Has anyone considered the possibility

[RoBoBoy]

Have any of you given any thought about which of our allies would come to our defence if we were attacked or invaded.

Currently, we don't have the forces neccessary to defend ourselves from a strong foe.

[Mazer]

That's an important question, and believe me when I say it's a consideration that is always being studied.

There's the Air Force tracking every orbital and suborbital object larger than a baseball over the entire continent. The Navy submarines patrol the coastlines listening to each and every boat off our shores. The Coast Guard and National Guard, though they may not be as well-manned as the other branches, are always on call should the need arise. And Army soldiers and Marines stationed here in the States could reach any part of our nation in less than half a day.

You may underestimate our defensive capabilities, but no other military force in the world does. An open attack on U.S. soil is the most suicidal thing anyone might attempt.

But the best defense is a good offence. That's the number one reason why most of our troops are serving around the world. The military always maintains a presence on and around former battlefields to make sure the fighting never starts back up. Our spies and our satellites keep tabs on enemies in every nation, tracking troop movements and weapons programs. If an invasion was comming we'd know about it months in advance. And besides that, an invading force would already be flanked by our deployed forces.

This isn't medeval times, RoBoBoy, we're not building a stone wall to keep the hoards out, hoping our forces can hold them back when the wall is breached. No, we're taking positions beyond our borders to make sure no conventional force ever gets close enough to attack us.

[RoBoBoy]

Originally Posted by Mazer

we're taking positions beyond our borders to make sure no conventional force ever gets close enough to attack us.

i'm aware of everything you said and certainly you're not suggesting it's not possible to make a sneak attack on US soil.

My question has more to do with the "what if's". For the sake of conversation, say it did happen. Where are the troops?

My what if's might be a fantasy to most but I believe it's very possible.

Did anyone ever think 2 jets could possible get under the radar to take down manhatten or a truck bomber could blow up downtown OK city?

[JackSpratts]

like bush, england's john major was a problem for the electorate but he finessed a contest to win a second term even tho people had serious misgivings about his character and leadership. it was a short-lived victory for major and his party however and it just about destroyed the tories. the same may happen to bush and the republicans. when the support you need to put you over the top comes from a proud collection of rabidly anti-science, dysfunctional religious fundamentalists you get what you pay for.

not during any of england's darkest political hours would the people of the us have simply ignored her if attacked however. i think the same holds true for america. if we got hit, which seems increasingly likely if you believe the homeland security department isn’t foisting paranoia on its citizens but is on the level with its endless security alerts, many people throughout the world would reach out to assist us, separating and rightly so the actions of a president they consider a war criminal and the millions of citizens who tried unsuccessfully to unseat him.

- js.

[Mazer]

Originally Posted by RoBoBoy

i'm aware of everything you said and certainly you're not suggesting it's not possible to make a sneak attack on US soil.

My question has more to do with the "what if's". For the sake of conversation, say it did happen. Where are the troops?

My what if's might be a fantasy to most but I believe it's very possible.

Did anyone ever think 2 jets could possible get under the radar to take down manhatten or a truck bomber could blow up downtown OK city?

That's the present day problem. Terrorism and conventional warfare require entirely different tactics. We've always tried to keep conventional forces from attacking us, and the result is that there have been no successful attacks on American soil in 63 years. But as Sinner posted in an other thread, terrorist attacks have begun to penetrate a little deeper and are a little more frequent as time passes. The new war is more dependent on information and being in the right place at the right time to act on that information.

The Department of Homeland Security is not a branch of the military, it's a collection of law enforcement agencies. So here's a what if for ya: some innocuous foreign visitors hijack a truckload of nuclear waste traveling south on I-25 on its way to the WIPP site. These shipments go through Colorado a dozen times a week and the trucks are easy targets.

If they manage to evade the state patrol long enough they can get the truck to a warehouse and open the containers to see what they got. Maybe there's just one spent nuclear fuel rod in the shipment, but that's all it takes. They ditch the truck the day after they hijacked it and the trail goes cold.

Meanwhile their friends are in Denver making enough fertilizer explosive to knock down a large building. They all meet up, put the nuclear waste in a white van with half a ton of sodium nitrate, wait until a windy day, and leave it on the roof of a parking garage with a short fuse.

There is no appropriate military response to this scenario, which is why the Homeland Security department was created in the first place. Step one, install GPS trackers on the nuclear waste trucks, hire truckers with security clearance, and radio them every hour to make sure there's no hold-ups. They've probably been doing that from the start. Next, put wire taps on non-American citizens, a provision given by the Patriot Act. These are preventative measures, but what if it isn't enough and the dirty bomb goes off after all?

Again it's up to Homeland Security to track down and capture those responsible. First responders need equipment to detect nuclear, biological, and chemical agents so they know how treat and evacuate the population. Investigators need to get to ground zero immediately to find evidence in of the van that carried the bomb, but they need to be equiped with fallout gear. So the local police need all that stuff before the attack. When the initial panic has been subdued then the federal investigation can begin, and the FBI will do what they do to best. They'll be able to compare their findings against CIA, NSA, and INS records to see who was there when it happened and where they came from, thanks also to the Patriot Act. Things have to happen quickly because the culprits will be trying to leave the country as soon as possible.

New technology might have a role to play here. Passports could be lowjacked with RFID tags (which would help people find them if they got lost too). Airport security checkpoints could be designed with chemical sniffers and Geiger counters, so anyone handling fertilizer or nuclear material would be easier to find trying to get away. And I'm sure there's dozens of other useful inventions I can't think of right now.

The only role the military might have here is to police the city to prevent riots and patrol the borders to stop the bad guys before they have a chance to sneak away. This is a job for the National Guard, and in that case it doesn't matter how far and wide the troops in the other branches are deployed, they can't help anyway.

Anyway, that's just one possibility, but still I don't think there are many instances in which a strong military response would be necessary if we were attacked here at home. They've already done their best to prevent those kinds of attacks, and the rest is up to non-military personel.

Originally Posted by JackSpratts

if we got hit, many people throughout the world would reach out to assist us, separating and rightly so the actions of a president they consider a war criminal and the millions of citizens who tried unsuccessfully to unseat him.

And lucky for them they have a map of all the counties where people voted against Bush so they can separate them out, leaving the other millions who voted for him to die.

[Ramona_A_Stone]

The new war is more dependent on information and being in the right place at the right time to act on that information.

Next, put wire taps on non-American citizens, a provision given by the Patriot Act. These are preventative measures, but what if it isn't enough and the dirty bomb goes off after all?

Again it's up to Homeland Security to track down and capture those responsible. First responders need equipment to detect nuclear, biological, and chemical agents so they know how treat and evacuate the population. Investigators need to get to ground zero immediately to find evidence in of the van that carried the bomb, but they need to be equiped with fallout gear. So the local police need all that stuff before the attack. When the initial panic has been subdued then the federal investigation can begin, and the FBI will do what they do to best. They'll be able to compare their findings against CIA, NSA, and INS records to see who was there when it happened and where they came from, thanks also to the Patriot Act. Things have to happen quickly because the culprits will be trying to leave the country as soon as possible.

You're not talking about a 'war on terrorism' at all, and I think you know that. You're talking about ex post facto reaction and retribution for acts of terrorism--which is all well and good, until we start pretending that anything which we can possibly do is a deterrent to terrorism, and most especially when we start pretending that our foriegn policies aren't equivalent to terrorist recruitment campaigns.

Putting wire taps on non-American citizens wouldn't have stopped McVeigh, and apprehending him and executing him won't stop his next emulator. It's not a meaningless coincidence that surprise is implicit in terrorist tactics, and it doesn't matter how smart or perceptive you are, unless you're a god, there's always room to be surprised.

Control by fear is the oldest trick in the book, but sadly we still fall for it in droves. It's an aspect of power which has and will always be with us, but when that fear is used to exacerbate the very conditions which it pretends to address, it's just ignorance to support it.

[theknife]

Originally Posted by Ramona_A_Stone

You're not talking about a 'war on terrorism' at all, and I think you know that. You're talking about ex post facto reaction and retribution for acts of terrorism--which is all well and good, until we start pretending that anything which we can possibly do is a deterrent to terrorism, and most especially when we start pretending that our foriegn policies aren't equivalent to terrorist recruitment campaigns.

Putting wire taps on non-American citizens wouldn't have stopped McVeigh, and apprehending him and executing him won't stop his next emulator. It's not a meaningless coincidence that surprise is implicit in terrorist tactics, and it doesn't matter how smart or perceptive you are, unless you're a god, there's always room to be surprised.

Control by fear is the oldest trick in the book, but sadly we still fall for it in droves. It's an aspect of power which has and will always be with us, but when that fear is used to exacerbate the very conditions which it pretends to address, it's just ignorance to support it.

not that it matters at this point, but when the next hit on US soil comes, we are going to find the world to be considerably less sympathetic than the post-9/11 reaction.

[RoBoBoy]

Originally Posted by theknife

not that it matters at this point, but when the next hit on US soil comes, we are going to find the world to be considerably less sympathetic than the post-9/11 reaction.

My contention, exactly. And we still don't have the troops necessary to defend ourselves.

I'm not at all fearful to a point of paranoia, just concerned about the currents status of our domestic defence, if needed.

[AweShucks]

Originally Posted by RoBoBoy

My contention, exactly. And we still don't have the troops necessary to defend ourselves.

I'm not at all fearful to a point of paranoia, just concerned about the currents status of our domestic defence, if needed.

Our defense is right here! Some estimates put the number of gun owners as high as 80 million in the U.S.

There are some of the "paranoid" already at work http://www.michiganmilitia.com/

Don't under estimate the number of Patriots willing to die for their country and don't under estimate the fear it has on our enemies.


"In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success."

"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass." - Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto