How would you recognize a terrorist threat?

[Truthiness Inspector]

What would you need to see or hear? What would it take for you to report that threat or have the wherewithal to RECOGNIZE a threat?

This is a VERY serious question.

Would you chalk a suspicious incident up to "gee I don't want to be rude/non-PC" or would you actually report it to protect lives, and place that over a need to feel PC?

[JI7]

1. Sarah Palin is a bitch

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. The whiff of burning Fruit-Of-The-Looms is a dead giveaway.

[Drunken Irishman]

3. There is this dude who lives in a van down by the river.

I'm pretty sure he's a terrorist.

[Ian David]

4. Are you looking for advice on how to make yourself inconspicuous?

I think I better report your suspicious behavior to The DHS.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Clio the Leo]

5. You're trying to discourage political correctness on a message board full of liberals?

Seriously? ...... Are you going to start encouraging us to spell incorrectly next?

[timeforpeace]

25. Great point! You're asking, would we Be Jasper and save everyone? Risk Muslin ire? Are you even

serious? Better dead than non-pc.

[Arctic Dave]

6. I usually look for the US flag or a bible. Thems some terrorist right there.

[timeforpeace]

26. Correct, every single terrorist attack has had this in common.

[Oregone]

7. I wouldn't try to in the first place

[onehandle]

9. If I saw another Bush being sworn in, I would assume the worst. nt

[Drunken Irishman]

13. For you, onehandle.

:o

[onehandle]

14. HIT THE DECK! nt

[dave29]

10. You have been race baiting/push polling this board all night. Give it a rest.

I am sad you are in law enforcement, as now that means you are part of the problem. We all take terrorism very seriously. If you take what is being said in response to you seriously than you are in the wrong line of work, but most of us have already figured that out.

[vadawg]

11. best way to do it, is the same when it comes to crime, if you see something that sets your radar off

then call, nature gives us instincts for a reason... use them.. but a few pointers for different areas are simple, in Northern Ireland look for builders wagons with pipes on the back at an angle that have wires on the bottom, in israel look for people wearing puffy northface jackets in the middle of the summer, midway across the atlantic look for some guy trying to light det cord in his undies or reeboks, lots of different places and things to watch for, but as i said if you see something that tingles your spidey sense make the call...

[haele]

12. Shrug - One man's terrorist threat is another's freedom fighter -

And I'm thinking that truthiness is not a good indicator of having the wherewithal to recognize a threat.
After all, how do you know that the situation you see as a potential terrorist threat is not actually an operation meant to take care of an actual terrorist threat?
And there's a lot of "good people" out there who think nothing of terrorizing any group that they don't think belong in their neighborhood - and the average American is more likely to be targeted by a "homegrown" threat than they are from a foreign threat.
I'm far more frightened by a Richard Ramirez, a Ted Bundy, or a Charlie Manson than I am by some feckless, weak-minded glory seeker who should already be on someone's list because they're obviously unstable. I'm far more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than some poor and gullible true believer who straps on a belt because he or she has no other options to live their life than to be a martyr.

If you don't understand what makes a "terrorist", you haven't paid much attention to what is actually going on in the middle East or places like Indonesia and the Philippines - or Great Britain during the more active IRA era. Poverty, lack of education, lack of opportunities is what triggers the more spectacular terrorist attacks.


PC be damned, anyway. An asshole is an asshole. Any Bully can a incipient terrorist. Someone who glories in the fear of others and lets their personal rage drive them to target "the other" is basically a terrorist. No matter what class, race, creed, gender, education, projected sexual orientation that person thinks he or she belongs to.

Trust me - I'm old enough that terrorism scares me far less than the tearing apart of the Constitution anymore. That fundy/militia wannabe trust-fund baby in New Hampshire buying and stockpiling components to make a dirty nuke- the guy who was killed by his abused wife earlier last year scares me far more that some weak-minded banker's son who can't even light his underwear on fire without having his hand held.

Heck, having the aircraft I'm flying on "maintained" by foreign contractors in the Marianas because "it's just too expensive to have union mechanics to maintain the US airfleet in the US" scares me more than the possibility of having a mad bomber on the plane.

Haele
(Retired CPO, USN - and a hippy child of the 60's to boot)

[Hekate]

23. Love your last paragraph. That one has given me the willies ever since I learned about it years ago.

:hi:

[last1standing]

15. If I took your advice I'd just look for the brown man chanting "Allah Ahkbar".

Bigotry isn't "non-PC" it's bigotry.

As I said in one of your other race-baiting threads, if you're that afraid of brown people, don't fly.

[Truthiness Inspector]

17. Aww, another one who needs to make this personal

It might break your heart to know I vacationed (by choice) in Dubai a few years ago. I did that because I'm frightened to death of "brown people" as you call them, LOL! It would probably kill you to know that I speak Arabic conversationally, all because I'm afraid of "brown people" as you call them. Not everyone thinks like you do, and if you've been around the world a bit, you'd know that.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

29. I'm sure you vacation with lots of black friends.

Or whatever.

[HughMoran]

16. Alerted on suspicion once

The stewardess left her baggage on a seat in the middle of an otherwise empty plane that I was the first passenger on (this was at Heathrow). I immediately got the attention of the nearest stewardess. She said it was her luggage. I wasn't amused as they repeatedly tell passengers to alert on unattended luggage and she seemed miffed that I called her on it.

[Truthiness Inspector]

18. But good for you for paying attention

I'm glad some of us are.

[boppers]

19. Feel PC? Huh?

Weapons and bombs don't have a race or religion. Thus, reporting on somebody/something because of race and/or religion is biased bigotry. Of course, this does also mean that it's pretty easy to sort out actual threats versus imaginary ones, simply by sorting out the bigotry levels of the reporter... bigots tend to see things that aren't real.

[Loudmxr]

20. The question is superfluous and politically charged. The question is how do you recognize a threat?

The main thing to keep in mind are People, The things they do, The times the do them. That's the super simple rule.

This requires street smarts and awareness of your surroundings. I feel safe in any place in the world mainly because I grew up professionally on Sunset Blvd during the rockus rock n' roll days. Ohhh the stories. And you get cops and actors in a room together and have them take apart the rest of the room just on observation skills OMG!!

If I thought someone looked hinky then I would report them to LE. I would state my bona fides and leave it to the professionals.

Heck it could be someone working undercover... they kinda look the same.

[vadawg]

21. if they are undercover feds you will recognose them by their goatees

why do the feds think this is the way to be undercover :shrug: i think it will take a lot more terrorist attacks before americans even start to take it seriously and probuably a generation before people start to think about stuff that seems out of place.

[Hekate]

22. Wow, you just don't give up, do you? What is this, the third OP in one day about this topic?

VERY seriously, I'd like to know what you are trying to either prove or to stir up by these posts at this site?

PC? Isn't that RW code for "Liberals who are wishy-washy and won't defend the HOMELAND"?

Bill Clinton, a Democratic president last time I looked, protected the NATION against attacks on our soil quite well for 8 years, including against the guys who wanted to blow up chunks of Los Angeles in 1999/2000. He and his administration left mountains of good information and good policy behind for the Bush neocons, who were so arrogant as to IGNORE all of it.

I trust that our new DEMOCRATIC POTUS and his administration are working as hard as they can to undo the damage of the ever-so-non-politically-correct Republican Bushites.

What's your next OP? An attempt to see how many of us you can get to agree that torture is a good policy?

Hekate

[Ikonoklast]

24. Try harder.

I give you an "A" for effort, but a "D-" in execution.

I would like to see you answer your own question.

[Posteritatis]

27. Short of the cliched ones? I might not except retroactively. (nt)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

28. I myself don't consider an arab muslim to be a "suspicious incident."

Don't know about you.

[rustydog]

30. Someone who resembles Timothy McVeigh?

The DC Sniper? Who was the Anthrax killer?

They weren't All Muslim, right? Who do we keep off of planes? how many people do we irradiate out of fear?

[rug]

31. A flag lapel pin.