AtmaWeapon
09-14-2002, 01:56 PM
Alleged Florida terrorists. (http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/09/13/alligator.alley/index.html)
Terror scare may be joke gone awry (http://www.msnbc.com/news/807521.asp?0dm=C17PN)
OK, the short story, for those of you who haven't heard, is this:
Three men of middle-Eastern descent were on their way to Miami. According to them, they were medical students on their way to a convention. They were eating in a Shoney's, and a woman overheard them making statements like, "if Americans were sad on 9/11, wait until 9/13", and "Do you think we have enough to bring it down?", and "If we don't have enough to bring it down, I have contacts and we can get enough to bring it down."
The woman called the police, and the highway the men were on was closed, they were pulled over and detained, and their cars were searched.
Now, many things are happening as a result of this. The detained men, of course, claim that the woman is lying and they are victims of stereotyping. The media claims that the Feds overreacted.
I have quite a few problems with the situation:
1) If I were an American of Middle-Eastern descent, I would NEVER EVER discuss anything that had to do with 9/11 in public places. It's a given that people are suspicious of Arabic people right now. It's not fair, but it's true and they should have thought about that.
2) What reason did this woman have to lie? I've heard claims that they were joking around and trying to scare her, but haven't enough people been arrested for stuff like this to give them the idea it may not be safe?
3) Whatever happened to the media's claims that the government didn't do enough to stop 9/11? All of a sudden the media are crying foul and saying the government is being too paranoid. Make up your mind, do you want the government to be paranoid or not?
4) The MSN article seems to make it sound more like the men were joking. If they were joking around with the woman, who in their right mind makes jokes about 9/11? If I heard someone discussing a bomb plot, you bet your life I'd tell someone about it even if I thought it might be a joke.
5) The news articles are making a big sob story out of this; since there's the contradiction between "too much interference in people's lives" and "not enough surveilance of terrorists", can I really trust I'm getting the whole truth?
That's my take on it. What do you think?
Terror scare may be joke gone awry (http://www.msnbc.com/news/807521.asp?0dm=C17PN)
OK, the short story, for those of you who haven't heard, is this:
Three men of middle-Eastern descent were on their way to Miami. According to them, they were medical students on their way to a convention. They were eating in a Shoney's, and a woman overheard them making statements like, "if Americans were sad on 9/11, wait until 9/13", and "Do you think we have enough to bring it down?", and "If we don't have enough to bring it down, I have contacts and we can get enough to bring it down."
The woman called the police, and the highway the men were on was closed, they were pulled over and detained, and their cars were searched.
Now, many things are happening as a result of this. The detained men, of course, claim that the woman is lying and they are victims of stereotyping. The media claims that the Feds overreacted.
I have quite a few problems with the situation:
1) If I were an American of Middle-Eastern descent, I would NEVER EVER discuss anything that had to do with 9/11 in public places. It's a given that people are suspicious of Arabic people right now. It's not fair, but it's true and they should have thought about that.
2) What reason did this woman have to lie? I've heard claims that they were joking around and trying to scare her, but haven't enough people been arrested for stuff like this to give them the idea it may not be safe?
3) Whatever happened to the media's claims that the government didn't do enough to stop 9/11? All of a sudden the media are crying foul and saying the government is being too paranoid. Make up your mind, do you want the government to be paranoid or not?
4) The MSN article seems to make it sound more like the men were joking. If they were joking around with the woman, who in their right mind makes jokes about 9/11? If I heard someone discussing a bomb plot, you bet your life I'd tell someone about it even if I thought it might be a joke.
5) The news articles are making a big sob story out of this; since there's the contradiction between "too much interference in people's lives" and "not enough surveilance of terrorists", can I really trust I'm getting the whole truth?
That's my take on it. What do you think?