If it were up to lake ponchartrain, civil engineering not withstanding, vast swaths of New Orleans would be underwater anyway, storm surge or no storm surge. It was a disaster waiting to happen and it could have been even worse. This leaves even greater reason to fault local & federal officials. They just should have known better.

The nature of epic flooding in the Red River of the North is a different situation given its infrequency and geography.

Equivocating the two scenarios is a stretch.

Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US was the President's Daily Brief given to U.S. President George W. Bush on August 6, 2001. The President's Daily Brief (PDB) is a brief of important classified information on national security collected by various U.S. intelligence agencies given to the president and a select group of senior officials. The brief warned of terrorism threats from Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda over a month before the September 11, 2001 attacks.[1]

You're kidding right? Do you realize how many credible threats the president hears each day in his "security briefings".

"Good morning Mr. President, today we have a unstable situation in Venezuela, we also have a destabilization problem in Iran, we've got threats from Iran, Russia, Pakistan, and just this morning, Kim Jong Il, said he "wants to make a pudding from the bones of Americans."

Hey don't laugh, but where do you think all the friekin water is heading anyways. South

Nope, Red River runs North

wow, didn't realize you were in on the classified daily security briefings.

The declassified intelligence report said the FBI had detected "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings."

Former counterterrorism aide Richard Clarke had testified before that the White House had ignored warnings about bin Laden's terrorist organization. Clarke said the Bush administration, including Rice, was aware of al Qaeda threats but did not treat them as "urgent."
http://www.wisopinion.com/blogs/uplo...UAE-757486.jpg

Bssb - learn how to say what you want the first time without editing and re-editing or we'll lock down editing time so you can't say one thing and then another every few minutes.

Thank you.

Yes, and how many of these threats had pretty good intel stating intent to attack within the United States?

Perhaps highlighting how they dropped the ball was Rice's statement that "had we had any idea" when there were memos from months previous. Talk about spin...

Now I believe that Clinton can and should have done more against Bin Laden, but the rate at which Bush simply ignored the issue...and then used 9/11 as an excuse to do a complete 180 has given this Country a terrible case of whiplash we're going to be recovering from for at least another decade if not longer.

-spence

Both Clinton and Bush, were just following the standard game plan of cat and mouse, that we've been playing with them since Carter. Even with intel that they have a plan and want to initiate it, it is difficult to initiate a preemptive strike against a uninitiated plan. Lots of people have plans, or would like to cause us harm, but most of those never get past the planning stages. If you take action against a foreign country, even with proof of intent, is is virtually impossible to get the support of the rest of the world, and without our allies support, most in congress will not support such action. I'll give Clinton the benefit of dought on this, and say that, I am sure they both wanted to do more than they did, but hit head on with congress and the UN and were unable to do more.

It is a sad fact that, even with the intel, we were unable to properly react to the threat, other than a few warnings to the airlines of increased possible threat. It is a tough balancing act, of trying to protect ourselves and over reacting or under reacting to possible threats.

It's a shame how much polls and popular opinion get in the way of national security, knowing that much of the facts can't be given out to the public without tipping our hand, but without this support many politicians are too afraid to act.

just the opinions of an old retired navy guy.

But under Clinton and Bush we weren't playing cat and mouse. After the 1993 WTC bombing there was a series of attacks against US interests that were not motivated by the political militancy we've seen before. These should have been taken more seriously but they weren't. Yes, I have the blessing of hindsight, but that's what I thought the CIA, NSA and State Department were there for!

I doubt 9/11 could have necessarily been averted so late in the planning, but it seems like our Government wasn't even watching the game.

-spence

Fargo is all set Spence, because all the FEMA trailers are stored in Fargo for use everywhere else in the country. Fargo is where the formaldahyde factory is also. Plus all the those trailers that have all the ice stored in them for use everywhere are hidden in the woods there, because its so out of the way.

Just having fun Spence. Thank you for pointing out my sentence structure shortcomings. I did a rather poor job at it.

Perhaps you want to think this one through and try posting again? :bounce:

-spence

Are there rules about adding to a post after I posted it? I didn't realize there were rules on what you can do with your own post. Seems like someone is trying to silence my opinion. Is this web site based in China or do we still have free speech?

just don't edit your post. that's against the law. John will get you.

Actually, a couple things maybe you need to understand.

First, Free Speech is a constitutional right, not yelling "Fire in a Theater" or I'm a Conspiratorial Nitwit in an Internet Forum. Though on this Internet forum (especially the Political Talk) it is pretty rare for me or someone to edit someone's post.

As for your warning to Spence, as one of the more active soapboxers in these forums he knows that his opinion has rarely been silenced, maybe a whole two or three times in many many years. That applies to him, the Moonbats, the Freepers, and all.

Now the reason I am asking you to get it right the first time (at least most of the time) is because I'm seeing a trend here where you post a lot of crap in rapid fire and change it or clean it up a little afterward with multiple edits. Why don't you think first, figure out what you want to say next, and then post it in a manner that doesn't require you to edit a bunch of times. Couple things might happen but for one, people might take you more seriously.

As for the "rules", we periodically put a time limit on how long you can edit when someone uses "editing" frequently to take shots or post drivel. Thankfully it doesn't happen all too often by us uber right wing, great firewall of China censormeisters.

Political Threads This section is for Political Threads - Enter at your own risk. If you say you don't want to see what someone posts - don't read it :hihi:

Aww shucks, timeout.

I need to work harder then :hihi:

Aside from the WeeWee battle many, many moons ago I can't think of any real censorship, and that was at my request!

-spence

Doesn't anyone on this thread care about Fargo anymore?

Yeh, we censor real hard here. :yak5:

Things look pretty good right now all things considered. Assuming they don't have a major levy failure (and yes I'm knocking on wood).

Going to take the city a long time to recover. I know Cedar Rapids has only just begun.

-spence

Strange, I havent heard a single peep from the whitehouse about Fargo.
No declaration of a state of emergency or anything. Other than the national guard being there, I haven't seen much as far as national interest. Same thing goes for the volcano in Alaska. I mentioned it to a friend here and he was surprised as he hadnt heard about it. I told him the flood and volcano have been going on for almost a week now.. National news seems to ignore those places that they can't get video of poor downtrodden people, begging for assistance. These same people that have become slaves to the government programs, that give them just enough welfare to not have to work, but never actually succeed (also keeping them in the Democrat pocket). If someone bussed in 100 people (mostly minorities) to Fargo pretending it was their homes in danger, it would be front page news.

my humble opinion

You buried weewee under the Newport Bridge

Yup they're not democratic enough up there to get coverage

It (the entire State of ND) was declared a Federal Disaster Area on Tuesday of last week.

Yesterday the President had this to say...

Perhaps you're just not watching the right news?

-spence

That's great new, no FEMA.

And they're busing in STUDENTS to help. Now that is government in action.

I guess I missed that on the news yesterday. Thanks for posting that. Point goes to Spence. One thing concerns me though from his speech,

"That is why I’m so happy that legislation passed the Senate this week and the House last week to provide more opportunities for Americans to serve their communities and the country.

The bipartisan Senate bill was sponsored by Senator Orrin Hatch and Senator Ted Kennedy, a leader who embodies the spirit of public service, and I am looking forward to signing this important measure into law."

What legislation was that? Hopefully not the precursor to the one I've heard about that will eventually require youth to serve in some role of community or military service. Kinda makes my "spidey senses" tingle. People already have all the opportunities in the world to help, something like this is more than likely going to require it in some way.

Doesn't appear so from the description on Hatch's site...

Considering your posts the last few weeks, I'd have to ask the last time your "spidey sense" was serviced? Perhaps it's time for a tune-up :hihi:

-spence

Nope, thats the legislation I was thinking about, I guess it all depends on how hard they "ask" people to volunteer and exactly what he uses his new army of "volunteers" for.