Change you can defeat Al Qaeda with

We didn’t try it before because the previous Administration was led almost entirely by cowards.

Uh…Because watching people fling themselves out of buildings on 911 wasn’t remotely funny or absurd?

Jesus. Two entirely different episodes. You could compare it to the shoe bomber who also got ridiculed.

Notice who is at the front of the fear parade. Why is the GOP so afraid?
Why are the GOP such cowards? They're afraid of some punks……..here we go again.
Of course, it just gave them the right pretext for war and turning the US into a police state…..

You are so right: Our best weapon against the organization which gave us the Pants & Shoe bombers is humor.

McCain & Bush dignified these stone-age cretins by treating them as if they were a credible threat. Sure, they may have got lucky once or twice but on the whole they are ineffective. We are talking about an organization that's run from a cave.

So let's mock them. Lets reveal them for the medievalists the are.

okay, here's one area where obama has clearly trumped shrub, and he's done it by basically… doing nothing. kudos.

I wholly support the idea of not turning chicken & laughing at these failures. But one thing I question — is the Muslim world (not a monolith in any event) all that worried about planes that don't explode over Detroit? If I were in Pakistan, I'd worry more about my own life. Ditto for anyone living in Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Iraq, & Afghanistan. Yemen has been engaged in some kind of civil war for quite some time & I am sure their population has more to think about than us. I question whether what al Qaeda fails to do here is on the minds of all Muslims.

As someone who lives in the Detroit area, let's give a special shout out on the coward hit parade to Representative Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), who made sure even more Michiganders (in Standish) lost their jobs when he pushed against sending Guantanamo prisoners there. He made our whole state look like weasels. I notice my fellow Michiganders are managing to accommodate the alleged terrorist without too much angst — it's hard to figure out who is more sphereless — Hoekstra or Abdulmutallab.

you're right, this is serious business. and we are lucky that the attack didn't succeed.

however, i think mockery is a very effective weapon, particularly if the attempted attack can legitimately be mocked. the Brits did this very well against the Germans, often without regard to however awful the attack. it's great for morale.

thanks jen!

Shalom Y'all,

Back in late 2001, maybe early 2002, I had a conversation with an elderly, conservative friend who was dead set upon crushing civil liberties to prevent another attack on the United States.

I kept asking him the same question over and over: what are you afraid of?

I think it was upon the fifth or sixth asking that he stopped and stared at me. He thought for a moment and then said, “I'm not afraid.”

I followed up with, “if you're not afraid, why do you want to act as if you are?”

That was the end of the conversation as he hurried away on other urgent business.

B'shalom,

Jeff

Yup,
So the grand old punks had to do it……….
So we can make fun of our own punks as well as the alQ failure.
AlQ wins when we get scared. Leave it to a President who's middle name is Hussein to show them who is the real man.

Also, it is good to show composure and not GOP panic.
Also, wasn't Richard Reed the shoe bomber in late 2001 captured, prosecuted and sent to super max. That was a good outcome.

Remember how stuff got jammed thru after 9/11 like my favorites the Patriot act, Warrantless wiretapping retroactively covered, the increasing police state.

Now before you say what do you have to hide……plenty that's why I wear clothes.

After Richard Reid everybody had to take their shoes off in US airports. Does Captain Underpants mean I'm going to have to go commando the next time I visit the USA?

We are very very protective, most of us having been struck at one time or another for one reason or another in said parts. That's why something like this causes such loud and raucous laughter. Nothing peculiarly male in that reaction, I think; just human.