Posted on 07/06/2007 5:01:41 AM PDT by KeyLargo
Even inept plotters pose serious threat
July 6, 2007
BY STEVE HUNTLEY
The disclosure last month of a plot to bomb Kennedy Airport in New York was pretty quickly dismissed by the George Bush haters as just another scare story hyped by the administration to bamboozle Americans increasingly disillusioned with the war in Iraq. After all, the argument went, the conspiracy wasn't even half-baked and the alleged conspirators seemed hardly capable of pulling off a small-town bank robbery.
"There was no set plan. There was no financing," wrote Arianna Huffington on the Huffington Post. "They didn't have any explosives -- and yet government officials were quoted calling the amorphous plot 'one of the most chilling plots imaginable' that almost 'resulted in unfathomable damage, deaths and destruction.' And people wonder why the public has become cynical about how the war on terror is being used for political purposes."
Well, as we've seen in Britain, a gang that can't shoot straight can still try to -- and come pretty close to killing a lot of people. Amateurish was the word used to describe the two failed car bombings in London's nightlife district last Friday night. One of the vehicles was spotted when it started smoking, but didn't explode. The two cars were packed with explosives and nails, one supposed to go off to attract people -- a lot of women since it was "ladies' night" at a nightclub there -- to the street so their bodies could be ripped, torn and mangled by the nails in the second blast.
The next day, two men drove a SUV filled with propane gas into the entrance of the Glasgow Airport, starting a fire but again failing to ignite a devastating explosion. The most seriously injured in the attack turned out to be one of the inept terrorists who managed to set himself on fire.
Had luck gone just a smidgen the other way, many people could have been dead and injured in London and/or Glasgow.
Not every plotter is as smart as Osama bin Laden. Not every killer is as skilled as 9/11 terrorist Mohammad Atta. And, as the poet John Milton observed, ''Chance governs all.''
The Bush critics also have dismissed other alleged plots uncovered by authorities, including ones aimed at killing soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J., and at bombing the Sears Tower. It's true that not all conspiracies are equally serious. And it may be hard to imagine that the incompetents, nobodies, boobs, nuts or whatever you want to call the men arrested in some of these cases could actually pull off a mega-attack. But we should not forget the finding of the 9/11 Commission that "the most important failure was one of imagination." And recall how a pathetic nobody named Lee Harvey Oswald changed history.
We've been fortunate that another terrorist attack hasn't succeeded in America since 2001. In those early days after the collapse of the two towers, America waited for the other shoe to drop. Another attack still seems inevitable. To quote the 9/11 Commission again, "We do not believe it is possible to defeat all terrorist attacks against Americans, every time and everywhere."
Rest assured, had the men charged in the Kennedy Airport plot managed to blow something up and kill a few people, the very same people accusing Bush of playing up a two-bit conspiracy would be screaming for his head for failing to prevent an egregious terrorist attack.
It must be a nerve-wracking, ulcer-inducing and excruciatingly complicated burden to be one of the men and women charged with protecting us. In the shadowy netherworld of intelligence and counterintelligence, successes in foiling attacks probably often go unrecorded. Those that do get reported are open to ridicule by those who see them as trumped-up cases to bolster Bush's sagging reputation.
And it takes just one failure, one slipup, one wrong call, one missed signal, one uncovered clue, one lead not followed up, one lapse in security screening, one faulty judgment -- and then disaster.
John Edwards' Bumper-Sticker Liberalism
June 06, 2007 02:00 PM EST
"[W]hat this global war on terror bumper sticker -- political slogan, that's all it is, it's all it's ever been -- was intended to do was for George Bush to use it to justify everything he does: the ongoing war in Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, spying on Americans, torture. None of those things are OK. They are not the United States of America."
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/25704.html#
You know if the 9/11 plot had been uncovered and stopped the MSM would have mocked it as far fetched.
Two idiots in a beat-up Chevy Caprice managed to terrorize Washington DC for a month. You don’t have to be smart to be a terrorist. In fact, being stupid seems to be an asset.
Ms. Puffington and those of like mind are a danger to anyone who takes them seriously. Her kind of do-gooder liberalism will do nothing to faze jihadists.
Puffington and Edwards make a good team: one that will lead us down the road to annihilation.
OK, sweetie, let me set up a bunch of propane tanks and some gasoline containters in YOUR SUV, park it in YOUR garage, and ring the cellphone...
You know if the 9/11 plot had been uncovered and stopped the MSM would have mocked it as far fetched.
Well said!
They could not even kill themselves. My theory about al-quada is that they come from the most backwards, dysfunctional, incompetent culture on the face of the earth. Osama did get together people of rather high competence but there are very few of them in that culture. while It is true that everytime we take one out another replaces him. the bench of talent is very small. They are basically, now an incompetent bunch of loonies.
Taking down the World Trade Center towers with boxcutters? Imagine the 'fun' liberal news media types would have had with that if Atta & Co. had been arrested at the boarding gate. They would have been screaming about persecution of misguided but harmless victims of racial prejudice and violation of their civil rights . . . . "they could never have succeeded with their mad plan" . . . . they would have been remanded for psychiatric exams and tied the court system up for years.
Viewed from that perspective it looks pretty harmless.
They do anyway.
They could not even kill themselves. My theory about al-quada is that they come from the most backwards, dysfunctional, incompetent culture on the face of the earth. Osama did get together people of rather high competence but there are very few of them in that culture. while It is true that everytime we take one out another replaces him. the bench of talent is very small. They are basically, now an incompetent bunch of loonies.The core of Al Quaida came from the CIA trained Mujahadeen. They were/are quite smart and effective. With the US in Afghanistan there's gradual attrition and they have to keep their heads down. All that's left is the chaff.
Well, I sure hope you’re right!
As I posted earlier this week...
“Lucky” my @$$.
Conventional wisdom claims that The UK & US has been getting lucky because the London, Glasgow, Fort Dix, etc etc, plotters were incompetent buffoons. WRONG!
All these plots were thwarted because the ongoing, behind-the-scenes total war on the terrorists (leveraging military, police, intelligence, first-responders, diplomatic and financial pressure) has eroded the type of command & control, training and coordination the terrorists need to stage massive 9/11 or 7/7 style attacks. The only thing the terrorists have left are isolated cells, with crude methods, little training and little centralized coordination and support.
Vigilance and preparedness have created their own luck.
And if we let up start becoming more complacent & less aggressive, our luck will turn bad real fast.
The leftwingnuts are demonstrating exactly why they aren’t trusted on national security issues with this stuff.
Interestingly, Ronald Reagan noted in his diaries questions about Biden’s sanity, Chris Dodd’s apparent allegience to any entity NOT America, Byrds willingness to play games with National Defense for partisan gain, and Jimmy Carter’s infatuation with dictators of every strip. Along with the mainstream media’s apparent collusion on such things.
Liberals can’t accept the Islamofacists of the world utter many of the same kind of hate they expouse.
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