Al-Qaida targeted Western forests, memo says

Arizona Republic via Drudge ^ | 7/11/2003 | Judd Slivka

[Lexington Green]

“But when to mischief mortals bend their will, How soon they find fit instruments of ill!” — Alexander Pope

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[WoofDog123]

"America's national forests have been targeted before. On Sept. 9, 1942, a plane launched from a Japanese submarine flew over Oregon's forests dropping incendiary bombs. "

I had never read this before, and was not aware the Japanese had carried out any attacks on the continental US.

Another thing I have been told by numerous people but also have not read in any history text is that the Japanese had developed swimmer manned torpedos to detonate in (presumnably the locks) of the panama canal, but they were launched too far out and were captured by the US.

I have also been told there was a scare about a japanese airborne unit which missed the canal area and landed in chiriqui and was arrested (presumably by americans)...an older worker on one of the canal zone bases with very asiatic facial features was in the interior and rounded up at that time as well (He told the story so, when I was younger), so there was certainly a scare, but I don't know whether there was actually a japanese airborne drop.

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

Just my opinion,

But I believe Al Queda shot it’s wad on 9/11, I believe that Osama Bin Laden knew full and well that once 9/11 went down he and his followers were marked men.

What would be left would be a bunch of smaller less well-organized cells relying on only their training and what little coordination and funding that would remain just out of reach of the USA.

We will see another terror attack and probably soon but it won’t be like 9/11 and it won’t be that grand.

For two reasons, one we are slaughtering evildoers all over the world on a daily basis, many battles are being fought right as we speak and many more will never be known to the public.

Second, the government cannot risk another failure, which resulted in 9/11, and Bush knows that. Could you imagine the cries and howls, which would come if another 9/11-scale attack happened tomorrow?

Honestly I believe that someone in the government knows full and well that if suicide bombers began blowing themselves up in our shopping malls and grade schools, that the worst nightmare would be the armed populace, not fear of the terrorist.

And the terrorist worst fear would not come from the police or at the hands of some Spec Ops type, but at the hands of not knowing who is armed in a crowd of hundreds.

TMMT

[max_rpf]

"The detainee believed that significant damage to the U.S. economy would result and once it was realized that the fires were terrorist acts, U.S. citizens would put pressure on the U.S. government to change its policies," the memo said.

I think this may just have been the RATs not El-Queso. If it was the El-Queso then they probably got the idea from an American liberal professer @ some University. I hope the FBI is looking at the rhetoric and putting two and two together.

[WoofDog123]

"But the terrorist thugs still don't get it: all their attacks will ever do is make us more determined to crush their evil. "

I can only come to the conclusion that, in giving the 9/11 attacks the go-ahead, OBL and Co. totally failed to anticipate the severity of the US reaction. After 8 Years of poll-driven foreign policy they may have actually believed they would jsut get a few dozen cruise missiles, etc.

[jpl]

With all of the possible things that terrorists could do in the US, almost anything really: suicide bombings at malls, coordinated firearm attacks, bombings, fires, etc. But nothing has happened since 9/11, nothing. Why? Woodward asked the same question, why has nothing happened?

Opinions?

I suspect that Al Queda probably isn't nearly as big as what most of us think. There's no question they caught us napping on 9/11, but I'm starting to believe more and more that they may have blown their wad that day. Don't forget that security has really been intensified since then, and lots of the hard-core fanatics have already been arrested and sent down to Guantanamo Bay. I also wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them come here with evil intent and then turn out to be unreliable. Maybe some of them just aren't fanatic enough to the cause, or they spend a bunch of time here and decide that they're having too much of a good time to get themselves arrested or blown up.

[WoofDog123]

Of course, given that they did apparently plan to destroy the WH and capitol, maybe they just planned to have a gradual AQ martyrdom as an example to the world. Or maybe a lot of the leadership escaped afghanistan after all.

[VOA]

bump

[oceanview]

Laurie Mylroie just on Fox with John Gibson. Laid it all out quite well as she always does: Saddam behind the 93 WTC attack and 9/11, but the same intelligence operatives who failed to correctly interpret the intel from 93, cover up the connection to 9/11 (Khallid Shiek Mohammed is the key figure). She said she believes this is the real scandal: Bush is not getting the true intel about Iraq and 9/11 and KSM. A good interview, Gibson let her talk this time.

[Physicist]

But nothing has happened since 9/11, nothing. Why?

I ask myself that regularly.

I hope the answer is that they completely underestimated the depth and breadth of the response from the U.S. We rounded up enough of the actual bad guys early enough that the remainder is simply hoping to get through the each day without getting dragged off to Gitmo.

I hope the answer is not that they are well able to carry out such attacks, but are lying low until the next big attack. Penny-ante suicide bombings and sabotage would serve only to put everyone on guard without actually doing much damage.

[hillaryisalesbo]

I think based on this we should reclassify all environmentalists who oppose logging as enemy combatants and send them Gitmo.

[NukeMan]

Opinions?

It seems ludicrously easy to cause small-scale destruction in the US. A few dynamite bombs in crowded theaters during the opening of "T3", or a shoot-em-up at a few big malls. So why haven't they done this? I believe the terrorists are addicted to the psychologically grand gesture, the symbol-laden gesture. Destroying the Brooklyn Bridge/Washington Monument is acceptable, but a penny-ante mall sniper-fest doesn't fit in with their millenarist delusions. They want to show how powerful they are, and this requires a powerful terrorist act. Remember: terrorism is a actually a weak man's game.

[concerned about politics]

Maybe they felt they didn't need to--we have enough homegrown nuts to do the work for them.

The Democrat party. If it can destroy the country from within, the terrorists work is done.
Has anyone noticed the anti-American left is still protesting in support of Saddam and Bin Ladin? The terrorists have nothing left to do but watch.

[Lockbar]

Not a new idea, here is information on the Jap Forest Fire campaign from WW2. Information and illustration here copied from info at US Air Force Museum web-site. "From November 3, 1944 to April 1945, the Japanese launched 9,000 balloons carrying small 33-pound (15-kilogram) incendiary bombs over the Pacific Ocean in the hope that the winds would carry them to the United States. These were called the Fu-Go Weapon, and supposedly were a revenge bomb for the 1942 Doolittle raids on Tokyo. It is estimated that nearly 1,000 bomb-bearing balloons reached North America, landing in 16 U.S. States, Alaska, Canada, and Mexico. The last one found in North America was in Alaska in 1955—its payload still lethal. It was picked up by a 74th Air Rescue Squadron H-5 helicopter crew from Ladd Air Force Base near Fairbanks, Alaska. Only six Americans were known to have died from balloon bombs. On May 5, 1945, a balloon bomb exploded and killed Elsie Mitchell and five children near Lakeview, Oregon. Although these bombs were psychologically effective, the U.S. press didn't publish news of them to prevent the Japanese from learning of the effect they had on the American people."

[PokeyJoe]

"The detainee believed that significant damage to the U.S. economy would result and once it was realized that the fires were terrorist acts, U.S. citizens would put pressure on the U.S. government to change its policies," the memo said.

They were right.

We would yell NUKE 'EM

[Stopislamnow]

I think the japs in WW2 also used high altitude balloons launched from the homeland with bombs attached.

A few landed in washington and oregon.

Can't remember where I heard about that tho.

[D Rider]

" I want to impress on you the need for watchfulness."

[Stopislamnow]

I should have read further before posting my earlier one, lol.

Thanks for this post.

[HairOfTheDog]

A senior al-Qaida detainee told federal investigators he had developed a plan to set midsummer forest fires in Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming, according to the document, obtained by The Arizona Republic.

Oh good grief..... They don't have to set forest fires..... God does a pretty good job of that every year. Always has, always will.