Ask an American

Malpass93 · Tue 05 Jul, 2011 12.30

Is there significant opposition to the electoral college system?

Chie · Tue 05 Jul, 2011 13.37

Since the attacks of September the 11th, 5000 US military personnel have been maimed or killed in Afghanistan, along with 20 journalists, 3000 contractors and 20,000 innocent civilians - the equivalent of 10 9/11s.

Intrusive surveillance and mandatory airport pat-downs have eroded the privacy and dignity of ordinary Americans for ever; a knock-on effect of which I am sure the Taliban are extremely proud.

US authorities now view everybody with blanket suspicion, inadvertently formenting an atmosphere of mistust among citizens themselves.

The media goes doolally tap whenever a shoddy homemade device is discovered, thereby doing the terrorists' work for them by terrifying people silly even though the probability of the device actually working was very slim.

Do you ever think America would have been better off continuing life as normal following September the 11th?

Beep · Tue 05 Jul, 2011 14.06

Chie wrote: The media goes doolally tap whenever a shoddy homemade device is discovered, thereby doing the terrorists' work for them by terrifying people silly even though the probability of the device actually working was very slim.

An IED has a very high chance of working, actually. Most deaths in Afghanistan are caused by them, 7/7 was done with IEDs in back packs, so to say 'the probability of the device actually working is very slim' is very ill informed. Further to this they sometimes design them not to work so that when it comes to defusing them they do explode, either through booby trap or RLC or EOD teams performing a controlled explosion.

Whilst the majority of them discovered in the UK and US have not succeeded, the ones used out in afghanistan and Iraq actually do.

Just as an aside - it has to be said, we are woefully unequipped to deal with simultaneous terrorist attack. Only one of our police forces has a bomb disposal unit, and they're not even a full EOD team. The rest have to rely on the Royal Engineers coming out from Oxfordshire. One police force tried to set it's own EOD team and the funding wasn't allocated. Only since 7/7 have we upgraded the O2 Airwave radio network so that multiple agencies can talk to each other, with set mutual aid channels. While we could cope, we wouldn't cope well.

Chie · Tue 05 Jul, 2011 14.29

You know perfectly well I wasn't taking about IEDs in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Beep wrote:Just as an aside - it has to be said, we are woefully unequipped to deal with simultaneous terrorist attack.

Oh who cares, let them get on with it. The morons would soon give up if we started ignoring them. As things are the terrorists have cottoned on that even if their bomb doesn't work (which most of them don't because they're bloody amateurs) it still leads to ever tighter restrictions on our freedom.

Beep · Tue 05 Jul, 2011 14.35

Chie wrote:You know perfectly well I wasn't taking about IEDs in Afghanistan or Iraq.

They're mostly the same as those made in the UK and US/to attack the UK and US - same plans, they train them how to make them there and then they duplicate them here. Simple. In Afghanistan they do have access to more powerful explosives, but you must know you can make a bomb using flour...

Chie · Tue 05 Jul, 2011 14.51

An IED is a glorified landmine. You tread on it or drive over the switch, it goes off. Getting a bomb to go off by itself at the right time and in exactly the right place during transit is a completely different matter.

Gavin Scott · Tue 05 Jul, 2011 15.01

Enough.

I don't want this thread drawn away from its purpose into another argument about explosive devices which, if I am not mistaken, no one here is an expert on.

Nor is jsm responsible for the actions of the American Government - so questions addressed to him should be worded to reflect that fact.

Chie · Tue 05 Jul, 2011 15.32

I wasn't for one moment trying to insinuate that jsm was responsible for the actions of the government (there you go again, thinking everyone's as stupid as you...) I just wanted an American perspective on whether, given the numerous ramifciations of the "war on terror" outlined in my post, it's actually been worth it.

cdd · Tue 05 Jul, 2011 15.55

jsm wrote:they fail to see the major problems within our society (huge income inequalities,

Is income inequality really a huge problem in America?

Different parts of America have dramatically different costs of living. In fact different parts of America almost feel like different countries. The cost of living in New York, LA or San Francisco is an order of magnitude higher than that of living in (throwing a pin in a map here) Barnsdall, oklahoma. The latter type of community accounts for the vast majority of the country (and also explains why America is so hugely religious given its supposedly first world status).

Of course that's true in England too to an extent, but nowhere near as dramatic.

(I also have my doubts about how useful ranting about American foreign policy to someone who happens to live in America really is, as has been going on this thread, but......)

Chie · Tue 05 Jul, 2011 16.11

cdd wrote:(I also have my doubts about how useful ranting about American foreign policy to someone who happens to live in America really is, as has been going on this thread, but......)

I provided some context before asking my question. I was not ranting.

dosxuk · Tue 05 Jul, 2011 16.16

Chie wrote:
cdd wrote:(I also have my doubts about how useful ranting about American foreign policy to someone who happens to live in America really is, as has been going on this thread, but......)
I provided some context before asking my question. I was not ranting.

This -

Chie wrote:there you go again, thinking everyone's as stupid as you...

certainly sounds like a rant to me.

Isn't it past your bedtime anyway?