July 07, 2006
Deadly But Dumb
That short statement seems to be an accurate description of the terrorists in the latest reported terrorist plot against New York City, where an al Qaeda member captured in Lebanon and his cohorts planned to detonate vehicle-borne explosives in an attempt to breach tunnels into New York City. Their goal was flooding lower Manhattan.
What idiots.
For starters, it is quite doubtful that Allah's brain surgeons could have managed to construct the kind of bomb that could breach the Holland or any other tunnel into New York City. I won't bother explaining all the multiple reasons (and there are many) that their plot would fail to breach the tunnel walls, but lets just for a second look at what would happen to the rest of lower Manhattan in the event of a tunnel detonation.
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Did you see what happened?
Nothing.
Certainly, there would be panic and injuries and deaths inside the tunnel and I do not in any way want to minimize that. There would smoke from the blast from the bomb, and the noise and commotion of the emergency response from New York's Finest and Bravest, but there would be no measurable physical damage outside the tunnel, as lower Manhattan is above sea level.
The brain trust that came up with this cockamamie plan was hoping a blast under the riverbed—at a point lower than the bottom of the river—would somehow cause a Hurricane Katrina-like deluge that would flood the Financial District and collapse the U.S. economy. It would be laughable if they weren't planning this with such deadly earnest.
This is the latest al Qaeda plan to attack the United States, but there have been others.
A couple of homegrown Miami jihadi wannabes wanted to detonate an ANFO bomb to destroy the Sears Tower in Chicago, but only managed to enlist the FBI in their support. They're in jail. More than a dozen Canadian hopefuls had a similar plot Up North, but they were also quickly detained.
Just for the record, this plot was foiled by the NSA monitoring Internet communications between would-be jihadists. Funny. but I didn't feel my civil rights were trampled at all.
The simple fact of the matter seems to be that the best minds al Qaeda have long since been killed or have gone to ground, leaving us with thankfully incompetent terrorists to plan most of the attacks against us. Most are no seasoned terrorists. Most are committing their first attacks.
This makes them harder to find in some ways, and easier to foil in others.
They're pitting their "B" team against our best and brightest, the same men and women that put the vast majority of their "A" Team in the ground, and it shows.
They may still get lucky—we often heard say that they "only have to be right once"—but as each passing terrorist generation is ground to mulch in southwest Asia or sent packing for a federal prison, the odds of them getting everything right as they did on 9/11 grows increasingly remote.
Why CY? I actually and whole heartedly agreed with everything you just said! 911 was just some extremists with "butter-cutters" at best. They achieved spectacular results, but to consider this organization as "advanced" has been so blown out of proportion since 911 it has been ridiculous. Most of these cells are unrelated wannabees at best. Wannabees of what? If I see that video of those towel heads swinging across monkey bars supposedly training to kill America one more time, I think I will crack up! Al Qaeda is more of an anti-western idea, than it ever was an organized terrorist group. We like to run wild with our imaginations. Of course, it sounds cool to say authorities thwarted a plot to flood the financial district. Nice of you to point out the elevation of the district CY. Those dudes in Miami? I think I just saw them down at the corner convenient store the other day buying some nabs and a NuGrape soda. These guys saw Fight Club one too many times and couldn't even pay for rent and some electricity. Before anybody jumps in and attacks me. Is 911 tragic and real? Yes. Is is a tremendous tragedy? Yes. Are these miscellaneous guys serious to kill me or other Americans? Yes. Are they a threat to the U.S. national security and overall way of life? Well...Any man with "nothing to lose" is a dangerous man with an edge to him. Haters of American life will always have that advantage and can create some turmoil if they are willing to pay the price. Let's just keep it all in perspecive and carry on.
Posted by: Johnny at July 7, 2006 04:12 PM"Let's just keep it all in perspecive and carry on."
Johnny, in other words, 9-11 was an acceptable loss (even though it was tragic); so we shouldn’t get our panties twisted trying to take on the radicals?
Posted by: Old SOldier at July 7, 2006 04:24 PMI'd expect my chicken hawk of a leader to chase after the party responsible for that episode, and that guy is not in Iraq! Meanwhile, his cousins are dreaming about making TV shows on American networks. I jokingly state sometimes that Osama is probably in the safest place possible....in a sea of liberals (Boston) where his kids went to school! If security is truly the name of the game, we'd be securing our borders, nab Osama, and directly engage nations who have proof of WMDs. Oh...I don't know...how 'bout long range missles being test fired in the air on national TV? That kind of proof will suffice in my book. As I have stated so many times before...our current leadership continues to show their hypocracy has no bounds....but they are predictable. If the proposed action has nothing in it for "them", then it clearly aint gett'n done!
Posted by: Johnny at July 7, 2006 04:42 PMWhy is there no outrage about his newstory's leaks to the media? No cries of "treason" even though this revelation disclosed and interrupted an ongoing investigation? Is it because this conveniently timed story is favorable to the Bush admin?
And no one is disputing whether the NSA should monitor communications -- this is a specious argument. People want such monitoring done LEGALLY.
Posted by: todd at July 7, 2006 06:14 PMPeople want such monitoring done LEGALLY.
Then they should be pleased so far.
Tob
Posted by: toby928 at July 7, 2006 06:55 PMI wouldn't exactly downplay 20 terrorists with backpacks full of explosives timed to go off at the same time in a subway filled with hundreds of passengers. It would kill more and do more damage than anyone can imagine.
President Bush doesn't need any help from the leakers that are comitting treason. If i'm remembering my government lessons correctly, President Bush can't run for president again. Hey lefties, wake up and smell the damp air in the subways before it becomes smoke.
Now documentation has surfaced the show for a fact that Saddam and Osama were more that passing in the night buddies prior to 9-11. I'd say Saddam's order to attack American interest world wide 6 months prior to 9-11 included the attack on 9-11.
Documentation also shows that Iraq was developing and updating their WMD until a few months prior to the invasion. Hell, they were even paying bonuses to those involved in the development.
The mobile weapons development labs really were mobile WMD labs, set up so all evidence could be removed in a few minutes. Documentation on this is available.
One thing about the Iraqi terrorists government they kept really good records. They'll probably find where all the bodies are buried (the live bodies in the U.S. that were helping him) before they get all of them translated.
It's looking real cloudy over the left wing camp as each of the documents reveal that they are the liars/traitors and/or crazy.
Could the declassification of several documents be on the horizon for about Sept/Oct?
Posted by: Scrapiron at July 7, 2006 09:00 PMJohnny,
If you want this administration to go after N. Korea, you need to "fix the facts around" them having oil!!
Posted by: Robert at July 12, 2006 03:15 PM
