Putting it on DVD was not the mistake....telling the world how they were
caught is.

Our press and some government officials may have attended college but lack
wisdom when not to release certain details.

RC is correct.

ken

Maybe the DVD story is just a diversion. Surely our homeland security spending $Billions and our super secret NSA wiretaps caught this thing early on.

But then again, maybe not. If the video store tip-off is for real, then these are not real terrorists, but just wanna-bees. Next time I bet they download Sleeper Cell from iTunes and slip by undetected. Real Terrorists are too sophisticated to get exposed by a video store.

I guess we call all sleep safer knowing that our ever vigilant video store clerks are on alert.

I'm not going to get into this beyond this statement. If you ask me, if they were planning on blowing up a military installation, then that's real enough for me. Just because they're not affiliated with some larger group, the damage would have been just as real. I don't care how they were stopped, I care that they WERE stopped, plenty of damage has been done by people that weren't a part of a larger group, (take for instance the school shooting several days ago).

That's all I have to say about that.

And I agree with RC (The Press needs to keep their fat mouths shut a little more on somethings and open it up a little more on others).

Dave

And let's not forget the first WTC bombing in 1993. The perps got caught because they actually tried to get their security deposit back from the truck rental company on the truck they used to deliver the explosives, trying to claim it was stolen. (The truck, of course, was destroyed in the blast.)

They don't have to be evil geniuses. They just have to be evil.

IMO... I don't think it's necessarily reasonable to jump to conclusions about whether these men are terrorists (or victims of racial profiling [would they have been arrested had they not been Muslims?]). Just because they fire assault rifles doesn't mean they are terrorists... there's lots of gun enthusiasts who own these kinds of weapons and practice shooting them (think NRA).

- It would be difficult to tell if the FBI has real evidence. If they have real evidence, they can keep that a secret since they aren't obligated to present it in a public trial. If they don't have good evidence, we can't tell since they are allowed to have secret trials.

What I would be concerned about is that the judicial process can be abused by government authorities, since it allows them to arrest individual with little/weak evidence and potentially abuse their human rights if they send them to another country where they can be tortured. This has happened in the case of Maher Arar; the Canadian government has since apologized and compensated him millions of dollars for the torture he suffered in Syria and the smearing of his name (he has difficulty finding a job). This is not to say that these six men are guilty or innocent (I would have no idea). But don't you think it's troubling that the US government can arrest you with secret (and potentially very weak) evidence? It's especially so when they don't use their powers responsibly and allow cases like Arar's to happen. IMO, the media just makes it worse since they play up / sensationalize the story to make it sexier (one headline: terrorists next door?) and cast doubt and suspicion on the accused parties. Accusations of terrorism are very damaging to their personal life (no one wants to talk to or be associated with you) and professional lives. Unfortunately, it is difficult to tell whether or not these accusations are founded on solid/good evidence (and they may be) since government authorities are not required to make (some of) it public.

The most significant perp in 1993 was Ramzi Yousef. He fled the US, either the day before or the morning of the attacks. Before Yousef joined the group, they were bumblers. He significantly upped their capability. I believe he was the bombmaker. His affect was like if you had bunch of guys who thought they were a local militia and a SAS or Special Forces soldier arrived to lead it.

He rented the truck and was well clear before anything could be traced back to him.

Curt, I believe they tried to get their security deposit back as a way of establishing an alibi. The original plan was to bring down the building, they could have also thought the the truck would be completely destroyed in the blast.

I just hope those guys arrested aren't like the ones planning to "blow up" Disney Land from this award-winning BBC documentary "Power of Nightmaress." Watch around 26:50 for explanation.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4729189253956590972&q=power+of+nightmares

Glenn, you're dead right. The lack of due process is most troubling. I wonder if enough thought is given to how this could be used by the bad guys for their own ends.

Bob.

I don't think the bad guys "have to use the lack of due process" in any way.

Anytime good guys take an ethical or moral shortcut, that shortcut does the work by itself, by boosting recruitment for the bad guys. Any human seeing what's happening thinks, "that is unfair and inhumane, it is my duty to stop it."

It even cuts recruitment for the good guys, as we have noticed here where the ranks are really thinning in our armed forces.

When the flames of the supporters' raw emotions are further doused with gasoline, they really take off and everyone suffers.

The U.S. State Department used to have very competent terrorism specialists worldwide who were very good at preventing trouble before it happened. They worked with very small budgets and were proven to be incredibly cost effective in actually preventing terrorist attacks and holding down recruitment in many corners of the world.

So it was only natural that a recent administration would put this under a military man, who gradually cut their budget to nothing so he could buy just a little bit more of what he understood: ammunition.

Whereas the State Department people focused on understanding the driving forces of recruitment and eliminating those one by one, and really doing as much prevention as possible, the new general understood only Whack-A-Mole.

If there were 10,000 moles breeding below the board, just bring in 10,000 soldiers to whack them when they popped their heads up...

There was a great program on PBS last night about the Roman emperor Severus and his two sons and how they brutally fought insurgents in the British Isles.

Apparently the locals knew that they couldn't win a traditional war against the mighty Roman war machine, so they fought a guerrilla war that cost the Romans the lives of 50,000 soldiers...

They didn't mention any modern parallels in this program, but there were many to be had.

If nothing else, this is one of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations.

"Damned if you..." they did arrest them, but have no evidence other than the video? How stupid!?

"Damned if you don't..." there was an attack on Fort Dix? They had they video of these guys practicing? Why the heck didn't they stop them? What did they want, a signed letter stating their intention? How stupid!?

Unfortunately, it's a lose-lose situation any way you look at it.

Now, let's use a little common sense here. In the current climate, guilt or innocence aside, how smart is it to wrap your head up so no one can identify you, gather a load of assault weapons, video tape yourself making armed raids in various scenarios, then take the video to a public shop to be transferred to DVD?

Yes, I am free to do it, but the real question is, do I want to attempt it at this time?