Posted on 08/11/2004 3:38:17 AM PDT by KMC1
NEW YORK - According to intelligence that has been retrieved from the computer laptop and files of Muhammed Khan of Pakistan, Al Qaeda plans to attack before the November 2 elections but new details are just now surfacing as to what the plan really looks like.
The plans call for a major assassination of a high profile political figure, which most likely will be triggered by another public statement from Osama bin Laden, and that will lead to the all out attack against the U.S. homeland.
It is possible that the political assassination could occur in Saudi Arabia or Yemen given that these two nations are working in close cooperation with the U.S. in the efforts in the War on Terror.
According to Bill Gertz in today's Washington Times:
"The planning of the attacks to follow involve 'multiple targets in multiple venues' across the United States.
In 2001 the same tactics were used by Al Qaeda in the launching of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. homeland. A public statement by bin Laden was followed by an assassination of a political rival in Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, which at the time were the only established resistance to the Taliban rule of that nation.
It appears that state and defense officials were not overstating the case in stating that the capture of Khan in Pakistan led to a "treasure trove" of information.
(Excerpt) Read more at kmclive.com ...
FYI and FYP (For Your Prayers)
Do they mean a political figure in Saudi, i.e. one of the Royal Family, or does it mean a US political figure that will be visitng Saudi or Yemen?
In which case, how many high ranking political figures do we expect to be visiting Saudi or Yemen before the elections???
Seems a bizarre scenario to me.
fyi..
I remember the charismatic leader of anti-taliban movement was assinated by Al-Queda just days before 9-11.
You read it wrong.......imagine the turmoil in the oil markets if the leader of the Saudi Royal family is killed.
$75 a barrel.....not $45.
Well, they just surrounded the building next to mine in concrete barriers.
Such is life in the big city, nowadays.
these terror warnings are terribly frightening. it's like waiting for the other shoe to drop....should we be afraid, can we trust our government to protect us?
i just don't know, somehow this seems more chilling than the others.
I think Al Qeada is determined to follow the Madrid model to affect the election and that an attack is likely and one or more may succeed. As good as Irael is at fighting terrorists, some attacks still succeed.
BINGO!
Take out Prince Bandar or King Fahd and see what kind of market meltdown ensues. Now, at the same time, take out the Chicago board of trade or the NY Mercantile exchange......
Pretty ugly scenario I would say. I think that your figure of $75.00 is understated here.
According to Teresa Heinz, we should just get used to terrorism. After all, the Europeans are used to it.
Can we trust this Administration to try to protect us? Absolutely.
Can we trust this or any other Administration to completely protect us from evil? Of course not. It's impossible.
Just go about your daily life.....but be aware of things around you..
I read an article just yesterday in the Wash Times about the price of oil. And some experts felt that any kind of strategic event (e.g., assassinations as described above) that would spike the price of oil would lead the U.S. and other nations to release their strategic petroleum reserves - to prevent worldwide fuel shortages and runaway inflation.
"...how many high ranking political figures do we expect to be visiting Saudi or Yemen"
Well, we must have ambassadors there, but I imagine after this nobody is going to be visiting, and the ambassadors might be suddenly planning vacations.
TRUE...
Especially pray they don't try a hit the DNC canidate, they will be trying to blame President Bush every day for the rest of his life. It would be Michael Moore's dream chance at another JFK conspiricy (spelling? half asleep.)
..."would lead the U.S. and other nations to release their strategic petroleum reserves - to prevent worldwide fuel shortages and runaway inflation."
The strategic petroleum reserves are not nearly enough to address the psychological effect of the actions I previously described.
The market behaves in a chaotic fashion at best. Also, systems (in this case the market for energy, not only oil) go from order to disorder in an orderly fashion {kindly review Chaos theory) in times where you reach a significant flow-point differential (fluid dynamics).
Stress the system in a fashion that creates a huge delta and the disorder itself becomes disorderly, thereby creating a total meltdown in ALL systems (Bleed-over/cross-talk).
a TRULY UGLY SCENARIO.
I'll see if I can find the article, because some smart people do not agree with you.
bump
"because some smart people do not agree with you."
These smart people were not thinking about the scenario I just described.
But go ahead, track down the article. Just because it's written, doesn't make it right/accurate/correct.
If you can poke holes in my argument/reasoning/logic - have at it! :-)
i've been aware of things around me for years. i've been "paranoid" about certain ethnic groups since the 72 olympics (and year after year atrocities were committed and ignored...after all it would not be PC).
i do go about my life but somehow this is becoming emotionally exhausting. luckily, i'm able to avoid NYC which since 9/11 seems sadly damaged.
So, how many weapons do I need and how many magazines would be sufficient?
According to major media, our TOP political figure is,,,,,,Mike Moore,,,,,,,,,Psst Pssst!
I understand the point you're making, but I would argue that if our nation and the world could survive relatively unscathed psychologically from 9/11 - which was essentially our introduction to terror on such a massive scale - then follow-on attacks will have less of a psych impact, not more. (Unless WMDs are involved, then it may well be greater.)
Adversely impacting our energy supply will hurt, no doubt. But so did grounding our air transportation system for four days, closing Reagan National for three weeks, and ratcheting up security measures - thereby increasing the hassle factor and wait time (loss of productivity). Yet here we are three years later, worried that people have forgotten.
You are looking at the situation far too narrowly.
The CBT and the NY-Merc are key commodities markets not only ofor the US, but the World. If these are taken out, along with the top of the house of Saud (the biggest oil producer on the planet) the impact to the world economy would be catastrophic. The effects of 9/11 would pall in comparison to the scenarion I previously described.
IMHO.
Ladies and Gentleman...
Well, heck. Why not throw in a collision with a meteor while you're at it? :-)
Already did, on another post...... (different thread though, about the approaching near earth asteroid)....
:-)
You are trusting total strangers you've never met to protect you?
While our gov't is indeed going to great lengths to protect us (I'm not trying to slam efforts that are being made; kudos to soldiers/police/firefighters/etc.), fact is your safety is ultimately up to you - so plan, prepare, and act accordingly.
Note to Jim Mik over at MSNBC: And you guys are still carrying on about Abu Ghraib?!
For those who have spent any time in a combat zone, waiting for the other shoe to drop is something one becomes used too.
i admire every one of our brave soldiers.
there was an article in my local paper about reservists being called up and sent to iraq until 2006. i don't understand why they can't take over non-combat duty in the US. these people are leaving their families, jobs and everyday lives.
it's got to be rough.
**FYI and FYP (For Your Prayers)***
Certainly thoughts and prayers with you all
The application of mathematics is a useful tool, not to be underestimated.
I was a little out of touch on 9/11, 20 miles up a 4wd trail past the nearest little mountain jumpoff town at 8700', then two days offtrail hiking with a 100+ pound pack over a 12k pass, exploring a remote area possibly untravelled by human presence in history, as access requires a roped 200' descent and egress requires reversing the same.
I didn't find out until two days afterwards, and didn't return home for two weeks afterward. In addition to the usual anxiety most of us felt, I also had to deal with a severe shortage of news, no radio, no cable, newspapers were normally flown in, etc.
On the 1400 mile cross country drive back, I realized something that responds directly to the points you raised. This country is awfully damn big, and nearly every corner of it is filled with the results of over two hundred years of significant effort on the parts of well over a billion people.
A handfull of terrorists simply cannot reverse all of that.
By using leverage and psychology, they can alter the norms of our daily life, but the real value that underlies our standard of living will remain, no matter what they do, with the possibly exception of them somehow gaining control of Russia's strategic nuclear assets, a highly unlikely scenario. They can't destroy the oil, or the cars or the cities, or the buildings or the people or the roads, not even a significant portion of them.
The effects you describe are very possible though, in the short, and possibly even the medium term. With the economy and perceived value of goods and services all tied to the value of the dollar, intermingled with the hope and prospects for a brighter future, panic and terror could well cause temporary turbulence in the flow of our daily routines for a while.
Perhaps the worst outcome they could attempt to achieve would be to interrupt the production of food on a grand scale, but close family members, one with a doctorate and over 40 US patents in the agricultural chemical field, and another with his doctorate in molecular bio-chemistry assure me that this simply isn't practicably possible on any scale approaching significance.
As you and others, including the terrorists themselves, note, the weakest area they can target is our financial markets, forcing our own fears to compound and multiply the effects of their attack. As you also note, extreme turbulence can disorder the turbulence process itself, forcing it to behave according to non-orderly expressions, however, turbulence, in and of itself, is simply a disorderly flow, and regardless of the apparant contradiction offered by the second law of thermodynamics and popular semantics, sustained turbulence is mathematically forbidden without the continuous application of external energy.
Unless the terrorists have invented perpetual motion, another cosmic no-no, the system, regardless of provocation, will return to an equilibrium (non-turbulent) state. Given the fact that they cannot destroy the base wealth of the United States, much less the world, the odds are exceedingly geared to produce a resulting steady state post attack not much dissimilar to what we have now.
As I'm sure you are aware, there are many variables involved, but I consider some to be self-perpetuating under the right conditions, making further public discussion counter-productive.
In most scenarios, steady leadership, combined with the base global wealth, make attempts at major dislocation or change through leveraged or psychological attacks, against a country with the real capacity to destroy a significant portion of the earth's surface, a mathematically guaranteed losing proposition.
Agreed. In the long-run.
$75 a barrel.....not $45.
Hmmmm. You express more knowledge about the oil business than I have, but my first impression is that NO individual has that sort of pull in life, or in death.
Watching the latest beheading video (of the supposed CIA agent), listening to the islamic savages shrieking "Allahu Akbar" like a bunch of retards, and realizing that millions of leftists in this country and Europe still think WE'RE the bad guys...just makes me want to puke. This country is going to be a very weird place if this second massive Al Qaeda attack actually happens. Maybe the leftists will give us an extra week of silence before resuming the America-bashing. Or maybe political correctness in the War on Terror will finally die its much-deserved death.
ping
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