Quote from: TDoS on May 26, 2025, 10:25 AMHow does Trump set the stage for another 9-11?

From the article:

— Although the first two months of 2025 showed a shocking 25 percent increase in terrorism and politically-targeted violent attacks, with an average of 3 attacks a day and more than 400 people murdered by domestic terrorists during the past two years, Trump shut down 24 different projects tracking terrorist threats in the US.


— Almost half of the nation's FBI agents who'd been available to work on counterterrorism efforts have been ordered to drop their investigations and, instead, pursue undocumented aliens.


— Multiple state-based anti-terrorism programs, funded by DHS, have been gutted or ended entirely.


— The CIA is laying off at least 1,200 positions, many monitoring foreign terroristic threats, "along with thousands more [employees] from other parts of the US intelligence community."


— Trump defunded the State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training (SLATT) program, which since 1996 had trained more than 427,000 law enforcement and justice system practitioners to identify, investigate, and interdict domestic and international terrorism.

RE

Quote from: RE on May 26, 2025, 11:44 AM

Quote from: TDoS on May 26, 2025, 10:25 AMHow does Trump set the stage for another 9-11?

From the article:

— Although the first two months of 2025 showed a shocking 25 percent increase in terrorism and politically-targeted violent attacks, with an average of 3 attacks a day and more than 400 people murdered by domestic terrorists during the past two years, Trump shut down 24 different projects tracking terrorist threats in the US.


— Almost half of the nation's FBI agents who'd been available to work on counterterrorism efforts have been ordered to drop their investigations and, instead, pursue undocumented aliens.


— Multiple state-based anti-terrorism programs, funded by DHS, have been gutted or ended entirely.


— The CIA is laying off at least 1,200 positions, many monitoring foreign terroristic threats, "along with thousands more [employees] from other parts of the US intelligence community."


— Trump defunded the State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training (SLATT) program, which since 1996 had trained more than 427,000 law enforcement and justice system practitioners to identify, investigate, and interdict domestic and international terrorism.

RE

9/11 wasn't caused by a defunding of intelligience services, but more a lack of creativity among analysts as to what some guys in a cave could do, and a lack of cooperation among the various agencies, from which MAYBE some outline of the plot could have been established. And then the morons who were training Muslim pilots who weren't worried about learning how to land aircraft, and didn't mention it in real time. And they weren't part of these agencies anyway, they were just people who had seen clues and hadn't opened their damn mouths.

All of the resources being decreased in size today would probably leave far more people watching....whatever...than there were during 9/11 times, so we can't assume that amount of resources available was a prime factor in 9/11 either.

And more entertainingly, if Timothy McVeigh is thought of as an American terrorist (as opposed to the hero some considered him post Ruby Ridge), he would now be some sort of MAGA enthusiast, and aimed at some DEI target or another.

And that isn't a 9-11 event, it is the natural outcome of politics demonizing one group over another, with plenty of nod/nod wink/winks until the event happens, and then grudgingly jail them....and pardon them afterwards when it turns out one of the justice department officials noted their MAGA affiliation, and lawyers can't be slandering people that way. Poor defenders have rights you know....as long as they have some decent MAGA credentials anyway.

It's all relative of course, but the point is he's eviscerating the programs that are supposed to combat and prevent terrorism.

RE

Quote from: RE on May 26, 2025, 12:35 PMIt's all relative of course, but the point is he's eviscerating the programs that are supposed to combat and prevent terrorism.
RE

He is. Has anyone ever done an evaluation of whether or not the programs did combat and prevent terrorism? I seem to recall a brew-ha-ha in New Orleans and Vegas in the recent past. And there was this day, January 6 a couple years ago that seemed to involve some terrorism, folks getting killed and whatnot. And all those organizations were around and kicking then and it didn't seem to help....and then of course it turns out it wasn't terrorism but just a good ol' fashion celebration, and everyone was let go because it was a mistake.

If we redefine terrorism so we have less of it, we don't really need these organizations trying to stop something that isn't terrorism anymore?

The Reichstag Fire of 1933,


Yes I agree, we could have a 'terrorist' attack at any time.

Definitely a great way to raise sagging poll numbers.  Worked great for Bush..

RE