"It has been brought to our attention that US army textbooks, -required reading for future Colonels and Generals has been recently updated with the following passage "that the threat along our northern border although less publisized is probably more worrisome then our southern one""
Isn't Mexico in a civil war against drug cartels who are by chance winning?
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Yeah, but that means that people coming from Mexico are more carefully scrutinized. I think they're talking about the relative ease of border crossings and the possibility of terrorists infiltrating via Canada.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Actually, I think they just read Blayne's thread about backyard nukes.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Whats funny that issue was just published today Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Possibly its the border crossing thing, but shouldn't that be a US immigration or homeland security textbook rather than US army?
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
If I remember recent history right, most of the 9/11 terrorists came into the US legally through Canada.
That or they think Canada's likely to start something. Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
Darnit, they're onto us! Quick, hide the maple syrup and for the love of the north, get that moose a disguise or something!
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by AvidReader: If I remember recent history right, most of the 9/11 terrorists came into the US legally through Canada. ...
Thats a pretty silly American myth.
quote:"It's something that won't go away," Bill Graham, Canada's defense minister, said of the apocryphal claim in an interview Monday. "We're very resentful . . . because not one suspect had been in Canada. All had been in the U.S., training in the U.S., with valid U.S. visas."
The account was born in the first days after the attacks, when reporters and government investigators were scrambling to figure out how the conspirators had carried out the plot. Bernard Etzinger, a Canadian Embassy spokesman, says the "big bang" that started the legend can be traced to two Boston newspapers.
A Boston Globe story on Sept. 13 said investigators were "seeking evidence" that the hijackers came through Canada. The Boston Herald reported the same day that federal investigators believed "the terrorist suspects may have traveled . . . by boat" from Canada.
On Sept. 14, The Washington Post reported that an unnamed U.S. official had said two suspects "crossed the border from Canada with no known difficulty at a small border entry in Coburn Gore, Maine," and that others may have come through other Maine ports. On Sept. 16, that report was repeated by the New York Post, which also declared that "terrorists bent on wreaking havoc in the United States" had found Canada "the path of least resistance." On Sept. 19, the Christian Science Monitor referred to Canada as "a haven for terrorists."
"It was just one of those things where everybody says, 'We all knew that,' and it becomes irrefutable," Etzinger said.
In the weeks after the attacks, investigators established that all of the hijackers entered the United States from countries other than Canada, a finding that got the official stamp last summer with the release of the Sept. 11 commission report. But that has not stopped the story from spreading.
The Canadian Embassy in Washington keeps a chart of new reports of the rumor. The chart shows that at least three U.S. representatives and one senator have recently repeated the claim.
quote:The Canadian Embassy in Washington keeps a chart of new reports of the rumor.
I wonder if the guy keeping the chart has some fun with it.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:All had been in the U.S., training in the U.S., with valid U.S. visas.
Yeah, student visas. Which is a big part of why getting them now is SUCH a PITA.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Possibly its the border crossing thing, but shouldn't that be a US immigration or homeland security textbook rather than US army?
Considering that, compared with Mexico, Canada has a superior military, and a border which puts them significantly closer to more major American cities, and because they have nuclear capability, I'm going to suggest that the word "threat" in this case probably boils down to numbers, and little else. We'd have more to fear from a fight with Canada than one with Mexico; not that it's going to happen, but simply that the threat does technically exist.
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
Um, the threat from the north is not Canada.
Its a Russian invasion, or more likely Nuclear Strike, coming over the north pole and Canada to land at a metro-plex near you.
As Putin allows Russia to slip into a more militant and nationalistic state, the US military must start planning for such dangerous eventualities.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
You have to watch out for those sneaky Canucks. Take for instance that episode where one of their lighthouses terrorized a U.S. carrier task force, demanding that they yield the right of way. There has to be a bit of Mongol in them, too, because their federal police ride horses.
By the way, Darth_Mauve, did we dismantle the DEW-Line of advance warning radars we used to have along the Arctic Circle? I don't recall. If so, then maybe they need to be rebuilt.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: Um, the threat from the north is not Canada.
Its a Russian invasion, or more likely Nuclear Strike, coming over the north pole and Canada to land at a metro-plex near you.
As Putin allows Russia to slip into a more militant and nationalistic state, the US military must start planning for such dangerous eventualities.
*nods* You know, Palin can see Russia from her house.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
quote:You have to watch out for those sneaky Canucks. Take for instance that episode where one of their lighthouses terrorized a U.S. carrier task force, demanding that they yield the right of way. There has to be a bit of Mongol in them, too, because their federal police ride horses.
Myth.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
" ' "...US army textbooks, -required reading for future Colonels and Generals has been recently updated with the following passage 'that the threat along our northern border although less publisized is probably more worrisome then our southern one" ' "
That's cuz Canada is loaded for bear. And generals have a girly fear of bears.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
More like loaded with *beer*... OHHH!!!
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
Thanks, Mucus. That was a gret link.
But will it override the info that's already in long-term memory? Only time will tell.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Probably the real reason why the danger to the north is greater than the danger to the south, is that our northern border with Canada is some 4,000 miles long, much of it remote, forested terrain, plus the Great Lakes, which can be crossed in a small boat. The Indians used to cross at the narrow places in canoes. There is simply no way to keep terrorists from crossing.
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