if there's a big building in the way please feel free to point out the error in this argument.

Airfields and planes are static and can get hit. Aircraft carriers are mobile and come with a screen of sacrificial support cruisers and destroyers. carriers get hit last, basic WW2 and Falklands stuff.

You have my thoughts, exactly.

As I said before, this attack went a whole lot better than was expected....thats' why no terrorist group is willing to claim it!

NM

sorry for wandering, i was in the Marmite group.

That being said, bin Laden's SOP is to not accept responsibilty for anything, ie suicide Zodiac attack, co-ordinated African bombings, WTC #1 bomb...

It's certainly true that more people would have died if the planes had hit the WTC buildings lower down, but the consensus seems to be that it borders on miraculous that the towers stayed up as long as they did. I agree entirely that almost all terrorist groups wouldn't even contemplate such an attack because of the repercussions, but that doesn't mean things went 'better' than expected: there's no guarantee of a rational motive behind something like this.

Yeah...I've been chuckling about this for a week, now.

OK...so bin Laden says he didn't do THIS...SO!

Theres' a LIST of things hes' claimed.....but because he says he didn't do THIS ONE....we're supposed to let him go.

Enough is enough.

If he didn't, he knows who did, thats' good enough for me.

NM