MetaFilter posts tagged with America and Terrorism

It's the end of the world and they know it

zarq — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 22:40:53 -0800

The most-watched show in the history of the National Geographic Channel isn't Wild, Taboo or even the longest-running documentary series on cable tv: Explorer. It's Doomsday Preppers, a show that documents the "lives of otherwise ordinary Americans" as they prepare for the end of the world. "We struggled with this," Kathleen Cromley, a NatGeo executive producer, says after a screening of the series. "Our preppers have really strong beliefs and they are not always supported by mainstream science. As a network, we are concerned about factual accuracy."
All but one of the 20 episodes that have aired to date can be watched online. Season One (2011-2012) 1) "Pilot" 2) "Bullets, Lots of Bullets" 3) "I Hope I Am Crazy" 4) "Back to the Stone Age". Here's a BuzzFeed profile of Tim Ralston, creator of the "Crovel." (Half-shovel, half-weapon: the Crovel has made Ralston millions in sales.) 5) "It's All Gonna Hit the Fan" 6) "You Shall Not Fear" 7) "Nine Meals Away from Anarchy" 8) "Into the Spider Hole" 9) "It's Gonna Get Worse" 10) "Close the Door, Load the Shotgun" 11) "Disaster Doesn't Wait" 12) "I Suggest We Run" 13) "Extreme Prep Edition" Additional Clips: Season 1 Season 2 (2012-2013) 1) "You Can't Let Evil Win" 2) "Am I Nuts or Are You?" 3) "Bad Times All the Time" 4) "The Time of Reckoning" 5) "Taking from the Haves" 6) "You've Got Chaos" (Not yet online) 7) "Escape from New York" Additional Clips: Season 2

'Homeland,' Obama’s Show.

kiskar — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 02:59:10 -0800

'Homeland,' Obama’s Show. The award winning TV show does little to alleviate the myths and misconceptions about Arabs and Muslims, writes Joseph Massad, a scholar at Columbia University. "The racist representation of Arabs is so exponential, even for American television [..] that one does not know where to begin." Previously

Put down the stretcher. You have twelve seconds to comply.

seanmpuckett — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 12:19:03 -0800

Guardian/Greenwald: US drones are coming back after initial attacks to target first-responder rescuers.

"An institution full of intelligence but devoid of wisdom"

Artw — Thu, 12 May 2011 05:44:34 -0800

Whose side is Pakistan's ISI really on?

Bin Laden

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 — Sun, 01 May 2011 19:42:44 -0800

President Obama to make important announcement regarding Osama Bin Laden imminently

Trying to "out-terrorize the terrorists"

jjoye — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 18:21:08 -0800

Soldiers involved in the "Collateral Murder" video have come forward to tell their story. Previously.

The American Military Crisis

homunculus — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:40:36 -0800

Illusions of Victory: How the United States Did Not Reinvent War… But Thought It Did. Is Perpetual War Our Future? Learning the Wrong Lessons from the Bush Era. Two excerpts from The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, the new book by Andrew Bacevich (previously: 1, 2, 3, 4).

"Are we in the midst of a coup?"

homunculus — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 20:50:14 -0800

2009: A True Story. "My name is Sara Ford and I am 18 years old. I moved to California at the end of last year. Before the first attacks... before everything changed." [Via] On YouTube: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 7, Episode 8, Episode 9, Episode 10, Episode 11, Episode 12, Episode 13. NSFW.

It's Tuesday

chuckdarwin — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 05:15:38 -0800

Martin Amis on 9/11 and the cult of death:

"Let us briefly trundle through the argument for moral equivalence, and let us begin with a trio of ascertainable truths. First, the years 1947 and 1948 saw two imperialistic decisions that guaranteed an increase in hostility between Muslim and nonMuslim: the partition of India along religious lines, and the establishment of the state of Israel. (These decisions also led to, but did not invent, murderous hostility between Muslim and Muslim – in East Pakistan, in Gaza). Second, throughout the 1970s the Arab regimes sponsored by the US started to head off political dissent by guiding the opposition towards Islamic fundamentalism. And, third, in the 1980s the US backed the Mujahidin against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and also helped to fund the Pakistani madrassas, whose graduates (all of them unemployable zealots) increased from 30,000 in 1987 to well over half a million by 2001. Thereafter, or so the equivalence argument goes, the Islamist vanguard, having wearied of seeing the battles fought exclusively on its own soil, visited a taste of this destruction on the West. Which turns out to suit the neocons and Christian Zionists, who can now place the US under military rule while they prepare their push for Islamic oil and for Israeli hegemony in the Middle East. The goals of the so-called “terrorists” (who are merely responding in kind to state terrorism from the US and its clients) are not delusive or messianic but solemnly political. So it has always been: the oppressed struggle against the oppressor; the wrongs of the past rise up to avenge themselves on the present."

The Not Too Distant Future

spaltavian — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 18:39:49 -0800

Shooting War: a graphic novel by Anthony Lappe and Dan Goldman. The 11-chapter first act has been lauded in Rolling Stone, Wired and The Village Voice. It's 2011: President McCain is fighting for political survival, America is stuck in Iraq, and there's another oil embargo. 'Vlogger' and indie icon Jimmy Burns happens to catch a terrorist attack in NYC on his web cam, making him the new face of wartime journalism.

9/11 in Comics

nthdegx — Sun, 04 Dec 2005 10:13:17 -0800

9/11 in comics, including the black-covered The Amazing Spider-Man #36 in its entirety.

Loose Change

zeerobots — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 00:35:50 -0800

Loose change A one hour analysis of 9/11 and how it is more likely than not that the government was actually behind the attacks. A documentary analyzing the footage and presenting an alternative view to the official version.

Al Gore surprises

Shanachie — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 12:37:19 -0800

A surprise from Al Gore: I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse . I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions. How many of you, I wonder, have heard a friend or a family member in the last few years remark that it's almost as if America has entered "an alternate universe"? I thought maybe it was an aberration when three-quarters of Americans said they believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on September 11, 2001. But more than four years later, between a third and a half still believe Saddam was personally responsible for planning and supporting the attack.

The next terrorist attack on America may be perpetrated by Europeans.

dsquid — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 08:49:20 -0800

The next terrorist attack on America may be perpetrated by Europeans. Radical Islam is spreading across Europe among descendants of Muslim immigrants. Disenfranchised and disillusioned by the failure of integration, some European Muslims have taken up jihad against the West. They are dangerous and committed -- and can enter the United States without a visa.

ID checks ineffective

tbc — Tue, 03 Feb 2004 09:32:28 -0800

How We Are Fighting the War on Terrorism: IDs and the illusion of security IDs and the illusion of security Bruce Schneier at sfgate.com writes about why ID checks are ineffective.

Senator Says State Sponsor of Sept 11th

cell divide — Thu, 19 Dec 2002 10:06:38 -0800

On PBS last week, Senator Bob Graham said that there is "evidence that there were foreign governments involved in facilitating the activities of at least some of the terrorists in the United States," but that "It will become public at some point when it's turned over to the archives, but that's 20 or 30 years from now. And, we need to have this information now because it's relevant to the threat that the people of the United States are facing today." Do you trust the government to keep the right informatin classified, or do we need to know?

Welcome to Amerika?

mr_crash_davis — Sun, 21 Jul 2002 18:32:15 -0800

Welcome to Amerika? Tom Ridge (with the blessing of George W.) thinks it's time to re-examine the Posse Comitatus Act with an eye toward giving the Armed Forces more power to act in a domestic law enforcement capacity. After having the National Guard here during the Winter Olympics, I'm not so keen on seeing armed soldiers patrolling the streets again.

Are we blaming the victim?

straight — Thu, 20 Sep 2001 08:36:59 -0800

Are we blaming the victim? William Saleten argues that talk about what the USA has done to provoke terrorist attack is like a battered wife wondering what she's done to deserve a beating. It risks legitimizing these indefensible acts, and gives us a false sense of control: i.e. that we could prevent such attacks if we'd only behave.

luser — Wed, 19 Sep 2001 06:19:46 -0800

The only "war" I can think of in U.S. history anything like the present situation is the U.S. Navy's war on Caribbean piracy (1814-1825). Stateless, decentralized foe, no defined fields of battle, no "high-value targets"...Again, 1814-1825: eleven years. Any U.S. history majors out there?

The positive impact of America

quercus — Tue, 18 Sep 2001 18:46:32 -0800

The positive impact of America can be overlooked in the chatter of how bin Laden is the bastard offspring of our malicious foreign policy, so the flip side should be highlighted. How about a Nobel peace prize winner who has saved literally millions of lives worldwide, but even 99% of Americans would fail to recognize? What will we reap from his sowing?