Bush Not Alarmed by Thompson's Warning.

[Frankie]

What else is new?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20041204/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/bush_cabinet

Bush Comments on Thompson Terror Worries

7 minutes ago

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) expressed no alarm Saturday about a warning from his outgoing top health official that the U.S. food supply is vulnerable to terror attacks (Thompson did not specify exact time and place, you see) but would not deny the assessment and assert that the nation's food is safe.

Bush was questioned, after an Oval Office meeting with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, about comments by Health and Human Services (news - web sites) Secretary Tommy Thompson about the vulnerability of the U.S. food supply. Thompson spoke Friday as he announced his coming departure from the Bush administration.

"We're a large country with all kinds of avenues where somebody can inflict harm," Bush said. "We're doing everything we can to protect the American people. There's a lot of work to be done." ("IT'S HAARD WORK!!")

Thompson had said he worries "every single night" about a possible terror attack on the food supply, and despite dramatic increases in inspections of food imports, only "a very minute amount" of food is tested at ports and airports.

"For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do," Thompson said. "We are importing a lot of food from the Middle East, and it would be easy to tamper with that."

Thompson was the latest of eight members to quit Bush's 15-member Cabinet as the president moves into a second term.

Bush himself decided that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would not go, ignoring criticism about Rumsfeld's handling of Iraq (news - web sites) and giving the secretary a strong vote of confidence to remain at the Pentagon (news - web sites). That decision, sealed Monday in an Oval Office meeting with Bush but not announced until Friday, settles one of the last major questions about who in the Cabinet goes and who stays.

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[Donger]

What else is new?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20041204/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/bush_cabinet

Bush Comments on Thompson Terror Worries

7 minutes ago

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) expressed no alarm Saturday about a warning from his outgoing top health official that the U.S. food supply is vulnerable to terror attacks (Thompson did not specify exact time and place, you see) but would not deny the assessment and assert that the nation's food is safe.

Bush was questioned, after an Oval Office meeting with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, about comments by Health and Human Services (news - web sites) Secretary Tommy Thompson about the vulnerability of the U.S. food supply. Thompson spoke Friday as he announced his coming departure from the Bush administration.

"We're a large country with all kinds of avenues where somebody can inflict harm," Bush said. "We're doing everything we can to protect the American people. There's a lot of work to be done." ("IT'S HAARD WORK!!")

Thompson had said he worries "every single night" about a possible terror attack on the food supply, and despite dramatic increases in inspections of food imports, only "a very minute amount" of food is tested at ports and airports.

"For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do," Thompson said. "We are importing a lot of food from the Middle East, and it would be easy to tamper with that."

Thompson was the latest of eight members to quit Bush's 15-member Cabinet as the president moves into a second term.

Bush himself decided that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would not go, ignoring criticism about Rumsfeld's handling of Iraq (news - web sites) and giving the secretary a strong vote of confidence to remain at the Pentagon (news - web sites). That decision, sealed Monday in an Oval Office meeting with Bush but not announced until Friday, settles one of the last major questions about who in the Cabinet goes and who stays.

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Why exactly would Bush be alarmed about this?

[Adam]

When questioned, Bush should have screamed "HOLY SH*T, HE'S RIGHT! THE FOOD SUPPLY IS UNSAFE! GRAB YOUR RIFLES! RUN FOR THE HILLS! THE END IS NEAR!"

I would have felt much safer.

[Calcountry]

Please, raise your own chickens.

[BCD]

Nice thread, Francis...

[redbrian]

the sky is falling....the sky is falling.....

Never mind it's just lil frankie, move along nothing to see here.

[2bikemike]

If we tried to protect every single way we could be harmed nothing would get done and everything would be so expensive that we would cease to function.

Where there is a will there is a way and there is no way you can prevent it.

[Hydrae]

If we tried to protect every single way we could be harmed nothing would get done and everything would be so expensive that we would cease to function.

Where there is a will there is a way and there is no way you can prevent it.


Which is why I maintain that trying to eliminate terrorists through violence will never make us feel as safe as we did on September 10th.

[2bikemike]

Which is why I maintain that trying to eliminate terrorists through violence will never make us feel as safe as we did on September 10th.

Nothing will make us feel as safe as Sept. 10th. However I still like the premise of if you support terrorism we will seriously fug you up. We have to make their operating environment as difficult as possible without hindering our own way of day to day living.

We can't do this alone though it will take a global effort with the same paradigm.

[Brock]

Which is why I maintain that trying to eliminate terrorists through violence will never make us feel as safe as we did on September 10th.

Your feeling of security on 9/10 was an illusion. These people will never stop trying to bring the fight to your front door, war or no war.

[Frankie]

When questioned, Bush should have screamed "HOLY SH*T, HE'S RIGHT! THE FOOD SUPPLY IS UNSAFE! GRAB YOUR RIFLES! RUN FOR THE HILLS! THE END IS NEAR!"

I would have felt much safer.

No,.....

But this, eerily, reminds us of the much neglected "Bin Laden DETERMINED to attack inside the U.S." memo. The attitude scares me. Especially when his whole campaign was based on 9/11.

[Donger]

No,.....

But this, eerily, reminds us of the much neglected "Bin Laden DETERMINED to attack inside the U.S." memo. The attitude scares me. Especially when his whole campaign was based on 9/11.

I guess I missed the "bin Laden intends to attack us through our food supply" memo.

As far as I can tell, this is just Thompson's opinion; it is not based on any specific intel.

Therefore, why should Bush be "alarmed" over it?

[Calcountry]

Your feeling of security on 9/10 was an illusion. These people will never stop trying to bring the fight to your front door, war or no war.
That is why they(the terrorists) need to be attrited.

[Frankie]

I guess I missed the "bin Laden intends to attack us through our food supply" memo.

As far as I can tell, this is just Thompson's opinion; it is not based on any specific intel.

Therefore, why should Bush be "alarmed" over it?

This guy is Bush's appointed EXPERT on the matter. Should his "opinion" be neglected? :shrug:

[Raiderhader]

Thompson shooting off his mouth is the only thing that alarms me -

"For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do," Thompson said. "We are importing a lot of food from the Middle East, and it would be easy to tamper with that."

Hey I got an idea! Let's tell all of our enemies where are weaknesses are! Sheesh. I'm now officially glad to see Thompson go.

[Rausch]

I guess I missed the "bin Laden intends to attack us through our food supply" memo.


Oh, no worries. If the government finds an area where we are weak to terrorist attack they'll be sure to find a journalist to relay that information to so it can get to Ossama as quickly as possible....

:banghead:

[Donger]

This guy is Bush's appointed EXPERT on the matter. Should his "opinion" be neglected? :shrug:

He's an expert in health and human services, not terrorism, Frankie.

[BCD]

He's an expert in health and human services, not terrorism, Frankie.
ROFL

[DanT]

Thompson shooting off his mouth is the only thing that alarms me -



Hey I got an idea! Let's tell all of our enemies where are weaknesses are! Sheesh. I'm now officially glad to see Thompson go.

It doesn't take any insight or advanced knowledge to figure out how easy it would be to attack the food supply or a host of other critical systems in this country if someone wanted to do it.

[Raiderhader]

It doesn't take any insight or advanced knowledge to figure out how easy it would be to attack the food supply or a host of other critical systems in this country if someone wanted to do it.


I understand that. But I see no reason to broadcast specific weaknesses to the enemy. Let them do the work themselves.

[DanT]

I understand that. But I see no reason to broadcast specific weaknesses to the enemy. Let them do the work themselves.

What work, figuring out obvious stuff like how easy it is to kill lots of people at once if they wanted?

[Raiderhader]

What work, figuring out obvious stuff like how easy it is to kill lots of people at once if they wanted?


Precisely. More than likely someone has already thought of it. However, given that attacking food supplies is not a part of the terrorists' M.O.s to date, I see no reason to point out that we have a weakness in that area (or any other area for that matter).

[DanT]

Precisely. More than likely someone has already thought of it. However, given that attacking food supplies is not a part of the terrorists' M.O.s to date, I see no reason to point out that we have a weakness in that area (or any other area for that matter).

Speaking of M.O.s to date, how many Tim McVeigh/John Allen Muhammad (aka D.C. sniper) type returning-vet turned terrorist mass murderers do you expect to see from this Iraq War?

[DanT]

Speaking of M.O.s to date, how many Tim McVeigh/John Allen Muhammad (aka D.C. sniper) type returning-vet turned terrorist mass murderers do you expect to see from this Iraq War?

I'm not sure what the total person-year exposure to Iraq combat conditions have been in the two Gulf Wars. I think the peak troop strength of the first one was about a quarter million and that the shooting lasted a few weeks, with less than a couple-hundred U.S. casualties. The current one has had about, what?, 150 to 200 thousand troops, exposed for a much longer time and with a lot more casualties.

Hopefully, there will be some good systems in place to help the returning vets, especially the ones that need God's peace.

[DanT]

I just found this news story on the web. Here are the opening paragraphs:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/021113/80/dekn2.html
Wednesday November 13, 02:17 PM (Year 2002)


Gulf War link to grisly U.S. crimes?
By Sarah Edmonds


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Beltway sniper, the University of Arizona gunman, the Fort Bragg murders, the Oklahoma City bomber -- these terrible U.S. crimes vary widely but experts believe they all share a common thread that may merit a closer look.


With the exception of one of the four Fort Bragg killings, all are alleged to be have been committed by veterans of the 1991 Gulf


There are too many unanswered questions to draw broad conclusions about whether the men connected with these crimes were suffering from the illnesses that research has shown afflict some 25 to 30 percent of the 697,000 U.S. Gulf vets.


However, studies have turned up evidence of injury to the brain in some ill veterans of the conflict, including damage to the deep brain structures where personality is determined.


What caused this damage, and other symptoms vets describe, isn't clear, but researchers have said possibilities could include environmental toxins, low-level nerve agents, depleted uranium, oil fires, mustard gas, stress as well as vaccines given to soldiers to guard against biowarfare and nerve gas.


Dr. William Baumzweiger, a California neurologist and psychiatrist who specialised in Gulf War ailments, said he was not surprised that so many of the high-profile crimes were tied to Gulf veterans. "Gulf War veterans have a very high frequency of turning to violence to deal with frustration," he said.


A TERRIBLE TOLL


Baumzweiger testified for the defence at the trial of Gulf veteran Jeffrey Hutchinson, convicted last year of the 1998 murders of his girlfriend and her three children in Florida.


But Hutchinson does not win the prize for infamy in this group. That goes to Timothy McVeigh, executed in 2001 for the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people and injured hundreds of others.


September and October of this year brought two more high-profile cases involving veterans.


John Allen Muhammad, along with a young accomplice, has been accused of killing 10 people in and around Washington D.C. He is also charged with shootings in Louisiana and Alabama and could be linked to others.


Then in late October, failing Arizona nursing student Robert Flores, who served in the Army during the Gulf War, mowed down three of his professors before shooting himself.


Earlier in 2002, four servicemen allegedly killed their wives at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the base home to the storied 82nd Airborne Division. Three of the four were Gulf War veterans.


Last week, a military team probing the Fort Bragg deaths blamed marital woes, deployment stress and reluctance to seek counseling.


"REASONABLE HYPOTHESIS"


Privacy Act rules make it impossible to find out if any of the Gulf veterans in these high-profile crimes ever officially complained of symptoms, and researchers are unaware of any statistics that indicate that rates of violence among Gulf veterans are higher than the general populace or than other combat veterans.


One researcher, who declined to be identified, said of speculation about a link between Gulf War illnesses and the crimes: "It's a very reasonable hypothesis and it's reasonable because these people came back with personality change, difficulty controlling anger and so forth."


"The question is over 10 years, what is the expected incidence of violent shooters, violent criminals, in the population of 695,000 former military people? I don't know the answer to that. Nobody knows ... although these are such high-profile crimes, you'd expect that the incidence of that would be extremely rare," he added.


Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Centre, a veterans' advocacy group, said more study of Gulf War ailments is clearly needed.


"Do Gulf War veterans as a whole demonstrate psychotic, homicidal, suicidal behaviour? I don't think so. Are there individuals that have demonstrated those? Yes, absolutely," he said, adding that while the vast majority of those who suffer from Gulf War ailments will never turn violent, he receives despairing letters and telephone calls daily from sufferers.


In an emotion-choked voice, Robinson read from one such letter, written by a veteran in jail for a vehicular homicide that killed a close friend. It said in part: "I'm nervous all the time. I feel like my body is doing 200 miles an hour. I am always fatigued, my body shakes and sweats. I believe that because of the physical symptoms, I am a basket case. Anxiety and depression rule my life."

[Raiderhader]

Speaking of M.O.s to date, how many Tim McVeigh/John Allen Muhammad (aka D.C. sniper) type returning-vet turned terrorist mass murderers do you expect to see from this Iraq War?


Uhm, I dunno. Probably no more than the average war produces.

[Baby Lee]

Bush Not Alarmed by Thompson's Warning.
More of the pedestrian liberal "if you say something to comfort me, I won't pay attention to what you do."
I have every bit of faith that Bush's admin has a good a handle on the situation as is necessary. I don't need him to give me a 'comforting' soundbyte like "I'm very concerned and will dedicate my life to securing our food supply."

[Slayer]

Any attacks that can be made on our food supply would not be capable of being prevented. The first is some kind of livestock disease...outbreaks happen all the time with or without terrorists' help, terrorists can move through fields just as undetected as all of these people on America's Most Wanted who have not been caught although we know pretty much everything about them, etc. The next method is hazardous materials in cropdusters...people in the area would be affected as the chemicals are dropped, the farmers would notice something wrong about the plane and its maneuvers, etc. The third is to inject candy with poison and pass it out to little kids...to prevent this, we would have to put extremely strict standards on the sale of candy, which isn't going to happen because it would become "an infringement of our liberties" as some would call it.

[Raiderhader]

Any attacks that can be made on our food supply would not be capable of being prevented. The first is some kind of livestock disease...outbreaks happen all the time with or without terrorists' help, terrorists can move through fields just as undetected as all of these people on America's Most Wanted who have not been caught although we know pretty much everything about them, etc. The next method is hazardous materials in cropdusters...people in the area would be affected as the chemicals are dropped, the farmers would notice something wrong about the plane and its maneuvers, etc. The third is to inject candy with poison and pass it out to little kids...to prevent this, we would have to put extremely strict standards on the sale of candy, which isn't going to happen because it would become "an infringement of our liberties" as some would call it.


Shut. the. hell. up.

[KCWolfman]

This guy is Bush's appointed EXPERT on the matter. Should his "opinion" be neglected? :shrug:
There is a difference between "neglected" and perceived to be not enough intel to take seriously, don't you think?

[Mr. Kotter]

Any attacks that can be made on our food supply would not be capable of being prevented. The first is some kind of livestock disease...outbreaks happen all the time with or without terrorists' help, terrorists can move through fields just as undetected as all of these people on America's Most Wanted who have not been caught although we know pretty much everything about them, etc. The next method is hazardous materials in cropdusters...people in the area would be affected as the chemicals are dropped, the farmers would notice something wrong about the plane and its maneuvers, etc. The third is to inject candy with poison and pass it out to little kids...to prevent this, we would have to put extremely strict standards on the sale of candy, which isn't going to happen because it would become "an infringement of our liberties" as some would call it.

Cliff Klaven, is that you? :hmmm:

[Cannibal]

Thompson shooting off his mouth is the only thing that alarms me -



Hey I got an idea! Let's tell all of our enemies where are weaknesses are! Sheesh. I'm now officially glad to see Thompson go.

I agree with this. I stated the same thing to my wife as soon as I heard it.

It's not something that should be blown off or ignored though.