Here is why it is Impossible to Stop a Clever Terrorist Attack
- Thread starter SouthAmerica
- Start date
Quote from version77:
You are forgetting one thing. In Israel, the terrorists do not stand
out from the other people around them.
In America, they stand out like a sore thumb.
Makes it easier to see and catch them.
You would have to be brain dead to not notice this!...
umm, es-yay, ut-bay it is olitically-pay incorrect-ay o-tay a-say o-say.
Here we go again. Another political thread that started in the Trading for a Living >> Psychology forum that will be moved to the Chit Chat section.
The only reliable way to stop a terrorist attack is before it ever happens, ie infiltrate the groups that are planning them or otherwise gather intelligence on their plans. I really doubt that any politician has suggested that we can stop all terrorist attacks, you can make it more difficult (airline security) or harden targets (concrete barriers in front of buildings) but the bottom line is that in a free society there is no way to stop these attacks except at their source.
I too am surprised that there haven't been any terrorist attacks on US soil since 9/11 - I wonder if the terrorists realize that every attack that occurs increases the efforts to track down the cell members and its just not worth it. Bombs are cheap and there is no lack of supply of religious idiots willing to strap on some explosives so I can't think of any other reason why we haven't seen these style attacks in the US so far.
Oh yea, I also agree with the above poster, this doesn't belong here "Trading for a Living âºâº Psychology"
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Version 77: Yep. And the suicide bomber also kills himself. How stupid they are...
By the way... Terrorist attacks are not clever... just dumb... Anybody can walk around with a bomb and blow him/herself up...
BIG DEAL...
southamerica... You sound like you think they are brave smart heroes...
**************
SouthAmerica: Reply to version 77
According to you âsuicide bomber also kills himself. How stupid they areâ
But that is the point that they are trying to make.
Americans believe in punishment (the US has over 2.1 million people in prison today) and the US has a large military. Those things are effective against people who want to live. What do you do against people who are willing to blow up themselves as suicide bombers.
Americans have to figure out: How do you punish someone after they blow up himself into pieces, as it is the case with the suicide bombers.
We have a culture that wants to preserve ourselves and live as long as we can. It is hard for us to understand the mind-set of someone who is willing to blow himself up in the name of any cause.
Suicide bombers neutralize the value of your army because they are not afraid of dying.
You said that: âTerrorist attacks are not cleverâ
What do you call 9/11?
These guys used American jetliners as missiles against a major building. That is stuff that we are supposed to see only on Hollywood movies and not in real life.
I see in the news all kinds of talking heads trying to scare Americans of how this country or that country are developing chemical weapons, and long range missile weapon systems to be able to attack the US soil with these weapons.
My question is: why they complicate things so much for the terrorists in the media?
The terrorists proved on 9/11 that they can use the stuff that it is already in place here in the US for a terrorist attack such an attack in a chemical plant.
If the terrorists really want to do such a thing these guys will be able to accomplish their goal with no problems. I have seen many programs on television showing how easy it is for anyone to get inside of all these chemical plants inside the US.
The terrorists knows all of that information since that is their business, and have proved how sophisticated and clever they can be with the 9/11 attacks in the US.
You also said: âIn America, they stand out like a sore thumbâ
But they were able to pull of the 9/11 attacks with no problem. Donât forget there are a lot of Arabs living in the US today, and Americans are not aware that there is a terrorist among them â remember most Arabs are just normal people and they are not terrorists â we are talking about a very small group of people when were are talking about terrorists.
Two years ago I posted the following in the PBS message board regarding one of their television shows:
Here, I am quoting part of my article published March 2002 - âSeptember 11, 2001 and the religious war that changed the USAâ
To wage a war on terrorism is an absurd idea. The US spent $ 1 trillion dollars in defense in the last three years, and $ 2 trillion in the last eight years. Even with these very large amounts of defense spending the US could not prevent the attack by 19 terrorists armed with low-tech box cutters.
The sad thing is that the American people have been mislead to believe that they can be protected from a terrorist attack by increasing defense spending. When the reality is: it is an impossible task for the government to protect the American people against most kinds of terrorism attacks in US soil.
It is impossible to stop terrorism, because acts of terrorism can be performed by a very small group of people (in some cases by only one or two people.) The United States can spend $ 50 trillion dollars in defense spending (an amount equivalent to 5 years of the entire US gross national product), and the US still will not be able to stop in the future, a clever terrorist attack on its soil.
**************
A year later in March 2003, Bill Moyers helped me make my case one more time on his program broadcasted on March 21, 2003 as follows:
âThe US Still is Very Vulnerable to Another Terrorist Attack.â
On March 21, 2003 a program on PBS, âNow with Bill Moyersâ described how vulnerable the US is today to another terrorist attack on its chemical plants all across the United States. They started the program by introducing the main guest: Nicholas Ashford has been studying toxic chemicals for decades. Heâs an authority on industrial safety at MIT. The announcer said: âAshfordâs taking me up on this rickety roof to show why one of the biggest terrorist targets might be in your own backyard.
Ashford said: you see those colored tanks in the distance? Those tanks contain a toxic chemical, in this case its vinyl acetate, which if released can cause serious lung problems, heart problems, and liver problems. If released, youâre talking about going into an area that is at least 5 miles radius circular, affecting more than a million people.
The announcer: the government is warning that Al Qaeda operatives might be planning to attack a chemical plant. Now, itâs a little hard for me to believe that those tanks which seem rather small next to that building, that they could affect a million people.
â¦Ashford replied: the tanks are small, but youâre talking about it containing a pure chemical. These plants are sitting ducks. This plant that we see here is along three major highways and arteries, any of which people could go by and drive by. These are very easily sabotaged plants
The announcer: The White House says the country urgently needs to protect these foundations of American society but critics say thereâs a huge obstacle and you know much about it. They say executives at major corporations are not doing what they need to do to make the country safer. Most of the critical industries in this country, most of the critical, so-called infrastructure that make society tick, are owned by private industry.
The announcer: Linda Greer has spent her career studying things like pesticide and air pollution. Sheâs a toxicologist at one of the countryâs best-known environment groups. But after 9/11, she got caught up in a drama about national security.
Ms. Geer said: It happened just a couple of days after the World Trade Center, where someone on the news mentioned that the terrorists had taken our own technology and used it against us. And there was just something about that that clicked in my brain. And I said, "Oh my god, you know, they wouldn't have to carry chemical weapons into our country. We have all these vats of tanks of chemicals that could serve as weapons so nicely."
Greer says if you want a sense of what a terrorist could do, just look at the disaster at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. A chemical called methyl isocyanate leaked and spread a deadly cloud over the city. Thousands of people were killed and injured. People are continuing to this day having problems all as a result of that exposure.
A lot of people imagine that our chemical industry is located far away from neighborhoods. Down a dirt road, in the middle of nowhere, far, far away from any children, any schools, any hospitals. But it's really quite to the contrary. You know, many of our factories are actually nestled in neighborhoods that grew up around them. You know, it just doesn't take much imagination to think about what a big bang could happen in one of these places. And they are so common. They're all over our country.
The announcer: In fact, according to government reports, there are more than a hundred plants across the nation where a single incident at any one of them could kill or injure more than one million people.
Greer and her colleagues wanted to figure out the fastest way to help protect those communities from terrorists. So they analyzed aerial photos and maps, they researched which plants keep the biggest tanks of the 20 deadliest chemicals. And then they drafted an emergency action plan, which they said could make the plants a lot safer.
Normally, an environmental group like this one would try to make a big splash with their new report. Give it out to all the press. But the NRDC stamped these findings 'confidential.' They say they worried that the details could end up helping terrorists. And so they took them straight to the President's staff.
Greer: Well, the first person we went to was the EPA administrator, Christie Todd Whitman. And nothing, nothing came of it. We took it to Homeland Security, to a top official at Homeland Security. To General Lawlor who had read the report, found it very interesting. Had very good questions. Nothing happened. We took it to the Democratic leadership in the Senate. We said, "You know, this administration is not doing anything about this. Somebody needs to be paying attention to this." Nothing. The attitude was the industry will take care of this.â
**********
SouthAmerica: The Bill Moyers program was very interesting and informative. It shows how silly it is the notion that by increasing defense spending Americans will be protected from terrorism.
By the way, the reason that corporations are not protecting many of their chemical tanks around the country, it is because they are in business to make money, and they are not going to spend money-hiring people to guard their tanks to prevent acts of terrorism that would increase the costs of doing business and the bottom line.
.
Version 77: Yep. And the suicide bomber also kills himself. How stupid they are...
By the way... Terrorist attacks are not clever... just dumb... Anybody can walk around with a bomb and blow him/herself up...
BIG DEAL...
southamerica... You sound like you think they are brave smart heroes...
**************
SouthAmerica: Reply to version 77
According to you âsuicide bomber also kills himself. How stupid they areâ
But that is the point that they are trying to make.
Americans believe in punishment (the US has over 2.1 million people in prison today) and the US has a large military. Those things are effective against people who want to live. What do you do against people who are willing to blow up themselves as suicide bombers.
Americans have to figure out: How do you punish someone after they blow up himself into pieces, as it is the case with the suicide bombers.
We have a culture that wants to preserve ourselves and live as long as we can. It is hard for us to understand the mind-set of someone who is willing to blow himself up in the name of any cause.
Suicide bombers neutralize the value of your army because they are not afraid of dying.
You said that: âTerrorist attacks are not cleverâ
What do you call 9/11?
These guys used American jetliners as missiles against a major building. That is stuff that we are supposed to see only on Hollywood movies and not in real life.
I see in the news all kinds of talking heads trying to scare Americans of how this country or that country are developing chemical weapons, and long range missile weapon systems to be able to attack the US soil with these weapons.
My question is: why they complicate things so much for the terrorists in the media?
The terrorists proved on 9/11 that they can use the stuff that it is already in place here in the US for a terrorist attack such an attack in a chemical plant.
If the terrorists really want to do such a thing these guys will be able to accomplish their goal with no problems. I have seen many programs on television showing how easy it is for anyone to get inside of all these chemical plants inside the US.
The terrorists knows all of that information since that is their business, and have proved how sophisticated and clever they can be with the 9/11 attacks in the US.
You also said: âIn America, they stand out like a sore thumbâ
But they were able to pull of the 9/11 attacks with no problem. Donât forget there are a lot of Arabs living in the US today, and Americans are not aware that there is a terrorist among them â remember most Arabs are just normal people and they are not terrorists â we are talking about a very small group of people when were are talking about terrorists.
Two years ago I posted the following in the PBS message board regarding one of their television shows:
Here, I am quoting part of my article published March 2002 - âSeptember 11, 2001 and the religious war that changed the USAâ
To wage a war on terrorism is an absurd idea. The US spent $ 1 trillion dollars in defense in the last three years, and $ 2 trillion in the last eight years. Even with these very large amounts of defense spending the US could not prevent the attack by 19 terrorists armed with low-tech box cutters.
The sad thing is that the American people have been mislead to believe that they can be protected from a terrorist attack by increasing defense spending. When the reality is: it is an impossible task for the government to protect the American people against most kinds of terrorism attacks in US soil.
It is impossible to stop terrorism, because acts of terrorism can be performed by a very small group of people (in some cases by only one or two people.) The United States can spend $ 50 trillion dollars in defense spending (an amount equivalent to 5 years of the entire US gross national product), and the US still will not be able to stop in the future, a clever terrorist attack on its soil.
**************
A year later in March 2003, Bill Moyers helped me make my case one more time on his program broadcasted on March 21, 2003 as follows:
âThe US Still is Very Vulnerable to Another Terrorist Attack.â
On March 21, 2003 a program on PBS, âNow with Bill Moyersâ described how vulnerable the US is today to another terrorist attack on its chemical plants all across the United States. They started the program by introducing the main guest: Nicholas Ashford has been studying toxic chemicals for decades. Heâs an authority on industrial safety at MIT. The announcer said: âAshfordâs taking me up on this rickety roof to show why one of the biggest terrorist targets might be in your own backyard.
Ashford said: you see those colored tanks in the distance? Those tanks contain a toxic chemical, in this case its vinyl acetate, which if released can cause serious lung problems, heart problems, and liver problems. If released, youâre talking about going into an area that is at least 5 miles radius circular, affecting more than a million people.
The announcer: the government is warning that Al Qaeda operatives might be planning to attack a chemical plant. Now, itâs a little hard for me to believe that those tanks which seem rather small next to that building, that they could affect a million people.
â¦Ashford replied: the tanks are small, but youâre talking about it containing a pure chemical. These plants are sitting ducks. This plant that we see here is along three major highways and arteries, any of which people could go by and drive by. These are very easily sabotaged plants
The announcer: The White House says the country urgently needs to protect these foundations of American society but critics say thereâs a huge obstacle and you know much about it. They say executives at major corporations are not doing what they need to do to make the country safer. Most of the critical industries in this country, most of the critical, so-called infrastructure that make society tick, are owned by private industry.
The announcer: Linda Greer has spent her career studying things like pesticide and air pollution. Sheâs a toxicologist at one of the countryâs best-known environment groups. But after 9/11, she got caught up in a drama about national security.
Ms. Geer said: It happened just a couple of days after the World Trade Center, where someone on the news mentioned that the terrorists had taken our own technology and used it against us. And there was just something about that that clicked in my brain. And I said, "Oh my god, you know, they wouldn't have to carry chemical weapons into our country. We have all these vats of tanks of chemicals that could serve as weapons so nicely."
Greer says if you want a sense of what a terrorist could do, just look at the disaster at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. A chemical called methyl isocyanate leaked and spread a deadly cloud over the city. Thousands of people were killed and injured. People are continuing to this day having problems all as a result of that exposure.
A lot of people imagine that our chemical industry is located far away from neighborhoods. Down a dirt road, in the middle of nowhere, far, far away from any children, any schools, any hospitals. But it's really quite to the contrary. You know, many of our factories are actually nestled in neighborhoods that grew up around them. You know, it just doesn't take much imagination to think about what a big bang could happen in one of these places. And they are so common. They're all over our country.
The announcer: In fact, according to government reports, there are more than a hundred plants across the nation where a single incident at any one of them could kill or injure more than one million people.
Greer and her colleagues wanted to figure out the fastest way to help protect those communities from terrorists. So they analyzed aerial photos and maps, they researched which plants keep the biggest tanks of the 20 deadliest chemicals. And then they drafted an emergency action plan, which they said could make the plants a lot safer.
Normally, an environmental group like this one would try to make a big splash with their new report. Give it out to all the press. But the NRDC stamped these findings 'confidential.' They say they worried that the details could end up helping terrorists. And so they took them straight to the President's staff.
Greer: Well, the first person we went to was the EPA administrator, Christie Todd Whitman. And nothing, nothing came of it. We took it to Homeland Security, to a top official at Homeland Security. To General Lawlor who had read the report, found it very interesting. Had very good questions. Nothing happened. We took it to the Democratic leadership in the Senate. We said, "You know, this administration is not doing anything about this. Somebody needs to be paying attention to this." Nothing. The attitude was the industry will take care of this.â
**********
SouthAmerica: The Bill Moyers program was very interesting and informative. It shows how silly it is the notion that by increasing defense spending Americans will be protected from terrorism.
By the way, the reason that corporations are not protecting many of their chemical tanks around the country, it is because they are in business to make money, and they are not going to spend money-hiring people to guard their tanks to prevent acts of terrorism that would increase the costs of doing business and the bottom line.
.
.
SouthAmerica: Some of you are asking for this thread to be moved to chit chat, and I understand you point of view â since Wall Street traders donât take in consideration terrorist attacks on their trading practices in Wall Street.
I guess today does not matter how many terrorist attacks there are including here in the US â according to Wall Street it does not affect the stock market.
Wall Street it is immune to the psychological effects resulting from terrorist attacks.
Wall Street is becoming a La La Land.
Today, I guess in the Wall Street world a terrorist attack it is only considered to be a subject for "Chit Chat" and an irrelevant information that does not affect anything else.
.
SouthAmerica: Some of you are asking for this thread to be moved to chit chat, and I understand you point of view â since Wall Street traders donât take in consideration terrorist attacks on their trading practices in Wall Street.
I guess today does not matter how many terrorist attacks there are including here in the US â according to Wall Street it does not affect the stock market.
Wall Street it is immune to the psychological effects resulting from terrorist attacks.
Wall Street is becoming a La La Land.
Today, I guess in the Wall Street world a terrorist attack it is only considered to be a subject for "Chit Chat" and an irrelevant information that does not affect anything else.
.
wall street is la la land.
That is an unfounded statement.
Every trader I know is always worried about the overnight risk in his long equity positions. (if they are relatively large positions)
I think the market would be trading with more vol and more upside if people thought that the sky was limit. I think 9/11 has put a governor on the upside in equitys and it may even be a factor in the low yields in bonds.
can I prove it no. but I do not think you can prove the converse either.
That is an unfounded statement.
Every trader I know is always worried about the overnight risk in his long equity positions. (if they are relatively large positions)
I think the market would be trading with more vol and more upside if people thought that the sky was limit. I think 9/11 has put a governor on the upside in equitys and it may even be a factor in the low yields in bonds.
can I prove it no. but I do not think you can prove the converse either.
This does belong in chit chat because you arent offering any specific ideas related to terrorism and trading. General discussion of terrorist attacks is no different than general discussion of anything else - you can draw a weak connection between almost any subject and the markets but that doesnt make it on topic for a trading forum and certainly not for the forum you picked to start a thread in which has the heading "Discuss the psychological aspects of trading such as fear, greed, discipline, emotional control, etc. "
Here we go again. You know, I just wonder how long it will take before everyone gets it. Never mind that these types of threads push me to repeat myself over and over again, but I fail to understand why people from so many walks of life remain stuck in this endless loop about defeating the tactic of terrorism, while remaining apologetic to the Islamic terrorists. It just makes no sense.
For those of you Leftists with some hope for an open mind click here and listen to someone who can articulate the obvious a lot better than I can:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_070705/content/truth_detector.guest.html
For those of you Leftists with some hope for an open mind click here and listen to someone who can articulate the obvious a lot better than I can:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_070705/content/truth_detector.guest.html