Magazine says Qaeda vows "back-breaking" strike

Reuters ^ | 12/26/03

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The Islamofascist regimes in Iran and Syria will be in their spider holes on 9-12, and it will do them as much good as it did Saddam.

And after that we just keep rolling.

After all, we already have a lot of good soldiers in the neighborhood.

[Quilla]

The crescent moon and star is an internationally-recognized symbol of the faith of Islam.

aka: Quarter moon over a ten cent town.

[FastCoyote]

Japan couldn't break our back in WWII with an entire carrier fleet and complete surprise. We are a whole lot richer now, and our spine is starting to stiffen. IF there is to be a large attack, let it be in March during the Democrat convention, which will throw the election completely towards a Bush landslide. Then the real butt kicking can start.

[FastCoyote]

I'm a coder, so I get your humor, even if no one else does. I once converted a love poem into algebra for a girlfriend to prove a point. She didn't get it, and the door did slap me on the butt as I left.

[xp38]

Um the DNC gathers in Boston in July.

[Lazamataz]

I'm a coder, so I get your humor, even if no one else does. I once converted a love poem into algebra for a girlfriend to prove a point. She didn't get it, and the door did slap me on the butt as I left.

Do you have that conversion? I'd love to see it!

[jstolzen]

Well, I pray that you are the one who's right here.

The things that worry me, though, are:

- The missing Russian suitcase nukes. (Assume OBL has at least a couple, as they reportedly were not very costly to acquire and the guy's a billionaire).

- Chem/Bio. I keep hearing about how these are "so difficult" to disperse and think that's a red herring put out by our gov't to calm the sheeples. Seems like all they'd have to do is let some highly contagious germ spores out of the bag (smallpox or worse) and have one helluva epidemic on our hands.

But it is the suitcase nukes, targeting maybe DC, NYC, etc that I'm most concerned about.

On the other hand, the incidents with the airplanes (Air France) seems so..low tech, that it makes me think that they don't have the "big toys".

All in all..this time feels different, for whatever reason. But I pray that we hit mid-Feb with nothing happening, and I'm gonna write these guys off once and for all as a bunch of big talkers.

[PokeyJoe]

[COBOL2Java]

LOL! Let's hope for an infinite loop!

[gnawbone]

if nothing happens by Feb 1, I am going to write these guys off once and for all as a bunch of loudmouthed whacko crackpots

Those that ignore history are bound to repeat it .... or something like that. It was 8 years between twin towers attacks, I don't believe AQ feels compelled to be on the schedule of the compulsive

I believe that writing these guys off as "loud mouthed, whacko crackpots" would be ill-advised. Since the early '90s they have blown up a lot of stuff and killed a lot of people.

I, and everyone else here, have no idea if these guys are capable, using diversion, testing responses, popping off, or anything else. Just a bunch of people guessing, some with a large dose of wishful thinking influencing their thinking.

Personally, I plan on being alert, watchful, and living my life normally AND with one eye open. But I certainly won't "write these guys off", too much proof exists to the contrary.

[Agnes Heep]

I guess they got so much mileage out of 9/11 that they can't wait to do it again.

[boris]

"I once converted a love poem into algebra for a girlfriend to prove a point. She didn't get it, and the door did slap me on the butt as I left."

"I see the eigenvalue in thine eye;
I hear the tender tensor of thy sigh.
Bernoulli would have been content to die
Had he but known such a-squared-cosine-2 phi."
--Stanislaw Lem, The Cyberiad, excerpt.

[PokeyJoe]

Soviet suitcase nukes require nuclear triggers. These triggers have a limited shelflife before decaying into Americanium. They must be regularly serviced (disassembled, recooked) in order to work - some reports suggestion replacement every 42 days.

The Soviet government thought that regular maintenance was cheaper and easier than producing high grade "pure" plutonium triggers with longer shelflife.

[RinaseaofDs]

Not if they have nukes.

Let's say they whack the middle of the city of Cleveland, for example.

Not back breaking, but you better believe it would be economically and socially devastating.

Add one more city to Clevland. Let's say Charlotte, NC. Big enough to do the job, small enough that security won't concentrate on it.

Now pick San Diego, with all of its military presence.

We'd recover, but it would be a far different place than before.

[Vinomori]

Al Qaeda is believed responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities.

Just as the Japanese are BELIEVED TO BE responsible for Pearl Harbor. Reuters is a joke on the order of Saturday Night Live.

[jstolzen]

Right..IF they have nukes (possible, given the collapse of the USSR), ANYTHING is possible.

The thing that has me most worried is the bravdo of the claims. You don't (no matter how psychotic and twisted you might be) claim that the attack will "change the order of things".

This sounds to me like a nuclear strike. That is the ONLY thing that could be this huge to "change the order of things".

Add in all of the other supposed letters from AQ talking about "weaping from your underground bunkers" and they are CLEARLY threatening a nuclear hit.

I for one don't put it beyond the realm of possibility, but pray to God that I am wrong on this.

I guess we will see. In the meantime, I am going to do everything possible to be prepared for such a nightmare scenario. Because if they DO hit us..we are looking at huge nuclear retaliation from the US against ME countries. And from there..all bets are off.

[Sender]

I think there is something big in the works, and all the 'prepare your coffins' bluster has a ring of sincerity to it this time.

However if they think a catastrophic attack here would break our will and 'change the order of things', they are sadly mistaken. Thousands more dead Americans would only ensure that the brave men and women in the US military would make it their all-consuming passion to hunt these people down with extreme prejudice. The terrorists have no idea yet what we are capable of when we are endangered.

[Vinomori]

Thousands more dead Americans would only ensure that the brave men and women in the US military would make it their all-consuming passion to hunt these people down with extreme prejudice. The terrorists have no idea yet what we are capable of when we are endangered.

To strike us would be their greatest mistake. They only see, right now, 1% of our retaliatory capacity. They see us tiptoeing through politically correct international waters. Even Iraq was careful, surgical and minimalist. They do not see us yet.

[joyful1]

Keep reminding these impotent clowns that if they try something funny, we have something bad pointed at Mecca and Medina.

[Vinomori]

......the bluster is recruiting bluster BUT the intercepts are real....and were not meant to be intercepted. We will win for two reasons: 1) we have Bush who will not be swayed by the left media or left voters and 2) we have the technology skills (any of our children could use a computer to unravel their entire communication net) to eliminate all of their clandestine communication....what we DIDN'T have was Arabic linguists, or a strong CIA. Every day they don't strike us we get stronger in those areas. They better hurry.