Hold on to your MP3 players and Palm Pilots. The tragically hip in US Army intelligence have discovered the popular micro-blogging service Twitter. The crux of the draft by the 304th Military Intelligence Battalion is that terrorists could make use of the 140 character one liners normally reserved for teenage girls announcing breakups, exhibitionist bloggers titillating fans (e.g., “I’m blogging naked,) and unironic reviews of the mundane. “Yum….macaroni and cheese is delicious”
The report ominously warns that “Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences…”
There is really no end of possibilities now that the I-Pod nano rocks in nine amazing colors. Prescient trend watchers might also note that bus systems, fast food and strip clubs can also be utilized by terrorists. The only possible use of such obvious and pointless breakthroughs in “intelligence” is to make the case to the dim and frightened that if terrorists might be using some common and day-to-day element of normal human life, then that common and day-to-day element of human life needs close surveillance and containment by the feds.
Meanwhile, Antiwar.com is making use of Twitter here and here.
Great idea, Angela. Thanks for this outreach.
Socialists are using Twitter – another sign of the end times.
If this is what they are spending taxpayer money on, the 304th Military Intelligence Battalion should be disbanded, and all of it’s members cashiered out of the service and forced to get real jobs in private industry, where they might actually have to do something useful for a living. Either that, or they should be reassigned to a project to determine the actual words to “Louie Louie,” it’s REAL meaning, and it’s full translation into Arabic.
“Military Intelligence”,, NOW THAT’S AN OXYMORON FOR YOU.
And PENCILS! Terrorists could use PENCILS! Maybe Charlie Brown’s “Dear Pencil Pal” is a terrorist he’s palling around with!
“I could kill you with this pencil.”
G. Gordon Liddy
Let’s not overlook the potential of using discarded newspapers and magazines as terrorists’ untraceable tools of communication. In the spirit of ransom letters of yore, individual letters can be randomly cut out to form words and sentences. It’s time that all newspapers and magazines be serially numbered and the chain of custody tracked from printing press to landfill. Nowadays one can’t be careful enough.
If Asia Times Online is correct, Bin Laden et al. rely on couriers (women in Western dress) carrying oral messages.
Lester Ness
Kunming
China
“Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences,” the report said.
Man if I had known that was the crowd that hung on twitter, I’d be all over it.
It even includes “politicial enthusiasts”, how dreadful, wouldn’t want any of them in a democracy. Better to have people voting who don’t follow politics. And apparently this twitter even has human rights groups, dreadful, absolutely dreadful, human rights are so 20th century, get with the times. What a bunch of unsavory characters these twitter people are.
You know, there are a lot of people in the US who are mentally stuck in the age of the party-line.
Lester Ness
Kunming
China
A problem with a professional, all volunteer military – they want to be there. And they will find a mission, no matter what. Remember, that after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and before Dessert Storm, the military was changing its focus to the War on Drugs. Instead of keeping track of the Russians, they were developing tactics and means for keeping track of the drug runners. High tech stuff like electromechanical drug sniffers, specially outfitted surveilance blimps, etc. The military, themselves, felt a little silly about waging war against what are basically smugglers and black marketeers, but at least it was an enemy that would justify their existence. And then, holy fortune! – the “radical” Muslim. An enemy that one can count on to be there until retirement. And the real beauty of the radical Muslim – we and Israel can and will crank out our own supply of enemies. The glass will always be full.
Now if we still had draftees – between “enemies”, the clever bastards would be constantly trying to get out of uniform.
The “must find a mission” mentality is certainly a part of the problem, but IMO the main culprit is the entire military-industrial-govt. complex. It was Congress that ordered the military to get involved in the War on (Some) Drugs — in clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, BTW. (And IIRC that started before the Berlin Wall fell.) Why wasn’t NATO dissolved when the USSR & Warsaw Pact folded? Because 1) thousands of colonels & generals would have been forced into retirement, and 2) Europe would have been forced to defend itself instead of relying on Uncle Sucker. So having a draft wouldn’t have really changed anything.
Besides, we already have a “back-door draft”, a.k.a stop-loss. As we speak, thousands of soldiers who want to “get out of uniform” are forced to keep wearing them.
Yes, I know its all a big joke. The TV “talking heads” thought this whole thing was ever so funny. Yes, I think they are right. the threat of radical Islam is just a great big joke. Terrorists using codes based on internet short hand, ha ha! How funny! Its all a big joke isn’t it? I’m sure Keith Olberman and others are just beside themselves with laughter.
When Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl got their HEADS CHOPPED OFF by these vermin, I’m sure they were just laughing at what a big joke it all was. I’m sure when the people on the trains in Mumbai, London, and Madrid got blown to pieces, they and their families probably thought of it as comical too. Ha ha! Very funny. When thousands of innoecnt people had to choose whether or not they wanted to be burned alive or jump a hundred floors to their deaths, they were probably lauging too. When the parents of hundreds of little children in Beslan, Russia were told that their little children had been butchered, they probably thought it was all a big joke too.
After all, its all a big joke, right? Its just about a very very small group of crazy people who live in caves and can’t really hurt anybody. So we might as well laugh about it.
If I still lived in the USA, I’d be more worried by the threat of radical Christians, like the Reconstructionists or Dominionists, who want to rule all of you with a rod of iron. Think of Cromwell’s “Rule of the Saints,” Colonial Massachusetts, the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda.
Lester Ness
Kunming
China
Let me put it this way: I have 5-6 Muslim students in each of my classes. Muslims sell me shish-ke-bob or Lanzhou noodles. None of them do anything more terroristic than take me out to lunch.
Bin Ladin and pals are dangerous, but about as dangerous as Sitting Bull or Geronimo were: trouble to some people but not endangering the existence of the US
Tim R,
You are right – it is not a laughing matter. It is disgusting and pathetic. People with your outlook see the tragic deaths of Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl as sole justification to slaughter hundreds of thousands of innoncent Iraqis and Afghanis. Your mentality is tribal and primitive. Lately our own military has picked up on this thought process that it is OK to send in drone aircraft to kill “enemies” and if there are ten civilians are slaughtered in the process of getting one bad guy, well, I guess they shouldn’t have been there. Seems to me, this kind of behavior/thought process was why we hung Nazis and Japanese war criminals.
Richard Vajs,
The moral question you bring up in a valid one, and I for one don’t have an answer for it. Taking an innocent life is always a horrible thing. But what if you knew that terrorists were plotting to kill YOUR family and you had the means of stopping them, but in doing so you would accidently kill, let’s say 15 innocent people, what would you do? Kill the terrorists as well as the innocents, or not do anything and risk the terrorists coming after and killing your family? If you did decide to kill the terrorists in order to prevent them from harming your family, and you accidently killed the 15 innocent people because it was unavoidable, do you think you are on the same level as the terrorists who PURPOSEFULLY, INTENTIONALLY, DELIBERATLY and with malice aforthought, try to kill as many innocent people as they can?
I don’t think this issue is as cut and dried as you make it sound.
Tim R,
The “terrorists” we are killing are “bad guys” because someone in authority says they are. All I know is that we had to go 7 to 10,000 miles to go kill them. The scenario you paint is of these people “coming after and killing your family”. Like they were hanging from overpasses with knives in their teeth waiting for me to ride by in a convertible. This is paranoia stemming from a desire to have a halfassed reason to go kill them. These Muslims are now defending their own countries. From the getgo, the “radical” Muslims have told us why they attack us:
1. we want to occupy their land, 2. we want to seize their assets for our own use, and 3. we support Israel which brutalizes the Palestinians and is working slow but sure ethnic cleansing of them from their own land. As far as 9-11, I can honestly say that I have no real idea of what happened that day except that I am sure my own government has not been square with me.
My real bitch with you is that you conflate the actions of a few jihadists with millions of innocent Arabs, Iranians, and other Muslims. And in your fear (and possibly hatred), you have not a twinge of guilt about killing these people in large numbers.
Finally, in my own case, I could not kill innocent people just to save myself from some unknown potential assassin anymore than I could carry an UZI with me into Central Park at night gunning random people down just because I feared someone may try to rob me.
Richard,
Tim and his compatriots,regardless of the reasons they give, want to see the US and Arab and muslim countries in constant conflicts and wars in order for Israel to maintain its dominance and control of the region.
Lear K,
Why must you interrupt a polite and intelligent conversation with your silly accusations and hatred?
Tim R,
“Why must you interrupt a polite and intelligent conversation with your silly accusations and hatred?”
Would care to explain?!
Richard Vajs,
Please tell me this, what Muslim lands were we occupying on 9/11/01? Yes, we were in Saudi Arabia because the Saudi government wants us there. But were we in Mecca or Medina? Were we defiling their holy sites? And What assets were we stealing from them on 9/11/01? And yes, we support Israel. But you honestly think that is the only reason they hate us? Bin Laden, Aymen al Zawahiri and others have specifically said that they hate us because of our value systems, they hate us for our freedoms (which they label as decadence and immorality) and they have clearly said that if only we would convert to Islam, all would be well. You always point out the Israel angle, and that’s fine, but why fail to mention the other reasons they hate us?
And as for my supposed lack of guilt when innocent arabs get killed, I would ask you to withhold your judgement on me, since you don’t know me. And by the way, I do feel terrible when any innocent person gets killed. And there is no question that innocent arabs have been killed and that is a terrible thing. So don’t paint me out to be some heartless thug who just wants to “nuke” the whole arab world.
Tim R,
It is such a waste of my time to constantly point out truths to you, especially when you have shown no willingness to even acknowledge them – you just dig deeper in your bag of neocon talking points. But for the sake of others, let us do this again. What Muslim countries were we occupying on 9-11? We were in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Turkey, and Iraq (through our enforced No Fly Zone). We were sponsoring a dictator in Egypt (who was paid to not cause trouble for Israel). We were fomenting trouble in Jordan and Syria. We had just finished hostility against Libya and we were trying to get Iran. We had allowed Israel to torture Lebanon. We had aided the Taliban in Afghanistan and were by then deciding how to force them to accept an oil pipeline through their country. We did aid the Muslims in Bosnia but only for the same reason we aided the Taliban; namely, to shove a stick in the Soviet/Russian bear’s eye. And of course, we had just finished paying the way for a lot of Russian Jews to migrate to the Palestinian territories with instructions to go steal their land for settlements from the Palestinians. All of this “messing” around with these Muslim countries but, of course, you see nothing.
As to what assets we were stealing? I won’t bore you with the details of a half century of CIA/IMF/World Bank bribes, thefts and scheming to get MidEast oil at bargain prices, but you can educate yourself very easily. Start by reading “Confessions of an Economic Hitman”. Our manipulations in Indonesia (another resource rich Muslim area) have been phenomenal. Ditto, North Africa.
You are right – I don’t know you. I have no idea of what your level of human decency is. All I do know is that you can always be counted upon to tirelessly defend Israel’s racism and land theft and America’s anti-Islamic and anti-independence crusades.
Tim R,
You say you feel terrible when any innocent person gets killed. How many innocent Iraqis do you think have been killed? How many innocent Palestinians? Enough to justify ending our’s/Israel’s occupations? One further question of you, please. Would you trade one Israeli or American life to save ten Muslim lives? What about a hundred Muslim lives?, a million?
“they hate us because of our value systems”?!This could be throwen back at you.For a long time “you” have been attemting to change the value system of others,specifically Muslim countries because “you” happen not to like their values.By teh same token ,others have the rights to change your value system.”you” told to use democracy and election process to change things but when the results were not to “your” likinings “you” made sure that the results be derailed ,and not take hold.,as the case with Iran,Alegria, Lebnanon,Palestine,etc.
Right on Richard!!
At least 500,000 Iraqi childern were murdered,in cold blooded and systematic way, for over a decade while the “civilized world??!!” stood and looked the other way because itwas told “the price was worth it”.Add to the list Palestnians,Lebnaese,Afghanies,etc?!
I second your post Richard, especially because your last name tells me you are Jewish. Am I right?
Lear K,
The fact that so many thousands of Iraqi children died is awful, indeed, it was uncivilized and a crime against humanity that the United States stood by and allowed that to happen. It was wrong and I’m not making excuses. However, to say we “murdered” them is just silly. We stood by while it happend, but our intention was not to kill them, it was to limit the power of an evil and dangerous dictator by the name of Saddam Hussein. Our purpose was moral and just, however, the means we employed were not. And the ends don’t justify the means. We should have found a way to allow food and medicine to get into the country.
But by the way, doesn’t Saddam and his government share a great deal of responsibility? How many lavish palaces did Saddam live in while these Iraqi children were starving? How much money from the UN “oil for food” program did he and his pals steal? What did his government do to alleviate the suffering of his people? Nothing. So why only blame the United States and the West?
Your reaons and justifications are beyond beliefe!
Sadam had no control on “UN oil for food program” money waht so ever.The US and the UK held veto power on how,when ,and where the money spent.High rankings UN officials resigned in protest because of the clear intent of the sanctions was to destroy the Iraqi people.The US clearly knew of what it was doing from day one.