US finally discovers WMD...in Texas itself.

spongebob

While we have been bored to death by the ongoing farce about WMD in the Middle East it seems that right wing fundamentalist christian americans were planning on deploying WMD capable of "killing thousands" in Texas itself.

Story Here in the Guardian today and elsewhere . While they found one bomb in May it appears that others may be in circulation see Here . The guy they caught also had 500,000 rounds of ammunition and 65 pipebombs just in case

Those who were caught were not tracked down by the FBI until AFTER they had mailed ID cards possibly giving them access to Dept of Defence facilities to the wrong address in early 2002. They were only arrested over a year later and tried in November about 6 months later. It seems the wheels of justice fairly groove along for white christian types .....not like them pesky ay-Rabs in Guantanamo. The judge told him

"You understand, you will probably go to prison for around 10 years," .

and then she told this psychotic 62 year good ole KKK boy

"I hope that when this part of your life is over, the rest of your life is more productive and law-abiding,"

Parole in 5

Sweet

M

mike65

The state of Texas is a weapon of mass destruction! Did anyone see Americas Fattest City (Houston) on Channel 4 last Sunday?

Mike.

Capt'n Midnight

"It was clearly one of the most lethal arsenals associated with the US paramilitary right in the past 20 years," said Daniel Levitas, the author of a book on rightwing extremism, The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement and the Radical Righ

It is, however, far from an isolated incident. Mark Potok, who keeps tabs on hate groups at the Southern Poverty Law Centre in Alabama, says up to 40 major conspiracies involving domestic terrorism have been uncovered since the 1995 Oklahoma attack by a rightwing war veteran, Timothy McVeigh, which killed 168 people.

One foiled plot, by Ku Klux Klan members in 1997, was aimed at blowing up a Texan oil refinery and could have killed up to 30,000 people in the immediate vicinity.

http://www.usembassy.org.uk/terror494.html
International Terrorists Killed 30 U.S. Citizens in 2002

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/dccrime.htm
7 times as many americans get murdered in Washington DC every year (pop. 0.6-0.5m) - Murder rate was 80 per 100,000 in '91
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
15,517 americans were killed at home in 2000
(down from 24,700 in '91)

And then there are the kids..
http://www.religioustolerance.org/sch_vio4.htm
...at least 300 children aged 10 to 14 kill themselves in the U.S. each year
...1992-1993 calendar years: Juvenile murderers (age 5 to 19) in the U.S. totaled 7,000

This makes interesting reading - excluding DC. Gore states had a lower murder rate than Bush ones.
http://letters.johnkusch.com/1345.php

How many citizens of other countries were killed each year by the US Govt ??

vorbis

apart from DC??
That was the state with the highest murder rate.
At least try to make fair comparisons. Honestly do you store those figures on America for use at a moments notice?

TomF

It may help us keep things in perspective when we remember that Texas' population in 2001 was about 21 million people, and is very diverse. Its economy is the 8th largest in the world (2nd largest in the world on a per-capita basis). Where there is this much ferment, and where there are so many media people trawling for stories, Texas is bound to hit the news with just about any kind of story that you wish to read. (Not forgetting the good news that sometimes manages to filter out of places like the huge medical research centres in Texas and the vast NASA complex in Houston.)

BattlingCheese

Well said TomF

Hobbes

Originally posted by TomF
Texas is bound to hit the news with just about any kind of story that you wish to read.

Intresting, then why was this story one of the least reported news stories in the US?

Typedef

Because 'domestic right-wing fanatic' terrorism fighting would get George Bush chucked out of office.

It's those left-wing pinko-Muslim terrorists (abroad and Democrat voters) who need to be incarcerated in camp X-Ray, paraded on election day and shot during the interm.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by TomF
Where there is this much ferment, and where there are so many media people trawling for stories, Texas is bound to hit the news with just about any kind of story that you wish to read.

I agree, however I think the point however is not that they caught some fundamentalist nut in Texas, but that it has barely registered as news.

If I were to highlight two other fairly recent terrorism-related cases of on US soil, we see the well publicized arrest of the suspected arms dealer, who’s crime was staged as a sting type operation by the FBI and the now largely forgotten campaign of anthrax letter attacks which was quietly dropped as a front page news story when it became evident that the source of the anthrax was domestic and not foreign.

Now we have a case that undoubtedly hit the headlines were the perpetrator to be a foreigner, but has remained out of the front pages of the US media for reasons unknown. Thus there certainly does seem to be a difference in how domestic and foreign terrorism is reported in the US media, which is an extremely disturbing trend.

sovtek

Originally posted by The Corinthian
I agree, however I think the point however is not that they caught some fundamentalist nut in Texas, but that it has barely registered as news.

As well the Jewish fundamentalists that were arrested for a bomb plot about two years ago in California.
I wonder if Arnie is doing enough about the "war on terrorism" to please the child pressie.

sovtek

Originally posted by vorbis
apart from DC??
That was the state with the highest murder rate.
At least try to make fair comparisons. Honestly do you store those figures on America for use at a moments notice?

Sorry to be pedantic but Washington DC isn't a state.

spongebob

Originally posted by The Corinthian
I agree, however I think the point however is not that they caught some fundamentalist nut in Texas, but that it has barely registered as news.

That was what struck me. Only in America can a nutter acquire and deal in Chemical and Conventional weapons and have a huge stash of Arms and of Ammo........then when he is arrested for unlawful weapons dealing on a vast scale.

1. It is not a newsworthy event in the US ..... a country allegedly under siege by a vast fundamentalist religious conspiracy which intends to deploy WMD in the US against innocent people.

2. The judge tells him he will be a 'productive' member of society when he comes out ........meaning he will know how to make car number plates out of solid anthrax probably

M

Geromino

Originally posted by Muck
That was what struck me. Only in America can a nutter acquire and deal in Chemical and Conventional weapons and have a huge stash of Arms and of Ammo........then when he is arrested for unlawful weapons dealing on a vast scale.

1. It is not a newsworthy event in the US ..... a country allegedly under siege by a vast fundamentalist religious conspiracy which intends to deploy WMD in the US against innocent people.

2. The judge tells him he will be a 'productive' member of society when he comes out ........meaning he will know how to make car number plates out of solid anthrax probably

M

I take it you have not been to the US?

You might want to read local newspapers in the US to get a more accurate accounting, not to mention local media outlets. Most of the events that can be described would be in the local section, not the national news or front line news. Most newspapers have police blotters, a section that describes briefly police events ranging from murder to armed robbery to theft. Then go look at Asian newspapers. You rarely see European, South American or North American news unless it directly or indirectly involves the country. This is called newsworthiness and is a personal decision made by the producer/editor of the show/newspaper.

Second, when a person goes to the state penn or federal penn, one of the determinations is job skills. Prisoners are given access to legal libraries, education (including college credit), trade skills (this includes carpentry, metalurgy, etc), and office skills (typing skills, computer skills, etc). During the initial central processing, those skills or potential skills will be determined. It is not unlikely that a new inmate would work within one week of arriving in the prison.

sovtek

Originally posted by Geromino
This is called newsworthiness and is a personal decision made by the producer/editor of the show/newspaper.

Being that editors or producers don't consider this "newsworthy" would then lead you to what logical conclusion?
Considering that if a car backfires that Al-Qaeda is suspected.

Geromino

Originally posted by sovtek
Being that editors or producers don't consider this "newsworthy" would then lead you to what logical conclusion?
Considering that if a car backfires that Al-Qaeda is suspected.

There would have to be some "spin" for the intended audience in order for it to be newsworthiness. And "spin" can be defined in more than a thousand ways Sovtek in which it would help sell the newspaper or give credit to the news station. It is not a concrete absolute that you are wanting.

sovtek

Originally posted by Geromino
There would have to be some "spin" for the intended audience in order for it to be newsworthiness. And "spin" can be defined in more than a thousand ways

In order to "spin" it they have to mention it in the first place.

spongebob

And if it had been "mentioned" widely in the US media I would not have started the thread in the first place......would I ?

Had a Sodium Cyanide bomb been recovered from an IRA arms dump we'd have heard all about it in the US media. Had the IRA been caught selling the Sodium Cyanide bomb we'd be sick hearing about it by now

As the WMD was in the possesion of a KKK type it is not newsworthy.

How inutterably odd ...even by American standards. !

M

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by Muck
That was what struck me. Only in America can a nutter acquire and deal in Chemical and Conventional weapons and have a huge stash of Arms and of Ammo........then when he is arrested for unlawful weapons dealing on a vast scale.

In this country handguns have been baned, more or less [edit], there are restrictions on other firearms - to prevent you concelling a weapon, to prevent them being stolen, you need written permission from a landowner [edit] gun club etc. - ie you have to show where it will be used etc. Many chemicals here are not on sale to the public - I've only seen Saltpetre on sale in a garden shop once in 25 years, ammonium nitrate always comes with calcium mixed in, sales of dry cleaner solvent are monitored etc.etc. Most other weapons here are controlled too - swords / rice flails / catapults.

I defy anyone to show me where a state leglistature has recently ruled that the ammendment does indeed allow any muppet to carry guns - AFAIAA all rulings on this have refered to the national guard.

Re all the newsworthy stuff - the main agencies sell stories at the same rate to everyone. So if you are a small newspaper in South Africia you have to pay routers the same rate for a US story as a US paper of similar size would, even though your readers are less interested. This pricing anomoly restricts a lot of foreign news.

spongebob

A friend in Texas had to hand in his Glock because the magazine was too large I believe it could carry 20 rounds while a new law in the Clinton era made the max clip size 12 or something.

So he tools down to the Sheriff who sympathised with hm. The Sheriff decided that the department would keep the Glock for its own use and because my friend was effectively donating to the plod he could have a gun from the stash in the police station ...gratis . It was apparently like Aladdins cave in there ISTR he left with a Sig Heur or another Glock.

M

Geromino

Originally posted by sovtek
In order to "spin" it they have to mention it in the first place.

You are not understanding the word spin Sovtek. Spin means an angle to the story. If there is no angle, then there is no story. Now, the newspaper and visual media estimate or predict want their audience wants or desires in news stories. To captivate the audience, the angle or spin would be required. Otherwise, no one is going to read a story that has no value.

Geromino

Originally posted by Muck
And if it had been "mentioned" widely in the US media I would not have started the thread in the first place......would I ?

Had a Sodium Cyanide bomb been recovered from an IRA arms dump we'd have heard all about it in the US media. Had the IRA been caught selling the Sodium Cyanide bomb we'd be sick hearing about it by now

As the WMD was in the possesion of a KKK type it is not newsworthy.

How inutterably odd ...even by American standards. !

M

You have to understand Muck, the last thing newspapers and visual media want to give to the KKK is any publicity, wether good or bad. As for the WMD, ATF, FBI and other federal agencies did their job, but I guess you don't hear about that now do you. These guys are not out to get headllines, but to do a job with as little publicity as possible.

With regards to the example of a sodium cyanide bomb in an IRA arms dump, at best it would have been a footnote via the news services agencies and that is all. Most itmes that happen internationally do not appear in a newspaper or visual media unless there is a direct or indirect connection to the audience (read angle to the story).

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by Geromino
You are not understanding the word spin Sovtek. Spin means an angle to the story. If there is no angle, then there is no story. Now, the newspaper and visual media estimate or predict want their audience wants or desires in news stories. To captivate the audience, the angle or spin would be required. Otherwise, no one is going to read a story that has no value.

Obviously taken from the Edutainment Fox charter.

Meanwhile in the civilized world we place value on impartial reporting of current affairs with background information to put it into context.

Sparks

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
In this country handguns have been baned more or less since the founding of the state

Sorry Capt'n but that's completely incorrect. We are legally allowed to have any firearm we have a licence for in this state. Since 1972 however, the gardai have had a policy to not issue licences for any pistols (with the exception of starter pistols which still need a firearms licence), including air pistols; and only for air rifles or rifles with a calibre of up to .22 without a hunting licence and up to .270 with one (there are a few .303s still held by people who refused to surrender them and threatened legal action against the gardai to prevent their surrender - the gardai just renewed their licences as it'd be more trouble than it was worth otherwise). Up until 1972 pistols were widely owned - and then they were illegally confiscated by the government on a temporary custody order after a garda was shot by a terrorist in Dublin. This three month TCO could not legally be extended or renewed - but the rifles and pistols confiscated are still impounded and we've been trying to get them back ever since. Hopefully we should get them back this year.

(And just for the record, no target shooting pistol has ever been used in a crime - other than suicide, which I don't have data for - either here or in the North. Ever. Not one. When specifically asked, the head of the RUC was once quoted as saying that the legally held firearms were not the problem - it was the illegal ones that were the problem - AK-47s aren't legal up north...)

there are restrictions on other firearms - to prevent you concelling a weapon

Actually, there's no such restriction, it's just too difficult to conceal a rifle in your pocket. You are forbidden from carrying them around loaded in a threatening manner - not the same thing.

to prevent them being stolen, you need written permission from a landowner - ie you have to show where it will be used etc.

No, you need to show you're a member of a gun club or have land to shoot on or permission from the owner of the land to shoot on it.

Geromino

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
Obviously taken from the Edutainment Fox charter.

Meanwhile in the civilized world we place value on impartial reporting of current affairs with background information to put it into context.

It has nothing to do with Fox specifically (BTW I do NOT WATCh FOX). Each media outlet has an audience or intended audience. NYT or the NY Post; Washington Times or the Washington Post; or LA Times or the Sacamento Bee; or web site A (put in your own web site) or web site B (put in a web site that you disagree with); each pair of items I listed have an intended audience. Each will report what is deemed news worthy or not. And what you do not realize,as well as most here, is that media, print or visual, is a business. It values the Neilsen Rating or the Pultzer Prizes that are awarded to each type of media outlet. And by the number of Puttzer Prizes in reporting deems a news organization as To have accuracy in what you read, you should not limit yourself in one or two media groups. That is by definition biased. You should read as much of a variety of news media outlets as possible. If you want an emperical example of what I am trying to explain, read a paper entitled "Media Bias" by Sendhil Mullainathan and Andrei Shleifer. It defines bias in two contexts: ideology which reflects a news outlet's desire to affect reader opinions in a particular direction; and two spin which reflects the outlet's attempt to simply create a memorable story. The second context is what most newspapers and visual media print on stories that have very low accuracy accountability. The first is an idealogical bias in which a news media outlet creates using selected criteria and evidence. Competition amoung news media outlets will eliminate the idealogical bias but will exaggerate the incentive to create stories.

spongebob

Originally posted by Geromino
You have to understand Muck, the last thing newspapers and visual media want to give to the KKK is any publicity, wether good or bad. As for the WMD, ATF, FBI and other federal agencies did their job, but I guess you don't hear about that now do you. These guys are not out to get headllines, but to do a job with as little publicity as possible.

I understand the reluctance post Waco Ranch (and a couple of mountain nutter sieges) to be seen to hog the limelight for simply doing their job.

What I do not understand the reluctance of the National media ...the 5 TV stations and the NYT LAT WPost WSJ to report on this and to let their pundits loose on the key issue....that it is simply wrong to use WMD on civilian targets. Wrong is Wrong, whether the deployment of WMD comes from Saddam Al Q or the KKK/Militias.

With regards to the example of a sodium cyanide bomb in an IRA arms dump, at best it would have been a footnote via the news services agencies and that is all. Most itmes that happen internationally do not appear in a newspaper or visual media unless there is a direct or indirect connection to the audience (read angle to the story).

It would most certainly have made it prominently onto the National media in Europe.....all across Europe....and in Canada and Australia and Boston/New York too I suppose. It may have been relegated to the inside pages/shorts in Georgia or Idaho.

The KKK/Militias in the US have 1000's of active(ish) members but they are highly fragmented, the IRA never got beyond the 100's by the way. WMD in 'the wild' are far more difficult to track down in the US .

M

Capt'n Midnight

Sparks - fair enough - but the general point being you can't get handguns and you have to have somewhere where you are allowed to shoot before you can get a gun. And a lot of people were separated from thier handguns before '72.
Hand guns - there is a defacto ban on them then.
IIRC Rifles and shotguns can't have barrels shorter than 18" 'cos of the bank raids.

Geromino - over here most nations have a state sponsored TV channel so ratings are not so much of an issue especially off the main channel. In Italy for example TG3 (the news program on one of the three RAI channels is generally considered to be more left wing than other news programs in the same station) Channel 4 in the UK has a mandate to broadcast to minorities (which is a problem when they get more than 7% of the viewers) but again means no pampering to lowest common demonators..

Geromino

Originally posted by Muck
What I do not understand the reluctance of the National media ...the 5 TV stations and the NYT LAT WPost WSJ to report on this and to let their pundits loose on the key issue....that it is simply wrong to use WMD on civilian targets. Wrong is Wrong, whether the deployment of WMD comes from Saddam Al Q or the KKK/Militias.

Let me put it to you this way Muck. You are the producer and there are 75 news stories with some or a lot of national significance. You have 30 minutes to report the news along with some analysis. So, how do you decide which ones to report and which ones not to report. What factors would you make the determination. You cannot report all of them and you do not want to pick up on ones with dubious distinctions of national interest. That would still leave you with 50 news stories to cover. It is about the analysis of allocating scarce resources in the most effecient manner possible without being too biased in reporting.

It would most certainly have made it prominently onto the National media in Europe.....all across Europe....and in Canada and Australia and Boston/New York too I suppose. It may have been relegated to the inside pages/shorts in Georgia or Idaho.

The KKK/Militias in the US have 1000's of active(ish) members but they are highly fragmented, the IRA never got beyond the 100's by the way. WMD in 'the wild' are far more difficult to track down in the US .

M

What is reported in Europe is not necessarily reported in the US. What is reported in Asia is not necessarily reported in Europe or the US. How much as Europe reported in President's Roh's investigation of illegal campaign contributions? Probably little to nothing. US has not reported much either, but it is reported in South Korea and some in Taiwan and Japan. Get the idea? However, depending on the significance in Georgia or Idaho or even California depends on how much media attention is given Muck.

spongebob

You forgot to mention that local media in Georgia or Idaho would not report on KKK/Militias in Georgia or Idaho simply because they are dangerous nutters, armed to the teeth, who would quit happily shoot or blow up the editor or reporter who did so. Therefore local right wing activity is simply airbrushed from the 'News Mix' as it were.

M

The Corinthian

Originally posted by Geromino
You might want to read local newspapers in the US to get a more accurate accounting, not to mention local media outlets. Most of the events that can be described would be in the local section, not the national news or front line news.

A story that involved WMD and a court case merited only regional coverage... you honestly didn’t think we’d swallow that, did you?

Sparks

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
Sparks - fair enough - but the general point being you can't get handguns and you have to have somewhere where you are allowed to shoot before you can get a gun.

Well, the pistols thing should be repealed this year (and about damn time too - we've missed nine olympic games so far where we could have had people shooting air pistol or .22 pistol, we're the only country I know of where pony club tetrathletes have to shoot air rifle instead of air pistol (and at their age, that's a serious risk to your spine given the weight of the rifle), and if you want to get into target shooting as a sport, you've got a huge amount of cash to spend to get started because you can't just buy an air pistol and off you go. So instead of the 300 euro or so you'd spend anywhere else, you have to spend the guts of a grand or more. :rolleyes:

And a lot of people were separated from thier handguns before '72.

Yes, but '72 was where the majority were taken.

Hand guns - there is a defacto ban on them then.

Only for the great unwashed. Know the right people and you can have one, even if you only use it on the army ranges.

IIRC Rifles and shotguns can't have barrels shorter than 18" 'cos of the bank raids.

Yes, but that's because a rifle/shotgun is seperated from a pistol by the barrell length.
Ergo, cut off the barrel of a shotgun and it stops being a shotgun legally and your licence (if you have one - no registered firearm's ever been used in a robbery in the ROI by it's legal owner) is now invalid.

Basicly CM, firearms regulation here only looks simple at a very superfical glance - the real state of affairs is very different. And the reality is another thing again, this being Ireland...

Tommy Vercetti

Originally posted by Sparks

When specifically asked, the head of the RUC was once quoted as saying that the legally held firearms were not the problem - it was the illegal ones that were the problem - AK-47s aren't legal up north...)

Would he have said that PIRA's possession of SAMs wasn't a problem since they weren't being used at that point in time? I doubt it.