101–110 of 152 posts
If it were an individual or group of terrorists planning to detonate bombs against the public, there would have been a raid and arrests and a big media show. But instead, the FBI knew that someone "planned to engage in sniper attacks" but did nothing? How could this be anything but a terrorist plot? The kind the FBI love to be seen foiling?
this just seems to indicate that the FBI was aware of a plot, by SOMEONE, to attack Occupy protestors. nowhere in the documents do I see information that the FBI itself made this plan and it would make a lot of sense if the FBI was tracking potential violence against protestors...
Totally integrated corporate-state repression of dissent http://s3.amazonaws.com/dk-production/images/14030/large/Occ...
To my knowledge, actions against occupy-movements in the US generally didn't involve "repression of dissent" but rather "repression of wild camping where it is extremely inconvenient for everyone else". Not everything they did was totally appropriate, but on the other hand it's really hard to dissolve such a camp without anyone getting hurt. The US certainly handled that better than Turkey.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But they were calling the Occupy people potential terrorists...not the right-wingers who might've wanted to assassinate their leaders. Strange, isn't it?
No. You have a second-hand, uncorroborated report that someone within the FBI and/or DHS referred to the Occupy movement as terrorists, with no context whatsoever. First, without context or a link to the source the report is meaningless. The documents that are cited in this report make no such characterization. Second, these two organizations are huge. It's entirely possible that someon in the FBI wrote a report desc…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But they were calling the Occupy people potential terrorists...not the right-wingers who might've wanted to assassinate their leaders. Strange, isn't it?
One does not preclude the other. People who planned to shoot Occupy leaders might be terrorists - or not, depending on what they wanted to achieve by this shooting - terrorism is a tactic, relying on fear and intimidation for a political goal, so depending on if they wanted to intimidate Occupy protestors for a political goal or not they may or may not be terrorists. Some Occupy people could be potential terrorists t…
1. The FBI does not see public assassination of Occupy participants itself as terrorism
2. The FBI does not see public assassination of Occupy participants by whoever was planning it as terrorism
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. You have a second-hand, uncorroborated report that someone within the FBI and/or DHS referred to the Occupy movement as terrorists, with no context whatsoever. First, without context or a link to the source the report is meaningless. The documents that are cited in this report make no such characterization. Second, these two organizations are huge. It's entirely possible that someon in the FBI wrote a report desc…
It's entirely possible that someon in the FBI wrote a report describing the Occupy folks as potential terrorists - I can easily believe that occurred. That's not the same as the entire organization or even its leadership holding that position. I agree that this is not something to be outraged about, but it is something to be watchful of and to be called out - government agencies should not refer to peaceful or even v…
You mean "potential terrorists."
And, I for one am fine with people in government speculating and planning. There is a vast difference in research and study, speculation and planning. After all, all it would take is a few OWS people to go blow up a bank or something to escalate the entire matter. Sure, it's just a few members, a splinter group, but then what do you do. Ignore the entire movement? Did the cover of OWS help them achieve some other goal, or did OWS unwittingly help them escalate the matter further.
None of this is to lay blame to OWS, but maybe something like this should have been considered, so when bad things do happen, we are more prepared.
And it's all speculation. But the minute you start holding to account speculation at the same level you hold official policy, you start serious restricting our ability to plan.
I'd hope that our government has plans on how to invade Canada should the need arise. I hope that need never arises, but I'd rather have the plan and not need it then need it and not have it.
There is a vast difference in planning something, and intending to follow through (which is always why the conspiracy laws are not just applied for planning, otherwise thriller writers the world over would be in jail).
> and the judgement calls required to choose between freedom-fighter and terrorist are so subjective
People are fond of reminding us that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom-fighter. They forget that for that statement to be true, that freedom-fighter must also be a terrorist.
It's hard to know what to make of this as without the [DELETED] portions, as there's no evidence of government agencies being involved. I'm not sure why Occupy were not informed of such a plot though? Perhaps the FBI didn't think it was credible? The part that worries me even more than the death threats was the classification of the Occupy movement as 'terrorist activity'. This opens them up to a whole catalogue of s…
The most likely candidate to me seems some fringe right-wing types flapping their mouths in an internet forum. I've heard plenty of people at that end of the spectrum averring that the Occupy movement was some sort of Marxist 5th column under orders from Obama, or variants on that theme. Right-wing fringe thinkers like to fantasize about putting their guns to patriotic use in much the same way that leftist fringe thi…
And yet, the "establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat" in the history of communism's spread, without a single exception, has been accomplished at the barrel of a gun, with extraordinarily bloody results.
And then there's the starvation purges of entire regions of huge populations of people.
Oh, those wily leftist fringe thinkers and their peaceful ideas!
Doesn't the Army have contingency plans for everything ? I recall there was some hubbub a little while ago when people discovered the Army has contingency plans on invading Canada or something like that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red
But fear not! Canada had a counter to the plan, called Defence Scheme No. 1. The plan was to launch a surprise counter-invasion of several cities near the border (Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, and Albany) then to wait for reinforcements from England.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_Scheme_No._1
Except no one ever told England that Canada would expect reinforcements in this situation, nor verified that they would be willing to provide them.
Cities like Halifax and Winnipeg are far more vital to Canadian industry than any of the American cities: without them, Eastern Canada would be cut off from Western Canada by rail (cutting off grain supply) and from the Atlantic by sea. It would effectively lay siege of all of Ontario and Quebec.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sorry, but no. There's no equivalence in spirit between a crying mother deciding that it's in the best interests of her family to terminate a pregnancy and a bunch of scary-eyed fanatics trying to make humanity "better". I'm assuming you've never known anyone go through that. It's a personal tragedy, not an intellectual issue.
Argument from emotion.
Someone saying: "Don't hit me, please" is also an argument from emotion.