"There's been an awful lot of chatter out there. Chatter among terrorists."

[Gravitycollapse]

Just heard some stuffed shirt exclaiming this on the evening news.

Question: What kind of "chatter" are these people talking about? Is there a terrorist group on Yahoo? Do they Skype or maybe, if they're lame, use AIM?

This sounds like a bullshit talking point to me.

[enough]

1. The idea that there are a bunch of KNOWN "terrorists" out there talking among themselves

to whom "we" are listening but have not done anything to stop them before this certainly does lead one toward your conclusion.

[liberal N proud]

2. And if a terrorists attack were to happen and the government did nothing?

That is what happened in 2001, chatter was ignored.

[Gravitycollapse]

3. Uhhh...that depends pretty heavily on the definition of "chatter."

[truedelphi]

6. Well we had a lot mroe than chatter inidcating what was going on.

George Bush was handed a NSA memo during the first week of August 2001. That memo indicated that there was a threat from Al Queda of planes flying into buildings.

After the event, on CNN, Condi Rice announced to the world that she even warned Willie Brown not to fly on 9-11-2001. (It was common knowledge in the SF Bay area, that Brown was supposed to fly that day and did not.)

Additionally, four different governments had their officials send warnings to the USA. All of which were ignored by the people at the top.

[vdogg]

4. You have Democrats and Republicans

On the intelligence committees of both houses saying the exact same thing. When dogs and cats lay together, I take notice. Not everything is a conspiracy. This threat seems quite real and specific.

[Gravitycollapse]

5. So "chatting terrorists" is real and specific?

[vdogg]

8. I'm certain

They have far more specific information than just chatter. Obviously, they can't give specific names of specific terrorist they are monitoring at this point, as that may put informants etc. in danger. Sometimes secrecy is necessary. They also had chatter before 9/11 but they ignored it. We see how we'll that turned out.

[Gravitycollapse]

9. "Sometimes secrecy is necessary." - Yeah...no.

Secrecy is only necessary to account for other secrecy. It's a proverbial stupidity arms race.

If we are in danger, if the threat is real, tell us what you know.

[vdogg]

12. So if we have an informant

In Al-zawahri's inner circle feeding us information about planned attacks your solution is to scream that information from the highest mountaintop? Consequences be damned? I would like to think that we take reasonable precautions to protect the people that we put in harms way. I mean, if we're to follow your logic, why not post the names of every CIA operative we have in the field on facebook and call it a day?

[Gravitycollapse]

14. I do not support clandestine governmental operations.

And I happen to believe that the real damage from government secrecy vastly outpaces anything done by any stateless terrorist group.

[vdogg]

16. Well...

Nothing more I can say to that one. We just have a fundamental philosophical disagreement. I happen to believe that clandestine operations are necessary, but need to be tempered by far better oversight than they have. I do not for a second believe that if we pull all our operatives out of the field that all the threats to our country will disappear. I would love to live in a world where no country needed intelligence services or the military to protect themselves, but that is simply not realistic.

[Gravitycollapse]

17. Question, how can a clandestine operation be publicly accountable?

I assume that is what you mean when you refer to oversight.


Also, I am not naive enough to think that ending clandestine operations will make threats non-existent.

[vdogg]

20. The senate and house intelligence committees

As our elected representatives provide "public" oversight. Public oversight does not mean that sensitive intel need be in the public domain. It does mean, however, that the people whom the public sends to Washington should have access to this information and authority to shut operations down if need be. It also means that those people need to take that responsibility seriously instead of being a rubber stamp like the FISA court.

[Gravitycollapse]

21. "You elect me to a position for which I cannot describe where I will do things I cannot divulge."

That's definitely not oversight.

[elehhhhna]

15. Liars lie. People who are lied to lie. I trust none of them. None.

Saddam's getting yellowcake in Africa, etc.

[Thinkingabout]

7. Perhaps "chatter" coming from al-Awarhiri might be considered important.

[Coyotl]

10. Whenever it is "out there" one should consider that they are from out there

otherwise, how would they know what is or is not "out there"

[Catherina]

11. Oh please. How can the NSA's capabilities be damaged if the *terrorists" are still chattering?

Which is it? Have the terrorists changed their behavior or not?


Or are they listening to their own chatter now?

How can "the greatest purveyor of violence" pretend to be so concerned about terrorism if we won't look inward and change our behavior?

"The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own Government ... I can not be silent... I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop must be ours.

...

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look easily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: " This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

[pscot]

13. The ones under my bed have been making

a hell of a racket. If they don't knock it off I'm gonna have to send the dachshund under there to restore order.

[NuclearDem]

18. Garsh, what a co-ink-ee-dink

Man, al-Qaeda has really good timing doesn't it?

[WCGreen]

19. Did you see who Ab Dulla brought to the Terrorist Ball....

Let's just say he was DYING to get into her burka and with the way she shifts her eyes, I bet his tent will show up pretty tall, if you know what I mean...

DEATH TO THE INFIDEL!!!!

[niyad]

22. "pick a little, talk a little"