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[Ripclawe]

The Sweden reference by bin laden may not have been so innocent.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3970575.stm

"The US Department of State wishes to alert US citizens, either resident in or travelling through the Nordic/Baltic region, that it has received threat information," says the statement on the Helsinki embassy website.

It warns all citizens to "be vigilant as to their surroundings, especially in centres of ground-based mass transit, and to report any unusual or suspicious persons, incidents or circumstances to the nearest police authorities."

The statement on the Riga embassy website adds that "citizens are urged to avoid large shopping areas and transportation hubs on or about 1 November".

 

[DarienA]

Of course....

 

[Nerevar]

so Cheney's looking elsewhere for his post-election destructive rampage now?

 

[DarienA]

so Cheney's looking elsewhere for his post-election destructive rampage now?

Yeah he didn't realize disclosing his US attack profile would actually get someone to PREPARE to repel his attack so he's looking for other options....

"If the wrong man is elected in November, the nation will come under a devastating armed attack of an unimaginable magnitude, one planned and executed by none other than myself," Cheney said, speaking at a rally in Greensboro, NC. "When they go to the polls, Americans must weigh this fact and decide if our nation can ignore such a grave threat."

Added Cheney: "It would be a tragedy to suffer another attack on American soil, let alone one perpetrated by an enemy as well-organized and well-equipped as I am. My colleagues and I urge voters to keep their safety in mind when they go to the polls."

 

[Particle Physicist]

what would you guys say if something did happen in that area.. and it was later found out that we knew of a threat, but never said anything.

 

[Ripclawe]

what would you guys say if something did happen in that area.. and it was later found out that we knew of a threat, but never said anything.

The US state department has issued warnings before bombings occured in Turkey last year and the Australian embassy bombing warning came the day before it happened. I would take it seriously.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,12070,1300501,00.html

Over recent weeks, several western embassies, including Australia's, had warned their citizens about possible attacks by Islamist extremists. The US embassy yesterday told Americans to stay away from the Kuningan district, where the blast occurred.

 

[DarienA]

what would you guys say if something did happen in that area.. and it was later found out that we knew of a threat, but never said anything.

I'd call that pretty convenient either way.

 

[Keio]

Living in Finland I am not worried at all. Even though you can find occasions when these very vague U.S. warnings have been correct somewhere in the world, there have also been many cries of "Wolf!" and nothing has happened.

The Baltics & Nordic countries form a pretty big area, with very different political philosophies and practices. They should have more specifics to make this threat warning more credible.

The main reaction in Finland has pretty been much along the lines of the head of Finnish Security Police: "The United States has a lower threshold for warning its citizens. We have no concrete information that would have required us to issue a warning such as this."

 

[Chittagong]

The problem in attacking Scandinavia is that the population is distributed over a huge geographic area, so that doing mass damage is very hard. Also, there are really no skyscrapers in Scandinavia. A bomb or airplane to a deparment store or mass transportation station would take out a hundred or two at most. The US embassies are small and on less populated areas - like in a park in Helsinki.

It would also be hard to see much motivation to such an attack. None of the Scandic countries has been active in supporting USA, quite on the contrary. The religion is weak and only Norway belongs to NATO. As for politics, social democrats are the main party - not conservatives - in contrast to the heavily capitalist USA.

Just doesn't make much sense. We'll see in a few days I guess.

 

[Particle Physicist]

I'd call that pretty convenient either way.

our government got castigated for ignoring warnings before 911.. what do you expect them to do now?

 

[Dilbert]

Apparently Al Qaeda forgot about Poland too.

 

[Socreges]

So they really DO hate freedom! Bush was right!

 

[demon]

what would you guys say if something did happen in that area.. and it was later found out that we knew of a threat, but never said anything.

our government got castigated for ignoring warnings before 911.. what do you expect them to do now?

So three or four years of false warnings make up for it? And another one right in time for the election? Oh how convenient!

 

[Particle Physicist]

So three or four years of false warnings make up for it? And another one right in time for the election? Oh how convenient!

no, they dont make up for it. but its better for them to be wrong.. than ignoring a possible attempt. (some of the warnings have been real)

and as for the timing of this.. yeah, these could just be made up, but do you know this for sure? the warnings could very well be real.. its not like our government would have much control over when a terrorist decides to do something.

 

[Forsete]

The warning is being dismissed by Swedish, Danish and Finnish security services.

Lars Kronberg, superintendent at Säpo says
- Our understanding is that there is no risk of an attack in Sweden.

Police inspector Toumas Portaankorva claims there is no reason for worry.
- There are no threats against any specific places in Finland, therefore the Finnish police does not see a reason to higher the security nor increase the surveillance in Finland.

 

[thomaser]

There's no imminent danger of anything here in Norway either, but we did close our embassy in Riga, Latvia today, and it will stay closed tomorrow too. A Kurdish man, prisoner in Latvia, with connections to islamic extremist groups, has recently threatened a number of embassies, including ours.

 

[Saturnman]

Denmark has a fairly big presence in Iraq, they should expect retribution for it.

I think Iceland supports the Iraq war, but they have no real troops to send anyway. I believe it is a similar scenario for the Baltic states.

Finland, Norway and Sweden don't support the war, to my knowledge.

Besides, maybe this is putting too much stuck in the man's words, but didn't Bin Laden specify in one of the last tapes why he was attacking the US and not countries like Sweden?

And to my knowledge, Canada is number 5 in a list of Western targets by Al Qaeda and still no attacks. I am a bit surprised by that because security is somewhat laxed over here and you've got some nice easy targets to hit. The UK and Australia are also amazingly untouched by world terrorism (for now).

 

[DarienA]

our government got castigated for ignoring warnings before 911.. what do you expect them to do now?

You seem a bit confused. Broadcasting these warnings about not going to a certain place at a certain time does absolutely SHIT to defeat terrorism.

Using the law enforcement agencies, around the world, and the military and special forces we have to unt these fuckers down where they live, work and plan, that accomplishes something. Make a STATEMENT. We will FIND you and KILL you.

Our gov't did NOTHING about 9/11... fuck telling people hey don't get on an airplane, don't go to work today... use the forces we have in place to hunt these fuckers down...

I want to read about how we went somewhere and kicked someone's ass who was PLANNING something. I don't need you to broadcast me a warning for that.

 

[Ripclawe]

I want to read about how we went somewhere and kicked someone's ass who was PLANNING something. I don't need you to broadcast me a warning for that.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/030602/usnews/2terror.htm

On the run. Al Qaeda's wounds run deep. Over half of its key operational leaders are out of action, officials tell U.S. News. Its top leaders are increasingly isolated and on the run. Al Qaeda's Afghan sanctuary is largely gone. Its military commander is dead. Its chief of operations sits in prison, as do some 3,000 associates around the world. In the field, every attempt at communication now puts operatives at risk. The organization's once bountiful finances, meanwhile, have become precarious. One recent intercept revealed a terrorist pleading for $80, sources say.

that was from early last year, there are operations on-going in every continent and even in the Caribbean, financial ties are being found and cut. Most places, you can't have a large visible US presence or the locals get angry(southeast Asia) nor can you just broadcast every kill and capture.

 

[Keio]

No.

A leading think-tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), reported that, despite America's attack on al-Qaeda's home base in Afghanistan, the group remains a serious threat and has accelerated its recruitment of jihadis.

Until American-backed forces toppled the government in Afghanistan, a few months after the September 11th attacks, the country’s Islamist regime, the Taliban, had played host to al-Qaeda and its terrorist training camps. The regime change in Afghanistan, and the capture or killing of around half of al-Qaeda’s 30 most senior figures, severely constrained the group’s operations. However, the IISS’s annual Strategic Survey reckons that al-Qaeda still has more than 18,000 “graduates” of the terror camps it can call on—and its recruitment has accelerated as a result of the invasion of Iraq.

The IISS report makes al-Qaeda sound like a textbook business-school case of a multinational enterprise restructuring in response to a big competitive challenge. America’s attack on its Afghan home base has, in one sense, helped the group by eliminating the heavy cost of maintaining its “head office”. It has also prompted al-Qaeda to re-engineer itself as a “network of networks”, in which local affiliates in various countries have been increasingly left to run their own operations, while the group’s “middle managers” provide them with finance, logistics and materials where necessary.

Al-Qaeda continues to have a presence in more than 60 countries, and the group and its affiliates have been seeking to take advantage of the chaos and conflicts in some North African countries—such as Somalia—to set up bases there. They have also been stepping up attacks on America’s Arab allies in the Gulf, most notably Mr bin Laden's home country, Saudi Arabia...

http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=2705024

 

[Kon Tiki]

Anyone see The Autocrats Operation? That is what this thread reminded me of.

 

[Templar Wizard]

as above, i too live in finland and i find it absurd that anyone could take the 'terror' alert seriously.
its pretty crazy that a 'region' (some people know nothing about finland and think sweden IS scandanavia) that was mentioned by bin laden and refered to 'as not a target', should now be a high risk to americans...

scaremongering? or acting on faulty intelligence?

 

[Forsete]

scaremongering? or acting on faulty intelligence?

I would say, an attempt at the first.

 

[nathkenn]

It's so embarrassing to live in this country, we aren't all as stupid as the news makes us out to be. I promise. I noticed yesterday that the news will basically, at this point, report pretty much anything when cnn had a poll on whether kerry/bush supporters liked ketchup or mustard more

 

[Zaptruder]

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/030602/usnews/2terror.htm



that was from early last year, there are operations on-going in every continent and even in the Caribbean, financial ties are being found and cut. Most places, you can't have a large visible US presence or the locals get angry(southeast Asia) nor can you just broadcast every kill and capture.

Banned! OUCH!

Anyway... So do we credit the 'success' of the dismantling of Al-Quaeda to Bush and Co? Or do we say that he's actually underperformed, given the disctraction and diversion of resources of the entire Iraq ordeal? If another President that hadn't moved into Iraq were playing this... logically, he probably would've reduced the terror networks even more. WITHOUT adding additional (NONE AL-QUEDA) terrorists and extremists to the 'global terror pool'.

Moreover, if the situation had been handled better, relations between all countries around the world would be better; and more troops could be inserted into those regions without as much dissent. And of course, more troops would've been available for inserting because they would be tied up (and tired) in Iraq.

 

[Zaptruder]

It's so embarrassing to live in this country, we aren't all as stupid as the news makes us out to be. I promise. I noticed yesterday that the news will basically, at this point, report pretty much anything when cnn had a poll on whether kerry/bush supporters liked ketchup or mustard more

You're not all... but on the hand, alot of you are. Which is the sad thing

 

[DarienA]

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/030602/usnews/2terror.htm



that was from early last year, there are operations on-going in every continent and even in the Caribbean, financial ties are being found and cut. Most places, you can't have a large visible US presence or the locals get angry(southeast Asia) nor can you just broadcast every kill and capture.

Well it's a good thing we went after Bin Laden and killed him cause we said he was a high priority and now he isn't around anymore to publish those tapes to be broadcast bey Al-Jaz.....whoops.

 

[Saturnman]

It's so embarrassing to live in this country, we aren't all as stupid as the news makes us out to be. I promise. I noticed yesterday that the news will basically, at this point, report pretty much anything when cnn had a poll on whether kerry/bush supporters liked ketchup or mustard more

Don't keep us hanging like that. What were the results?

 

[nathkenn]

Don't keep us hanging like that. What were the results?

haha There were some other stupid ones too, i wish i could remember but i was half working, they all ended up with lame results like close to 50/50 or 60/40 nothing cool like some kind of democrat ketchup conspiracy with 98% of them liking ketchup