NationStates Jolt Archive

I just read:
Chad Millman, The Detonators: The Secret Plot to Destroy America and an Epic Hunt for Justice

It's the story of this:

Black Tom Explosion ('http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Tom_explosion')

It's interesting to note that the US had a belief, prior to this incident, especially the Wilson Administration, that espionage was an un-American thing, and solely a European habit. It was considered unethical, immoral, and wrong to even monitor other nation's agents, or intercept their coded messages and decrypt them.

These beliefs were, in a word, naive.

After WW I, the US went back to this view that since they were separated by oceans from the rest of the world, the US need not involve itself in espionage, or tracking of foreign agents within the US, or decrypting foreign coded messages, or perform any sort of intelligence analysis at all. Departments that had grown to do this during WW I were all but abolished.

Interestingly, the same wave of nearly 100 documented acts of sabotage by official German agents repeated itself in 1939 - in the US - before war ever broke out. And, in the interest of fairness (the fairness is well documented in the book), the commission that was to determine the actual cause of the Black Tom disaster did not reach its conclusions until 1939 - out of the idea that you needed not only to get the evidence, but that the acting nation itself had to incriminate itself as well.

Where did the US get this notion?

Better yet, where do the people in the US get this notion that because we're "over here" that we're somehow immune to whatever goes on in the rest of the world?

It seems a little like the idea pre-911, that international terrorism doesn't really happen here - that our intelligence services don't need to be monitoring people in the US engaged in duplicitous behavior on behalf of their causes, groups, or nations - that we have to wait until an actual crime happens before doing anything at all.

It seems that we want to go back to this idea - to retreat within the walls of our coastlines and their imaginary security.

It's embodied in the idea that if we leave the rest of the world alone, it will leave us alone.

History seems to teach us otherwise - for a year before our involvement in WW I and WW II, during our official neutrality, we were bombed with a will.

The explosion at Black Tom was heard and FELT in Maryland. The blast blew out windows across the river in Manhattan - peppered the Statue of Liberty with shrapnel, and to date is the largest conventional explosion ever to occur in the US.

A lot of people don't seem to know of this at all.

I'm not saying we need to be completely paranoid, or have a police state - but this naive attitude that most Americans have about their safety - that we'll be fine if we act neutral and leave everyone alone - is stupid.

I don't think we ought to be naieve and isolated, but at the same time there's a line that must be drawn where we're prepared to accept the risks in exchange for guaranteeing the privacy and freedom of the citizens.

People often suggest that America was totally asleep before 9/11. I disagree. Findings indicate that the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were preventable and would have been, had more competent people been in place when we needed them to be, going back 10 years.

Some added precautions are prudent and a reorganization of our intelligence services make sense, but when you start to make individual Americans begin to question their own levels of remaining freedom, you've gone too far.

The phrase "it's worth it if it saves even one life" is rhetorical crap. All through our history we've established that freedom > life. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have given their lives because they believed that freedom is more important than their life. It's more important than even tens of thousands of lives, if history is our teacher (and it should be.)

Freedom first. Otherwise all those soldiers who have fought for our country died for nothing.

I don't think we ought to be naieve and isolated, but at the same time there's a line that must be drawn where we're prepared to accept the risks in exchange for guaranteeing the privacy and freedom of the citizens.

People often suggest that America was totally asleep before 9/11. I disagree. Findings indicate that the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were preventable and would have been, had more competent people been in place when we needed them to be, going back 10 years.

Some added precautions are prudent and a reorganization of our intelligence services make sense, but when you start to make individual Americans begin to question their own levels of remaining freedom, you've gone too far.

The phrase "it's worth it if it saves even one life" is rhetorical crap. All through our history we've established that freedom > life. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have given their lives because they believed that freedom is more important than their life. It's more important than even tens of thousands of lives, if history is our teacher (and it should be.)

Freedom first. Otherwise all those soldiers who have fought for our country died for nothing.

I think that while we had intelligence services, they were lax because of the attitude that "that foreign shit doesn't happen here".

The same attitude that most Americans have.

"If we leave Iraq, everything will be cool, because they will leave us alone"
"If we just give al-Q what they're asking for they'll leave us alone"

As though there was an actual "alone" somewhere on this planet.

The intelligence services appear to have had the attitude that while Islamists hijacked planes, they were never hijacking American ones. And while there had been an incident where an Air France airliner had been hijacked, and the hijackers wanted to fly the plane into the Eiffel Tower (but weren't pilots, so that was foiled), there seems to have been "well that's fucking France for you - that would never happen here" attitude within our intelligence services.

I think that while we had intelligence services, they were lax because of the attitude that "that foreign shit doesn't happen here".

The same attitude that most Americans have.

"If we leave Iraq, everything will be cool, because they will leave us alone"
"If we just give al-Q what they're asking for they'll leave us alone"

As though there was an actual "alone" somewhere on this planet.

The intelligence services appear to have had the attitude that while Islamists hijacked planes, they were never hijacking American ones. And while there had been an incident where an Air France airliner had been hijacked, and the hijackers wanted to fly the plane into the Eiffel Tower (but weren't pilots, so that was foiled), there seems to have been "well that's fucking France for you - that would never happen here" attitude within our intelligence services.

Agreed. You'd think they'd have changed that attitude after the WTC bombing in the 90s. I guess because they captured the individual perpetrators they let themselves become complacent about the fact that those perpetrators were SENT by somebody who was (and still is) at large.

Agreed. You'd think they'd have changed that attitude after the WTC bombing in the 90s. I guess because they captured the individual perpetrators they let themselves become complacent about the fact that those perpetrators were SENT by somebody who was (and still is) at large.

It's also affecting our judgment on foreign affairs. There seems to be an undercurrent (Republicans were, for a long time, not big on international intervention until the neocons came in, and Democrats are now wanting to push the stay-at-home idea) of "let's not get involved in things like Iraq or Darfur or any of that foreign shit, and the terrorists, etc., will leave us the fuck alone".

Isolationism seems to be a part of the American dream.

Isolationism is dangerous, quite possibly even as dangerous as nationalism and other ideologies that lead to war in the first place. Willful ignorance of the threats we face will do nothing but cause innocent people to die; that doesn't mean we should be the world's police, or intervene everywhere, but we should be vigilant against threats to ourselves and our friends and allies around the world.

There's a balance somewhere. But the US seems to oscillate back and forth from one extreme to another.

And that's the dangerous thing...we make ourselves vulnerable all the time.

Isolationism is dangerous, quite possibly even as dangerous as nationalism and other ideologies that lead to war in the first place. Willful ignorance of the threats we face will do nothing but cause innocent people to die; that doesn't mean we should be the world's police, or intervene everywhere, but we should be vigilant against threats to ourselves and our friends and allies around the world.

There's a balance somewhere. But the US seems to oscillate back and forth from one extreme to another.

And that's the dangerous thing...we make ourselves vulnerable all the time.

We have short memories. The troubles of a previous decade can be washed away easily in the light of a bright tomorrow.

The WTC bombings in the early 90s happened barely a decade after the fall of the USSR.

911 happened at the tail end of one of the biggest periods of economic expansion in US History (if I'm not mistaken, and feel free to correct me if I'm totally wrong.)

Things start looking better, and we get complacent with the idea that, because we have no problems now, there will be no problems in the foreseeable future.

And that's a very dangerous stance to take.

The WTC bombings in the early 90s happened barely a decade after the fall of the USSR.
A decade after the fall of the USSR would be 2001 ;)

A decade after the fall of the USSR would be 2001 ;)

I thought it fell in 1988. And I said barely. And fine, half a decade.

Erm... I hate, y'know, to bring up logic or anything, but this is just "Be Afraid" nonsense. How many people die a year in America because of terrorism? Over the last couple decades, less than 5000 total. More people die from the flu in one year. "Naive" nothin'. If anything, we need a little less stress and obsession about terrorism. This is what we have police forces for.

Erm... I hate, y'know, to bring up logic or anything, but this is just "Be Afraid" nonsense. How many people die a year in America because of terrorism? Over the last couple decades, less than 5000 total. More people die from the flu in one year. "Naive" nothin'. If anything, we need a little less stress and obsession about terrorism. This is what we have police forces for.

Yeah, we see how well that worked out historically...:rolleyes:

Things start looking better, and we get complacent with the idea that, because we have no problems now, there will be no problems in the foreseeable future.

And that's a very dangerous stance to take.

I hate to say it, but that's normal human nature. Maybe if we had better leaders we could mitigate that somewhat, but even then we'd still be complacent, just more prepared (maybe.)

Erm... I hate, y'know, to bring up logic or anything, but this is just "Be Afraid" nonsense. How many people die a year in America because of terrorism? Over the last couple decades, less than 5000 total. More people die from the flu in one year. "Naive" nothin'. If anything, we need a little less stress and obsession about terrorism. This is what we have police forces for.

I agree, with the caveat that those police/intelligence services need to be competently run.

Isolationism is dangerous, quite possibly even as dangerous as nationalism and other ideologies that lead to war in the first place. Willful ignorance of the threats we face will do nothing but cause innocent people to die; that doesn't mean we should be the world's police, or intervene everywhere, but we should be vigilant against threats to ourselves and our friends and allies around the world.

Isolationism is no longer feasible. Too much industry was sent overseas. We simply can't do it anymore.....