The Economics of Terror

[nitro]

"From airport pat-downs to deadly attacks in Iraq, the $3trillion cost of keeping Americans safe since 9/11"

http://homeland.house.gov/news/dail...raq-3trillion-cost-keeping-americans-safe-911

 

[nitro]

I wonder how many people are employed by "Homeland Security" and how many more would be unemployed without more government sponsored policing and "Homeland Security"

 

[Humpy]

When people learn to tolerate one another then there will be no need for all the security and costs.

Think how much the cost was of the :-
CIA
NSA
State Dept
Homeland security
Military
etc.

and then ask how many friends did the USA make last year ?

 

[piezoe]

point well taken, Humpy.

 

[achilles28]

Yet the border is wide open....

What about the intangible cost to our liberties? The end of habeus corpus? Indefinite military detention of citizens with no right to trial? Pervasive Government spying on everyone and everything?

911 was allowed. Authoritarians run our Government. Just like Hitler burned the Riechstag.

"Give up all your rights, and we'll save you....."

 

[oldtime]

Quote from nitro:

"From airport pat-downs to deadly attacks in Iraq, the $3trillion cost of keeping Americans safe since 9/11"

http://homeland.house.gov/news/dail...raq-3trillion-cost-keeping-americans-safe-911

well, there's a group of people out there who's sworn duty and job it is is to kill American citizens, innocent or otherwise. So we have decided to treat them like enemy combatants. That's why we don't give them a fair trial. Just like we didn't give all the German POW's a fair trial.

 

[Humpy]

The choices might come down to :-

1. irradiate the Pakistan/Afghanistan areas.
or
2. Pull back to the States as in the 1930s

 

[oldtime]

Quote from Humpy:

The choices might come down to :-

1. irradiate the Pakistan/Afghanistan areas.
or
2. Pull back to the States as in the 1930s

or number 3. Just don't fuck with the United States of America

 

[maxpi]

I doubt that our vigilance is what is keeping us from more terrorist attacks. It seems more likely that the notion that we've very easily destroyed and occupied a large chunk of the ME is acting as a bigger deterrent.. I'm thinking that when the allies led by the US military rolled over Afghanistan in a matter of days that a message was received quite loudly and clearly. I'm thinking that when we rolled over Iraq with such ease and eventually pulled a disheveled and disoriented Saddam Hussein out of a hole in the ground and hung him, a message was received quite loudly and clearly...

 

[piezoe]

Quote from oldtime:

well, there's a group of people out there who's sworn duty and job it is is to kill American citizens, innocent or otherwise. So we have decided to treat them like enemy combatants. That's why we don't give them a fair trial. ...

No one can argue with that, Oldtime, but I'd encourage you to think more deeply about this issue, and ask yourself if there is perhaps another policy direction we could move in that would be likely to produce a somewhat better result from the standpoint of our own interests, and possibly all the way around?

Why is there a group of people "whose [sic] sworn duty and job is to kill American citizens" ? What do these folks hope to accomplish? (It isn't just to kill us, obviously -- there is clearly an overarching goal, and they have even stated what it is, and how they hope to accomplish it.)

This much I'm certain of. It isn't because they are jealous of our "life style".